Hopefully someone here has been that way more recently than I, but I recall being apprehensive about that stretch in 2010.
There was a gas shortage at that time, and you had to hit the stations just when the gas truck arrived or all the gas would be bought up by the people lined up down the road.
Still, somewhere halfway to Kazahkstan there was a building with a barrier to close the road in sandstorms- and behind the building there was a guy selling gas out of a barrel.
...............shu
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