Kazakhstan travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Kazakhstan, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Kazakhstan: Almaty, Astana, Charyn Canyon, Kolsay Lakes, Turkistan.
Required to enter
Nothing. No vaccination certificate is asked for at the border.
Recommended
- Hepatitis A
- Tetanus up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for the Almaty mountains in late spring
- Rabies for a long or rural stay
Emergency number
112 from any phone; 103 for an ambulance, 102 for police
Care for visitors
Good but costly
Good private clinics in Almaty and Astana, used to foreigners and to insurance; adequate state hospitals in the other cities; thin on the steppe and in the mountains, where evacuation is the plan. Cheap by European standards.
Ticks in the foothills above Almaty from April to July carry encephalitis; long trousers on the trails and a check afterwards. Altitude at the lakes and on the Shymbulak lifts. The winter cold in Astana is a medical hazard in its own right. Tap water is chlorinated and most people drink bottled.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in Kazakhstan
AlmatyKazakhstanA city of apples and mountains, with a ski lift from the suburbs, a cathedral built without a nail, and the best restaurants in Central Asia
AstanaKazakhstanA capital built from nothing on the steppe in twenty-five years: a glass pyramid, a tent the size of a district, a tower to climb, and a winter of minus thirty
Charyn CanyonKazakhstanA red-rock canyon three hours from Almaty that looks like Arizona and empties like Kazakhstan, walked in an afternoon
Kolsay LakesKazakhstanThree lakes stacked up a valley of the Tien Shan, a drowned forest in a fourth, and horses to ride between them
TurkistanKazakhstanThe mausoleum Timur built for a Sufi poet, the holiest place in Kazakhstan, and a new tourist city built around it