Almaty

Almaty, in the Middle Ages Almatu, "apple place", was a town at the foot of the Trans-Ili Alatau, where streams from the Tian Shan run out into the plains of Zhetysu. Two silver dirhams of the thirteenth century that carry its name, the first written mention, show that it had a mint on the Silk Road under the Mongols. Chagatai khans ruled the region, then the breakaway Moghulistan. In 1390 Timur's army passed through the country on its way from Tashkent to the Irtysh, and after his attacks trade moved south and the towns declined.

By the early sixteenth century the country around Almaty had passed to the Kazakh khans, and in Babur's memoirs Almatu stands among ruined towns. The Dzungars then dominated the Kazakhs for a time, until the Kazakhs defeated them in 1730 in the Anyrakay hills about seventy kilometres northwest of Almaty. The Senior Horde of the Kazakhs held the district, and in the eighteenth century it lay near the frontier of the Khanate of Kokand.