Thank you very much Svetlana for your hospitality and generosity! I had a very nice time with you and your family. You are welcome in France, anytime! Amandine

Svetlana!! Finally writing this for you. She's got such a lovely family and
I had a great experience in Aksu-Zhabagly in South Kazakhstan. Was planning
on staying 2 days, but it became 4... hehe! I didn't see her much but her
kids and husband are great! We went hiking, horse-riding and played
together. I miss you guys. Take care and quickly come to Singapore! :>

Svetlana's is a five star experience you will never forget, and the location is just at the doorstep of the national reserve. Svetlana is the local guide who knows every single square meter of the area and can give you invaluable information about it. Everything is just perfect there! Thank you and your family

Svetlana, Vladimir and family,

Thank you for a fantastic week of walking in the mountains. Maybe next time we'll try horse trekking to save our aging limbs on the steep up-hill bits.

To anyone thinking of a trip to southern Kazakhstan we would strongly recommend you contact Svetlana directly. No need to go through a fancy (expensive) tour operator in a smart office. Svetlana can organise whatever you want to do: horse trekking, hill walking, bird watching, visiting ancient sites, airport collections, accommodation, and with so little hassle. The Aksu Jabagli Reserve is beautiful, unspoilt and almost people-free. I think for most of our time we were the only humans in the whole 40x30km area.

A great memory - thank you.

Svetlana allowed us to pitch a tent in her garden in Jabagly and we stayed
there for a couple of days. Unfortunatelly we didn't have the chance to
know her better, because she went trekking with clients, but she seems to
be extremely nice person and definately a knowledgeable guide to the area.
We also met her two sons, who were very polite. Thank You!

We all had the best time, so thanks so much for helping that to happen Svetlana. All home safely but boy am I aching from that horse ride!

Tajikistan sometime would be wonderful - watch this space...

Dear Svetlana,



Just a short messagel to let you know that we have appreciated a lot our visit to Aksu-Zhabagly.

The program was perfect and we have appreciated a lot the kindness of all the people who took very good care of us.



My best regards to you, Vladimir, Igor and the family that we visited !

We were fortunate enough to see a game of Kokpar (Afghan version is called Buzkashi) between our village and neighboring village. This is an earlier version of polo, except the ball is sheep carcass. The riders have to pick this off the ground, throw it over their saddle and gallop to the goal. The horses are all stallions and very much into the game. There were roughly 50 or 60 horsemen in a game in a field next to the village. We had to duck occasionally behind a telephone pole to avoid being ridden down.

With two new friends, I took a trip to Southern Kazakhstan to Aksu Zabagly, which is the oldest reserve in Central Asia. It was created in the 1920’s and is very beautiful. Among the 2400 plants and trees are wild tulips, at least one variety of which only grows here. A small eco -tourism group, Wild Nature, arranged our trip. This in itself is an USAID successstory. The NGO director, Svetlana Baskakova, was a USAID sponsored Community Connections participant and spent a month in the U.S. studying the management of U.S. parks in Arizona. We rode and hiked with Svetlana, who is an outstanding naturalist for three days in Aksu Zabagly as well as stayed with a Kazakh family in the neighboring village of 2500.

Hello Svetlana,

I'm sending this email to say how much my husband and I enjoyed our recent trip to Aksu-Zhabagly. We had an amazing time and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery and would love to visit again one day. The horse trekking through mountain scenery, the Aksu Canyon and the journey to (and underground) in the Karatau mountains were all breathtaking and you did a fantastic job as a guide, you live in such a great part of the world! We have told all our friends in Astana too.

Also, the hospitality at Zhenia and Ludias boarding house was very welcoming and the food we had was superb, we haven't eaten so much and so well in a long time!

Many thanks once again and I hope you have a great summer season!

Best wishes

Paula and Martin

Thank you, Svetlana, for visiting my place in Arizona. I hope to visit your place some day. It looks so beautiful there.

Спасибо за великолепную организацию времяпровождения! Обязательно приедем ещё, и друзей, коллег, бизнес-партнёров привезём!

Яан и Денис из Эстонии