Aktau

Stuck between the desert and the Caspian, hundreds of kilometers from anywhere else of any size, with all its water derived from sesalination, Aktau is perhaps the most oddly stuated of all the weirdly located places scaterred across the former USSR Local unranium and oil finds were reason Soviet architects began to lay out a model town of wide, straight streets here in 1958. Thanks to the sandy beaches on the blue Caspian and temperate climate, the place was also developed as an elite Soviet holiday resort In 1963, the settlement of Aktau received town status. The city is a major oil and gas production center, and is known for its unique heated oil pipeline. Galleries of petroglyphs from the age of nomads (10^th-2^nd centuries B.C.) have been found on great mounds in the heart of the peninsula, as well as a necropolis with grave markers decorated with complex ornamentation. Two ancient underground mosques, built a thousand years ago, were discovered near Ungazy mountain. The most interesting of these two is Shahbagota mosque, because though Islam banned the portrayal of people or their body parts, on the walls of this mosque, surrounded by lotus blossoms, is a painting of a man’s palm.