Video: Ustyurt Plateau
Ustyurt Plateau (also spelled Ust-Urt, Usturt) is the most interesting and least explored destination between the Aral and Caspian Seas. It is just a fabulous rocky desert now but in ancient times caravan roads ran across it. They connected Khiva with the Volga and Emba deltas. The plateau was then controlled by the powerful and wealthy nomadic tribes of the Massageteans who once built Alan-Kala Fortress there. Its walls were 4 meters in height and 2 meters in width. The plateau had been originally part of the prehistoric ocean bottom, so the stones Massageteans used to build Alan-Kala Fortress have myriads of small shells. Although the ruined walls of the fortress have been largely buried under sand, their lonely remains still stand in the stone desert of the plateau like a monument to a powerful civilization of antiquity.
Ustyurt Plateau. Part 1. Alan-Kala Fortress
Ustyurt Plateau. Part 2. Beliuli Caravanserai
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