Transport in Uralsk (Oral)

 

Uralsk's airport lies some 15km out of town. Uralsk has flights to Aktau, Astana and Atyrau daily; to Almaty five times weekly and to Moscow  twice a week. There’s a weekly Air Astana flight to/from Amsterdam. There are two flights a week from Astana with Atyrau Airways and two more with Kokshetau Avia. Scat has a daily flight to Atyrau and on to Aktau. Some of the Scat departures also have onward connections to Baku. Transaero flies twice a week to Moscow, and there is also a weekly flight to London Gatwick on Air Astraeus, a service mainly pitched at engineers working at the Karachaganak site but which nonetheless provides a potentially useful connection for tourists wanting to make Uralsk part of their Kazakhstan itinerary.

The railway station sits north of the centre, at the northern end of Zhukov Street. In the square in front of the station stands an equestrian statue of General Chapaev, his sabre raised aloft, cloak billowing, left arm outstretched and a general sense of madcap action. There are daily trains to Aktobe (12 hours), Almaty (52 hours) and Moscow (26 hours, via Saratov). Trains to Aktobe and Almaty pass through Russia en route, meaning you need a Russian visa. You may also need a doubleentry Kazakhstan visa: check at the station or with a travel agent. Almaty to Moscow and Aktobe to Moscow trains each stop here every two days, there is a service running four times weekly between Astana and Kiev, and one a week between Kharkov and Tashkent.

The bus station lies 6 km east of the centre along Syrym Datov Street. The large hall within has mostly been given over to small shops. There are buses to Aktobe (8 hours, 9am), Atyrau (9 hours, four daily) and, in Russia, Samara (6 hours, five daily) and Saratov (9 hours, 8am). Bus 12 runs between the airport and city centre via the bus and train stations. Minibuses to Atyrau (5 hours) leave the train station when they fill up with passengers – make a morning start.  Shared taxis - to Aktobe (5 hours), Atyrau (5 hours), Samara (5 hours) and Saratov (7 hours) go from the train and bus stations.