There is an old Soviet-era plane on a pedestal just down the hill from the Asian-themed World War II memorial. At this memorial, an eternal flame (Russian: Вечний Огун) burns under a circle of partial-white arches, which are reminiscent of a yurt. Across from the memorial, there is a drama theater with regular productions in Russian.
Just south of these structures, on Aktau's middle north-south thoroughfare, you will find a collection of restaurants, night clubs and shopping centers. A well-appointed grocery store (Ramstor), movie theater and night club are in the Ardager shopping complex (district 9). Beyond that, in the furthest shopping center to the south is "Shoom" (ШУМ)(district 4), which has a large variety of low-quality stores.
To the north, in district 16, you can find Aktau's new mall. The mall includes a very small ice-skating rink, movie theater and a number of low and high quality shops (low quality children's clothes on the top floor, Hugo Boss on the main floor). The mall includes arguably the best deal in town for food at Asorti on its top floor.
District 10 has little of note, but it serves as a great viewing point of the huge frescoes, which cover one side of decrepit Soviet apartment buildings across the main street in district 9. The frescoes depict various "national fathers" of Kazakhstan, and rumor has it that current president Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev is keen to have his picture painted in a similar fashion. At the moment, he is making do with an enormous banner draped over an apartment building on that row.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Aktau
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Aktau - updated May 2024
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Aktau Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
