National park bench

Human endeavour at its best.

At the entrance to the Altyn-Emel national park, a few hours' ride from Almaty, lies this wonderful exhibition of human endeavour. And in front of it, for those in need of a rest, is a bench.

As we waited for the gate keepers to finish lunch, we were allowed plenty of time to admire this fine endeavour. So inspiring. The three headed wolves obviously symbolise, well, something. The arm from nowhere grabbing the central wolf's upper jaw represents, uh, I dunno. 

And the goat atop this fine piece of showmanship? I also don't know. But we're not here to talk about art, we're here to talk about one of life's more important elements - the public bench. And here is a simple yet elegant innovation - a blue backless, armless, binless bench with slatted seat, arranged at a slightly acute angle giving the sense of an arrow - the arrow of time; the arrow of progress, the blue arrow. Incredible.

Bench facilitates detailed view of human endeavour