Turkmenbashi
City
Turkmenbashi is the administrative centre of the Balkan
region 560 km west from Ashgabat. It is the biggest port
town with a very hospitable population of 60,000 people.
The town is enclosed with low mountains and faces the
Caspian Sea.

Avaza
is the most popular sea resort center (10 km from Turkmenbashi)
that is promising much in future. You are hardly to find
the vacant local cottages for rent because of great flow
of holidaymakers in summer time. But you are always sure
to find accommodation at fashionable "Serdar"
hotel that is very close the purest, brilliant Caspian
seashore (that is considered the biggest lake in the world).
The short distance between Avaza resort and Turkmenbashi
town will let you be a frequent attendant of town bazaar
and local supermarket (on Shagadam street) where one can
enjoy the abundance of great choice of green vegetables,
fruits and famous sea products (crayfish, shrimps, sturgeon
and caviar). You can also buy fresh fish from fishermen
just on the
seashore who can every mourning there.
You can finish your town tour with an excursion to Museum
of Regional History (10 minutes walk of the station).
When you are back to Avaza to watch sunset and have the
last swim of the day you can pleasantly finish your rest
day in entertainment center of Florida next to "Tolkun"
hotel (known as Turkish complex on the seashore). Only
there you are can enjoy the wonderful and romantic sea
view sitting exactly at the bar, you can also try your
luck at Florida casino and taste delicious fish dishes
in the restaurant.

The
next attractive spot to visit is restaurant is the State
Reserve set up to protect the region's 280 species of
water fowl, marsh birds including flamingos, pelicans,
indigenous colonies of seals or turtles. For anybody interested
in seeing seals or turtles the reserve headquarters is
on Naberezhnaya Street 42, where there is also small Natural
History Museum. The desert ecosystems, dry subtropics,
and marine shallow bays in the southeastern coast of the
Caspian are included into the Khazar nature reserve. It
consists of two parts, Essenguly and Krasnovodsk. It was
set up in 1968 on an area of 192,300 ha. This nature reserve
is included in the list of aquatic and wetland habitats
of the international significance that are under protection
of the Ramsar International Convention. The Khazar nature
reserve provides the habitat for 18 species of mammals
and 372 species of birds. Of the bird fauna, nearly a
half is waterfowl and near-water birds, which is a specific
feature of the Khazar nature reserve (more than 85% of
its territory covers the water areas, bays, and sea).