The Almaty Metro has been planned for 23 years and now the first section of Line One starts at the Rayimbek Batyr terminus and pass through the five transfer stations of Zhibek Zholy, Almaly, Abai, Baikonur and Auezov Theatre before coming to Alatau.

The first 8.56 km stretch of track and first seven passenger stations of the new rapid transit underground rail system opened in December 2011. The metro compared to the London Underground, is spanking clean and beautiful with Marble floors and various forms of Artwork on the walls. With trains arriving every 10-15 mins, and the Temperature Below 20 degrees Celsius, this is defiantly the way to travel during the summer, when outside air temperature is in the 30 degrees Celsius range.

You can travel anywhere in the metro system (Currently 7 stations, but with more being built) for 80 Tenge this is approximately £0.34 or $0.54 as of time of writing (15/07/12). Although my Russian is very basic to say the least, I found getting the Yellow Token (Pictured below) that lets you through the barriers, very easily, just simply hand over the sum of 80 Tenge to the person at the ticket booth, or, if you have a high denomination Kazakh Tenge Note, simply hand it over to the Ticket Booth and put 1 index finger up, indicating you only want the one ticket. The metro is open from 6am till 12pm.