Torugart-Pass

Border crossing at Torugart Pass

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The Torugart pass ( Kyrgyz Торугарт / Torugart; Chinese图 噜 噶 尔特 山口/图 噜 噶 尔特 山口, Pinyin túlūgáĕrtè Shankou, also Turugart ) is a 3752 m high mountain pass in the Central Asian Mountains Tianshan. It connects the Kyrgyz territory Naryn in the north to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the south, part of the People's Republic of China.

On the Kyrgyz side of the pass is about 400 km from the capital Bishkek away. About Balyktschy and Naryn, 190 km away from the pass, we reach the close Torugart Pass road, which is often impassable in winter due to snow and avalanche danger. In pass close to the Kyrgyz side is in the Aksay Valley Lake Chatyr Kul.

On the Chinese side of the pass 1630 km from Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, and 165 kilometers, from Kashgar. Removed at 2000 m altitude, about 100 km from the summit, there is the Chinese border station (吐 尔 尕 特 口岸).

History

1881 a border station was built at Torugart pass from Russia and China for the first time. In 1905, the British consul in Kashgar, George Macartney, notes that the Russians had built a 27 foot wide road from the Kyrgyz side to the Torugart pass and half a mile further into Chinese territory. 1906 allowed China to Russian pressure the further construction of the road on Chinese territory; the construction of the road to Kashgar was funded by the Sino- Russian Transport Bank with 20 million rubles. 1952 sparked the Torugart pass the 165 km south-west to the border crossing at Irkeshtam from the main road link between Xinjiang and the former Kyrgyz SSR. A literary idea of ​​the circumstances of road and long-distance transport of the time on this route provide some works of Chingiz Aitmatov, eg you my poplar in red headscarf.

In the 1960s, the fit result of the Sino-Soviet rift was closed in 1983 but reopened. 1995 China moved its border station to a deeper place. The Asian Development Bank is supporting the development of the pass road on the Kyrgyz side.

Today, the Torugart Pass and Irkeshtam are the only shared for cross-border routes between Kyrgyzstan and China. By 2002, the Torugart was really the only usable by tourists crossing point between the two countries.

The pass is if, then always open on one side only: from 9 to 13 clock crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan to China, 14 to 18 clock is possible in the opposite direction. On weekends and holidays the pass is not traversable, private vehicles crossing the border is rarely allowed. 2004 were registered goods worth 4.4 million U.S. dollars imported via the Torugart Pass to Kyrgyzstan, in 2005 crossed per month on average in 1430 vehicles to pass. However, the UNODC speaks of sloppy controls and organized smuggling; Sundays were also observed at the border crossing trucks. The proportion of unregistered imported from over the passes goods from China in Kyrgyzstan is estimated at 50%.

Gallery

Pass road

Residential containers at the Kyrgyz border station