Atyrau & The Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan @ 11,850km

Part 5 – Atyrau & The Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan@11,850km

The final leg of our Kazakhstan section of this run will see us skirt along the shores of the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water. It would appear the jury is still out on whether it is the world’s largest lake or a fully-fledged sea.

The sea is nearly 1200 kilometres long from north to south or, in other words, you could repeat week 9 of Couch to 5 k in full 80 times for that extra bit of consolidation, should you so wish! It may be worth conserving your energy for the adventures ahead though.

Ancient inhabitants of its coast understandably believed it was an ocean, probably because of its saltiness (it has salinity almost one third that of sea water) and its large size.

Atyrau (which we run through) is Kazakhstan's main harbour city on the Caspian Sea. It’s twinned with Aberdeen, which will be nice for our Scottish runners at least.

The gateway to Kazakhstan's largest oil field, Atyrau was formerly called Guryev and is 30km up the Ural River from the Caspian Sea. Oil money is evident in the proliferation of expensive hotels and upmarket restaurants. Atyrau's climate is semi-arid with hot summers and cold winters. Precipitation is low throughout the year. Snow is common, though light in winter. So very much like Aberdeen, except for the being hot in summer bit.