> What was surprising is that they have very modern high-speed trains, and super new train stations (most of them built just a few years ago).
Is this from the country being fairly rich and having money to invest, or is this part of China's massive infrastructure project?
Re:Across Kazakhstan by rail
by thealienthing on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:48AM
(#28988421)
Several of the Stan’s such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are quite wealthy due to a high amount of natural resources such as oil and coal. Kazakhstan’s main city capital Astana is incredible. It looks like a small Shanghai or Dubai and it’s all largely because of their wealth from oil.
The country opened up a few years ago once the long-term president died and was replaced by a more progressive one. There was a moderate amount of western investment since - modernizing rail, telecom infra etc.
Also as mentioned by another commenter: Uzbekistan is more wealthy than other countries of the region; it's a major exported of things like gas, cotton, silk.
> Uzbekistan is more wealthy than other countries of the region;
Absolutely not. Uzbekistan was the Central Asian version of North Korea.
The poverty was universal, and extreme.
And yes, a change from a braindead Kim Il Sung wannabe who boiled people alive to a plain idiot plutocrat could be considered a "change" to be welcomed.
Kazakhstan is by far the wealthiest Central Asian nation.
I didn't say it's more wealthy than KZ. I was comparing to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan. (Not an expert but it seems to me UZ is well ahead those)
Re:Across Kazakhstan by rail
by yeetaccount on Monday October 25, 2021 @08:56AM
(#28987228)
> x-raying people
mmWave or X-ray?
What was surprising is that they have very modern high-speed trains, and super new train stations (most of them built just a few years ago). The country is huge but very well connected by train (and air; we first flew to the far west, and then came back east by train and visited a few cities along the road).
For one of the trains we bought regular tickets, but the ticket inspector friendly insisted on us to get an upgrade to the "lux" class :) (probably the regular class was busy), which was a good decision; the upgrade was absurdly cheap, and worth it (4-people compartments, very spacious and comfortable) due to the length of travel (several hours).
Another fun story: in another train we've been in an "open space" w/o compartments; it had TVs on the room which first played Michael Jackson concert, and the some TV series :)