Kazakhstan road updates

[robert]

We drove from Sarotow to Uralsk. Here's the road status:

* Sarotow - border: road is in mediocre state, lot of patches and a bit bumpy. Average speed ~ 70 km/h
* Border crossing with car took around 1h (for both sides). Foreigners can get priority.
* Border - Taskala: really shitty road, full of deep potholes. Average speed < 30 km/h. There's a piste near the road on some parts which allows a bit higher speed.
* Taskala - Uralsk: new road construction going on, so ~ 70% shitty road like before and 30% brand new road.

[robert]

Update on road from Karabutak to Aralsk: There are now at least three gas stations operating between those towns. One after 112km, one near Irghiz (around 190km after Karabutak), and one at 380km. Road is still very good.

[robert]

Aralsk to Schymkent: very good road conditions. 4 lanes between Qyzylorda and Schymkent.

Schymkent to Tashkent: also very good. A lot of construction work is currently in progress, some parts already have 4 lanes, some are still under construction. But the existing two lanes are already in very good condition.

[Janine]

Has someone an update concerning the roads, especially from Astana to Semei? Is it ready?

[wakeyjamie]

Hi Everyone,

I have just driven in our 2wd campervan from Semey to Astana and it was pretty difficult. Semey to Pavlodar was a real nightmare. Took us ages and there are diversions that seem to go off for miles along dirt and forest tracks in the wrong direction. Very bumpy and dusty. After Pavlodar also very bad until Ekibastuz, but then soon after that it turns good along a brand new section of motorway that isnt actually on Google Maps yet. And then it was perfect all the way to Astana. It took us 3 days, on the very bad sections we were only driving at about 18km/h. Locals going faster but there were lots of breakdowns and people with knackered tyres.

Thanks
Jamie

[Tobbe]

Drove schemonaikha to ust kamenogorsk today and it was pretty good actually. Lots of new tarmac.

[CianoH]

Drove from Almaty to Semey around Lake Balkhash. Roads are ok near Almaty but very bumpy, full of potholes for about 600km. Roads force you to go off road as some roads are closed due to fallen bridges or roads under repair.

[itfcfan]

I found that autotourist.kz has a good map indicating road conditions in KZ, along with a VK (social media) page for sharing reports (it's pretty active and quite easy to follow without Russian if you use Google translate):
http://autotourist.kz/index.php/routes
https://vk.com/topic-61325136_32055445?offset=420

[Tonini]

We drove from Sarotow to Uralsk. Here's the road status:

* Sarotow - border: road is in mediocre state, lot of patches and a bit bumpy. Average speed ~ 70 km/h
* Border crossing with car took around 1h (for both sides). Foreigners can get priority.
* Border - Taskala: really shitty road, full of deep potholes. Average speed < 30 km/h. There's a piste near the road on some parts which allows a bit higher speed.
* Taskala - Uralsk: new road construction going on, so ~ 70% shitty road like before and 30% brand new road.

We drove from almaty to the russian border. I Can tell you the road (taskala-border) is almost finish, the last two parts are less than 10km, not horrible but not good. After the border it's worth.
From almaty to taskala roads are in very good condition.

[Berry]

Today we drove to Astana from Qostanay. Just like the main page states: it's 110 and good tarmac with some sections more bumpy than others, but still fine.

An addition: the main page states that there is a stretch of around 20 kilometers filled with potholes near Ecil, but this was nowhere to be found. Probably this has been replaced by new tarmac, as the A16 near Ecil (+/- 15 km) is brand new.