Almaty or Tashkent?

Neither city is a beach destination, and in both the nearest swim is at a reservoir about an hour and a half away. Almaty's Kapchagay lies out on the flat steppe, with sandy shores and warm summer water. Tashkent's Charvak sits in the foothills, with pebbly shores and cool, clear mountain water.

In town, Tashkent has big outdoor water parks for a hot afternoon. In Almaty, swimming means a pool.

Both cities share Silk Road staples such as lagman, shashlik and dried fruit from the bazaar, and neither has much fine dining or local wine. Almaty offers the wider range: Uyghur noodle houses, Kazakh beshbarmak and horse-meat kazy, Korean salads, and a café and coffee culture across its leafy grid.

Tashkent is narrower and more focused. Midday plov from communal cauldrons, tandir-baked samsa and stamped non bread are eaten slowly on tea-house platforms, and the cooking is so heavy on meat that vegetarians struggle. The Green Bazaar and Chorsu are equally good places to start.

Tashkent has more to see, even though the 1966 earthquake destroyed most of its old town. The Hazrat Imam complex, with its very old Quran, the Kukeldash Madrasa above Chorsu and the carved rooms of the Museum of Applied Arts give it an Islamic heritage that Almaty lacks. Its chandeliered metro stations are sights in their own right.

Almaty's appeal is narrower: the painted wooden Zenkov Cathedral in Panfilov Park, the Scythian gold in the Central State Museum, the Kasteyev collection of Kazakh art and streets of Soviet modernist mosaics. Both cities need two or three days, but Tashkent fills them more fully.

Almaty is the better city for a night out. At weekends its cocktail bars, craft beer pubs and lounges around Panfilov and Abylai Khan fill with a young crowd, and a few clubs stay open until morning.

Tashkent is quieter. Nights out there mean karaoke, beer gardens and long dinners with friends, and most places close around midnight. Its best evenings are in summer, on terraces and in parks once the heat breaks.

This is Almaty's great strength. The mountains start at the edge of the city, so the Medeu rink is half an hour away and a gondola carries you up to Shymbulak's ski runs and summer trails. Big Almaty Lake and glacier walks are a short drive further, and Charyn Canyon and the Kolsai lakes make spectacular overnight trips.

Tashkent sits on a hot, flat plain, and its mountains are an hour and a half away in the Chimgan range and Ugam-Chatkal National Park. The tulip-covered foothills are lovely in spring, but the peaks are lower and further away, and they are not part of daily city life as they are in Almaty.

Tashkent wins clearly here, thanks to Samarkand. The high-speed train reaches the Registan, the Gur-e-Amir and Shah-i-Zinda in just over two hours. That makes a long day there one of the great outings of the region, although staying a night is even better.

Day trips from Almaty go to landscapes rather than towns. The burial mounds at Esik, where the Golden Man was found, and the Tamgaly petroglyphs are the heritage options. Bishkek involves a border crossing and is better done with a night away.

Children are made very welcome in both cities, and both have zoos, parks with rides and wide avenues that are hard work with small children. Almaty's family treats lean towards the mountains: the cable car up Kok-Tobe with its petting zoo, open-air skating at Medeu and easy beginner slopes at Shymbulak.

Tashkent's are more about summer, with water parks and fairy-tale amusement parks. But summer days there often pass 35°C, so spring and autumn are much better for a family visit.

Tashkent is the easier city to cover without a car. Its metro has several clear lines with frequent trains, and the old town and main squares are close to stations, although the long Soviet-scale blocks make walking slow in the heat.

Almaty's single short metro line is of little use to visitors, so cheap ride-hailing does most of the work. In return, its shaded central grid is more pleasant on foot, rising gently towards the peaks, and buses and gondolas go all the way up to Medeu and Shymbulak.

Neither city is worth the trip for shopping, and in both the bazaars are more rewarding than the malls. Tashkent is better for crafts, with suzani embroidery, ikat silk, blue Rishtan ceramics and knives around Chorsu, though much of this costs less where it is made, elsewhere in Uzbekistan.

In Almaty, the best things to take home are honey, nuts and tea from the Green Bazaar, along with felt work and carpets. There is also the vast Barakholka market, and its malls carry the luxury brands that Tashkent almost entirely lacks.

Accommodation is what separates the two. In Almaty, bazaar meals, Uyghur noodle houses and near-free buses keep daily costs low, but good hotels in the centre are priced close to international levels, and imported wine and cocktails in smart bars add up quickly.

Tashkent's international business hotels are expensive too, but its simple guesthouses and mid-range hotels keep a stay cheap. With plov, bread and tea, metro rides and opera seats all costing little, a modest budget goes a little further there.

Almaty's main stage is the Abai Theatre, a grand neoclassical building where ballet and opera follow the Russian tradition. The Kazakh State Philharmonic is the place to hear the dombra and other traditional instruments alongside orchestral concerts, and a few jazz bars cover the informal side.

In Tashkent the Alisher Navoi Theatre is worth seeing for the building alone, with each hall decorated in the style of a different Uzbek region, and maqom singing and folk ensembles add a musical tradition of their own. Both cities kept the Soviet habit of a full repertory season with easy tickets. In both, though, drama is mostly in Russian or the local language, so ballet, opera and concerts are the safer choice for visitors.

Almaty has the real bathing culture. Arasan, the huge Soviet-era bath complex beside Panfilov Park, has Russian banya with birch whisking, Finnish saunas and a domed hammam under one roof, and the Alma-Arasan gorge adds hot springs and old sanatoria.

Tashkent has neighbourhood hammams and a few spa complexes, but most visitors use their hotel's facilities. The calm there comes from long afternoons in tea houses and walks in the Botanical Garden.