The ruins of the formerly prosperous Silk Road town of Otrar are located near the town of Shauildir. In its heyday Otrar spread over nearly 10 times the area of the mound itself. Archaeologists have exposed a now unsympathetically reconstructed bastion, piece of city wall, the pillar stumps of the main mosque, low walls of the 14th-century Palace of Berdibek (where another great pillager, Timur, died, en route to conquer China, in 1405), a few residential areas and a bathhouse.
Technically there's an entry fee, but it's rarely collected.
