The serial transnational site ‘Cold Deserts of Turan’ was added to the World Heritage List last week. It consists of a number of fairly remote and obscure nature reserves in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Only four community members claimed to have visited one of them, based on the respective Tentative Site entries.

However, there is a loophole (and I must give tribute to Clyde for pointing it out to me). Everybody who has made the road transfer between Bukhara (Uzbekistan) and Merv (Turkmenistan) via the land border at Turkmenabat will have crossed Repetek Nature Reserve. The main road goes right through component #8 of the nomination, as confirmed by the official maps, and the road is not excluded from the core zone. It even gained a bit of notoriety in the IUCN evaluation, as an example of “recent linear infrastructure development” that poses a threat to large mammal migrations – not only is Repetek crossed by the M37 highway, but also by the Turkmenabad-Ashgabat-Bereket-Turkmenbashya railway. But both are well-established nowadays, so there’s nothing to do about it.

I still remember the desert landscape on this drive and have written about it in my travel diary, although my observations and photos could easily have come from 10km before or after we crossed the Nature Reserve – I guess the buffer zone looks fairly similar. My photos show sand dunes covered in tough large plants (possibly the characteristic Black Saxaul), unidentified funny shrubs and a dung beetle at work. I also still have Turkmenistan’s ‘Entry Travel Pass’, which indicates the route taken.

It’s a meagre ‘tick’ of course, I know. I promise I will make up for it with a better visit. I am eyeing Kazakhstan for next year to complete that, as its Altyn Emel National Park near Almaty seems to most accessible of all Cold Deserts of Turan.