ABILKHAN KASTEYEV STATE ART MUSEUM

The Fine Arts Museum was fully restored in the early 2020s and reopened in 2024 to mark the ^120th anniversary of the birth of Kazakh painter Abilkhan Kasteyev (1904-1973), after whom the museum is now named. Born in Taldykurgan, between Almaty and Lake Balkach, Kasteyev studied in Almaty and soon began collecting awards. Having acquired the title of national artist, he was also awarded the Order of the October Revolution (^2nd most important decoration in the former USSR) for his work. The museum houses a vast collection of his abundant work. Kasteyev painted dozens of portraits of "children of the fatherland": the explorer Shokan Valikhanov, the singer Jambyl Jabayev, the revolutionary Amankeldi Imanov... But the importance of his work lies primarily in the number of paintings depicting the daily life of Soviet and then Stalinist Kazakhstan, extolling the country's riches and the strength of the people in a style close to Soviet realism, but which nevertheless manages to distance itself from it. Room by room, we follow Kasteyev's talent and his different periods, while at the same time seeing Kazakh society evolve under Moscow's impetus. Sedentarization, industrialization, urbanization... A fascinating film unfolds along the way. In all, Kasteyev bequeathed to posterity over a thousand canvases, many of which will be exhibited extensively in the museum following its reopening.

The Museum of Fine Arts will then proceed with the reinstallation of its important collection of contemporary Russian and Kazakh art. In particular, it includes works radically different from those by Kasteyev, canvases banned during the Soviet period and saved by private collectors. Over 1,000 paintings by the Soviet avant-garde will be on permanent display, in particular those by Sergey Ivanovich Kalmykov (1891-1967), considered one of the major artists of this movement and who lived in Almaty from 1935. The museum also features a room dedicated to traditional arts, where you can admire some very fine carpets, furniture and musical instruments. You can also visit the room devoted to Oriental arts, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Tibetan, although the pieces on display are far from the most attractive in the museum.