Profile information
Host rating
80 %
Last replied
4 Mar 2025
Feedback
3
Email verified
Badges (2)
Details
Description
Me and my husband Andrey have a little guesthouse in the mountains 15 minutes from Almaty. Our wooden log house is situated in the Ile-Alatau National Park, at 1 100 above sea level, surrounded by old Apple gardens and wildlife. We host International tourists and local Almaty citizens, who need escape from the city. Apart from the house we have camping site and nice summer terrace, where at weekends we work as the small family-cafe. We have 4 dogs, so it is important that you love dogs.
We moved to this place in March 2023 and after 3 month of total renovation and construction we opened. Before I used to be Strategic Marketing consultant for business owners and my husband had his advertising video-production business and worked as Creative Director, General Producer and Film Director. Before moving here we traveled a lot. Mostly spent winters in SEA countries. We've been to India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and others. Also we used to hike and travel a lot through our country. We've been to almost all National Parks of Kazakhstan and put our tent in the most beautiful places of our homeland.
Now we enjoy our slow and simple live. We have touristic season only from April to October. All the rest time we are not accessible for tourists and make some side projects, like transforming our house into Santa's home for kids to visit on a day-trip.
We deeply love our place and it pays back with a tones of work that we need to do daily to support it. Some are planned, like trimming lawn, watering grass, serving food for guests; some are not, like neighbour's cows are coming and spoiling camping or the water tube freezes in the cold night and etc.
We have very clean air, drinking water from the own well and 24/7 natural sounds. On weekends we have a lot of guests, sometimes some events like music concert, workshops and etc. Our guests both foreign and local are always very interesting people. Or friends, who often come to the cafe on weekends, love to talk with our foreign guests and volunteers and exchange cultural insights. We love to share our views and perception of local history and culture, cook local food or give some tours and experiences.
We always stay at this home. Our two sons (13 and 8) are here couple days of the week. Also we have our wood-master Dyadya Kostya, who's making furniture for us in our shed. And our housekeeper Zulya, who works with our family for 10 years and helps keeping rooms tidy for guests and works at the kitchen.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Art Projects
Help with Eco Projects
Teaching
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
Hospitality/Tourism
General Maintenance
Interests
Vegetarian or vegan
Sustainability
Self development
Pets
Farming
Culture
Writing
Plant care
History
Gardening
Drawing & painting
Cooking & food
DIY & crafts
Books
Blogging
Art & design
Animals
Yoga / Wellness
Nature
Camping
Mountain
Outdoor activities
Hiking
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
We are always happy to share about local culture and history, traditions and nowadays situation in country and region. We are celebrating all traditional holidays and live through the wheel of the year. We can cook and teach how to cook local traditional food of Kazakhs. Also we love cooking Mexican, Indian, Uzbek and Italian food.
Malika can teach about different types of handmade art and about marketing (18+years experience, teaching at the University for 7 years, CIM certified). We can teach you Russian or Kazakh language.
Help
We have three types of tasks for November 2024 - January 2025.
1. 15 November - 15 January open for Homesitters.
Home Sitting our wooden house while we are away at a daytime for our winter kids project includes:
- Cleaning: washing dishes, keeping home clean and etc.
- Outdoor tasks: Cleaning snow, putting sand on the road.
- Cooking: cooking food for yourselves and us.
- Looking after pets: feeding them on time during day.
- Basic house maintenance tasks: Checking water level in tanks, turning on/off pumps, chopping woods, some small special tasks and etc.
- Making some easy crafts (instructions and materials provided) for our winter project decoration.
In the mid December we will open a Winter Magic Village near Almaty for families (40 minutes driving from our home to the suburb). And we need some help regarding this project:
2. 15 November - 13 December open for Handyman and Craftsman
- Helping us with crafting different decorations from paper, straw, wood and etc.
- Packing products for gift shop: weighing teas, putting labels, sorting.
- If you have experience in creating human size or bigger decorations - we need your help.
3. 13 December - 13 January open for Elves and Elf Helpers
- Helping around on site of our Winter Magic Village with different tasks: moving things around, helping guests at parking, cleaning, turning on/off lights and etc.
We will be happy if we can find 1 volunteer/couple for each of the types of tasks above for whole periods, but it can also be 2 weeks or more. Everything is discussable, just reach us ASAP please.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Russian: Fluent
Kazakh: Intermediate
Accommodation
Separate bedroom in the house with double bed.
Food:
We provide basic food ingredients. You cook food yourself. If you need something special we can discuss that and help you reach grocery store to buy.
For last option (Elves and Helpers in the Magic Village) food will be provided on site the same as for the whole tram of the project (actors, teachers, managers, etc). Also there are homes to stay, so sometimes we will prefer to stay there so not to lose everyday 2 hours for the road time.
What else ...
Around house there are different trails. Some are 15 minutes long, some can take the whole day. City is just 10 minutes drive away or 40 minutes walk. We can bring you down to the city to catch taxi or public transport.
This is a family house. Mostly we have very slow and calm lifestyle. We are not much into volunteers, who want to escape for night time to the city to bars and clubs. We would prefer that you are back home until 10 pm. We don't allow strong alcohol at our place (even for guests).
And keep in mind that it is winter now. Our winters are real winters: snowy and cold.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Space for parking camper vans
We have plenty place to park, but don't have special camper facilities. Last 3 km to our place is not paved mountain road. In summer accessible with sedans, but in other seasons highly depends on weather conditions.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Feedback (2)
At that time, they lived in a house in the woods near the city. They took care of our convenience and comfort, all the described agreements were real and respected.
One of our responsibilities was to keep an eye on the house and… read more
The tasks were varied and always enjoyable, allowing for plenty of free time to explore the breathtaking surroundings, to visit the city of Almaty (which is very close to… read more
Photos
Feedback
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(5.0)
Cultural exchange:
(5.0)
Communication:
(5.0)
At that time, they lived in a house in the woods near the city. They took care of our convenience and comfort, all the described agreements were real and respected.
One of our responsibilities was to keep an eye on the house and… read more
The tasks were varied and always enjoyable, allowing for plenty of free time to explore the breathtaking surroundings, to visit the city of Almaty (which is very close to… read more
