Turkistan is the spiritual centre of Kazakhstan, a city of nearly a hundred thousand people in the hot, flat south, built around one great building. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, a twelfth-century Sufi poet and teacher whose ideas helped spread Islam among the Turkic nomads, rises from the middle of town with a huge blue-glazed dome and a portal covered in tilework. Timur ordered it built in the late fourteenth century, and it was never entirely finished, which gives its rough brick back a curious, unfinished honesty. It is a UNESCO site, and it is a pilgrimage destination for Kazakhs who consider three visits equal to one trip to Mecca.
Around the mausoleum, modern Turkistan has been given an enthusiastic makeover, with wide avenues, new museums, a large park and a rebuilt citadel. For several centuries the city was a political centre as well, a capital of the Kazakh khanate in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and it stood on a branch of the Silk Road where caravans paused before heading east or west. The older quarter has fragments of walls, bathhouses and a museum with finds from digs in the region.
For a rider, the approach is a long, mostly straight run across steppe, with dry grass, scattered villages, irrigated fields and big trucks. It is not a technical ride, and the heat is the main challenge, with summer temperatures that can climb beyond forty degrees. Spring and autumn are far more comfortable, and early morning or evening is the best time to be on the road. Watch for livestock, patchy surfaces and drivers who overtake when they should not. Wind can blow hard across the plain.
As a stop, Turkistan has everything. It is large enough for fuel, hotels, supermarkets, cafes and spare-part shops, and it is a reasonable base for exploring the nearby ruined cities of Sauran and Otrar. Try the local bread, beshbarmak, a dish of boiled meat and noodles, and strong tea with plenty of sugar. In the evenings, when the heat eases and the mausoleum is lit, local families stroll across the plaza and the whole place has a festive feel.