Starting from 11 th April 2022, the land borders with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia will be opened. This was announced by the Vice Prime Minister of Kazakhstan on the 6 th of April.
During most of the COVID-19 pandemic Kazakhstan has restricted access to their land borders with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia to only Kazakh citizens and those with special permission. The land border with Turkmenistan has also been a different story, due to the visa regime of Turkmenistan.
Travellers wishing to cross the Kazakhstan border will still require either an approved vaccination certificate or a negative COVID-19 PCR test.
The last remaining restrictions on air travel will also be lifted from the 11 th of April.
This is great news for tourists as it is a great way to see several of the Central Asian republics by using land transport. Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty and Kyrgyzstan’s largest city Bishkek are only 3 hours by bus for example. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic it wasn’t possible to travel by land and one instead needed to fly.
Normal pre-covid visa restrictions will now be completely returned to normal which will hopefully see the return of tourist levels Kazakhstan was experiencing before the last 2 years transpired.