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 "Seyrana" 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 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).
