Читать книгу Alma-Ata – discouraging charm in the Centre of Asia. The subjective guidebook - Andrey Mikhailov - Страница 13

I remember it as much as I remember my own self. Because it is our good old tradition – to visit this zoo together with your child. Not only all native Almаatynians have gone through this tradition, but the majority of people inhabiting the whole republic, too.

It even seems to me that we have been familiar with some box-inhabitants for half a century. With nervous bears, for example, or with thoughtful baboons. It is surely only an illusion. As for giraffes and rhinos, they appeared here much later for sure. But they also have become painfully familiar. Nothing can offset representatives of the wild world as much as captivity…

Well, I’ve jumped to the sad subject! However, I do know that 90 per cent of all zoo inhabitants were born from… inhabitants of other zoos. And anyway they feel much better than their siblings, which became the exhibits at zoological museums, or exotic cuisine foods. It’s a matter far from safe – to live with a human on the same planet.

Actually, our Almaty zoo that was founded back in the symbolic 1937 was always a peculiar touchstone of humanist attitude towards animals in the Soviet Union. It continues to improve itself in order to be up to its status. That is why, regardless of their level of humanity, our citizens keep on visiting the zoo with their kids as soon as they become toddlers.