Tekeli & the Kora Valley: Gateway to the Dzungarian Alatau

Four hours east of Almaty, past Taldykorgan’s unexpected green lowland, sits Tekeli – a small former mining town with its own unhurried rhythm, and the doorway to a mountain range most visitors to Kazakhstan never touch: the Dzungarian (Zhetysu) Alatau. If the Tien Shan above Almaty is the country’s front garden, this is the wild back country – fewer trails, fewer people, and the kind of valleys where a two-day trip feels like an expedition.

📹 Video from the trip

The town

Tekeli grew on Soviet-era ore mining, and the industrial past is still part of the landscape: sealed mine entrances sit almost at the roadside, dark and cold inside. People still squeeze through improvised gaps into the tunnels – we don’t, and neither should you; photograph the entrances and move on. The town’s other claim to fame is Kunaev street, which runs some 38 kilometres end to end – locals will tell you it is the longest street in the world, and standing in the middle of it, you won’t feel like arguing.

The best first stop is the viewpoint above town, where three rivers – the Tekelinka, the Chazha and the Kora – merge below you in a genuinely strange play of colours, with the town threaded along the valley and the Dzungarian ridges stacked behind.

The Kora valley – why you actually come

Above Tekeli the Kora river runs down from the high Dzungarian Alatau through a long, forested, largely roadless valley – the approach corridor to Burkhan-Bulak, Kazakhstan’s tallest waterfall, reachable from here in one and a half to three days on foot or horseback. The valley itself is the attraction as much as the destination: spruce forest, alpine meadows, and a silence the Almaty gorges lost years ago. This is remote country – river crossings, no signal, no infrastructure – so it belongs in the “organised trip” category: proper kit, local knowledge or a guide, and the route registration that the law now requires.

Getting there and practicalities

• From Almaty: ~4 hours by car via the Kapshagay reservoir and Taldykorgan (the road surface is good). Tekeli is ~40 km beyond Taldykorgan.
• Season: summer and early autumn for the valley; the town itself works year-round.
• Plan: Tekeli rewards a two-day trip – town, viewpoint and mines on day one, the Kora valley on day two. Local guesthouses and farm stays (including a working apiary that hosts visitors) cover the overnight.

Curious but short on logistics? Talk to us – the Dzungarian Alatau is exactly the kind of trip we build custom: transfers, overnights and a route matched to the season.

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