Travelling in Kazakhstan – Part 2

It’s four o’clock in the morning and I head to the train station. There’s very little traffic on the street. I extend my arm and a car pulls in. This is quite a normal way to travel in the countries of the former Soviet Union – every car is a taxi here. I negotiate a price – a few euros to the “Vokzal” – the train station where I buy the first ticket to Shchuchinsk, the city nearest to the resort. It was an open coach. Ok, so I’ll suck it up for the next six hours, I say, and in half and hour I’m already sitting on the train, on my way to the province. I booked a hostel in the city beforehand and it’s located only 500 metres from the train station. It’s also the city’s only hostel, so, if you don’t want to overpay the hotels in the health resort, it’s your only option to get cheap accommodation. I use Google Maps and arrive at the hostel, being the only tourist in the city, and in a room with 20 bunkbeds. And you need to take off your shoes before entering. It’s a Kazakhstani tradition. A kind young girl at the reception checks me into the system (which they also inherited from the Russians) and then I’m free to choose my bed and head out to explore the city.

Shchuchinsk – a provincial city in the former Soviet Union

Old Soviet blocks of flats and shops everywhere, just like in the socialist period. I’m transported back to those forgotten Soviet times. I find a “restaurant” on the ground floor of one of the blocks of flats – “stolovaya” as it’s called, or canteen in English. I order the pelmeni – Russian dumplings made of potato dough – and some local beer. Things here cost less than one euro. I continue looking for the bus station and the bus that will take me to the resort. After walking for about a kilometre through the forgotten city of the former Soviet Union, I find the bus station and wait for the first bus bound to Burabay.

Burabay – the pinnacle of Kazakhstani spa tourism

After an hour’s bus ride through an endless and dense forest of pine trees – and only pine trees, as I couldn’t see any other plants – it became clear to me where the place got its name. You can feel the smell of the “sea” in the air and it already feels more like summer. I’m enjoying the Kazakhstani “seaside” in late May, yay! I head to the lake and find a two-hour boat tour of the lake. Okay then, let’s do some sightseeing. In the company of a Russian family, I embark on a boat ride. There’s beautiful nature all around us with very peculiar mountains and, of course, the forest. Everyone’s relaxed and there’s Russian music blaring on the boat – really like going back to the Soviet times.

We arrive at the city’s most famous rock that is reminiscent of some “Soviet woman” statue and it really does look more like a monument than a natural formation. The boat takes us to a few more bays where we can admire the local nature, interesting rocky hills and the local vegetation.

I return to the city and take the bus back to Shchuchinsk. On my way back to the hostel, I meet a few more locals who play chess in front of their block of flats. Only the elderly and young children remain in the city. Everyone else went to the capital to study or work there. The city is falling apart and remains only but a memory of the once powerful Soviet Union. It’s all falling apart now, sadly.

I decide that it’s time to change my location and head to the east of the country to Ust-Kamenogorsk, or Oskemen in Kazakh. There’s a ten-hour night ride ahead and, since all sleepers were booked, I’ll have to make it through the night in a seat. You can read more about my adventure in the third part of the travelogue.