The Five Stans

In Persian, -stan means “land of.” In September 2023 we spent twenty days in five lands that share the suffix and almost nothing else: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan — countries №62–66 on our way to every country in the world.

The route ran one direction the whole way: Dubai to Astana, south over the steppe to Almaty and Charyn Canyon, across the Karkara valley into Kyrgyzstan — Karakol’s wooden cathedral, the red rocks of Jeti-Ögüz, eagle hunters near Bokonbayevo, a night in a yurt at 3,016 meters on the shore of Song-Kul — then Bishkek, a short flight to Tashkent, and the Silk Road spine of Uzbekistan: Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva.

Halfway through Uzbekistan we left it for a night, crossing at Panjakent into Tajikistan’s Fann Mountains to sleep in a village below the Haft Kul, the Seven Lakes of the Shing valley — seven pools of seven colors, each with a sister’s name in the local legend.

Kazakhstan was the future tense: Astana’s planned skyline, the gilded handprint at the top of Bayterek, a drop ride inside the world’s largest tent. Then Almaty undercut it with mountains, a fog-wrapped cable car to Shymbulak, and a canyon twelve million years in the making.

Kyrgyzstan was the nomad heart of the trip — kok-boru riders on the jailoo, kymyz poured in a referee’s yurt, golden eagles on leather gloves, and the clearest night sky either of us has ever stood under.

Uzbekistan carried the architecture: the Registan’s three madrasas wearing tiger mosaics and gold leaf, the Afrosiyob train running the old caravan road at 250 km/h, trading domes in Bukhara, and a music festival in Tashkent with no drinking and no trash — just dancing.

Turkmenistan ended it in white marble and fire. We slept in the Karakum desert beside the Darvaza gas crater — the Door to Hell, burning since the Soviets lost a drill rig here half a century ago — then drove into Ashgabat, a capital of 543 marble-clad buildings, world-record whiteness, and Akhal-Teke horses with coats like poured metal.

Twenty days, roughly 2,800 kilometers of ground covered between camera stops, four flights, two trains, four land-border gates, and 1,400 frames. Five words for land; one long road. This is the full ledger.