2025-2026 Central Asia Adventure – Aktau Kazakhstan
Today’s Huntington’s Disease report is about the first identification of the disease. In 1872, George Huntington, a 22-year-old American doctor from Long Island, published a concise 1-page paper titled ‘On Chorea’ in The Medical and Surgical Reporter. With no lab, no genetics, and only his family’s 3-generation observations of “hereditary chorea” in East Hampton, he described the disease’s three hallmarks: involuntary jerking movements, mental decline, and strict inheritance from parent to child. His paper, written at his kitchen table, remains the most cited in HD history and gave the disorder its name. Over 150 years later, every HD diagnosis still traces back to those 219 words.
Hello from Aktau, the fourteenth stop on the trip, and Kazakhstan is now my 72st visited country. Aktau means “white mountain” in Kazakh, named after the cliffs overlooking the sea. Kazakhstan’s most famous resident may be Borat Sagdiyev, but after watching his two documentaries I now understand that he’s actually a fictional character. Initially, the Kazakh government denounced the first film as “offensive,” banning it in 2006 and launching a $100,000 counter-campaign to promote the real Kazakhstan. However, by 2020, Kazakhstan embraced the satire, creating tourism ads adopting Borat’s catchphrase “Very nice!” to highlight the country’s beauty and hospitality, turning a PR disaster into a clever rebrand.
Your standard country summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No. No Doritos AT ALL IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY!
– Spain & Wise Debit Cards Work: Yes
– Airalo Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– VPN Works: Flaky, likely government meddling on the Interwebs
– Cost of Living: $
– Currency: USD $1 ~ 540 Tenge, Euro â¬1 ~ 626 Tenge
– English Language Issues: Very little English with locals, Google Translate very helpful for conversation and printed text
– Language: Kazakh spoken by ~70% of the population, with fluent Russian at ~85%
– Government: Kassym-Jomart Tokayev runs the country as an authoritarian. He arrests opposition leaders, killed protesters using Russian troops. Freedom House rates Kazakhstan “Not Free” with a score of 9/100 due to limited political pluralism, media censorship, and corruption concerns.
Your Short History Lesson:
Kazakhstan is a vast Central Asian nation of 2.7 million km² and 20 million people, with a history shaped by nomadic empires, Silk Road trade, Russian conquest, and Soviet industrialization. Its capital is Astana with Almaty as the cultural hub. From 3000 BCE through the 18th Century the region was inhabited by Scythians and Turkic (distinct from Turkish) tribes, with the Kazakh Khanate unifying in 1465, but later fracturing again. By the 1860s, it was part of the Russian Empireâs Steppe Governorate, then became the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936. Stalinâs 1931-33 famine killed 1.5-2 million people via forced collectivization. Declared independence December 16, 1991, leading to authoritarian Democracies.
I came back to the hotel in Baku and got a Bolt taxi to the airport. Instead of picking me up at the hotel’s front door, the driver made me walk 100 meters to the main road. I got in then he circled the block in the direction of the airport and went right past the hotel! He cut off two women on a crosswalk, drove erratically and watched a music video on his phone on the highway. Yikes.
I went into Terminal 1 as instructed by Google and the airport’s own web site. I couldn’t see my flight or even the airline on the departure board! I asked at the info desk, she said my flight is in Terminal 2! Hmm, OK. I rolled across the parking lot half a kilometer away into T2. 4 people ahead of me at the checkin desk, 1 person ahead in security, nobody ahead at immigration. Fantastic! There was a big crowd of humanity trying to storm onto the plane so I waited in my chair until near the end and sat right down at the front in 2C, with nobody in B. Very quick up and down flight, just crossing northeast over the Caspian Sea. This is literally the only way to get from Baku to Kazakhstan – there are no scheduled ferries across the Caspian.
I immediately noticed a lot of Asian faces in the terminal, a big difference from the European look of people up to Baku. My immigration agent was the first one on the whole trip to ask a question – how long will you stay here? I told him 3 days here and then going east on the train. Stampy stamp in the passport and I’m in.
Everything is written in Cyrillic, this will be an ongoing problem for me not being able to read food descriptions, street names, etc. but Google Translate with the camera option works well.
There seemed to be no hotel listings here due to them all being shut down for low season so I booked a rental apartment. The property manager recommended I get a ride from the airport with StarTaxi. I found the booking desk and asked if the driver will have change from the big bills I just got from the ATM – no. So he walked me to the currency exchange booth and the woman nicely gave me small bills. With only a little bit of Google Maps confusion in the taxi, we pulled up right to the door to the apartment after a 30 minute ride. The airport and train station are WAY outside of this small city. The taxi driver didn’t have the change even for the small bills I gave him. The apartment manager was waiting for me, native Russian with good English. My apartment is huge – a full kitchen and table, laundry machine, tub/shower, master bedroom, second bedroom that could fit 6 people and large living room. I quickly get the idea that this city exists as a holiday destination for Russian families. I tried to pay her 30,000 for the 28,500 price but she didn’t have any change. This is the country of no change! The amount turned out to be $2.76 so I didn’t put up a fight.
I unpacked and walked out looking for groceries. Just outside my front door is a statue with a Soviet MIG-15 jet fighter, pretty cool. I walked along the main road paralleling the shoreline, nearly everything closed for the low season. Got some snacks for a ridiculously low price and there were NO DORITOS OF ANY KIND IN THE STORE. PANIC!
Apparently the country runs on the Yandex Go taxi system and its app but you have to register with a local Kazakh SIM card which I don’t have. Hey app developers – NEVER depend on your customers having a specific working local phone number or you’ll bone the tourists who going to be big users of your services!
The next morning I heeded Icelandic Edward’s advice to walk on “Rocky Trail”. It starts at the Caspian Riviera Grand Palace Hotel and goes south along the shoreline. It appears to be low tide, with lots of flowers and grasses, quite nice. The path eventually connects up with a wooden boardwalk, up and down, twisting to follow the cliffs, big rocks and avoiding the pounding surf. It’s a long, long walk of about 9000 steps. I got to the end at the southern tip and came inland, found the coastal rode and sat down in a bus stop. The bus came in 5 minutes, I held up 4 fingers to the driver signifying I’m going to the 4th Microdistrict. I offered a 500 note, he pointed me back into the bus. There’s a conductor lady who takes the 500 and gives me 400 change. That’s 100 tenge, or 16 Euro cents for a ride back to my place, sweet! Got off near my apartment, went into a coffee shop and had a chicken Caesar salad, mozzarella sticks and Coke Zero – completely full for 10 Euros.
Since this is a short stopover, I asked Grok how to get to the Aktau train station for my train in the morning. Everything is in Russian here and Google Maps is not working well trying to find things when I search in English for “Aktau Train Station”. Turns out it’s called Ðокзал ÐангиÑÑÐ°Ñ and is 35 minutes drive east of the city. My train is at 8:30am so I need to leave here about 7:30 am. Since I can’t use Yandex, Grok suggested inDrive and registration in the app worked the first time – take that Yandex! I’m looking ahead for a hotel at my next stop in Beyneu, but Booking.com and Agoda have no listings! I have never encountered that before. A general search identified the Arna hotel, walking distance from the train station and well-rated by backpackers but there no way to book it online. Hotel Aknur will be my desperation backup.
In the evening I walked down to the main road, then south, around to the end and back up, turned left at the Eternal Flame. I looked for a bus but they must be done for the day. That’s 18,000 steps for the day and my hip socket is telling me to dial it down!
Bottom line: Aktau is a summer holiday destination for families. The shoreline is nice but it’s a ghost town in October. For me it’s the gateway to enter Kazakhstan, get on the train and continue east, so a necessary evil.
Next stop: Beyneu Kazakhstan
