Road trip: Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhstan - Russia. Part 1. Way from Bokonbaevo to Balykchy

This series of videos is about our car trip from Kyrgyzstan to Russia through Kazakhstan, which lasted five days (more than 4500 km). We took one of the shortest routes and had no goal of visiting any beautiful or famous places. We recorded our route to show the condition of the roads we traveled on in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia, as well as to give you a general idea of ​​the weather and terrain, cities and towns, road infrastructure, traffic and other features you meet while traveling through these countries by car.
The video does not show our path continuously: then it would be terribly long and boring. However, we tried to record fragments of the road in all their diversity so that you can observe the changing landscape and see how the road itself is changing.

Our entry begins from the village of Bokonbaevo on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. Those tourists who are equally interested in mountain hiking and beach holidays stop here in Bokonbaevo. In this part, the road runs far from the coastline, and you will only be able to see the lake towards the end of the video. But in the morning, when moving from east to west, you can admire the nearby mountains in beautiful light. This pleasant soft light is also facilitated by the fact that ahead is the area of ​​the Konorchek canyons, over which clouds gather even in the clearest weather.
The road in this section is under repair, which we talked about in our previous videos. You will find links to them in the description. The renovation began in 2021 and, according to reports, has already been completed. We've driven here several times over the past year and posted the first record of this road in February 2024. This way you can compare the state of repairs over several months. This recording shows that in some areas the road surface is ready, but there are still no road markings and lighting. Other areas are in earlier stages of renovation, and some have not been renovated at all. Nobody knows whether they will ever be updated: such information is never published.
During this video you will see groups of locals on the streets of villages and on open roads. They are collecting garbage and even sweeping roadsides with ordinary household brooms. Today is Saturday - on this day in the countries of the former USSR, public works are sometimes carried out. In some countries more often, in others less. In Kyrgyzstan, we noticed that such work usually takes place on the same day throughout the entire region: for example, all residents of the region simultaneously go out to plant onions or cut down trees along the roads.
In just over an hour we will pass several villages concentrated in the southwestern part of the Issyk-Kul region and return closer to the lakeshore. This part of the Issyk-Kul coast is not very popular among tourists. Much more attractive is the small salt lake located near the coastline of Issyk-Kul at the confluence of the Ak-Terek River. That’s what it’s called - Salt Lake, in Kyrgyz Tuzkel. Its salinity is very high: according to various sources, it ranges from 65 to 130 g/l. People are attracted by the healing properties of the water in Lake Tuzkel. In Issyk-Kul, there are almost no beaches in this section.
The first part of the film ends after a fork near the city of Balykchy. The left road leads to the southern part of the country - it runs along the Orto-Tokoy reservoir on the Chu River and continues to the city of Naryn. The right road turns north to Bishkek. It passes through the city of Balykchy and passes through the Boom Gorge. You will see this road in the next episode.


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Route: https://maps.app.goo.gl/iuPRvZPgwKL9d...

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