When books unite: the annual Kitap Fest welcomes its readers again!
On September 20–21, 2025, Almaty once again transformed into a city living and breathing books: the country’s largest literary festival, Kitap Fest 2025, took place on Arbat, along Zhibek Zholy Avenue. Third-year students of the Department of Publishing, Editing and Design Arts at the Faculty of Journalism, together with their lecturer Larisa Ivanovna Mukhamadieva, attended the event yesterday, noting how the very heart of the city turned into a vast space for reading and encounters.
This year’s program proved to be no less rich than the anniversary festival of 2024, which brought together over 70 publishers and bookstores and introduced about 50 new titles. The current edition gathered around 60 publishers and book retailers, while visitors had the chance to attend meetings with renowned writers, bloggers, and popular speakers as part of the “Kitap Talk” project. The central area of Arbat resembled a living book: photo zones inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Dune, and Pirates of the Caribbean became the most sought-after spots, while actors dressed as characters from Kazakh classics and iconic works of world literature deepened the atmosphere of immersion into reading. For children, there were literary quests, workshops, and an aquagrim area, while adults gathered for speed-reading trainings, lectures, and the cozy “Reading Yard.” A particular highlight was the TrendZone — a space uniting TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram trends, where books were discussed in a contemporary format. Over the course of a single day, the festival drew thousands of participants, reaffirming its status as the main cultural event of the autumn and a platform where the book remains a living mediator between generations, tradition, and modernity.
