Most reserves charge fees for visiting. Make sure you have taken the receipt. When walking around you may meet impostors posing as border officers and requiring to pay fee once again.

Try to avoid bus trips around Almaty. The city has heavy traffic and buses run slowly. People get into the transport and get off wherever they want.

Paying fares on a bus you should have coins. Slip coins in the coin machine and get a ticket. To change larger bills, ask the bus driver for help.

Buy train tickets much in advance. They are bought up by scalpers very quickly and then sold at triple the price. You can also try to make a deal with a train host and buy a ticket from him or her though in this case the price will be overstated.

This is how you can buy tickets for intercity buses: tell your surname to the bus dispatcher at the bus station, he or she writes it down and ask to pay the ticket deposit. No ticket is given to you. Instead the bus dispatcher tells you where and when you will have to come and where the bus will be waiting for you in particular.

In Astana, on the very top of the Tree of Life there is a nice observation deck. And underneath, on the ground floor, there are free WCs.

Fees for international trains are higher than inside Russia. So, if you have decided to go to Kazakhstan, buy two tickets: the first one to the last Russian station before the border and the second one from this station to your destination place in Kazakhstan. Do the same when going back.

Kazakh train tickets can be bought in Russia, but on the website rzd.ru they will cost much more. It’s more cost effective to book tickets on railways.kz/ru