Where to stay
Talas has proper hotels. Everywhere else, the best beds in Irad are in family guesthouses, where breakfast is a feast and your hosts will plan your day for you.
A family guesthouse in the Old City of Talas.
Konok Üy began in 2011 as a handful of guesthouse families in Talas who were tired of losing guests to the new hotels on the central avenue. Today our members run guesthouses, yurt camps and small tour companies across the ISEZ. We don't take bookings ourselves, but write to us and we'll pass your dates to members with a free room.
Hotels in Talas
Most of the international-standard hotels stand along the central avenue. They were built after 2011 for contractors and energy executives, so they have lifts, generators, card machines and English at the desk, and they're priced like it. Weekdays fill up with business travellers, so book ahead.
- The International Diplomatic Hotel, off Central Square, is where official delegations stay. Its New Year charity ball, on the last Saturday of December, is the social event of the Talas winter.
- Hotel Bazar-i Kalan (Meymankana Bazar-i Kalan), opened in 2018 beside the covered market, is the only hotel at the edge of the Old City. It's handy for the bazaar and the lanes. You should know that a 1910 merchant's house was pulled down to build it, and plenty of Talasians still haven't forgiven it.
Out by Alatau Heights and the air-base strip there are motels and serviced flats for contractors on long stays, with American-style diners next door.
Family guesthouses
A konok üy is a family home with a few rooms set aside for guests, usually round a courtyard with a vine trellis and a raised platform for tea. You get a clean room, a hot shower (ask in the morning if the boiler needs lighting), a breakfast of bread, cream, jam, eggs and tea, and supper if you ask. The family will tell you which bus to take, ring a driver for you and phone ahead to their cousin in the next town.
- Talas: two guesthouses in the Old City lanes near Bazar-i Kalan, and more in the Russian-era streets east of the citadel, with their iron-roofed porches and carved window frames.
- Iyık Janyl: about twelve guesthouses below Cathedral Hill, among the icon, felt and saddle shops. They fill for the Feast of St. Janyl on 24 August, so book months ahead for August and September.
- Bazar-Korgon and Toktogul: a few family rooms each. Stay a Saturday night in Bazar-Korgon if you want the Sunday market at dawn.
- Arslanbob, on the tribal side of the line, has a network of family guesthouses that can also arrange your clan invitation.
Most guesthouses take cash only, in som or dollars. Expect to pay well under half the price of a central-avenue hotel, with breakfast included.
Pilgrim hostels
The church runs simple hostels for pilgrims, and visitors of any faith are welcome when there's room. The biggest is the Iyık Janyl Pilgrimage Hostel in the cathedral precinct on Cathedral Hill, with dormitories and a few family rooms, an early curfew and the cathedral bells at seven. Phone the hostel on +996-39-6-22-18-05. Expect quiet after the evening service, and no alcohol.
Yurts on the summer pastures
From June to early September the herding families move up to the high pastures, and some take in guests. A night in a felt yurt means a mattress of quilts on the floor, a stove in the middle, fresh kymyz and the sound of horses outside. There are no showers. Yurt stays come with riding trips in Besh-Tash and the Talas Alatau, so book them through a member operator: see a week in the saddle. The yurts come down after the Feast of the Cross on 14 September.
Registering your stay
Hotels and guesthouses in the ISEZ note your passport details when you arrive, so keep it handy. In the tribal regions, village councils ask guesthouse owners to register their guests, and your hosts will do it for you.