By sheer coincidence, Borat was on as the in-flight movie. I thought it was hilarious but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Kazakhstan.

When you arrive, Almaty is fairly bleak and stark. The roads are pretty bad, and people drive as though they are at war. They also seem to want to drive the biggest jeep possible. Which, given the roads, makes a twisted kind of sense. A lot of things are, well, grimy.

The weather was strange; no snow, grey skies, temperatures close to zero. Not very uplifting, but at least not minus twenty and a meter of snow like you’d expect.

But I did have a great week here. My colleagues turned out to be very warm and friendly people and after work they took me to all kinds of small community bars/restaurants/dancing rooms. Copious amounts of sashlik and vodka and local cuisine from Kazakhstan and the surrounding countries followed. The Kazakhstani seem to like their meat plenty and their vegetables few.

Most of them speak both Kazakh and Russian so I could practice; it is obvious I have a long way to go. I just don’t have the vocabulary for any kind of meaningful conversation, but I learned a lot of new words :)

What I found very interesting was the fact that there are so many different and sharply contrasting ethnic groups mixed, and yet they all seemed to get along and get it on fine. They even seemed a bit nonplussed about my remarks on the topic. At the same time, I spoke with several people who thought it obvious that a homosexual couple cannot raise a child in a proper fashion, something which I think is incredibly backwards and outdated. They also didn’t know what a Nintendo Wii was, which was pure heresy.

All in all, it was a fantastic week although I didn’t get much sleep, being dragged from one place to the other. This plus the vodka equals some 48 hours of sleep shortage, which I will correct right now.

On a totally unrelated sidenote, the military hats were BIG. I mean REALLY BIG. I didn’t dare take a picture but it looked like a hat with a guy attached.