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Ustyurt Plateau and the Aral shore

A flat desert plateau that ends in tall pale cliffs above the remaining waters of the Aral Sea, reached on multi-day trips by four-wheel drive.

Nature

About the place

The Ustyurt is a wide, nearly level plateau of stone and sparse steppe between the Aral and Caspian seas. Along its edges it drops in steep cliffs, called chinks, which in the east look down on the former bed of the Aral Sea and on what remains of its water.

Trips from Nukus or Moynaq usually take two or three days and cross the plateau by four-wheel drive, with nights in a yurt camp or tents near the shore. Along the way, guides point out old caravan wells, burial grounds and the wide, empty seabed.

Reaching the water's edge shows the scale of the sea's retreat more directly than anywhere else. It is a remote place with no services, and should be visited only with an experienced operator.

Sources (1)

  1. 1.Wikidata

Nearby

  • Archaeology

    70 km away

    Beleuli Caravanserai

    Ruined 14th-century caravanserai on the Ustyurt plateau, on the old route from Khorezm to the Volga, with 14 rooms and a carved relief of two lions.

  • Aral SeaNature

    81 km away

    Aral Sea

    Once the world's fourth-largest lake, the Aral has shrunk to a fraction of its size since the 1960s, leaving the Aralkum desert behind.

  • Saigachy State ReserveNature

    90 km away

    Saigachy State Reserve

    A vast protected area on the north-western Ustyurt plateau, set up in 1991 to protect the saiga antelope and its breeding grounds.

  • Nature

    104 km away

    Aralkum National Nature Park

    National park created in 2022 on the dried bed of the Aral Sea in Muynak district, covering about 1 million hectares including the former Vozrozhdeniya island.