Apples are no longer a rare commodity, but once upon a time they were confined to forests predominantly found in modern-day Kazakhstan. Here, in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains, wild apples continue to grow, the last of their kind anywhere in the world.
The Tian Shan mountains form a natural border between Central Asia and China. They stretch through much of Kyrgyzstan and run along the southern border of Kazakhstan, particularly close to the city of Almaty. Almaty used to be Kazakhstan’s capital and remains its largest city by population, home to over two million people. It was formerly called Alma-Ata, which translates as “father of apples”. It is as an area of outstanding natural beauty and remarkable natural life.
Wild apples from the region are known as Malus sieversii. They are the ancestors of modern domestic apples, and though they are not southern Kazakhstan’s only native product, they have been by far the most successful global export. It is believed that apple seeds from Tian Shan were first transported by birds and bears, long before humans began trading in them.
It was in modern-day Syria that the apple trade first boomed. The Romans discovered them here, and brought the fruit to Europe, where it spread rapidly. Apples are now grown extensively in every continent other than Antarctica.
The man who first traced apples back to the forests near Almaty was Nikolai Vavilov. He was a famous Soviet-era geneticist, and in 1929 he traced the apple genome to the region, where he found trees growing in the wild. Unlike the formulaic, lined apple orchards that grow elsewhere in the world, the wild forests in Kazakhstan were more entangled and uneven.
“All around the city one could see a vast expanse of wild apples covering the foothills,” Vavilov wrote after visiting Almaty, then Kazakhstan’s capital. “One could see with his own eyes that this beautiful site was the origin of the cultivated apple.”
Many of the apple forests were cut down during the Soviet Union’s rule of the region. As much as 80% of them were destroyed, according to the University of Pennsylvania and Atlas Obscura. Thankfully, these ancient forests are now protected in reserves dotted along the Tian Shan mountains, but Malus sieversii is still listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the ICUN Red List.
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In the city of Almaty, the region’s rich apple history was celebrated long before Vavilov’s discovery, and continues to be to this day. As well as the city’s name, there is a fountain in the town center of an apple. There are also lots of local apple vendors, though most sell ‘domestic’ apple species rather than the native kind.
There is a huge variety in the taste of the wild apples, even among fruit going on the same tree. “While some taste like sweet honey, others are sour and slightly bitter. Each one differs in size and shape, from round to flat to conical, and in color, whether it be golden yellow or solid red,” the Smithsonian explains.
The extreme climate means that the forests have adapted to endure bitter winters and frost, as well as long droughts in the summer. Individual trees can live up to 150 years.
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