Tashkent to Shymkent border crossing Q&A

[steven]

Yeah, I noticed that Covid has been an excellent excuse for corruption for those people who had seen their business disappear over the past few years: border guards and visa officers.

[Bakhtiyark]

Crossed the border on a car,
Everything is as usual, although i was still sent to have a quick Covid test despite presenting vaccination passport. I thought it's not worth arguing considering this test is cheap, and most likely just for show.
Amount of people crossing the border is lower than pre-covid level but still substantial.
Uzbekistan citizens can move freely across the border if they have ethnicity written in their passport("Q'ozoq'" etc.) or if they provide rationale for leaving(i believe this is solved by saying "thank you" to a particular person).

On the way back no hassle no nothing. I guess previously described "procedure" happens on some shifts only.

[Nuelo]

From May 2022 ->

The bus station to take the d i r e c t bus from Shymkent to Tashkent is Bekzhan bus station, ~8km west of the city center. The one-way price stands solid 3000 tenge, written on the window of the ticket booth.

The departures are as 8am, 1pm and 7pm daily.

The old bus station near the city center DOESN'T have service anymore to Tashkent!

[TravelHorse]

Anyone have recent experience travelling as a German citizen from Shymkent to Tashkent and back to Shymkent with Taxi/Bus? Is a fresh PCR test required to come back to Kazakhstan from Uzbekistan?

[Kasia]

I just came from Tashkent to Shymkent by autobus.
The station in Tashkent is Olmozor, ticket costs 80.000 sum - the bus was more than half-empty, so there is no need to waste time by going to the bus station the day before (like I did).

Busses run at 07:00, 12:00 and 19:00. The drive (including border precedure) took 5 hours, we ended at Bekhzan station in Shymkent.

At the border I (german citizen) was asked for a PCR-Test and tried my luck with my german vaccination passport (the one with yellow paper). Last vaccination was 2 month ago, so I was good to go, even with Germany not on "the list". But this could have been just because the officer was very friendly and welcoming.

[TravelHorse]

Thank you for the helpful information, Kasia! We received our third and final vaccination already in November 2021. So we believe we can not convince the border officers with these old dates in our yellow vaccination passport ...

[RollingTreeHouse]

Adding my recent experiences of crossing this border by trains 001/002 between Almaty and Tashkent:

The whole border crossing is a fairly smooth experience, sometime before reaching the border station the train attendant knocks to see if you're awake, to make sure that all your luggage is accessible and to collect your passport if you're on the Uzbek side.

On the Kazakh side the border control happens in the compartments using portable computers with passport scanners and a camera to take a photo of you sitting straight. Customs are composed of a drug sniffing dog and a quick check of your opened luggage in case of entering Kazakhstan.

On the Uzbek side, the border control also takes place in your compartment, a quick "interview" with one or two officials about where you are going in Uzbekistan and if you have any acquaintances in the country. In case the train isn't full you will have a whole bunch of officers squeezing in the compartment to look at the foreigners and their documents because they know who is in what compartment based on the passenger list. Many times the interview will deviate into a friendly chat because the officers are not in a rush.
Customs is done by looking through your luggage, taking special care to look at medicines and cash, if you have any uncommon medicines be prepared to explain them.
Your passport will get stamped at an office somewhere else, the train attendant will hand out the stamped passports after departure from the border station.

You're supposed to remain at your place in your compartment during inspections but you can use the toilet and water dispenser once the checks are over on each side of the border and people are amused if you take a nap between the checks.
The border stops are generously scheduled, so the train won't be delayed in most cases, but you definitely get across the border quicker by road.

[perryj]

Shymkent to Tashkent via bus (Bekzhan bus station in Shymkent, to Olmazor in Tashkent). Buses leave at 8:00, 13:00 and 19:00 for 3000 tenge. Bought my ticket in advance but absolutely no need to, the bus wasn’t even a quarter full. Took about five hours total including about two and a half at border control, but most of that was sitting in queues - passport control was quick and simple and customs just consisted of walking through the green lane and getting luggage x-rayed. Nobody searched our bags, asked about medicines or cash, etc.

[Dimitris T]

We arrive at Shymkent Train Station from Nur Sultan in the morning of 14th of August. We Yandex a taxi to take us to the boarder crossing with Uzbekistan. It was a total 11600 Tenge splitted by two. In just 1,5 hoyr we reach boarder, we pass them on foot in apx 30 minutes and continue with taxi from the other side of the boarder. Yandex was apx at 50000 SOM but we directly negotiate with adriver to drop us in our hotel with 70000 SOM. All process did not last more than 3 hours from the momemnt we arive in Shymkent train station.Exchange in boarder with the official rate from a guy who was standing next to the Beeline sim card shop(probably not original).

[rk1]

We had a smooth crossing today (23.08) travelling from Shymkent to Tashkent. We took a shared taxi from Kolos (coordinates: 42.3050561, 69.5752808). We didn’t have to look for it as they found us very quickly getting out of the Yandex. Price was 2.000 Tenge per person which was what the locals paid as well. The crossing was easy and not busy at all in the direction exiting Kazakhstan, entering Uzbekistan. We exchanged Tenge to Som right where the shared taxi parked, there were a sort of small exchange offices, we got 22.5 Uzbek som per tenge. Fine for us.

The border crossing itself took perhaps 20-25 minutes all in all, no issues whatsoever. Put luggage through the scanner, quick chat with the friendly border guards (where are we going, if we are married etc) and done. No lines at all.

We got quoted very high prices by the taxi drivers on the Uzbek side (30 US dollars, then 20 etc). Don’t let them fool you too much.

After having signed up for and bought new SIM cards, we took a yandex to Tashkent (price 35.000 som / 3.5 euros ca)

All in all, a very good experience taking approx 3 hours in total. Think we lucked out having no lines at the border at all though.