In October, 2024, four of us undertook a two week tour of the five Stans of Central Asia, west to east, in an organised group of sixteen from a variety of western countries. Here are some of the highlights, lowlights and observations from the trip. Despite it being over thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, not many Westerners have ventured this way yet. Here's what we found...
Las Vegas meets Phnom Penh in Asia
Common sense says that arguing with officialdom in a famously repressive country is never a good idea. Common sense also tells us that arguing in English with a bored, tired and probably underpaid official who does not speak it is a waste of both their time and yours. And common sense says that in a strange and unexplored environment, stop, stand back and see what others are doing before joining in. But at three o’clock in the morning after a seemingly endless trek through the huge, lavish and eerily empty corridors and halls of Turkmenistan's Ashgabat airport, common sense is an overrated commodity.
The theory goes that, on arrival, a Government issued Letter of Invitation is exchanged for an official entry visa. In reality, after the marbled splendour of the arrivals terminal, immigration is just two small manned windows.
The method appears to be fight through Scrum A (“Visa”) to exchange the letter and passport for an invoice for $85. Hustle to the front of Scrum B (“Bank”) to pay the bill, which has now risen to $129 for no apparent reason. This is where the sense of humour failure occurs. Common sense prevails, so the cash is handed over for a new piece of paper. Back to “Visa” to swap this for passport, which now rocks a shiny new full page entry visa. Now on for the compulsory COVID test, with a quick side hustle back to “Bank” to check we don’t have any more to pay. After a couple of cursory waves of the test swab vaguely in the direction of each nostril, the swab goes straight in the bin. We are thus certified COVID free and after one more document check and baggage scan, we’re in. Time for bed.
It’s hard to put a finger on the main source of Ashgabat’s general weirdness. Like a vast and lavish wedding cake, everything is shiny, new and on a colossal scale. Everything is made from or covered with marble, evidence of vast wealth is everywhere. A bit of context explains why. The country is half a million square kilometres of desert and plains sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan to the south and Uzbekistan to the north. After the ebb and flow of the Mesopotamian, Parthian and Ottoman empires was abruptly wiped out by the onslaught of Genghis Khan's Mongols in the 13th century, the land was occupied by nomads. The aggressive southern encroachment of the Russian Empire in the 19th century sought to “civilise” these tribes, creating first Turkestan, then, after the 1917 Revolution, the Turkmen Oblast and then the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. Saparmyrat Niyazov was elected Sectetary General in 1968 and when the Soviet Union fell apart after 1989, he sought to cling on to power by creating a political party, getting elected and then outlawing all other parties and opposition. He promised his citizens vast wealth based on oil and gas revenues but actually spent the money on lavish public buildings and monuments to reinforce his cult of personality: he bought the people off with free petrol, energy and water. So palaces and six-lane highway all over the place and even now, petrol is only 7p a litre. And all the cars are white and the bus stops are air conditioned.
Education and further education is free for all, but then they have to work for the government for two years. Niyazov changed his name to Turkmenbashi (“leader of the people”) and changed the names of the days of the week and months of the year to names of his family members. Niyazov died in 2006 (after leaving his famous “book of the soul” (“Ruhnama”) to a grateful nation, who commemorated it with yet another sculpture, but his deputy took over more or less seamlessly and not much has changed. The state of national paranoia persists to some extent and Turkmenistan remains one of the most repressive countries in the world after North Korea. Generally tourists have to be accompanied by a guide to tell them what they can and can’t do or take pictures of. And we see virtually no people on the street whatsoever, until we venture into a shopping mall for dinner. Weird.
Enough of the hard stuff: let’s get out and have some fun. Ashgabat may be full of six-lane superhighways but they soon peter out once leaving the city. The nature of the terrain is such that natural features and settlements of interest are far apart, so travelling distances are quite large. This can be embraced as a chance to savour the changing landscape rather than flying 35000 feet above it.
Day one, and after just five hours’ sleep, the first of two ruined cities, Issa from the short-lived Parthian empire a couple of centuries either side of 0AD. The site is little more than a grid of thick baked mud walls but the location nestled at the foot of the Kopet Dag mountains, just a few kilometres from the Iranian border, is impressive. A further bone-jarring four hour minibus round trip up into the mountains, where Bokhur village is a hundred miles and a couple of centuries away from Ashgabat. Buildings of breeze block and corrugated iron huddle round the thousand year old hollow tree at the centre of the market, where locals peddle everything from fresh pomegranates and spices to spare wheelbarrow wheels. After just three hours’ sleep (a bit of a theme emerging here) a short flight on perhaps the world’s oldest Boeing 737 takes us to Mary, where the second set of ruins of Merv is a patchwork of five successive fortified cities, each representing one of a series of empires who invaded the area, culminating in the destruction of the lot by Genghis Khan’s marauding horde of Mongols in 1221.
Each day is bookended by selection of Niayazov / Turkmenbasi's follies: the enormous new mosque, floodlit in green, the spacerocket-like Arch of Neutrality, the 100 metre high flagpole with its own engine to make the flag flutter in a non-existent breeze and the bizarre Independence Park, with its huge gold statue of the dictator.
An eight-hour spinal punishment beating in a cavalcade of 4x4s (all white of course) takes us to perhaps Turkmenistan’s weirdest tourist attraction. In the 1970’s Russian engineers looking for oil and gas accidentally opened a sinkhole in the Karakom desert, which promptly caught fire and is still burning today. The so called Gate of Hell is reasonably impressive before sunset but after being treated to an impromptu barbecue by the drivers as darkness falls, the sight is pretty spectacular by night, enhanced by a bottle of Georgian red wine and a couple of shots of Turkmen vodka. In most other countries, visitors would be held well back, but here you can venture as close as you dare before the heat and fumes drive you back. There has been talk of putting out the fire for years on environmental grounds, but for the time being, the tourists will keep coming until Turkmenistan finds some other attractions to market. The desert views along the way are fairly spooky: mile upon mile of softly undulating sand, the view broken by the occasional camel then nothing but the backs of six blokes having a piss in the dunes after two hours in a Land Cruiser.
Talk of the folly and repression of dictators and other former regimes does something of a disservice to the ordinary populace who are warm and hospitable. At the Merv ruins in particular, groups of smartly and traditionally dressed children and students wanted to chat and practise their English and, not to put too fine a point on it, have their photos taken with what were obviously white Westerners. After less than 72 hours in Turkmenistan, time to hit another bumpy road for the five hour trek to what has been described as our most challenging border crossing: into Uzbekistan.All you need is Plov: Bukhara to Samarkand
In a nod to the joke about the Mini and the four elephants, we now know that 20 tired and slightly cross tourists and about fifty pieces of assorted luggage can be fitted onto a fifteen seat minibus with a bit of application. We had been warned that the Turkmen / Uzbek border might be a bit of a struggle, with a one mile trek with luggage through no-man's land. Guljat, our Turkmen guide, got us as far as a Turkmen exit stamp, then parting with a hug, she told us that, due to construction works on the way, we could not walk but wait for a shuttle bus for the short hop to the Uzbek frontier. So with a few locals and their bags, we waited. And waited. The sun went down and the construction workers packed up for the night. We waited some more. Night fell. Eventually, some headlights approached and with much shouting and confusion, discharged an extended local family, two sack trucks and about twenty enormous bales of flip-flops, tea towels and other tourist tat presumably bound for a Turkmen market. Then the minibus disappeared in a cloud of dust to leave us to wait some more. When it reappeared twenty minutes later, there was no way we weren’t all getting on it, hence a game of real life Tetris stacking all the bags to the roof and then filling all remaining space with bodies for the short, bumpy ride. After a quick passport check, another 400 yards trek dragging the bags to queue for an entry stamp then another 200 yards to find a new guide patiently waiting with a new bus. Could have been worse.
After Ashgabat, Bukhara is lovely. The opulence is centuries, rather than decades, old. This is the Silk Road proper: striking edifices bedecked with blue and green geometric tiles, domed mosques, minarets, tinkling fountains and bazaars. There is also much more of a sense of people living normally and even enjoying themselves: shops, bars, gift shops and not all the cars are white. Most Uzbeks are Muslim, but in a relaxed and accommodating way: as our guide put it, a mosque next to a nightclub, a mausoleum next to a bar. However, after the heat of Ashgabat, a cool rain is falling here, which dampens the mood slightly, so after a wet morning of touring the sights, we repair to a barbecued chicken shop for the most ridiculously cheap meal of the tour so far (but also the most unspeakable ‘stooper’ toilet). Only four days in, the group of sixteen of us is bonding nicely and that evening our guide Ramiz takes us to a local house where we watch our dinner of Plov (rice with vegetables) being prepared before enjoying it sat together at long tables, with the conversation lubricated by surprisingly good Uzbek red wine.
Like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan is now fiercely independent. The country was mainly agricultural, focused on mass production of cotton, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, export of gas and uranium are the mainstays of the economy. Russia would like to build nuclear stations to exploit the uranium here, but this would mean basing Russian troops here to protect them, and this is forbidden under the Uzbek constitution. Whilst not free as in Turkmenistan, petrol is cheap and car ownership is universal.
After another tasty lunch of samsas, fajitas, borsch and roast chicken and armed with a train picnic (fresh cashews and pistachios and G & Ts in tins), a shiny new Spanish high speed train whisks us the 260 kilometres to another ancient Silk Road city, Samarkand, where once again it is raining.
“We are the pilgrims, master. We shall go always a little further, it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow. Across that angry or that glimmering sea.
White on a throne or guarded in a cave, there lies a prophet who can understand why men were born, but surely we are brave who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.” (James Elroy Flecker, 1913)
The Afrosiyab train (named after the old site of Samarkand) may be Spanish, but the infrastructure is Chinese, part of the Belt and Road strategy to open western markets to China. So no mountains barred with snow or glimmering seas, and we’re not feeling that brave, bit here is the legendary crossroads of the Silk Roads. Historical context in one sentence: the death of Mongol warlord and invader Genghis Khan in 1227 fractured the Mongol empire and allowed for the rise of Amir Temur who, in just 12 years at the end of the 14th century, conquered Iran, Iraq, Syria, Eastern Turkey, the Caucasus and Northern India and poured the spoils into his home city of Samarkand. That legacy survives as his mausoleum and the three complementary madrasas, or universities, on three sides of Registan square. The pace and intensity of this trip is such that we only get a day to take in this feast for the senses: the inside of the mausoleum almost drips gold, the scale, symmetry and geometry of Registan square holds the gaze for hours. The day is completed with the remains of Amir Temur’s grandson’s astronomical observatory, where he plotted the paths of over a thousand stars before the invention of lenses, and the city’s eerie hilltop Necropolis.
Reality intrudes at the back of Registan square: one of our group needs to change of few euros into Uzbek som. Our guide makes a quick phone call and a minute or two later, Samarkand’s Del-boy appears with a two inch thick bundle of banknotes under his jacket and calculates a deal on the spot. Curious but rather pointless. Unlike Turkmenistan, where people are desperate for hard currency in the form of dollars and euros, there is no black market in Uzbekistan: street traders, banks and hotels off the same rate, currently about 16,700 som to the pound, making it one of those countries where a modest transaction makes you a millionaire. The Turkmen official rate is 4.5 manet to the pound, but on arrival, our guide told us that everyone uses the illegal black market and she took dollars off all of us, which she returned at the rate of 13.5 to the pound. The ludicrous value of Uzbek bank notes and the fact that all public toilets, however grim and disgusting, make a charge, means it is always worth keeping a few 1,000 som(6p) notes handy for this purpose.
A day off in the lakes
“Uzbekistan is full of graves, Tajikistan is full of nature”. So says Davud our Tajiki guide as we reach the top of a two-hour dirt track and gaze out over the turquoise sixth lake of Baft Hut and the serried ranks of craggy peaks stacked beyond it, stretching pretty much to the Afghan border. After three days of mosques, mausoleums and madrasas, we are overdue for a day out.
The wide orderly grids of streets and parks of Central Samarkand quickly give way to dusty suburbs then rich agricultural fields of rice and cabbages, dotted with villages full of battered Honda microvans and abandoned machinery and vehicles. A brisk trade in fresh watermelons is underway. But in the distance, the shadows of tall mountains loom out of the early fog and it is only a few bumpy miles to the Tajiki border. 90% of Tajikistan is mountainous and we are headed into the Western Fann mountains and the town of Panjikent. My 2018 Lonely Planet guide says this border crossing is closed, but clearly it isn’t. Armed with our Tajiki e-visas, the border crossing is fairly uneventful (passport check, walk, exit stamp, walk, entry stamp, walk, passport check) until a computer glitch strands one of our party in the middle somewhere, unable to leave one country and enter the other. Half an hour of “will he/won’t he” jeopardy ensues, he emerges and we are off. Through the down-at-heel mountain frontier town of Panjikent then off the tarmac and on to dirt and gravel for what is probably a 40 mile switchback climb, stopping at the first three lakes on the way. This is trekking country and we chatted to a couple of rucksack laden Russians at the border who were off to explore the mountains and lakes on foot. Hope they’ve got a decent tent, because it’s bloody cold (they were from Siberia, to be fair). The lakes are all supposed to be a different colour but the difference between azure, aquamarine and turquoise seems a bit academic at this point. Around every twist and turn, another stunning view. And amazingly, there are villages up here, constructed from the usual breeze blocks and corrugated iron. Smiling and shouting children wave as we pass, all in their smart blue uniform but off to school who knows where. And passage is interrupted by goats, cows and donkeys in the road, together with the occasional massive tipper truck, apparently on its way down from a new Chinese quarry somewhere up in the mountain.
Incredibly, after the fourth lake, our bus pulls off onto an even smaller track leading to a space outside an isolated farmhouse. Here a lunch has been arranged in a lean-to awning next to a stream in the shade of some apple trees: soup, chicken, veg stew, fruit and green tea in the middle of nowhere.
Then the final push up for half an hour savouring the view over the sixth lake (there are actually seven, but the road beyond here has been closed by recent rain), then all the way back down again before sunset. The crossing was easy but bitterly cold by now and soundtracked by the sounds of unseen baying dogs on both sides of the fence. We are not at home.
The third of the main cities of Uzbekistan, the capital Tashkent, is marred somewhat by a stomach bug, which did the rounds of a few of us. Not that there was much to charm before that. The city was essentially flattened by a massive earthquake in 1966 and rebuilt over the following ten years by the Soviets. It is a leafy modern city, with flash hotels and shops, conference centres and government buildings, but no antiquities and little to detain us. So perhaps not a bad day for an extended stay in the bathroom if ever there is such a thing.
Back on the train again, this time not a slick high speed bullet, but a clattering and jerky local express for Kokand and on to the Kyrgyzh border. The views on the way of the contrast between parched mountains, deep quarries and power plants is striking, but after a lengthy visit to the Summer Palace, there is little in Kokand to detain us either.
There is something a bit more unnerving about a border crossing at night, and this is one of the busiest in Central Asia and is literally in the middle of bazaar. Trucks are queued for miles under the floodlights and there are clearly a lot of locals back and forth for the day. It is said thst trucks can take up to three days to get through: let's hope that's not the case for the two loads of mooing beasts waiting to pass from the Kyrgyz side.
After a few grumpy passport checks, however, a very smiley guy in fatigues wishes jus a cheery welcome to the Republc of Kyrgyzstan.
Strange hats and stranger sports: Bishkek to Issyk-Kul
We arrived at the hotel in Osh at 9pm with no money: local money changers would not accept anything less than $100 bills (we mostly had twenties) but managed to change a fistful of Uzbek som (365,000 to be exact) for 2,250 Kyrgyz som: getting a bit hard to keep track of these exchange rates. Swift dinner at a Halal restaurant (so no alcohol) and off to bed.
Early start (for which the guide was late) for a short flight from Osh to Bishkek. This would probably be good territory for plane-spotters: Ural Air, Aero Nomad, Sky Fru, Avia Traffic and Tez Jet, but we are on 60-seat turbo-prop with Asman Airways (only launched last year so presumably the planes are still under warranty). Stunning mountain and lakes views on the way, quick passage through Bishkek market then straight on onto the confusingly named Bishkek Osh bazaar, with instructions from our new guide Gulzina, to gather material for a picnic in the Ala Archa Canyon National Park. That could have been horse whips, Russian flak jackets or household brooms, but we settled for somsas (like Cornish pasties) and fruit.
The mountains rise quickly from the city centre to the gate of the National Park at about 5,000 feet and the whole of Bishkek seems to be enjoying the warm autumn sunshine on the trek up the first valley to the viewpoint where three more trekking trails head away from the cascading river and up into the snow-capped peaks. Squirrels tease little children by approaching and running away and people hold out hands waiting patiently for little birds to land and take seeds. Kyrgyzstan may not have the monuments, but like Tajikistan, it has the nature.
Another brilliant blue sky day with warm autumn sunshine and the mountains are a constant backdrop to the following day’s city tour, which has nothing older than Soviet times but does much to explain the history. Violent invasion by the Tsars was followed by repression and even conscription under the Soviets, although the huge statue to Lenin still stands, albeit moved from its former prized location. Under the Soviets, all Kyrgyz literature, records and religion were destroyed and the culture repressed. After Independence, two separate presidents tried to seize vast personal power through corruption and even more repression, but were forced to flee the country after revolutions in 2005 and 2010. Although recent years have seen much in the way off improvements in living standards, restoration of national culture and social provision, there is still no free press and journalists who speak out against the regime are still imprisoned, or even murdered. Society is still very traditional, with all Kyrgyzs still knowing to this day which of the forty original nomadic tribes they belong to. Arranged marriage and even forced marriage after kidnap are still common. And the hand of Russia is still never far away: if Kyrgyzstan defies Moscow’s wishes, they are enforced by border skirmishes via Russia’s proxy Tajikistan.
Cultural lessons absorbed, back on the bus and into the mountains.
At a height of about 5,000 feet, Issyk Kul is the second largest Alpine lake on the world, 170km long and 70km wide and sandwiched between two massive mountain ranges. The hordes of summer visitors from all over Central Asia and Russia have gone and the shore is eerily quiet, although still warm and sunny.
Karven resort on the northern shore of the lake is how you might imagine a Soviet Center Parcs: more breeze blocks and straight lines, fewer trees and signposts that lead nowhere. This is close to the site of the first International Nomad Games, held in 2014. The highlight of the tournament (the next is in 2026) is Kyrgyzstan's national sport, Kok Boru, best described as football on horseback, but with a 30kg decapitated goat playing the part of the ball. If Michael Palin had been on our tour, there would have been a game taking place today and we would all have been invited to take part.
Another five hours of unmade road, with progress frequently interrupted by herd of cows, sheep and even horses blocking the carriageway, to the mountain gateway town and ski resort of Karakol. No meaningful snow yet but just 50km from the climber’s magnet of Mount Victory, which at 7,000 metres, marks the border with China. A short hike up the Seven Bulls gorge for stunning Alpine views and a coffee hut in a surprising location at the top of a trail with a triangular toilet hut perched over the edge of a long drop. A battered Transit van screams up the path we have just walked up and disgorges its passengers, another gang of western travellers. They are doing the same rough itinerary as us, but from east to west, and in 25 days rather than our 14. No wonder we are starting to flag somewhat. The temperature is falling quickly now and the hot sun of Turkmenistan is now a long way away.
The Final Stan
Our final land border crossing, Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan, is also the quietest and most casual. At a height of 3,000m on a barren and windswept plain, bored looking border guards man rusty barriers and dilapidated cabins. Exit from Kyrgyzstan takes seconds; entry to Kazakhstan is past a cabin with two windows, one for entry, one for exit. There seems however to be only one guard on duty so a moment of light relief as an outbound tour group chat with us across the fence while we wait for the guard to process an incoming van and driver.
Kazakhstan is vast and empty, one of the least densely populated countries on earth, with more sheep and cattle than people.
Our first Kazakhstan adventure is a short hike along the edge of the Charyn canyon; not quite the Grand Canyon but the deep red rift across the desert floor throws up some great views. Unfortunately, the temperature has dropped rapidly and a chill wind is blasting in from China, so no time to hang about. Second adventure a couple of hours later as the bus breaks down in the rain on the hard shoulder of the highway as night falls. Following instructions on his mobile phone, the driver has the engine compartment open and half the floor of the bus lifted. The passengers sit in good humoured silence and after only 40 minutes, back on the road. Some kind of transmission linkage or something.
And so, onto journey’s end, the flashy and rapidly growing city of Almaty. The highway in is lined with Vegas-style wedding halls. This is such big business, with weddings typically having up to 1,000 guests. New shopping malls, sports venues and giant car showrooms, particularly for Chinese brands, are springing up like mushrooms overnight.
Kazakhstan is, by some margin, the most westernised and seemingly liberal of the five Stans. 135 nations live together in reasonable harmony and the government is keen to promote bilateral relations with both east and West. Russia may still be eyeing it up for “expansion” but China has told them to keep off in no uncertain terms. The population was roughly halved in the last century, first by Stalin’s policy of collectivisation of agriculture and the subsequent famine, then by the “Great Patriotic War” (WW2) and the Afghan war, so Russia is not popular. Our hotel is something of a local landmark, the Soviet-era 26-story Hotel Kazakhstan, in which none of the rooms are square and nothing quite works. Forty types of pastry and fruit for breakfast, but nowhere to get a cup of coffee.
A quick ride up the cable car to Kok Tobe for a panoramic view over the city completes our tour. Tomorrow, a 24-hour of travelling to get home.
Five countries in two weeks, travelling over 2,500 kilometres, has had its moments. We spoke to someone on the plane back to the UK who had been on a tour of just three countries, which sounded a bit less gruelling. Still from the marble madness of Ashgabat, through the Silk Road sights of Uzbekistan and the mountains and lakes of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the nearest to western democracy in Kazakhstan, we have seen and learnt a lot. And greatly enjoyed the company of our group of fellow travellers. Now where next.....?
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