A stopover in Shymkent, the third largest city of Kazakhstan

 


From Tashkent the trip to Shymkent was straight forward, and the customs officials didn't give me a hard time this time. Shymkent, the third largest city in Kazakhstan, is quite similar to Almaty in a sense that it is a typical Soviet city, but nicely upgraded and features a lot of nice restaurants, cafés, shops. It's not a too exciting place, though, with only a few mediocre attractions, like the fortress (citadel), some Soviet and newer Kazakh-style monuments, parks. For some reason, there are many English phone booths, with some sort of card-machine in them. The city's symbol is the tulip, as there is a wild variety that grows around the city, and you can see a tulip in the city's logo as well several tulip statues. Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit Shymkent's most characteristic landmark, a new mosque built on the outskirts. The real attractions are actually not in the city, but in the broader area and around Turkestan. But after Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, I didn't fancy to visit other, less-impressive Islamic buildings. Maybe another time.


































































































































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