Slopes of Northern Tien-Shan are covered with fir-woods while those of the West are grown with scarce archa trees eventually intermingled with high-grass waterless valleys. Here the gorges are grown with apple-trees and other nut-and-fruit trees. High up in the sky one can see mountainous peaks covered with permafrost snows and glaciers.

It’s only here that one can come across a frightful snow leopard (irbis), Tien-Shan brown bear, Siberian stag. The «feathered world» is represented by the famous bearded vulture whose wing-span is up to over 3 m, a Himalaiyan ular or mountain turkey-hen, a snow griffon-vulture, a white-headed vulture, a golden eagle (the favourite bird of Kazak hunters), an Alpine finch and fairly-like blue bird-Alpine jackdaw…
If you happen to visit taiga-grow mountains of the Altay you might come across a giant of an elik, a handsome Siberian stag, our smallest deer- a musk-deer («kabyrga»), the famous sable and gracefully handsome chipmunk.
Only here one can find a wood-grouse, a hazel-grouse, a willow grouse and a ptarmigan. Small wonder that the national authorities have turned the Alpine lake Markakol in South Altay into a special reserve to protect the local flora and fauna. The lake hosts a good many waterfowl whereas its banks and the woods serve a fine nestling place for such rare birds as fishhawk and black stork.