Most international flights arrive at Almaty Airport which is 13km north of the centre. It has the usual facilities including an information desk, ATMs, cafes, bars and restaurants, duty-free shopping, car hire, disabled facilities etc. There are a number of airlines you could try including Air Baltic, BMI, KLM, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines or Turkish Airlines.

On arrival at the airport, be prepared to wait for a fair while. The authorities are extremely vigorous on passport control and never seem to be in much of a rush. Therefore if several flights land at once, you could be in for a long wait.

If you are getting your visa on arrival the visa area opens on arrival of each flight, both during the day and in the early hours of the morning. Suprise suprise - they won’t be in much of a hurry either! You will be also issued with a migration card, a flimsy piece of paper similar to the ones in Russia and Belarus. Please keep it safe as you will need to produce it to leave the country.

The Migration Card can be viewed here. The card will be given to you on the flight into Kazakhstan and must be filled out before you go through passport control. The card will be stamped by the immigration officer and returned to you. You must keep it safe otherwise you will have extreme difficulties when trying to fly out of the country.

Key things to note on the Migration Card are:

• Passport number goes at the top right, after ‘No.’
• Then fill out your surname, first names, and nationality
• Purpose of visit is tourism / football
• If staying overnight put down the name of your hotel down as inviting person/organisation
• If NOT staying overnight put Kazakh Football Federation
• Leave ‘Accompanying by children’ section blank
• Then sign it off in the appropriate area but don’t write on the back

The airport does not control taxi services so you could find yourself being accosted by both taxi drivers and dodgy chancers wanting your business. That leads to the obvious possibility of you getting fleeced along the way. Your best bet is to arrange with your hotel for a taxi service or hotel transport to pick you up. Alternatively arrange for a taxi at the desk before you leave the baggage hall this should come to approximately KZT2000 for a drive to the city centre. Beware though as drivers may try to get KZT4000 or KZT5000.

Ask your hotel to email you their address in Kazakh or Russian and print this off to show the taxi driver as most people will have limited or no knowledge of the English language.

Several buses run from the airport to the city centre, the journey takes around 40 mins. At the time of research, the nearest bus stop to the airport was 250m along the street outside the parking area. Bus #492 runs to Sayakhat bus station.