Wednesday, 2 September 2026

 

Start: Kurgan (RU) 8:45

Arrival: Petropavlovsk (KZ) 16:15

 

Total: 274 km

 

 

 

We're in Kazakhstan! We left our nice hotel Versal ("Versailles?") shortly before nine, and at noon, we were at the border. A line of trucks in one line and only four cars in a line next to them. We came to a standstill behind the last one. This should be quick and easy. Suddenly, the cars in front of us were wriggling about, moving into the mud at the wayside. What was going on? A large truck had just passed the checkpoint and was moving into our lane from across the border. We were all standing in the oncoming lane! "Don't put the car down that slope, it's way too steep and muddy", warned my sister. She was right, of course, but that truck had to pass by me somehow. With some backing up and to the side, the truck managed to squeeze by. Nail-bitingly close. After that, two more cars came in from the other side, and then the guard let our side pass across. So this was actually standard procedure? One tiny lane for both sides? Odd.

 

 

 

The cars from our side were all allowed into the passport control area together. There, we all had to get out, run into a building and wait in line to show our passports. That done, we ran back to the car, heaved all our stuff out and the Russian border police inspected the empty car. Looking for drugs, weapons, unmentionables? No one knows, in any case they were not interested in our luggage, so we hauled everything back in and proceeded to the Kazakh side.

 

There, the driver (me) had to leave the car, run to the front of the line and show the car's documents. At least that seemed to be the procedure, as everyone did this, after some asking around among ourselves. Or maybe our group had just made up the procedure on the spot. The whole thing felt a wee bit haphazard and improvised.

 

Then back to the car and wait for no-one-knows-what (the end of their lunch break, maybe). Again, all the cars were let in at once (luckily, this was a small border and there were less than a dozen vehicles waiting), then the run, if you were so inclined, we weren't, to be first in line in the passport control building.

 

The procedure each time took much longer for me than for Sonia. I gave them all the details (yes, first time in Kazakhstan, name a few towns you visited in Russia, name some stuff you will visit in Kazakhstan, no, we're not from Latvia, but from Luxembourg etc) and Sonia just ran under "das Gleiche in Blau for the syestra". Then back to the car, luggage out, open each suitcase, have them stare undecidedly for a minute at our clothes without actually looking under the topmost layer, everything back in (who needs a gym, we get our workout hauling stuff in and out of the trunk), the border guard whished us a good trip and off we went.

 

 

Or almost. Right behind the border, there were several booths for money exchange and car insurance. I ignored the touters and headed for the biggest one. Again, our slightly older, greyish dollars were refused. One really has to be careful just to bring brand new bills to Russia and Central Asia. Luckily we only had a few old ones.

 

The insurance vendor had trouble finding Luxembourg in his computer system (not Latvia, right? - Nope, most definitely not Latvia), but in the end we got there. Half an hour later - it was now almost 15:00 - I was the proud owner of a Kazakh avtostravka worth almost 40 dollars, and we were on our way to Petropavlovsk. "Did you use the credit card to pay the insurance?" my sister asked. No, I hadn't even thought about it. From now on, our cards would be working again! Yay, no more "nalichnie"!

 

Slowly it sank in: We were really in Kazakhstan! The landscape was obviously still the same as across the border: fields alternating with marshes and lakes. An endless flatness, bisected by our road stretching as far as the horizon.

 

 

 

 

Our first stop in this country would be the border town of Petropavlovsk. All the hotels on booking.com had either been booked out or the pictures had looked like I did not want to spend a night there. So I'd decided on a newish-looking apartment. Not the cheapest one either - I don't expect 20 bucks to buy me a decent night's sleep. 56 euros for a studio in central Petropavlovsk it was.

 

I manoeuvred the car into a Soviet-style inner courtyard with potholed tarmac and above-ground gas-pipes. For the next ten minutes, we ran around the many entrances, first trying to figure out which of the metal doors would lead to our first floor apartment, then struggling with the entrance code the agency had given us.

 

 

At last the metal door creaked open, revealing a dark smelly corridor and rough-hewn stone steps leading up. Hm. On Tinder, this would have been a left swipe. But I was determined to give the Soviet experience a chance and climbed up. Our first-floor apartment turned out to be located on the third floor. Odd. I punched in the code and found myself face-to-face with a young man putting fresh linen on the bed. Wrong place? No, seconds later, he disappeared down the stairs, wishing us a nice stay.

 

The place was not as nice as it had looked in the pictures, but good enough for one night. "I won't step on that balcony", my sister vowed, "it looked ready to disintegrate from outside." Ever the intrepid adventurer, I put a foot into the encased niche, leaned forward and looked out. The floor boards creaked. I quickly retreated back into the room. Meanwhile, Sonia had found a stored-away duvet and unfolded it. Greasy with dark stains. She quickly put it back. "Let's go get our own blankets from the car", I suggested. "It's only for one night and the rest of the place looks clean enough."

 

 

But first, we would get some fresh air and explore the town on foot. We set out on the main street "Internationalnaya", heading for the pedestrian street and shopping mall that Sonia had located on the map. The town turned out to be much nicer than our apartment had suggested. In fact, our block seemed to be the only unrenovated area. We passed many shiny new buildings. The locals probably lived there in normal apartments, leaving the dregs for the tourists who didn't know any better.

 

 

We found the first of many horse statues in this country. If the Russians are cat-crazy, then the Kazakhs definitely have a bee in their bonnet about horses. The pedestrian zone was a nice mix of statues, parks, ice cream parlors and official government buildings where inquisitive Kazakh toddlers explored grass bunnies higher than themselves.

 

 

The esplanade was bisected by an avenue and across it led the probably widest pedestrian crossing ever. It took up the entire width of the promenade! So nice and practical. Are you listening, Yekaterinburg?

 

 

We took a stroll around the mall, then had food in an Italian place outside. The design was a bit odd, more "Ancient Rome" than modern Italy, except for the obligatory Audrey Hepburn vespa pic, that no Pizzeria in this part of the world seems to be able to do without. But the food was good and the waitress was nice, so all was perfect.

 

 

Back at our tiny Soviet apartment, snuggled up under our own blankets, we realized that nights in Northern Kazakhstan can be surprisingly cold. But at least their Wifi worked seemlessly. Plugging my phone into the wall socket, I had a closer look at the painted bricks. Probably the original old bricks, without any plaster or wallpaper over them, just green paint slopped on it. Modern minimalism. I was looking forward to the good oldfashioned Ramada we had booked for tomorrow night.

 

I tried to fall asleep. The fridge was humming. Annoyingly so. "Can you turn that off, please", I asked my sister, hoping she would not volley back a "Why don't you get out of bed yourself." But Sonia obligingly extricated herself from our blanket-chaos and trudged to the kitchenette. "It's iced up," she announced. "If I turn it off, there's going to be a puddle on the floor." So I had to choose between my sanity or puddle-free tiles. I gave my sister a look. She put a towel on the floor and crawled back into bed. The mattress sagged in the middle. I energetically pushed myself back to the sag-free rim. Now I was half lying on the bedframe. "You're ok?", Sonia asked. "Sure." I was fine. "Night night."