Zhas Kanat

Aktau's football ground carries the name of the neighbourhood housing block it sits behind — 12th microdistrict — and for years locals knew it simply as Zhastar before the current name took hold. Zhas Kanat opened its gates on 19 April 1995, when Munaishi met Elimai in the first match played on its turf.

What sets it apart from the country's bigger arenas is scale: it was never built for spectacle, only for the city to have somewhere of its own to play. The artificial pitch, unheated, suits Mangystau's climate better than natural grass ever could — sea winds and long dry spells make grass upkeep a losing battle this far into the steppe.

Caspiy calls it home now, and the club's own site lists the ground among its assets rather than treating it as a rented venue, which says something about how the two are tied together locally. A refit in 2018 brought the facility up to a more modern standard without changing its footprint or its character — this remains a community pitch that happens to host professional football, not a stadium built to chase a bigger league.