“The End of the Earth,” that’s how Herodotus described Kazakhstan.  After traveling from one end of the country to the other I would describe it as the Center of the Earth.

It’s large.  The ninth largest country in terms of land mass and the largest in Central Asia.  China and Mongolia are on the eastern border, Siberia on the north, Russia on the northwest, the Caspian Sea on the west and the Stan’s: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan along the southern border.

The landscape is diverse; mountains, forests, canyons, foothills, plains, steppes, semi-desert and deserts.  Climate ranges from very hot summers to extremely cold and windy winters.

To keep my Nikon motor drives working in the winter I had to keep the batteries next to my chest under a layer of tee shirt, thermal undergarments, wool shirt, wind resistant insulated layering jacket and extreme weather shell designed for high altitudes.  I had to slowly hand rewind the film to a avoid static electric streaks like lightning on the emulsion.

There’s a lot to show, so I will break the images up into sets.  This first set will illustrate the mountains.  Subsequent entries will show other features of this diverse and magnificent land.