Almaty to Turkistan

The main entrance of the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Turkistan has never been finished. Its great arch is bare brick, never faced with tile like the walls around it, and wooden beams still jut from it in rows. Timur ordered the building in 1389 to replace the small tomb of a Sufi poet who had died here in 1166, and the work stopped when Timur died in 1405, at Otrar, some fifty kilometres to the south. UNESCO made it Kazakhstan's first World Heritage Site in 2003 and counts the unfinished entrance as part of the reason: it is documentary evidence of how the building was put up.

The way there from Almaty is the Talgo. Train 027 leaves Almaty-2 at 20:10 every other evening and reaches Turkistan at 10:28 the next morning, 14 hours 18 minutes later — the quickest of seven trains on the route. It runs west through the night on the Turksib by Shu and Taraz, reaches Shymkent at breakfast, and at Arys turns north-west on to the railway of 1906, between the Karatau range and the Syr Darya. The train goes on past the Aral and Aktobe to Oral, another day and a night; Turkistan is a twenty-minute stop.

Train 027 leaves Almaty-2 at 20:10 and runs west on the Turksib in the dark. Its first stop is Shu, at 00:26, for ten minutes. The town began in 1928 with the building of the Turksib and is still its biggest junction — the place where the line north to Astana leaves the one to the south, and known informally as the capital of the Turksib. Taraz follows at 03:27, twenty minutes on the platform: a city of some 430,000 on the Talas river that celebrated its two-thousandth anniversary in 2001; the battle of 751 between the armies of the Tang dynasty and the Abbasid caliphate was fought along the same river.

Shymkent by morning

Beyond Taraz the line passes Tulkubas, in the valley under the Talas Alatau, the north-western end of the Tian Shan; the Talgo goes through before dawn without stopping, but the slower daily train 033 calls there at 08:39. Shymkent, the third city of Kazakhstan and one of three that answer to the national government rather than a region, comes at 07:13. It lies about 690 kilometres west of Almaty and 120 north of Tashkent, and the train stops ten minutes.

Arys and the line of 1906

At 08:32 the Talgo reaches Arys and stands twenty minutes. Arys was founded in 1900 as a station on the railway from Orenburg to Tashkent, and its station building, put up in 1901–04, still carries the monograms of Nicholas II. This is where the Turksib begins: it branches here off the Trans-Aral line, opened in January 1906 across the steppe from Kinel to Tashkent, which for much of the early twentieth century was the only railway between European Russia and Central Asia.

The Talgo takes that line north-west. The slower trains stop on the way at a station called Timur; the ruins of Otrar, where Timur died in February 1405, lie south of Turkistan towards the Syr Darya. To the north-east the Karatau, the westernmost spur of the Tian Shan, rises over the plain, with the town of Kentau at its foot. Turkistan comes at 10:28. When the old town around the mausoleum was abandoned, the new centre was built to the west of it, around the railway station.

The train

Trains 027 and 028 run between Almaty and Oral in coaches built in 2015 by Tulpar-Talgo, light and articulated, of the Spanish Talgo design. The operator lists four-berth Tourist compartments, two-berth Business compartments with a washbasin, Grand compartments with their own shower and toilet — one coach with a compartment adapted for passengers with reduced mobility — and a restaurant car and a café car. The photograph at the head of this page is a whole Tulpar-Talgo set at Shymkent in July 2021, its locomotive far down the platform. Photographed there again in August 2023, a Talgo had KZ4AT-0020 at its head, one of the 200 km/h electrics delivered from 2013.

The Talgo runs every other day in each direction: train 027 from Almaty-2 to Oral, and 028 back. In November 2026 it leaves Almaty on the odd-numbered dates and Turkistan on the even-numbered ones. The times below are the operator's own, read from the route detail behind each train on bilet.railways.kz in October 2026; the Almaty and Turkistan times were the same on every date scanned between 25 October and 6 December 2026. Kazakhstan keeps a single time zone.

Almaty to Turkistan — Talgo 027

Turkistan to Almaty — Talgo 028

The other trains

Six more trains link Almaty and Turkistan, with four-berth compartment (kupe) and open (platskart) coaches. The daily 033 suits anyone who wants the south by day: it passes Tulkubas at 08:39 and Shymkent at 10:20.

Back, the daily trains leave Turkistan at 00:27 (041), 18:40 (022), 20:57 (077) and 23:44 (034), all about 17 to 19 hours to Almaty.

Departures are published by the operator: Qazaqstan Temır Joly · bilet.railways.kz (opens in a new tab).

Tickets are sold by Qazaqstan Temır Joly through its own system at bilet.railways.kz, in Kazakh, Russian and partial English, and at station ticket offices; sales open about six weeks ahead. On the Talgo, a berth in a four-berth Tourist compartment was 13,736 ₸ on every date sampled between 25 October and 6 December 2026, and a berth in a two-berth compartment 16,486 – 20,355 ₸.

The other trains are cheaper and slower: a kupe berth cost 8,815 – 15,590 ₸ and an open platskart berth 6,475 – 9,720 ₸, depending on train and date. Bedding is included. Close to departure the Talgo's two-berth compartments sell out first.

No rail pass covers Kazakhstan, so there is nothing to buy instead of a ticket. Interrail describes a network of 33 countries, and Kazakhstan is not one of them.

The answer for this journey is the plain fare, bought from the operator: about 14,000 tenge for a Tourist berth on the Talgo, which is the night's bed as well as the ride. Checked against interrail.com in October 2026.

Five places, each older than the railway by five centuries or more: a mausoleum outside Taraz, the town where Yasawi was born, on the edge of Shymkent, the city where Timur died, the mausoleum itself, and the walls of Sauran out in the plain beyond it.

The Talgo is the bed on the way out. Arriving at 10:28, the day is long enough for the mausoleum, but Sauran and Otrar each want a day of their own, and the return Talgo leaves at 20:11 every other evening — so plan a night or two in Turkistan. Both hotels below are within walking distance of the mausoleum.

Planning this trip and stuck on something, or spotted a time, fare or detail that has changed? Send us a message about Almaty to Turkistan. We read every one, and we update this page when something has changed.