Aktau and the Caspian coast

Uranium prospectors settled here in 1958, and the settlement became a closed town before it was opened in 1963 and named Aktau. From 1964 to 1991 it was called Shevchenko after the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, who spent years of exile in the region; the name Aktau returned after independence. During the Soviet period a fast reactor at the city provided power and desalinated water until it was shut down in 1999.

After independence the oil and gas industry shaped Aktau's growth, and its seaport became an important link on trade routes across the Caspian to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Today the city is among Kazakhstan's ten most popular tourist destinations, drawing mainly domestic visitors to its beaches.

Aktau is a multinational city of around 210,000 people, where Kazakh and Russian are spoken. The local speciality is fishbarmak, a version of beshbarmak made with fish instead of meat that you are unlikely to find elsewhere in Kazakhstan. Residents give their addresses as microdistrict, building and flat numbers, and the city's water comes from a desalination plant.