The world's famous skating rink Medeu was built in 1972 in a picturesque gorge which is located 15 km. form Almaty. Its 10,500 sq. meter ice area is…

The world's famous skating rink Medeu was built in 1972 in a picturesque gorge which is located 15 km. form Almaty. Its 10,500 sq. meter ice area is thebest place for outdoor world competitions in speed skating. Special refrigerating equipment provides the ice-cover of the skating field 8 months a year and ice tracks are kept ready for skating all year round. It is open for public skating December through March. Admission: about US $4. Skates rent is available on the first floor outside of the rink. A hotel (the Premier Medeu) is located near the rink. At 1691-meters above sea level, a nature lover will find beautiful mountain scenes surrounding the skating rink. The Medeu Gorge, located at 1520-1750 metres in the Kishkene Almaty river valley, is bordered by mountain ridges: Kim asar on the west, Kabyrgatau on its east, and Kunbel on the south-east. A road runs through Medeu gorge towards the Mynzhylky gorge. The gorge has 21,000 hectare of forests with birches, Tien Shan spruces, and mountain ashes. One of the attractions is a dike built in the valley of the Kishkene Almaty fiver to protect the city from landslides. The dike's collector has an impressive capacity of 6 000,000 cubic meters of water. It is this dike that has kept back a desastrous landscape in 1973.