Almaty

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that a homosexual couple cannot raise a child in a proper fashion, something which I think is incredibly backwards and outdated.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.

I took the bus in from Bishkek and flew back – the latter being much easier and almost as cheap.

1/it`s a great terms there with big round pool under the high round roof.

2/and u can ride camel there

I visited Almaty in 2002, no more than a short stop before flying home, and immediately wished I had more time there.

The city, founded in 1854 as the second capital of Kazakhstan, is located in the mountains, an area that is earthquake-prone. Hotel Kazakhstan, with its height of 102m the highest building in the city and a major landmark, was built in 1975 and has 5 stories undergound which in their turn are resting on a foundation of springs – the whole construction carefully designed to make it earthquake-resistant.

There is a surpising amount of lush greenery in the city, with tree-shaded alleys and many parks, making it probably the greenest city in all of Central Asia; it provides 18 square meters of greenery per inhabitant (1.5 million in 2002). The area around the city is mostly used for groowing vegetables and fruit (including the huge apples which gave the city its name).

Major sights are the Zenkov Cathedral, a Russian-Orthodox church built entirely of wood, without a single nail, which because of its construction survived many eathquakes, and the independence monument, with interesting sculptures depicting the history of the country. There are many musea, which – except the Central Museum – were unfortunately all closed on the Monday we were here. The Central Museum is certainly worth a visit, but take a guide as none of the text with the exhibits are translated into English: it’s all in Kazakh in cyrillic script. I would have loved to visit the Musical Instruments museum, which has a large collection of traditional instruments; the museum’s scientists are doing archeological research and reconstructing old instruments, and there are recordings of how the instruments sound(ed).

I’d go back, just to be able to visit the Musical Instruments museum!

Cold, bleak, concrete – was asked for my jeans whilst on a cable car in the mountains. A great place but at the end of the Soviet period a formidable spirit was required….