Kolsai Lakes

Kolsai lakes are one of the most beautiful places in Kazakhstan’s nature. They are also called the blue necklace of the Northern Tien Shan. It’s understandable – you won’t find such beauty everywhere! Translated from the Kazakh language, “kolsai” means “lake in a gorge,” because all three lakes are located in the most picturesque gorge in the eastern part of the Kungey Alatau ridge, which is 300 km from Almaty.

The lakes are located at an altitude of 1800, 2250 and 2700 above sea level. The Kolsai River takes its sources from glaciers located on the Kungei-Alatau mountain ranges and flows in turn into three lakes: Verkhnee, Mynzholki and Nizhneye. The water in the lakes is fresh. Kolsai lakes are very deep. For example, the deepest place in the first lake is 80 m, and in the second – about 50 m. The bottom is flat in places, without rocky ledges.

Kolsai lakes are a favorite place for mountain tourists. Trekking to the Kolsai Lakes is very easy and suitable even for non-professionals. In addition, Kolsai is a wonderful place for picnics in nature and horseback riding and mountain biking. The most comfortable period for camping is from April to the end of September.

Along the coast of the Kolsai Lakes there are all kinds of guest houses, which always provide a warm welcome to everyone who wants to relax in the lap of nature and admire the magnificent panorama of the natural landscape of the area and the cleanest lakes from the windows of their rooms.

Anyone who is lucky enough to visit these places at least once will never forget their splendor, silence and tranquility around. When the water surface is absolutely calm, the sky is reflected in it, and in the evening the lake seems to be seething with trout splashing in its waters!

Turkestan

Turkestan is one of the oldest cities in Kazakhstan. It was founded in 418. It is known that in the 10th century the city was called Shavgar (Shavagar). It was part of the Samanid state.

In the 12th century, Shavgar disappeared from written sources, but Yasy (Yassy) appeared, which was also located on the territory of present-day Turkestan.

In the 12th century, the famous philosopher and poet Khoja Ahmed Yasawi lived and was buried in Yasy. In 1398, when Yasy was part of Tamerlane's empire, the ruler erected a mausoleum over the philosopher's grave and built a mosque. It is to this mausoleum that today an endless stream of pilgrims goes. The religious complex is also included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Since the 16th century, Yasy became the main city of the Kazakh Khanate. Then it was renamed Turkestan. A mint appeared here, where silver money with the image of rulers began to be printed. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations.

In 1864, Turkestan was conquered by the Russian Empire, ceased to be the capital and became part of the newly formed Turkestan Governor-General.

In 1991, Turkestan became part of independent Kazakhstan, and since 2018 the city has been experiencing a rebirth. It is gradually becoming the historical and spiritual center of the republic. Tourism also began to develop here. For example, in 2020, the city completed construction of an international airport.

The most famous sights of Turkestan are concentrated where the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yassawi is located. The poet and philosopher had great authority among Muslims during his lifetime. He died in the middle of the 12th century and was buried in a small mausoleum. After 250 years, Tamerlane, who captured Turkestan, decided to build a large memorial complex at the tomb of Yassawi. Thus, he strengthened his own authority in the eyes of local residents.

Even more Muslims began to come to the new complex. The place began to be revered as a shrine. Previously, it was believed that a person who visited this place three times could not go to Mecca. The tomb of the philosopher is the center of the historical and cultural museum-reserve "Khazret Sultan".

In addition to the majestic mausoleum, Tamerlane built here a monastery of Sufis who were followers of Yassawi.

Subsequent rulers tried to keep the mausoleum intact. With the emergence of the Kazakh Khanate, the mausoleum was for some time the residence of the khans.

Also in the historical part of Turkestan there is the grave of the granddaughter of Tamerlane and the daughter of Mirzo Ulugbek - the mausoleum of Robiya Sultan Begim - and a small necropolis of the Kazakh khans - Ablai Khan, Yesim Khan, Abulkhair Khan and others. Take a look at the 12th century underground mosque called Hilvet.

There are also interesting museums in Turkestan: the Oriental Bath Museum, the 18th-century Zhuma Mosque Museum, the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, and the Museum of the History of Turkestan.

A must-see place is the Arystan Baba mausoleum, which is located 60 kilometers from Turkestan. The saint was the spiritual mentor of Khoja Ahmed Yassawi. They say that it is better to start your pilgrimage to the Turkestan shrines from here.

The modern Caravanserai complex, located in Turkestan, will surprise even the most experienced traveler. Craft streets and shopping districts have been recreated here, and an amphitheater for horse shows has been built. The complex also houses the only “Flying Theater” in Central Asia. There are oriental restaurants, hotels and an entertainment center on the territory.

The railway station building, erected in 1903, is an architectural monument. The original brick building with high facades was divided into three parts: a vestibule and waiting rooms for first and second classes. Architectural elements in the form of door handles, turrets and oriental paintings fit harmoniously into the city landscape. Inside the station there is a bronze chandelier and a sideboard brought here at the beginning of the 20th century.

Astana

Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan and the newest, modern and fashionable city in the country. People come here to look at unusual architectural forms.

The city is located on the Ishim River, which divides it into right and left banks. The left bank is more beautiful - this is where all the unusual buildings are located.

Gradually, the head offices of banks and other significant organizations are moving from Almaty (the former capital of Kazakhstan) to Astana.

During the cold season, it is better not to go to Astana for tourism purposes. Simply because even residents of Siberia will find it cold here. And all that you will remember in the winter city is the piercing winds. In summer, by the way, it is quite hot here.

The main pride of Astana is the holding of the international specialized exhibition EXPO-2017. It was this event that gave a breakthrough and increased the status of Kazakhstan in the international arena. During the three months of operation, the exhibition was visited by more than 4 million people. Now there is a museum in the Nur-Alem sphere, which has become the main building of the EXPO.

Astana is famous for the Barys hockey club, which is known far beyond the borders of its home city. The team's games always attract full stadiums.

The capital of Kazakhstan is a city that is worth visiting at least once in your life.

The modern capital of Kazakhstan stands at the intersection of the caravan roads of the Great Silk Road. Archaeological excavations have shown that people lived here back in the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.

11 kilometers from the center of Astana they found the medieval settlement of Bozok - an agricultural settlement that was founded in the 7th-8th centuries AD.

In the 1830s, the city of Akmolinsk appeared on the site of the village of Akmola. It was a military and economic regional center, part of the Siberian Kyrgyz region.

On March 20, 1961, Akmolinsk was renamed Tselinograd, which became the center for the development of virgin lands. The city was of great importance in providing the Soviet Union with grain.

In 1992, the historical name Akmola was returned to Tselinograd. On May 6, 1998, Akmola, which had already become the capital of Kazakhstan, was renamed Astana (from the Kazakh “astana” - “capital”). And on March 20, 2019, the city began to be called Nur-Sultan. On September 17, 2022, President Tokayev signed a decree renaming the capital back to Astana. The decree came into force from the date of publication.

In 1997, about 300 thousand people lived in Astana on an area of 258 square kilometers. In 2016, the number of residents of the capital exceeded one million. And the area of the city today reaches almost 800 square kilometers.

Aktau

Aktau is the capital of the Mangistau region, a port city on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and the economic center of southwestern Kazakhstan. And for tourists, Aktau is the gateway to the mysterious world of Mangistau. It is from here that adventurers go by jeep to underground mosques, mysterious mountains, deep gorges and alien locations from science fiction films.

This small city appeared in the second half of the 20th century as one of the most ambitious projects in the USSR. The city has no natural sources of fresh water, and it is produced by desalination plants or imported from other regions. It was originally a uranium mining and enrichment center in the southern part of the Soviet Union. But today the emphasis has shifted, and Aktau is considered the unofficial capital of the oil and gas industry of Kazakhstan.

The rock trail is the city's largest attraction. This is a 1.5 km long landscaped walking path that stretches between the white cliffs and the rocky shore of the Caspian Sea. During the walk you can see bronze sculptures, an ancient cave and rock paintings. The opening of the trail took place in 2019, and before that there was an impassable coast with boulders and thickets of reeds.

The Melovaya Lighthouse is an unusual structure, as it is located on the roof of an 11-story residential building. The building and lighthouse appeared in 1974. The name is associated with Cape Melovaya, and before that there was a small 7-meter lighthouse nearby. The current lighthouse is 43 meters high. Unfortunately, it has not been operational since 2012, but is still the hallmark of Aktau.

Monuments and sculptures of Aktau The city has several interesting and picturesque monuments: the MiG-21 military aircraft, Columbus's caravel "Santa Maria", the Little Mermaid, Sturgeon, Seal and others. These are great places for memorable photos from your trip to Aktau.

Aktau is located on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and the water here is crystal clear! Therefore, both in the city and in the surrounding area there are places for beach holidays, and even several resorts with comfortable beaches.

The city has several parks and alleys for walking, next to which you can find cozy cafes serving national dishes. Also, in the city center there is an experimental botanical garden.

Baikonur

The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a huge rocket launch complex, the first and largest cosmodrome in the world. It is located in the southern part of Kazakhstan, and covers an area of 6717 square meters. km. Nearby, 30 km to the south, is the city of the same name, Baikonur, where the service personnel live. Currently, the cosmodrome and the city are leased from the Russian Federation until 2050.

The Baikonur Cosmodrome appeared in 1957, when the first construction work was completed and the first launch of the R-7 rocket took place. Since then, over the course of 30 years, it has expanded: launch pads and workshops for assembling new types of rockets, fuel refueling stations, complexes for controlling and tracking missiles, and other important infrastructure were built. Today, there are several launch sites, a huge Yubileiny airfield, a museum of cosmonautics, as well as installation and testing complexes and control centers.

Once a secret facility, today the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a unique complex that anyone can visit.

The very first and main object of the Baikonur Cosmodrome is launch pad No. 1, also called “Gagarin launch”. It was from here that the first rocket was launched, then the first artificial Earth satellite, and from here the ship with the first cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin took off, after whom the launch pad was named. It has already launched more than 600 rockets into space, and today it is also used to send astronauts to the ISS. The safe observation area for the launch is 1.4 km in radius, and visibility from the observation deck is very good.

Launch pad No. 31 is the second most important at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It is a backup for the Gagarin Launch, and is more often used to send cargo ships to the ISS. It also has a safe surveillance zone with a radius of 1.4 km.

To launch heavy cargo Proton rockets, Baikonur has launch pad No. 81. It is noteworthy that for her the safe zone begins at a distance of 3 km, but witnesses of the launches say that despite the fact that the distance from the observation deck is 2 times further than at the Soyuz launch, the roar and entertainment is 5 times greater.

On the territory of the Baikonur Cosmodrome there is also the Yubileiny airfield, which was built for landing the Buran space shuttles. Unfortunately, the huge 4,500-meter-long runway only accommodated this spacecraft once, and the project was abandoned. However, today Yubileiny is used for special flights that deliver satellites and large rocket parts to the cosmodrome.

In addition, the cosmodrome has a museum of the history of astronautics, which includes a large building with thousands of exhibits, an outdoor exhibition with real rocket engines and the Buran space shuttle, and the museum complex also includes the houses of Korolev and Gagarin, where the father of the Russian cosmonautics and the first cosmonaut of the world.

Taraz

Taraz is a city that is both very ancient and very modern. Taraz, as a center of trade and handicrafts, arose at the beginning of our era on fertile lands irrigated by the deep Talas River. By the 12th century, Taraz had become the economic, cultural and political center of the medieval Karakhanid state. At the time of the invasion of Genghis Khan's troops in 1220, Taraz reached significant prosperity. The Mongols destroyed the city almost to the ground.

A new stage in the development of Taraz began with its entry into the Kokand Khanate. At the end of the 18th century, the Kokand people built a fortress near the ruins of Taraz. And at the beginning of the 19th century, on the site of ancient Taraz, a city grew again, which was called Auli-Ata - “holy elder”. The first settlers of the city were Uzbeks who came from Namangan. The townspeople were engaged in the production of handicrafts and trade. In Taraz, at spring fairs, residents of the oasis exchanged their handmade goods and agricultural products for livestock products of the Kazakh nomads.

Since 1864, when the Auli-Ata fortress was taken by Colonel Chernyaev’s detachment and annexed to the Russian Empire, the city began to take on its modern appearance. The development of Taraz was significantly accelerated by the Semirechenskaya railway, which passed through the city in 1917. During the Soviet era, the city bizarrely changed its name twice. For a short time, Taraz bore the name of the communist leader of Kazakhstan, becoming the city of Mirzoyan. Then, for almost sixty years, Taraz received the name of the Kazakh poet and akyn Dzhambul Dzhabayev.

The historical name of the city was returned in 1997. In the new millennium, Taraz is rapidly changing its appearance. As part of the program for improving the courtyards of multi-storey residential buildings, the appearance of residential areas in Taraz is steadily improving. In 2014, the construction of townhouses for 130 families using Canadian technology began in Taraz, which is being carried out by Tam Kurylys LLP under the state program “Affordable Housing - 2020”.

Over the past years, the city has been decorated not only with sculptures of outstanding historical figures of the Kazakh people, but also with examples of street sculpture. An example of this could be the sculptural composition dedicated to the heroes of the film “Gentlemen of Fortune.”

Taraz has become the third city in Kazakhstan (after Astana and Atyrau) with a functioning free Internet access zone using Wi-Fi technology in the central Dostyk square, as well as in the zone of the Zhambyl Humanitarian and Technical University.

By the end of 2015, the free economic zone Taraz Chemical Park will be operational, worth more than $2 billion, which will have a beneficial effect on the socio-economic development of the region.

In 2013, the reconstruction of the Aulie-Ata international airport in Taraz was completed. The updated airport will be able to simultaneously service up to eight jet aircraft, including up to four E-class aircraft with a wingspan exceeding 70 m (Boeing 747, An-124 Ruslan, Airbus 380). Now tourists can make direct non-stop flights to Taraz from all major cities of the continent.