Karakol
Good to know
- Best time to go
- June to September
- Budget
- $
- Accessibility
- limited
- Coordinates
- Open in maps
Karakol is a small provincial city at the eastern end of Issyk-Kul, founded as a Russian garrison town in 1869 and serving today as the main trekking hub for the central Tian Shan. Its two most distinctive buildings — a Russian Orthodox church built from timber without a single nail and a Chinese Dungan mosque with a curved roof influenced by Chinese temple architecture — stand within a short walk of each other in the town centre. The surrounding valleys lead toward the Karakol and Ala-Kul glacier circuits.
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