Almaty Tower
The Almaty Television Tower, or simply Almaty Tower, formally the Koktobe TV Tower is a steel television tower built between 1975 and 1983 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The tower is located on high slopes of Kok Tobe mountain south-east of downtown Almaty. Unlike other similar TV towers, it is not a concrete, but a steel tubular structure. It is the tallest free-standing tubular steel structure in the world.
The tower is 371.5 m tall; its 114 m metal aerial reaches 1000 meters above sea level. It has two observation decks at the height of 146 m and 252 m, which are accessible by two high-speed elevators. It is however not open to the public.
On the north-western wall of the tower, in honor of the launch of the Soyuz T-12 spacecraft, one of the largest mosaics in the city was installed, 20 meters long and 8 meters high. The authors of the mosaic, which displays satellites and astronauts, are unknown. The tower contains several tunnels leading to a bomb shelter.
History
The tower was built by the architects Terziev, Savchenko, Akimov and Ostroumov. The design of the KM stage was developed in the department of high-rise structures of the under the guidance of B. V. Ostroumov, with the participation of "Fundamentproekt" and the Kazakh branch of the "Central Research and Design Institute of Steel and Structures". The tower's structures were manufactured and assembled by the "Kazmontazhstroydetal" and "Kazstalmontazh" trusts of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic's "Minmontazhspetsstroy".The tower entered operation on 1 June 1984, having cost 600 million rubles. In October 1984 there was a fire in the tower: TV transmitter feeders burned due to errors in calculating the distribution of radio radiation power over the antenna panels.