You can get to the valley of the Sumbar river by mountain roads lying along the plateau, through the villages of Nukhur or Sayvan, and go down to the river valley along a serpentine. But it is better - at least once to drive along the highway through the fantastic vestibule of the valley - the "mountains of the moon". This is one of the striking local attractions of the southwestern Kopetdag.

Small hills, among the parted high ridges of the Kopetdag, look extremely amazing: from one to eight meters high, rounded, pinkish-cream, or gray or almost white. The impression is so stable that for many decades these mountains do not dignify anything other than "lunar". Particularly unusual view of the hills at sunset and after rain. Blue or yellow hills, behind them - gray hills, even further - a strip of blue mountains, and above them - the blue sky ... And immediately behind all this fantasy landscape - the etrap center Makhtumkuli (formerly Karakala) with a scattering of white houses, with plantations of subtropical crops and an endless green ribbon of pomegranate gardens.

In the history of the Turkmen people, the Sumbar Valley is a particularly dear and memorable place: the poet and philosopher Makhtumkuli-Fraghi spent his early years here. Artifacts associated with the name of the great Fraghi are kept in the poet's museum in his native village of Gerkez. His spiritual heritage - poems praising the ideas of humanism and unity of the nation, have rightfully become the golden fund of Turkmen literature.

A small rounded fortress with a diameter of about 10 meters, like a crown on the head of a royal person, is crowned by the inaccessible rocks of a mountain peak. Built of stones, sometimes fortified with clay, these structures have served since ancient times to protect the Turkmen tribes. Local legends and traditions will tell about big and small events that took place here. Often not connected with historical facts, however, these stories are striking in their living connection with the nature of the region and the traditional way of life of the people who inhabited the valley for millennia. For example, the Yazir-gala fortress, which is part of the Fakratdin complex, is associated with Yazir-khan, who ruled the Turkmen tribe "Garadashly".

The beauty of the Southwestern Kopetdag attracts travel lovers like a magnet. You come here again and again to see this beautiful land, which hospitably opens up its gorges, rings with crystal streams and welcomingly rustles the crowns of trees.