In recent years, YurtaDa has been a network growing one camp at a time. This spring it reached a quiet milestone: four anchor points across Kazakhstan — Kargaly in the foothills above Almaty, Assy on the high summer plateau, Charyn beside the canyon, and AltynEmel out on the open steppe. Four landscapes, four hosting households, one shared idea of what a stay can be.
Why four — and why these places
None of the four YurtaDa camps happened by accident. Behind each of them stand families who have been welcoming guests for many years. We didn't invent a new tradition — we continued what had already existed here for a long time.
Kargaly is a warm dastarkhan and the feeling of home as soon as the road ends. Assy is the high plateau, cool air and long summer evenings. Charyn is the silence of the canyon after sunset, and firelight among the rocks. Altyn-Emel is the open steppe, the singing dune, and a sky in which every star is visible at night.
Comfort that stays real
The yurt was originally built for life on the steppe: to hold warmth in winter, to stay cool in summer, and to give a sense of space even in a small footprint. At night the gaze rises by itself to the shanyrak — it has always been this way.
At YurtaDa we tried to keep that feeling without decoration or "glamping-theatre." Here you have a real wooden lattice, real felt, the smell of wood, and a stove that holds heat until morning. And at the same time there are things without which a stay is hard to imagine today: comfortable beds, proper linen, a hot shower, light to read by in the evening.
The long table
The dastarkhan here is not just food. It is part of the evening and a reason not to hurry.
First on the table come bread, baursak, kurt, tea. Then conversation, stories, laughter. Often supper begins long before the main course. Only after a while does the plov, or the meat, arrive.
From inside
Thirty-eight seconds at a YurtaDa
Four camps. Four landscapes. One long table that doesn't end.