Torugart Pass

The Torugart Pass is a 3752 m high mountain pass in the Central Asian Tianshan Mountains. The road leading over the pass connects the Kyrgyz Naryn region in the north with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the south, which is part of the People's Republic of China.

The top of the pass is about 400 km from the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Via Balykchy and Naryn, 190 km from the pass, you reach the narrow Torugart pass road, which is often impassable in winter due to snow and the risk of avalanches. Lake Chatyr-Kul is located in the Aksaital near the pass on the Kyrgyz side.

Chatyr-Kul Lake is a heavenly place especially in summer. It is a beautiful lake, huge area for a bird sanctuary so access is a bit limited to actually go to the lake. Beautiful, soaring mountains tower over you as you go and there are not a lot of tourists around. It is really an adventure, weather is unpredictable, and it can snow any time of the year. At Chatyr-Kul there are a few nice but simple yurts where you can stay for the night, before returning to Tash Rabat or going further to Torugart border to drive to Kashgar. For a trip from Bishkek to Kashgar this is a nice active adventure on the way. In addition, it is possible to go further to Kol Suu.

On the Chinese side, the top of the pass is 1630 km from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and 165 km from Kashgar. The Chinese border station is located at an altitude of 2000 m, over 100 km from the top of the pass.

In 1881, a border station was first established by Russia and China at the Torugart Pass. In 1905, the British consul in Kashgar, George Macartney, determined 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. In 1906, under Russian pressure, China allowed the road to be continued on Chinese territory. In 1952, the Torugart Pass replaced the border crossing at Erkeshtam, 165 km southwest, as the most important road connection between Xinjiang and the then Kyrgyz SSR. Some works by Chingiz Aytmatov give a literary impression of the circumstances of road construction and long-distance traffic at that time on this route.

Today, the Torugart Pass and Erkeshtam are the only cross-border routes between Kyrgyzstan and China. Until 2002, the Torugart was the only border crossing between the two countries that could be used by tourists.