Kazakhstan is a landlocked petrostate, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are poor shitholerinos with nothing to offer, Turkmenistan is a sillier North Korea and Afghanistan is a based Taliban-controlled globohomosexual asskicker.
Uzbekistan is where you want to go, they're rapidly modernizing while having Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in the world
>Kazakhstan
Most well-off country of them all, basically two cities and then a whole bunch of nothing. >Uzbekistan
Tashkent is clearly a soviet city but I thought it had more charm than others I've been to. There's some decent traditional style architecture around the city. Samarkand and Bukhara's old towns are always busy with tourists. >Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek and Osh are typical soviet cities, outside of them it's basically just amazing nature. >Turkmenistan
Ashgabat is basically a personal project of the previous presidents of the country. Outside of that there's the gate to hell and ancient sites like Merv. You can only go on a tour though, I'm pretty sure transit visas which allowed you to travel independently for a few days aren't being issued as of now. >Tajikistan
Haven't been, from what I've heard it's a bit dodgy in the south compared to the rest of the countries. >Afghanistan
Who doesn't know at this point? I know SighSee hates him but an Anglo guy went to Afghanistan with Miles about a year back and uploaded the trip on YouTube and it was pretty interesting.
What said is mostly true, I'd say the nature in Kyrgyzstan is definitely worth it though. If you're gonna pick one to visit, visit Uzbekistan. It has the most tourist infrastructure out of all of them, while not being ruined by mass tourism (yet), and the most interesting sites (except Afghanistan, but for obvious reasons it's less accessible)
>Kazakhstan is a landlocked petrostate, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are poor shitholerinos with nothing to offer, Turkmenistan is a sillier North Korea and Afghanistan is a based Taliban-controlled globohomosexual asskicker.
Uzbekistan is where you want to go, they're rapidly modernizing while having Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in the world
There's 2 rivers which flow from the Western Himalayas into the Aral Sea - the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. It's basically the Mesopotamia of Central Asia.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan = highlands with beautiful nature. Tajikistan is on a very pourous Afghan border, though, and is basically warlord country as far as I'm aware. Kyrgyzstan is beautiful. The Austria of Central Asia.
Get a little further downstrream and you've got the Furgana Valley, which is the most fertile land which everybody wants and fights over. Look at the map, it's topkek, with borders within borders within exclaves within enclaves. Tashkent is here.
A little further down you've got "Transoxiana" (between the rivers), where the ancient kingdom of Sogdia is (Samarkand and Bukhara).
Further downstream it passes through desert. Soviets and Muslims are morons, and diverted everything into cotton, so the river starts losing steam. The Afghans want to build a canal upstream to get free gibs from the river, too, which will frick things up more.
Out in the desert is Merv, which is a holy city which made steel in the desert, similar to Jerusalem.
Finally, as you get closer to the Aral Sea, shit starts dying and there's frick all there.
I'd love to do a journey up/down the river(s) one day.
Imagine destroying the entire landscape of your country and making it uninhabitable for 200 years just for cotton, ehich is so cheap growers can barely afford to grow it
I was born in this region, nothing too interesting happens here. A lot of Russians here now because they are scared of being drafted kek but didn't they vote for Putin?
Some questions: >Do people here think of the region (Transoxiana) as being comparable to Mesopotamia >Are Karakalpaks kino? >Do people feel any connection to their Greek heritage? >Do people treat the death of the Aral Sea seriously, or do people not give a frick? >Will there be conflict with Afghanistan over water, as I hear they want to divert the Amu Darya >Are Tajiks all gangster warlords with shady businesses gun-running and opium dealing over the Afghan border? >Will there be any conflict over the frickiers of the border in the Furgana Valley a la Azerbaijan/Armenia in the near fuure (i.e. can you feel US, Chink, Iranian and Russian hands making moves)?
You're only allowed to say that if you've been to all of them.
There's a bunch to do in khazakstan but people are put off by the laughable distances between these things.
Lots of stuff actually, the Russian backpackers know it far better than western backpackers.
It's slow travel territory. >national parks, mountains, deserts >soviet cities full of Middle Eastern stuff >industrial wastelands >top tier archaeology >about 20 ethnic enclaves >leftover cold war military shit >turkmenisan, the monty python camelot of eurasia. Nothing sensible has ever happened in turkmenistan >scattering of Islamic/chechen terror activity >rural substance abuse, inbred Russian peasants >really nice baked goods >really nice lakes >women rarely seen outside
I might go back
Anyone ever do the Pamir Highway? Did Uzbekistan, and want to go through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan if the flights are decent. Thinking about doing it in August, and hopefully see some buzkashi. I'd prefer to do it more Real Traveler™ rather than book a package tour if I do it.
Yes. Drove from Dushanbe to Osh via the Wakhan Valley in 2017 and did a bit of a loop through part of Kyrgyzstan cause we had extra time with the car. Watched a buzkashi match at Song Kul but I think it was staged for a Dragoman group that happened to be there. Still cool though.
Do you need much in the way of hiking fitness for a trip on the pamir highway? I'm in ok shape but it gives me the impression that it can take a toll on you.
Not if you're just sitting in the car most of the time. You'll feel the altitude even if you're just setting up camp for the night but you can't train for that. If you're doing anything more than day treks then yes, you'll need to start getting in shape.
Is hitchhiking a viable way to get from place to place? I don't think I'd want to drive in a foreign country, or pay a shit ton of money for a package tour.
It depends on the country anon but in former USSR places very often trying to get to a taxi results in random drivers offering you a ride. It would help to understand some local language (or at least Russian) because they will either refuse or take you based on where you're going and will want paid something for taking you.
Oh I don't mind paying (cash, grass, or ass), I just don't want to book a tour. It seems cool (in theory) to hitch a ride with some truck driver plying the route. I"m not a begpacker, per se but I just figure if I'm going to travel out the ass end of nowhere, I should do it Real Traveller™ style.
Shared taxis are another option between bigger destinations if you don't have the spare time for hitchhiking. If you do hitchhike you should offer something in the way of compensation for sure. We picked up several hitchhikers while driving the route. Wouldn't take money from the locals but the three Europeans we picked up were aghast that we asked for gas money. The French guy got into a screaming match with us over $20 for a three day ride and the Czech couple jumped out of the car in the outskirts of Osh and ran off rather than give us the equivalent of $10.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Fricking Europoors. I could definitely spend $20 USD from place to place. I think I'd stick to the "bigger destinations. I'd do Kyrgystan and Tajikistan in a three week span if I were to go.
6 months ago
Anonymous
Oh god I remeber that fight over and over >one couple rents a car >only way to really get around >They're beset by european backpackers >backpackers constantly try to avoid paying for petrol and/ or share of rental >still half the price of local taxi
Like heads up, if you want to go to a remote place with no mass tourism, there's no mass transportation. It costs money to travel.
6 months ago
Anonymous
top kek I'm not surprised. I have never in my entire life heard of anyone paying a single cent to hitchhike in Europe. It's commonly understood to be a completely free thing done out of courtesy because you were going there anyway, paying for lifts is strictly a barbarian poorgay thirdie thing. They were likely suffering from heavy shock that a white face would treat them exactly like a local.
Same in China, ride sharing is the norm there so upside is anyone will give you a ride, downside is everyone expects the taxi fare because that's normal- why should you the rich tourist get a free taxi ride in their car?
It depends on the country anon but in former USSR places very often trying to get to a taxi results in random drivers offering you a ride. It would help to understand some local language (or at least Russian) because they will either refuse or take you based on where you're going and will want paid something for taking you.
mentioned, hitchhiking in the FSU is often understood to be paid, even if the drivers aren't professionals.
This means that even if you're picked up by a random family, you might be expected to pay some money to cover costs.
You can avoid any surprises by saying "no money" or similar in Russian, which will either lead to a free ride or negotiations, both more relaxed than the uncertainty otherwise.
Even if you're riding for free, it's good manners to help out, e.g. by buying tea/water at a rest stop or giving out small things like candy from your home.
Kazakhstan is a landlocked petrostate, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are poor shitholerinos with nothing to offer, Turkmenistan is a sillier North Korea and Afghanistan is a based Taliban-controlled globohomosexual asskicker.
Uzbekistan is where you want to go, they're rapidly modernizing while having Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in the world
>Kazakhstan
Most well-off country of them all, basically two cities and then a whole bunch of nothing.
>Uzbekistan
Tashkent is clearly a soviet city but I thought it had more charm than others I've been to. There's some decent traditional style architecture around the city. Samarkand and Bukhara's old towns are always busy with tourists.
>Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek and Osh are typical soviet cities, outside of them it's basically just amazing nature.
>Turkmenistan
Ashgabat is basically a personal project of the previous presidents of the country. Outside of that there's the gate to hell and ancient sites like Merv. You can only go on a tour though, I'm pretty sure transit visas which allowed you to travel independently for a few days aren't being issued as of now.
>Tajikistan
Haven't been, from what I've heard it's a bit dodgy in the south compared to the rest of the countries.
>Afghanistan
Who doesn't know at this point? I know SighSee hates him but an Anglo guy went to Afghanistan with Miles about a year back and uploaded the trip on YouTube and it was pretty interesting.
What said is mostly true, I'd say the nature in Kyrgyzstan is definitely worth it though. If you're gonna pick one to visit, visit Uzbekistan. It has the most tourist infrastructure out of all of them, while not being ruined by mass tourism (yet), and the most interesting sites (except Afghanistan, but for obvious reasons it's less accessible)
what sites are more interesting in afghanistan?
>Kazakhstan is a landlocked petrostate, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are poor shitholerinos with nothing to offer, Turkmenistan is a sillier North Korea and Afghanistan is a based Taliban-controlled globohomosexual asskicker.
Uzbekistan is where you want to go, they're rapidly modernizing while having Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in the world
There's 2 rivers which flow from the Western Himalayas into the Aral Sea - the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. It's basically the Mesopotamia of Central Asia.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan = highlands with beautiful nature. Tajikistan is on a very pourous Afghan border, though, and is basically warlord country as far as I'm aware. Kyrgyzstan is beautiful. The Austria of Central Asia.
Get a little further downstrream and you've got the Furgana Valley, which is the most fertile land which everybody wants and fights over. Look at the map, it's topkek, with borders within borders within exclaves within enclaves. Tashkent is here.
A little further down you've got "Transoxiana" (between the rivers), where the ancient kingdom of Sogdia is (Samarkand and Bukhara).
Further downstream it passes through desert. Soviets and Muslims are morons, and diverted everything into cotton, so the river starts losing steam. The Afghans want to build a canal upstream to get free gibs from the river, too, which will frick things up more.
Out in the desert is Merv, which is a holy city which made steel in the desert, similar to Jerusalem.
Finally, as you get closer to the Aral Sea, shit starts dying and there's frick all there.
I'd love to do a journey up/down the river(s) one day.
Sounds interesting. I'd like to learn more. Any good books on the region?
Imagine destroying the entire landscape of your country and making it uninhabitable for 200 years just for cotton, ehich is so cheap growers can barely afford to grow it
I was born in this region, nothing too interesting happens here. A lot of Russians here now because they are scared of being drafted kek but didn't they vote for Putin?
>didn't they vote for Putin?
Don't think any of them did, they're mostly liberal homosexuals from big cities.
Some questions:
>Do people here think of the region (Transoxiana) as being comparable to Mesopotamia
>Are Karakalpaks kino?
>Do people feel any connection to their Greek heritage?
>Do people treat the death of the Aral Sea seriously, or do people not give a frick?
>Will there be conflict with Afghanistan over water, as I hear they want to divert the Amu Darya
>Are Tajiks all gangster warlords with shady businesses gun-running and opium dealing over the Afghan border?
>Will there be any conflict over the frickiers of the border in the Furgana Valley a la Azerbaijan/Armenia in the near fuure (i.e. can you feel US, Chink, Iranian and Russian hands making moves)?
Implying voting is actually a method by which positions of power are filled
Only kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are worth visiting
You're only allowed to say that if you've been to all of them.
There's a bunch to do in khazakstan but people are put off by the laughable distances between these things.
Child slaves pick your cotton
the tian shan traverse
Lots of stuff actually, the Russian backpackers know it far better than western backpackers.
It's slow travel territory.
>national parks, mountains, deserts
>soviet cities full of Middle Eastern stuff
>industrial wastelands
>top tier archaeology
>about 20 ethnic enclaves
>leftover cold war military shit
>turkmenisan, the monty python camelot of eurasia. Nothing sensible has ever happened in turkmenistan
>scattering of Islamic/chechen terror activity
>rural substance abuse, inbred Russian peasants
>really nice baked goods
>really nice lakes
>women rarely seen outside
I might go back
Anyone ever do the Pamir Highway? Did Uzbekistan, and want to go through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan if the flights are decent. Thinking about doing it in August, and hopefully see some buzkashi. I'd prefer to do it more Real Traveler™ rather than book a package tour if I do it.
Yes. Drove from Dushanbe to Osh via the Wakhan Valley in 2017 and did a bit of a loop through part of Kyrgyzstan cause we had extra time with the car. Watched a buzkashi match at Song Kul but I think it was staged for a Dragoman group that happened to be there. Still cool though.
Do you need much in the way of hiking fitness for a trip on the pamir highway? I'm in ok shape but it gives me the impression that it can take a toll on you.
Not if you're just sitting in the car most of the time. You'll feel the altitude even if you're just setting up camp for the night but you can't train for that. If you're doing anything more than day treks then yes, you'll need to start getting in shape.
Is hitchhiking a viable way to get from place to place? I don't think I'd want to drive in a foreign country, or pay a shit ton of money for a package tour.
It depends on the country anon but in former USSR places very often trying to get to a taxi results in random drivers offering you a ride. It would help to understand some local language (or at least Russian) because they will either refuse or take you based on where you're going and will want paid something for taking you.
Oh I don't mind paying (cash, grass, or ass), I just don't want to book a tour. It seems cool (in theory) to hitch a ride with some truck driver plying the route. I"m not a begpacker, per se but I just figure if I'm going to travel out the ass end of nowhere, I should do it Real Traveller™ style.
Shared taxis are another option between bigger destinations if you don't have the spare time for hitchhiking. If you do hitchhike you should offer something in the way of compensation for sure. We picked up several hitchhikers while driving the route. Wouldn't take money from the locals but the three Europeans we picked up were aghast that we asked for gas money. The French guy got into a screaming match with us over $20 for a three day ride and the Czech couple jumped out of the car in the outskirts of Osh and ran off rather than give us the equivalent of $10.
Fricking Europoors. I could definitely spend $20 USD from place to place. I think I'd stick to the "bigger destinations. I'd do Kyrgystan and Tajikistan in a three week span if I were to go.
Oh god I remeber that fight over and over
>one couple rents a car
>only way to really get around
>They're beset by european backpackers
>backpackers constantly try to avoid paying for petrol and/ or share of rental
>still half the price of local taxi
Like heads up, if you want to go to a remote place with no mass tourism, there's no mass transportation. It costs money to travel.
top kek I'm not surprised. I have never in my entire life heard of anyone paying a single cent to hitchhike in Europe. It's commonly understood to be a completely free thing done out of courtesy because you were going there anyway, paying for lifts is strictly a barbarian poorgay thirdie thing. They were likely suffering from heavy shock that a white face would treat them exactly like a local.
Same in China, ride sharing is the norm there so upside is anyone will give you a ride, downside is everyone expects the taxi fare because that's normal- why should you the rich tourist get a free taxi ride in their car?
As
mentioned, hitchhiking in the FSU is often understood to be paid, even if the drivers aren't professionals.
This means that even if you're picked up by a random family, you might be expected to pay some money to cover costs.
You can avoid any surprises by saying "no money" or similar in Russian, which will either lead to a free ride or negotiations, both more relaxed than the uncertainty otherwise.
Even if you're riding for free, it's good manners to help out, e.g. by buying tea/water at a rest stop or giving out small things like candy from your home.
>kazakhstan
soviet mongolia
>kyrgyzstan
soviet xinjiang
>tajikistan
soviet persia
>turkmenistan
soviet turkey
>uzbekistan
soviet silk road
>afghanistan
sov-ACK
>soviet xinjiang
>lush country known for its huge lake is the soviet version of a desert region
As much as I love Kyrgyzstan, it's far too hot and overgrazed to qualify as lush. Could be lush, but it isn't.