Although this remote village has only some shop-cafes, a petrol station and five guest houses (March 2016), it is an important road junction connecting China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Its name is derived from Turkic roots and means "yellow-stone".[3]
Sary-Tash was visited in 1894 by Swedish traveller Sven Hedin, who wrote his caravan before his mountaineering ascent "fell on their knees in the snow, offering Allah a prayer for a happy pass through the dangerous Kyzyl-Art, where sudden disastrous storms often occur." Exploring the pass, he saw a pile of stones piled in a heap, decorated with "tutami", a type of poles, which were hung with fur pendants, colorful rags of fabric, horns of mountain goats and rams.