Temirtau Winter Garden (Zimny Sad)

The Temirtau Winter Garden grew out of the wishes of the Karmet steelworks, on which the town depends. According to Kazakhstanskaya Pravda (17 January 2025), it was begun in the Soviet period on the initiative of the works' then director, Oleg Tishchenko; construction stopped, and the building was completed after the collapse of the USSR under his successor, Aleksandr Svichinsky. The newspaper Novy Vestnik (February 2018) calls it a "people's construction project": the whole town took part, together with the steelworkers. The first plants came from the Karaganda botanical garden, and the collection was later enlarged from the one in Almaty. The Winter Garden opened on 16 January 1993 in the Vostok leisure park, which had been operating since 1978.

The 1990s nearly destroyed it. The town lacked heating and electricity; staff made improvised wood-burning stoves, kept going day and night, and most of the collection survived. Meanwhile the Karaganda botanical garden, founded in 1940, lost its protected status in 1996 and its plants were handed out; according to NewTimes (2022), some joined the Temirtau collection. First a "departmental" property (in Russian, "ведомственный"), the garden now belongs to the town. It celebrated its 32nd birthday on 16 January 2025.

The building is tall and "arch-type", covered from bottom to top with glazing (in Russian, "витражи"). The regional tourism page speaks of a glass-domed structure 15 m high, and Karaganda Online adds that it was built "in the oriental style". Staff consider the design unique and complex, but the design documentation has not survived (Novy Vestnik, 2018).

The stated floor area is over 2,000 m² according to Novy Vestnik and Karaganda Online; NewTimes (2022) gives 2,500 m². Heating is central, backed by a powerful ventilation system with air heating; the temperature was to stay at 12 °C or above in 2018, and in January 2025 the newspaper reported 15 to 18 °C and 40 to 50 % humidity, a resting period for the plants. The glazing also shapes plant growth: one of the first date palms planted has leaned toward the windows, the source of light, and its trunk is held by two metal beams. In summer the doors stay open, letting in bees and other insects. Hose watering has been replaced by an automatic system, and the soil was renewed the year before the 2025 article.

The garden gathers more than 120 species from tropical, subtropical and desert regions (over 100 in a 2018 article). The date palm and the Washingtonia are the tallest plants, with tradescantia covering the lowest layer. An old date palm, brought in the 1990s from the Karaganda botanical garden, needs a prop; the Trachycarpus needed climbers to clear its dry leaves. Each year an ornamental "abaca" banana (its fruit is not edible), the fig, the pomegranate and the monstera bear fruit, the monstera's pulp tasting like a cross between banana and pineapple. Hibiscus and oleander flower all year. There are also several ficus, among them a sacred fig given by a resident, a coconut palm grown from a nut brought from Costa Rica, and plants linked to cosmonauts: a cypress that came thanks to Tokhtar Aubakirov and an oleander planted by Talgat Musabayev.

An animal corner holds peacocks, parrots, guinea fowl, pheasants, chinchillas and a squirrel; an aquarium and a terrarium are mentioned nearby.

The Winter Garden stands at 13/4 Respubliki Avenue, in Vostok park, in the centre of Temirtau. The regional tourism page suggests allowing one to one and a half hours and rates November to March as the most pleasant period, when the contrast with the winter outside is strongest. In January 2025 the press described festive decorations, a fountain where a concrete hippopotamus "swims" and swings set up under the date palm. School classes come on excursions, and wedding processions often stop there after the civil registry.

The visit combines with a walk in the leisure park. Hours vary between directories and the admission price is not confirmed, so check by phone before going.