Ust-Kamenogorsk, 27 October. Work is ending in East Kazakhstan Region on the road to Rakhmanov Springs, a resort at the foot of Mount Belukha: begun in 2017, construction dragged on for nine years because of contractor problems and lawsuits and cost about 20 billion tenge, KazAvtoZhol board chairman Darkhan Imanashev said in an interview with Ulysmedia.
The most difficult structure is a bridge 45 metres high and 175 metres long in the mountains; according to Imanashev, it is being built entirely by a Kazakh company. Work resumed in 2024 after the government allocated funding. "This is one of those protracted projects that we have been completing over the last three years," the KazAvtoZhol chief said. By his account, tourist traffic on the route has already grown by 20–30% since the road was upgraded. Regional governor Nurymbet Saktaganov said local people had waited for the road for many years.
Imanashev also said that construction of 3,400 km of roads is starting in the country this year, and that KazAvtoZhol is introducing a new model in which revenue from toll roads will pay for maintaining free national roads, saving the budget about 60 billion tenge a year by the company's estimate.
Money for road maintenance is a sore point for the sector. According to Transport Ministry data, funding for maintaining national roads as a share of the standard has fallen for the third year running: 82% of the required amount in 2023, 66% in 2025, with a shortfall of 17.8 billion tenge last year. On the same day First Deputy Prime Minister Nurlybek Nalibayev held a meeting of the road sector reform working group and told the Transport Ministry, KazAvtoZhol and regional administrations to find ways to make roads last longer and work cheaper; he also stressed that overloaded lorries, which destroy road surfaces, must not be tolerated.
The head of KazAvtoZhol counted a project started in 2017 among those completed "over the last three years".
What it means: A long-delayed project in the mountains of East Kazakhstan is finished, and the authorities present it as proof that roads can be completed when there is money. Yet money for maintaining existing roads is shrinking, and hopes rest on toll revenue and a crackdown on overloading.
Who benefits: Residents and tourism businesses of Katon-Karagai district, for whom the resort is now easier to reach. Kazakh contractors, since a local company built the complex bridge. Hauliers carrying excess loads face tighter control.
Background: Rakhmanov Springs are hot radon springs in Katon-Karagai district of East Kazakhstan, within a national park at the foot of Belukha, Kazakhstan's highest mountain. KazAvtoZhol is the national company that maintains national roads and runs toll highways.
We have also reported that frost and blizzards closed 27 road sections to lorries in five regions.
