Historical Landmark
Valikhanov's spring is located in the Kokbastau tract at the foot of the Small Kalkan Mountain, on the way to the Singing Dune, 2 km away.
The tract itself is unremarkable among other small patches of vegetation in Altyn-Emel, but it became famous for being described in the essays of the renowned Kazakh scholar Shokan Valikhanov: "... we spent the night at the spring in the sands, between the Kalkans Mountains, where we ended up in some kind of hollow that was teeming with snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, camel spiders, and for a long time we could not forget this damned overnight stay."
Regarding the Ili River basin itself (the territory of today's Altyn-Emel National Park), Valikhanov wrote:
"The beautiful weather favored our journey, we first walked along the picket road to the Altyn-Emel picket along the beautiful valleys of the Alatau foothills. The fields were full of orange tulips, oriental poppies, and yellow birds swayed on the long stems of white mallow."
Shokan Valikhanov (1835-1865), the first Kazakh scholar, historian, ethnographer, folklorist, traveler, educator, and orientalist, traveled through the Uigentas and Altyn-Emel passes during his famous expedition to Kashgar (1858-1859) as a military intelligence officer of the Russian Empire. It was a difficult and life-threatening journey. The Chinese authorities did everything they could to prevent foreigners from entering southern Dzhungaria. Any European found in Kashgar was considered a spy and subject to the death penalty. This fate befell the German explorer Adolf Schlagintweit from the British East India Company - he was beheaded. Shokan Valikhanov discovered the details of his death.
Valikhanov himself lived in Kashgar under the guise of caravan merchant Alimbay Abdillabaev. His timely departure saved him from persecution by the Kashgar authorities, who learned he was a Russian officer and launched a pursuit.
The following note shows the difficulty of his caravan's journey: "Frequent passes and the cold exhausted our pack animals; the horses and camels broke their legs and became so emaciated that every day we abandoned one, and sometimes several, animals along the way." Of the 101 camels that began the journey, only 36 reached Kashgar.
The expedition resulted in Valikhanov's work "About Altyshara or Six Eastern Cities of the Chinese Province of Nan-Lu", the first scholarly work devoted to the history, geography, and social structure of the peoples of East Turkestan.
The results of Valikhanov's reconnaissance expedition surpassed, in terms of humanitarian study of the region, everything that had been done by previous travelers (Semyonov-Tian-Shansky, Mushketov, Potanin and others).
