Bozzhyra is two chalk towers, each about 200 metres tall, standing alone on the floor of a valley in western Kazakhstan. Kazakhs call them Azu Tisteri, the fang teeth, and they are the image the whole Mangystau region travels on. From the rim above, the towers look no bigger than chess pieces, because the plain behind them is so flat and empty that there is nothing on it to measure distance against. Light is what changes the place. At noon the chalk glares back a flat, shadowless white; at dawn and dusk the walls turn gold and pink and the towers throw shadows halfway across the valley. Nothing here has been arranged for you: no fence, no ranger, no marked path.
This ground was an ocean floor. The Tethys Sea lay over this corner of Kazakhstan for tens of millions of years and left the deep white beds that became the Ustyurt plateau. The sea has never quite gone: the loose stone underfoot is full of shells, coral and the teeth of ancient sharks. Wind and rain have been cutting the plateau's western rim into towers, teeth and long castle walls ever since the water withdrew. For a couple of weeks in April the clay between the rocks is dotted with small wild tulips. The emptiness nearly ended in 2020, when a boutique hotel with a pool was proposed at the foot of the fangs and machinery arrived on site. The outcry was loud enough that President Tokayev ordered the project revised that December. The valley is still bare, and once the sun goes the Milky Way climbs over the towers in a sky with almost nothing to dim it.