Long before the first caravans traversed the Silk Roads, the steppes of Kazakhstan were roamed by the Saka nomads, a people closely related to the Scythians. As nomadic people, their cultural legacy left little remains besides circular burial mounds, known as kurgan. Just outside the center of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, lies a vast and open grassland with 45 of these circular mounds dating from 2,500 years ago. The largest of these mounds is over 14 meters high and 100 meters wide, with well preserved objects excavated.

Remarkably, this culture and others in the region hints at a global trade with the east and west much earlier than previously thought, as Chinese silk and Persian carpets were found during excavations. These burial mounds are testaments to the very early periods of the silk roads, long before Zhang Qian first ventured to the west. The site is open to any visitor today, with no entrance fee as of 2024. You may, however, be the only visitor in the vast and open space.