One soul, our sister in the faith of Jesus Julya Alexandrovna, was baptized on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, Pastor Vladimire Marinov, Member of the European Division Committee at the IMS, who performed the baptism, confirmed the good news. On May 28, 2025, the daily temperature in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, reached 22 degrees Celsius, a perfect weather for a Christian baptism.
Almaty, whose name is derived from the Kazakh word for ‘apple’ (alma) and means “full of apples”, formerly Alma-Ata (Apple Mountain), Kazakhstan’s largest city and the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1997 during the Soviet era and after independence from 1991 until the capital was relocated to Akmola (now Astana), has a population of more than two million residents within its metropolitan area of 9,395 km2 (3,627 sq mi) and is nestled at an elevation of 700–900 meters (2,300–3,000 feet). Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 16 December 1991 and on January 28, 1993, the Kazakh officials renamed the city from the Russian Alma-Ata to the Kazakh name Almaty.
Written by Margarit Zhekov
Just before the baptism; a photo from the personal archive of Pastor Vladimire Marinov.
