ABSTRACT

Nestled in the foothills of the stunning Trans-Ili Alatau mountain range, Alma-Ata—the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic—had some practical advantages as the host city of an international conference on health. For one, it was home to the Lenin Convention Center, which housed a capacious 3,000-seat auditorium. Nor were accommodations in the city an issue: in order to house delegates from the 134 nations in attendance, the Soviets rapidly erected a hotel with a thousand beds. And although the auditorium’s audio system lacked (in the Soviet fashion) the capacity for audience participation, this was easily fixed by some re-rigging performed by a company from Italy. 1