Kazakhstan Tour Services
Kazakhstan officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country in Eurasia ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 sq. km is greater than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. The capital was moved in 1997 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.
Vast in size, the terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.2 million people (2010 census). Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.).
For most of its history, the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan has been inhabited by nomadic tribes. By the 16th century the Kazakhs emerged as a distinct group, divided into three hordes. The Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century all of Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times before becoming the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, a part of the USSR. During the 20th century, Kazakhstan was the site of major Soviet projects, including Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign, the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and the Semipalatinsk "Polygon", the USSR's primary nuclear weapon testing site.
Kazakhstan declared itself an independent country on December 16, 1991, the last Soviet republic to do so. Its communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country's new president. Since independence, Kazakhstan has pursued a balanced foreign policy and worked to develop its economy, especially its hydrocarbon industry. While the country's economic outlook is improving, President Nazarbayev maintains strict control over the country's politics. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan's international prestige is building. It is now considered to be the dominant state in Central Asia. The country is a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, NATO's Partnership for Peace, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In 2010, Kazakhstan is chairing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Kazakhstan is ethnically and culturally diverse, in part due to mass deportations of many ethnic groups to the country during Stalin's rule. Kazakhs are the largest group. Kazakhstan has 131 nationalities including Kazakh, Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek and Tatar. It has a population of 16.0 million, of whom around 63% percent are Kazakhs.
Kazakhstan allows freedom of religion, and many different beliefs are represented in the country. Islam is the primary religion. The Kazakh language is the state language, while Russian is also officially used as an "equal" language (to Kazakh) in Kazakhstan's institutions.
This is Kazakhstan's "other" airline--surely a throwback to the Aeroflot era. It's listed in Lonely Planet, and there is a web site, but the site is in Russian only. Using a list of cities written in Cyrillic, it's possible to puzzle out the schedule, but its not possible to make a reservation on line. The temptation might be to just turn to Air Astana, with its modern English web site and on-line reservation system, but there was real money to be saved here, so I persisted. With the helpful assistance of David Berghof of Stantours in Almaty, I was able to pu rchase tickets for my two flights, from Shymkent to Aktau and from Aktau to Astana; however, neither reservations nor ticket purchases were available until about a month before the actual flights.
Shymkent and Aktau are small airports, and it took the Shymkent staff some time to find the one employee who spoke some English.; however, everyone was extremely helpful. The agent told me that a Yak-42 had been substituted for the originally scheduled prop-driven AN-24 and that the departure would be four hours later but that the faster plane would make up for it. This wasn't , strictly speaking, true, but we did arrive only a couple of hours late, and I was on vacation, so what the heck? The plane bore a striking resemblance to the old Boeing-727 and showed its age, but I saw nothing that provoked anxiety. The seat pitch was undoubtedly the shallowest I have encountered in my many travels, but the dinner was good and the portions extremely generous. The flight attendant also spoke at least a bit of English. The second flight a few days later went off without a hitch on the same aircraft. This is not travel for those who want a conventional or luxury experience, but it was interesting and I managed to save several hundred dollars with only minor inconvenience and experience air travel as the locals experience it. It's also a lot better than a two-day train trip across the endless steppe and desert (Kazaklhstan is a very big place!) Unless you speak Russian, you're going to need the help of David or someone like him, but his fee was modest and his service good.