Ascension Cathedral, Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Panfilov Park, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Ascension Cathedral is an Eastern Orthodox church in Almaty featuring golden domes and a multicolored wooden exterior that reflects Russian Orthodox architectural traditions. The structure reaches approximately 56 meters high and stands as a landmark building in Panfilov Park.

The foundation was consecrated on 26 September 1903 by Bishop Paisii (Vinogradov) of Turkestan and Tashkent, and construction ran from 1904 to 1907 to designs by architect Konstantin Borisoglebsky, built by engineer Andrei Zenkov. The cathedral survived the December 1910 earthquake with only a subsided bell-tower corner and broken glass. Closed in 1927, it housed the Central State Museum of the Kazakh SSR from 1929, and its belfry carried Almaty's first radio transmitters. Returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in May 1995, it reopened for services after restoration.

The cathedral is also called Zenkov Cathedral after engineer Andrei Zenkov, who built it with Konstantin Borisoglebsky's design. Its iconostasis was painted by Nikolai Khludov, and the interior fittings came from workshops in Moscow and Kiev. Yuri Dombrovsky described the building's late-1920s use as a museum in his novels "The Keeper of Antiquities" and "The Faculty of Unnecessary Things".

The cathedral stands in Panfilov Park, a short walk from the Zhibek Zholy metro station. It reopened for services in 1997 after restoration and was closed for large-scale reconstruction from July 2017 to 28 October 2020, so check current access before a visit. The interior iconostasis was made in Moscow and Kiev workshops.

The entire structure was built from Tien-Shan spruce without using metal nails, employing a special wooden framework designed to move during earthquakes. This engineering approach allowed the building to withstand numerous seismic events without structural damage.