TURKESTAN

Over a millenia of history lies in the hot, baked earth around Turkestan, home to Kazakhstan’s most famous monument, a gem of Timurid accomplishment. Empires and conquerors have come and gone, Persians, Seljuks, Sogdians, Mongols, and the population is evenly mixed between Uzbek and Kazak.
A further 40km through the dry and dusty steppe sits Sauran, where vast unattended ruins show the scale of the city which prospered under the great Amir Timur from the 1370s.