Getting from Astrakhan to Khiva

[MaTian]

Hi peeps,

does anyone have any ideas how to get from Astrakhan to Khiva? Is there a possibility to take the train?

Tnx!

[steven]

Yes, you can take trains Atyrau - Beyneu - Kungrad - Urgench. More info https://caravanistan.com/transport/trai ... kalpakstan

[MaTian]

Tnx! How long might this take?

[Milad]

Atyrau-Urgench will take around 27 hours. I don't know how well bus/marshrutka/taxi operations between Astrakhan and Atyrau are, your option to do it all by train would be taking a train to Aksairaiskaia and change there onto the Volgograd-Urgench(-Tashkent) train. Be prepared to be questioned by the FSB however if you decide to loiter around at Aksairaiskaia.

[Milad]

After having a look at a map, noticing that Astrakhan->Aksaraiskaia is only 55km and reading a German-language blog by people who did something similar, my recommendation would be taking a taxi to Aksaraiskaia and joining the train there (as taking a train to Aksaraiskaia would mean spending at least 4 hours there - and there is nothing).

As the border control is done at the platform at Aksaraiskaia, be sure to be at the station when the train *arrives*, not when it departs.