Again this morning the scene from the train window was grass land as far as the eye could see. Our destination was the town of Turkistan, it has a history dating back to at least the 4th century and in 2021, it was proclaimed by the Organization of Turkic States as the "Spiritual Capital of the Turkic World".

There are two main tourist attraction in the town itself. The first is the mausoleum wich covers the resting place of Khoja Akhmet Yassawi, an 11th-century Sufi Sheikh from Turkistan. The mausoleum which is large and impressive but incomplete was built by (the orders of) Timur to impress the locals and consolidate his power in this region. However Timur died in 1405 and after his death the work was not completed. Today the mausoleum still displays the remnants of timber scafolding depicting that used during the construction.

Adjacent to the Yassawi mausoleum is the modern construction of the Keruen-Saray Central Asia’s largest tourism complex.

We spent the day exploring these amazing sites and marveling at the wealth it took to build both the acient and modern

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