Burabay

Burabay National Park was created in 2000 in Akmola province, in northern Kazakhstan, and protects some 830 km². The area had been protected under other designations since the beginning of the twentieth century and was a summer destination for the Soviet elite.

Its appeal comes from contrast: in the middle of the flat steppe of northern Kazakhstan there emerges a massif of granite eroded into rounded blocks, covered in pine woods and dotted with clear-water lakes. The main ones are Borovoye, Shchuchye and Bolshoye Chebachye, and among the rock formations Zhumbaktas stands out, the Riddle Rock, a monolith rising out of the water whose silhouette changes with the angle from which it is seen.

That combination of forest, rock and water in a steppe setting has earned it the nickname of the Kazakh Switzerland and made it the country's most popular domestic tourist destination, with the pressure that entails. The pine wood is a relict enclave of boreal forest in the heart of steppe country, and it is home to elk, red deer, lynx and a forest and lake birdlife. The place also carries considerable symbolic weight in Kazakh culture, with numerous legends attached to its formations.