Routes north of the Caspian Sea?

[pecha72]

Trying to construct a ´general route map´ of the most commonly used overland-routes in Asia. This will be for an article on a magazine. The southern route from Turkey to India I´ve done myself, and most other options do seem pretty clear... but it seems I´ve now hit a "blank spot" regarding routes from, say, Moscow to Tashkent (Uzbekistan) or Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan).

Google maps, and my Silk Road paper map, both indicate, that from Volgograd (RUS) to Beyney (KAZ) to Nukus (UZB), especially that last part is a very small road on the southwest side of the Aral sea... any idea, if it´s do-able at all? And in any case it probably does not qualify as a ´major´ overland route, am I right?

Then from Samara (RUS) to Aktobe, Baikonur and Kyzyl-Orda (KAZ), the road, at least on the map, looks like a bigger one... any info about this route?

...Or there is some other main route, that I am completely missing (my aim is not to include every possible route, just the "main" ones)? Any info highly appreciated!