Ust-Kamenogorsk (Öskemen) Getting there & around

Getting there & away

From the airport (42 84 84) there are daily flights to Almaty (18, 500T to 25, 000T), four a week to Astana (12, 000T) and two to Moscow. SCAT flies to Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia (14, 000T), on Wednesday. Buses 2 and 39 run to the airport from Auezova in the centre. A taxi costs around 1000T. A good ticket agency is CATC (25 28 50; cat-oskemen@alarnet.com; Uritskogo 123).

From the bus station (27 26 26; Abaya) buses and marshrutkas run several times daily to Semey (900T, four hours), and a few times to Astana (3100T, 19 hours), Almaty (3100T, 22 hours), Katon-Karagay (900T, nine hours), Pavlodar (2100T, 13 hours), Barnaul (2400T, 12 hours) and Novosibirsk (3600T, 17 hours). Shared taxis to Semey from the bus station cost 2000T – most leave in the morning.

Buses to China also go from the bus station. At the time of research there was a daily service to Ürümqi (3500T, 15 hours) crossing the border at Bakhty east of Makanchi, and a bus at 6pm Wednesday and Sunday to Altay, China (4725T, 24 hours) via the border at Maykapshagay. Ticket office staff say these buses are open to third nationalities, but you should double-check, and make sure you have all necessary paperwork.

Ust-Kamenogorsk’s main train station is Zashchita (40 87 37). The main line heads north into Russia to meet the Semey–Novosibirsk line, with trains every two days to Barnaul and Novosibirsk. It takes at least 11 hours to reach Semey this way and you need a Russian visa and possibly a double-entry Kazakh visa to do so, so it’s much better to go by road. For trains heading south, get a bus (400T, three hours) or shared taxi (1200T) from Ust-Kamenogorsk bus station to the train station at Zhangyztobe, 150km southwest. From here trains leave for Almaty (16 to 18 hours) at noon and 7.45pm (subject to change). You can buy tickets for these at Ust-Kamenogorsk’s train ticket offices (Uritskogo 80 25 70 96;8am-6pm Mon-Sat, 8am-4pm Sun; Lenina 4 27 28 77; 8am-7pm). Coming from the south by train, get off at Zhangyztobe and you’ll find Ust-Kamenogorsk–bound taxis and maybe buses waiting there.