Memorial "Alzhir"

My visit was extra heavy as it was international Mother’s Day. The entire facility is filled with educational contexts to put the gravity of this particular gulag into perspective. The staff were kind and offered a pre-recorded English audio tour if we wanted. I recommend walking around the building, outside. That long list of victim-names, etched on black marble, that surrounds the main building really gets the point across — NEVER AGAIN!

This world history teacher loved it! The receptionist at our hotel in Astana tried to talk us out of going, he said it was small and there was nothing written in English. He is a fool and shouldn't be working with tourists. Anyone willing to hire a taxi to go 45 minutes away to a small museum is obviously interested in seeing it and there *is* English. Almost everything is translated for you plus they have audio guides if you want. I didn't use one so I can't tell you how well or not well they function. It took us about 45 minutes to get there, the museum takes 1.5 hours to view, then 45 minutes to get back. Now, when I say 1.5 hours I do want to stress my husband and I are both history teachers and especially interested in politics. We looked at every display and walked around outside a bit. Don't miss the wall of names outback. It's set up in the style of the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC with the names of each of the prisoners engraved on the wall. In case you don't know what this place is, it was a prison, gulag, for the wives and children of political prisoners during the communist era.

Nice place to learn more about the most cruel period in KZ history. You may have an audio-guided tour to serve yourself. The audio instructions are available in three languages: Kazakh, English, and Russian. I would recommend taking kids above 7.

What a sad part of the history with working camps for women. A great memorial with good explanations and a documentary movie in Russian with English subtitles.

It is not too far from Astana. The bus 300 takes you there in 45-50 min (200 tengen). Th memorial is well preserved, and there is (in general) appropriate information in English. The nearby village is just the opposite to Astana—lots of Soviet-like blocks of apartments and it looks like the 50s.

Very moving and informative museum. The English tour was very good and gave much historical information.

Make sure you have transportation back to Nur-Sultan arranged in advance. Yandex taxi had no cars available so we had to walk into town and find a local taxi.

If you are visiting Astana for the first time, don't miss "ALZHIR" memorial museum dedicated to repressed wives of political prisoners. Despite of women's stories, the information about political repression during Stalin regime is provided.
The museum is located in Akmol (Malinovka) village in 40 km away from Astana. You can go there by bus number 300, which goes every hour from "Asia Park" bus stop (check for the location on 2gis map).200 tg for one ride.

Haunting monument with cawing crows just 30 minutes from Nur-Sultan centre. Recounts the troublesome history of forced migrations under Stalinist Russia and the wives of the proliteriat. Easy trip by Taxi.

Hard place, but need to know our history

On weekends its the 312 bus and weekdays 300
But on weekends there are limited return buses so take the 312 at 9h and return at 12h20 That gives you a leisurely 2 hrs to visit

An excellent little museum, thank you for keeping the memory live.

Informative and interesting memorial to those who died in the prison camp. There is a audio guided tour available in several foreign languages. My only problem was that there was no cell phone data and I hadn't made arrangements to return to Astana/Nur-Sultan. Luckily the museum has wifi. The bus is the area doesn't seem to be very reliable and there is no Yandex taxi service. Luckily inDriver taxi app works great and I was able to arrange a ride with inDriver within 10 minutes.

The place to visit. One should remember the atrocities of the past to be able to appreciate they don't exist anymore ... But may easy be back once they are forgotten.

Very sombre place. Will get information about Gulag and atrocities through which families of people who were tagged ‘Enemies of the state’ went through.

Very memorable experience. Dark days of the regression.

Very sad story. Well presented.

A sobering learning experience. Well designed exhibit and grounds

Great history here. Guide was excellent.

Beautiful memorial

Everyone must see place.