SILKTRAVEL
With my camera beside a quarry haul truck
In 2020, I painted my kitchen walls, built a small backdrop for product photography and posted an ad on a few local websites. A year earlier, I’d been guiding my first tours around Kazakhstan. Now the borders were closed, and my kitchen was full of cosmetics, dishes and car parts waiting to be photographed for online shops.
By Talgat Zhangaziyev, founder of Silk Travel
The people who came on our first tours
I founded Silk Travel in 2019. Most of our first guests came from Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland. We also welcomed travellers from the United States. I wanted to show them the Kazakhstan I knew, and I soon realised that meeting people was my favourite part of the work.
I’ve guided teachers, engineers, university lecturers, business owners and embassy staff. Some guests worked on developing medicines. Others worked in rocket engineering. I could take the same road twice and have two completely different trips because of the people travelling with me.
Many of our guests live in big cities. Then they come here and spend hours crossing the steppe without passing another car or a village. There are horses and sheep outside the window, and the horizon seems to go on forever. I like to leave time in our itineraries for that feeling. If a popular stop is crowded, we can go somewhere quieter if our guests prefer. Those moments give me a chance to slow down, too.
The kitchen studio
When the pandemic began, Silk Travel was a young company with a small team. The tours came to an abrupt stop. Until then, I’d taken photos of guests, friends and places I visited simply because I enjoyed it. Now I had to find out whether I could make a living with a camera.
With shops closed, small businesses moving online needed product photos quickly. I set up a seamless backdrop in my kitchen and the first orders came in. For the next two or three months, I photographed something at home every day. One day it was cosmetics. The next it was spare parts, household appliances or dishes.
As restrictions eased, I took my camera outside Almaty and began working with video. Car companies turned out to be a natural fit. I knew cars, and my years on the road meant I could suggest places to film and explain how to reach them.
Marketing teams began recommending my work, and the jobs grew more frequent. What had started as a hobby became my profession. By 2024, I was filming in and around Almaty for automotive brands including Zeekr, EXEED and Lynk & Co.
Today I’m a professional videographer and run my own production company. We’re open to new projects and film commercials for products and services in Kazakhstan. We can help you choose a location that suits the idea, from open steppe to mountain roads. Get in touch to discuss your shoot.
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Getting back on the road with guests
The tours took longer to come back. In 2022, we started seeing a few guests from neighbouring countries. In 2023, we began running more tours again and welcomed travellers from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan.
Some guests wanted a full day of hiking and a night under canvas. Others asked about space in the vehicle on long drives and whether they’d have a private bathroom. We got more deliberate about matching vehicles and accommodation to each group. I want guests to feel safe and comfortable so they can leave their everyday worries behind and enjoy where they are.
We even had to rethink the timing of familiar routes. When Kazakhstan moved to a single time zone in March 2024, the clocks in Almaty went back an hour. Sunset came earlier by the clock, so we adjusted the timing on some routes to fit the walks into daylight. Kazakhstan’s time zone announcement
It was only in 2025 that I felt we had a steady flow of guests again. Getting there took several years.
The people I work with today
More than half of our guides today were there when we started in 2019. Other experienced guides joined us in 2023 and 2024.
Guests start getting to know our team before they meet their guide. Our tour managers have worked remotely since the pandemic, and Dana handles most of our guest enquiries these days. Alongside her work at Silk Travel, she teaches tourism at a local university. She’s a philologist by training, speaks Japanese and Korean, and enjoys anime.
My wife Kate also helps with enquiries and speaks with guests. She’s currently on maternity leave, and we have a wonderful daughter named Aziza.
Today we run trips through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Many groups have travelled with us through all five countries. To me, a Silk Travel journey through Central Asia is about how we travel. We plan the route and leave room to stop when guests want to stay a little longer in the mountains or take in the quiet. Those are still my favourite stops.
Explore our Central Asia itineraries
If you’d like to visit our office in Almaty, please message us in advance so we can arrange a time to meet. Our managers work remotely, and I’m often out checking routes, visiting guesthouses and hotels, meeting partners or filming. Get in touch