The Talgo
This post is the beginning of a four-part series covering my railroad journey between Almaty and Astana.
The Talgo - Балхаш - The Future - 15 hours in Aktogay
Before we depart:
What is the best way to learn a new language? College courses? Tutoring? The latest mobile app? Have you considered spending fifteen hours on a train with strangers through the Kazakh steppe? Ok, that’s extreme. Apart from exposing you to an underrepresented region of our world, my motive for this journey fully embraces the immersive side of language learning. One that empowers us to step away from textbooks and flashcards sitting on our desks. Language learning requires putting ourselves in the native speaker’s environment. Interactions with a shopkeeper, train conductor, or restaurant server are opportunities to grow closer to others and their culture. Developing these relationships will create comfort in a new environment and with the language learning process. It becomes less daunting as we seek to find any opportunity to connect.
The real challenges in this exciting journey reside within us. Throughout the journey, we may feel pressure to reject the local language by switching to our native tongue. Personal fears of humiliation, social anxiety, and overcoming culture shock may interrupt our will to keep learning. As a result, we close ourselves off from the environment around us. We begin to miss opportunities to grow and make human connections. But I promise you, the language learning process is rewarding and memorable when you jump back in and embrace the people.
After my first trip to Central Asia in 2022, embracing the people and their culture led to building stamina with the Russian language. To explain, I only spoke Russian in the comfort of a classroom. I rarely interacted in Russian in a different setting. I struggled to maintain basic conversations in my first week in Central Asia. My listening skills suffered the most, but I learned to look for repeating words and phrases. For instance, I understood the type of conversation that would play out in the taxi. Friendly taxi drivers asked the same questions: “What is America like? Do you like our country? What is your favorite Kyrgyz food?” Similar conversations with others begin to flow more easily over time. Words and phrases became suddenly faster to find inside the mental Russian dictionary stored in my head. As a result, my stamina with the language strengthened after a few weeks. I felt more connected to the people and the environment around me.
Maintaining stamina with the language will disappear if you stop learning. Reciting words in Russian became difficult while living back home in an English-speaking environment. Pages went missing from the mental Russian dictionary in my head. But I knew how to live and interact in a Russian-speaking environment. The missing pages were not in my Russian textbook sitting on my desk. They were in my conversations with native speakers in train wagons and dilapidated Soviet towns between the two largest cities in Kazakhstan. A solo trip embarking upon Kazakhstan’s vast Temir Zholy railway was my ticket to reviving my Russian language stamina again.
This four-part series will expose you to Kazakhstan’s contrasting cities and remote landscapes. Observe life along the railroad through the window of a Talgo train and find tranquility in a lakeside town struggling to build a new identity. Discover a futuristic capital city in the north where its architecture exceeds reality. Find refuge in an abandoned Soviet Army barrack while the next train arrives for extraction. Join me as I continue my mission to bring this underrepresented region of the world closer to you. поехали!
Choosing the Route
Western media rarely cover this region. This trip was my opportunity to provide coverage of the nation’s rural landscape and small-town life. The distance between Almaty and Astana is roughly 700 miles. Driving the M-36 highway by car takes around fifteen to thirty hours. The most direct route by train is also a fifteen to thirty-hour journey around the western side of Lake Balkash and into the northern Kazakh steppes. I took an interest in traveling this route to visit the lakeside town of Priozersk. Priozersk’s history is known for Soviet missile testing. Like others throughout the post-Soviet sphere, Priozersk was a closed city. Its status as a closed city today is loosely acknowledged and caused me to feel hesitant about entering without authorization. Would I have been fine? Yes, however, I did not have time allotted for my trip to take the chance.
Using Google Earth, I searched for another lakeside town to explore. I stumbled upon Balkhash, a mining town founded by the Soviets in the early 1930’s. Few people have taken 360-degree photographs here, uploading them to Google for Soviet history fanatics like myself to catch a small glimpse into this remote town. I planned to stay for two nights without any real expectations.
There is no direct route to Balkhash from Almaty via train. I decided to travel the eastern route along a stretch of the Turkestan-Siberian railway. Aktogay, a small village with a massive open-pit mining operation, would be my connection to Balkhash. Afterward, I would venture north to Astana, the futuristic capital city.
The fastest routes between Almaty and Astana
Алматы 2
I spent four days in Almaty completing some internship work in the hotel lobby and exploring the city in the afternoons. Almaty’s walkable streets and posh restaurant scene fueled my enjoyment the most. But I was about to experience a different part of the country; One without many of the comforts of a modern city. In the next twenty-four hours, my living situation would go from ordering room service to sleeping on the ground of a platform as industrial trains whooshed through the local junction. This was my official last week in college. Room service felt like an appropriate way to celebrate.
Navigating through Almaty 2 train station is a breeze. Security measures are much more relaxed with rail travel. I sent my bag through the X-ray machine and walked through the metal detectors in under thirty seconds. Luckily, my train was on the first platform. This was my first time taking the train alone. I felt nervous about navigating the railway successfully.
The passenger coaches pictured above are designed by the Spanish manufacturer, Talgo. The company also designs several inner-city and high-speed train models for railways across America, Europe, and Central Asia. Kazakhstan’s rolling stock is locally manufactured in Astana.
I boarded wagon seven to find my second-class cabin. I paid twenty dollars for a single bed in a four-person cabin. The cleanliness was reassuring and welcoming. The length of the bed provided me enough room to stretch my legs while storing my bag on the end. There is one 220V outlet above a small table with storage space underneath the beds. The end of each hallway usually has a cold and hot water jug for making tea. A single-toilet lavatry is also at the end of the wagon.
Leaving Almaty 2 Station an hour past the scheduled departure
I met two other passengers in my room: Aida, an elderly woman traveling to Semey near the Russian border, and a younger man, Bek, commuting from Almaty to work at the KAZ mineral facility in Aktogay. He brought with him a tool bag and a smaller backpack. I conversed with them in Russian discussing my travels around Kyrgyzstan and my interests in the different regions of Kazakhstan. They did not speak any English. Communicating my thoughts in Russian was fun until I could no longer find the verbs I needed to continue telling my story. I wanted to use my translating app but the Talgo wifi was inoperable and cell service coverage was extremely slow and essentially nonexistent once we departed from Almaty. This was the experience I was looking for and it was challenging everything I knew about the Russian language.
We arrived at Almaty 1 station located in the city's northern suburbs. Local vendors immediately boarded the train to sell their apples and apricots. A woman holding a large bag of apricots in front of her face knocked on my cabin door. I jumped out of my bunk to negotiate the price of a single apricot. She was determined to win big by selling me the whole bag. I simply restated my interest in buying one apricot but before I could finish my sentence she was dumping an entire bucket of apricots into a bag. I agreed and exchanged roughly five dollars for twenty apricots. She jumped over to the next cabin to sell another dozen. I was so confused. Why did I have this many? I realized I had just purchased snacks to hold me over until the morning. Two apricots for every hour of this trip.
Bek (far right) standing on the platform with another gentleman while the apricot vendor takes a break from selling.
Chinese manufactured CKD6E Diesel Locomotive
Views of the Zailiysky Allatau mountain range slowly disappearing behind the layer of smog.
This is a grain storage facility in Zholoman village located in the Jetisu Region. Although abandoned, it is a reminder of the economic policies created in the late twenties under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The Soviets were vastly behind the modernizing Western countries at the time. Stalin’s five-year plans sought to play catch up through rapid industrialization. The agricultural sector was collectivized to quickly mass-produce food for the industrializing cities such as Moscow. Traditionally nomadic Kazakhs were forcibly placed into collective farms. This came at a cost to millions of people working on these farms. The Kazakh people suffered death and starvation through a series of famines during the early 1930’s.
The link below summarizes part of this Soviet legacy in Kazakhstan.
According to Google Earth, the storage facility was connected to the railroad. The tracks seem to have been removed years after the facility's abandonment. A regional cellphone provider could have acquired the building. The tallest point of the building currently hosts a handful of cellphone receptors.
There is a restaurant aboard the train serving traditional Kazakh and Russian cuisine. Food is priced at around five dollars. I walked into the restaurant car to find the conductors playing a game of cards. A large man approached me and casually placed a menu on my table. He was out of uniform but I respected his decision to choose a more comfortable outfit for a long journey. The final stop for this train is twenty-six hours away from Almaty. He quickly asked if I was ready to order right away. I awkwardly skimmed the menu and ordered my usual go-to Central Asian dish: plov and a cup of black tea.
My friend Bek walked into the restaurant car. He was still rubbing his eyes open from a nap. I invited him to sit down with me and ordered my second go-to dish: Laghman, a traditional Uyghur dish consisting of noodles with beef. Bek was skeptical of the quality of the noodles once the conductor placed the dish in front of us. I told him nothing could beat that plate of Laghman I had in Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan last year. He laughed as if I was joking and insisted that he would show me the best Laghman spot in Almaty.
At first glance, Saryozek seems like another farming village along the railway. These places began to look the same after passing through so many. Like the previous village of Zholoman, the center of Saryozek was home to a large grain storage facility before being demolished a few years ago.
Saryozek’s Cold War history sets this town apart from others in the region. There are a couple of abandoned Soviet missile sites scattered in the surrounding hills. These remote sites once siloed various SS-12 and SS-23 missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
In the late 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union carried out the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty to forward the reduction of their nuclear arms. As a result, the adjacent military base in Saryozek acted as an elimination facility. The missiles were then detonated under U.S. observance. Today the former silos are nothing more than hollow concrete caves buried beneath the hills.
After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan had a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons sitting on its territory. Kazakhstan wanted nothing to do with them after witnessing the horrors of nuclear weapons testing for decades. Just a few hours north of Saryozek is the Semipalatinsk test site. 456 nuclear devices were tested by the Soviets during the Cold War. Today, nearby residents living in and around the test site continue to deal with the generational effects caused by radioactive contamination. Kazakhstan handed over all remaining nuclear devices to Russia after gaining independence and and continues to maintain a strong position on denuclearization.
Photos: (1) Yuriy Kuydin, (2) U.S Dept. of State, (3) CIA map
Check out my sources below.
Ainabulak village is where the Turkestan-Siberian (Turksib) railroad conjoined from two sides in 1930. Construction of the railroad began in 1927. More than 50,000 people contributed to the success of this engineering marvel that connects Central Asia to Siberia.
Ushtobe Station
The vendor above is selling dried fish. I love the salty taste despite its horrible smell. I once bought a dried fish at Lake Issyk-Kul for my host family in Bishkek. It is customary to buy a fish after vacationing at the lake. However, the smell lingered around my train cabin. I don’t think the Frenchmen seated across from me enjoyed my company after a short while.
A commercial train rushes by in the opposite direction.
Lepsi Station
Many of these small villages are home to railroad workers or employees of Kaz Minerals. Below, a gentlemen in an orange vest walks back to his home after working a shift somewhere along the track.
Passengers filled the hallways of their wagon to watch the Tatooine sun disappear over the semi-desert landscape of Kazakhstan.
Bek and I began to prepare our bags for arrival to Aktogay Station. I told him my next train departs at one in the morning. “Do not leave the station. It is dangerous at night!” he said. Bek suggested I stay near the station with all of the vendors selling snacks and drinks. I thought about the event of a drunk man picking a fight with me. Drunkards didn’t bother me but a group of thieves willing to shake me down for my camera certainly influenced my decision to not wonder the town at night.
Aktogay Station
A small convenience store
Bek and I departed the train into a sea of passengers walking on the platform. He rushed to a large Mercedes van prepared to transport workers to the open pit copper mine nearby. They work for weeks or months at a time. They live onsite until their contract is complete.
The smell of charcoal burning in a nearby grill filled the crisp air. Small shops filled with sugared drinks and snacks stretched out along the platform. I was hungry and tired of eating apricots. An elderly woman yelled, “Manti-Pirogi-Manti…” I silently watched her shout over the passengers walking on the platform. Manti sounded good after hearing the word over and over. She plopped some in a plastic bag after I handed her 1500 Tenge ($4.50).
I sat along the exterior wall of the station to relax in the nighttime breeze. The boredom kicked in. The local activity was nothing I wasn’t used to at this point. A drunk man walked in from the dark edges of town. His feet stumbled around the unfinished stone walkway as he demanded passengers give him enough money for another round. I struggled to make out his intoxicated Russian slang. Eventually, the local policeman on duty directed him back into the darkness. Aktogay station seemed like the best place for locals to hang out. A group of men in janky old cars rushed out of the darkness. They blasted their Kazakh rap playlist from the speakers of their car while smoking cigarettes.
I spent the next three hours wondering if my train would arrive on time. I listened to a lady muffle out arrival information over the station’s loudspeaker. The information is relayed in Kazakh and Russian five or ten minutes before each arrival. This was the ultimate listening test. Much harder than any listening section on my college Russian exams.
I moved to the platform to photograph a few trains noticing the amount of dead grasshoppers strewn out all over the place. They must have been stepped on by passengers or died attempting to jump out of the way of a train. The grasshoppers are friendly here and enjoy sitting on my shoulder. It probably would have boarded the train with me. I guess my height gave him a sense of safety from the dangers found near the ground. I am six foot btw…jk
The local police conversing on the platform noticed me sitting alone on the ground surrounded by dead grasshoppers. They asked why I wasn’t waiting inside the station away from the cold. I didn’t have much of an answer other than holding up my camera to show them I was taking photos. I showed them recent photos from Almaty and they appreciated my work.
Suddenly, the lady on the loudspeaker muffled my train number. A policeman signaled for me to follow him climbing through the doors of another train to reach the platform on the far side of the station. The noisy squeaks of train wagons finally rolled through the junction. Not a single light was on inside the wagons. I thanked the policeman for his help and quietly followed the conductor into the dark hallways of the sleeper wagon. The darkness inside the cabin offered me some much-needed sleep after sitting outside all night. I was now on to the next part of the trip I anticipated the most, Balkhash.
The six-hour journey from Aktogay to Balkhash consisted of cocooning myself in a narrow bunk as my Soviet train wagon scampered by more abandoned military bases, open pit mines, and small villages. The squeaking and wobbling of my wagon rocked me to sleep. Men tossed and turned in their top bunks while mothers sitting below patiently soothed their children back to sleep. Towards the end of the ride, the early sun began to illuminate the tiresome faces around me. Occasionally, I checked my location on the phone, but its accuracy was spotty. I truly felt far away from everything. Distant from everyone in my life.