Still betrays its trading past

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Geo: 42.3026, 69.5727

Shymkent was never a major stop on the Silk Road, and I'm only here because it's a good jumping off point for Turkestan and the Yasaui Mausoleum. That's tomorrow - so getting ahead of myself.
Three flights to get here. Gatwick to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines - nothing special or problematic except I found myself in an exit row with no window which wasn't what I reserved. It arrived early into Ataturk airport which meant it ended up being paked miles from the terminal - a terminal which seems grubbier and more crowded every time I see it (though not as crowded as Gatwick North - they were queueing for the restaurants there at 10.30 in the morning).
Second flight a very new Air Astana Airbus to Almaty (previously known as Almata). We arrived there in the dark, about 6am, by the time I walked out to get onto the third flight, Air Astana, to Shymkent the sun was up and I was amazed to see a huge line of snow-capped mountains marking the southern edge of the airport, or so it seemed. and in fact they seem to mark the boundary boundary between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan hereabouts so will have to be crossed sometime.
4am London time when I got to the hotel so I had a restoring snooze before going out to explore.
The centre of town is marked by the Independence Monument and behind it the Independence Prk which features symbols and sculptures intended to foster feelings of national unity, the highlight being the Altyn Shanyrak monument representing the roof opening of a yurt.
The bazaar was much more inspiring, huge and complex and different products strictly contained within their own parts of the bazaar - dried fruits there, red meat here, jeans overthere, kitchen stuff yonder. You could trawl through it for hours.
But my guidebook suggested a walk to an old part of pre-Russian Shymkent "a quiet, village=like area of wooden houses". Well not any more, just a rather scruffy area. And the guidebook didn't know about the museum moving either!
Still - early start tomorrow, 7 am train to Turkestan. So time to move on and add some photos.

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Photos

Afghsan IT worker, refugee, now shopkeeper
now