Almaty

The people are open, warm and enthusiastic with travelers. Service is brilliant (generally) - much better then Europe. WIFI is poor, drivers have one hand holding their mobile and the other on the horn. Really nice "pace" and the diverse ethnicity get along beautifully. This is NOT BORAT land - Almaty is 2.7 million people.

+ Very small hipster scene but nice... techno place, hipster cocktail, hipster café, tattoo scene... its not that indie though, like organised hipster. still too small, you always go to same places

+ Really good service, fast, they come and pour you water while drinking cokctail and stuff, cray

+ Young people who can speak english are friendly, come speak to you easily and are all like "wtf are u doing here"

+ Not a busy city, you feel you can take your time here, go to ice rink, walk in park

+ Nature and mountain not too far, its common to take car 30 min to go iceskating in mountain

+/- Everyone with a car is a taxi driver, so u rarely use Uber/YandexTaxi, just go on the road, show your hand and people stop, you tell destination and it costs 1$. Problem you need to speak russian, im not good enough yet

+/- People are mixed friendly. They are very nice and give you stuff and all when you are introduced, but people who dont speak english and dont know you, they are not helpful and a bit rude

+/- city safety idk, I feel safe but every local tells me it's not a safe city

- No one speak english ffs

- city is bullshit communist wide street for car, shitty to walk, everything is far, cars everywhere, city center is not a city center, 4-lane in city center wtf fix this

- Police is corrupt and not your friend. My only encounter with them was ok tho

- People behavior is oldschool, men harrassing girls, men buying big car or iphone has status symbol, men trying to fight, girls expecting guys to be alpha male

- Always fog in city and pollution