A stunning blue-green lake located in the Terskey Alatau mountain range.

One of the most horrible legacies of the Cold War is a site where the Soviet Union tested nuclear bombs on civilians.

The grassy landscape is home to the world's last truly wild horses.

These ancient pecked images are among the oldest and best-preserved in Mongolia.

This 100-foot tall tombstone memorializes victims of 40 years of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan.

A pair of towering monuments commemorate two of Kazakhstan's greatest poets and philosophers.

A Stalinist prison camp for the wives and children of men accused of betraying the Soviet state is now a memorial museum.

An abandoned Soviet-era park that, when viewed from the air, looks like a pentagram.

Avenue of trees planted by cosmonauts before their space departures.

Former island in the Aral Sea used to be a top-secret Russian bio-weapons facility.

Rusting ships sit in a desert where a sea used to be.

World's oldest and largest space launch facility, once a secret missile testing site.

This was once the largest city in Kazakhstan, and a major stop on the Silk Road.

This sprawling market is a one-stop shop for traditional Kazakh foods, from mare’s milk to sheep’s head.

This Soviet-era athletic and recreation facility is the highest ice skating rink in the world.

A brilliant turquoise lake in the mountains.

The lovely lake that was naturally dammed, then naturally destroyed, then unnaturally saved.

Granny Smiths and Fujis can both be traced back to Kazakhstan, where apples still grow wild.

Submerged trees jut ghost-like out of an idyllic turquoise mountain lake.

An abandoned Soviet-era mining town in the mountains of South Kazakhstan.