It's really interesting to be back in a post-soviet country - everything here remembers me of Russia or Ukraine. The majority of the people speak Russian on the streets, and even those who speak
Kazakh between each other do speak perfect Russian too. The people also look like in Russia, with of course a higher percentage of Asian people - especially in the South of Kazakhstan. But as there are many Asian or Mongolian people in Russia too, it is really only a question of percentage.
(check out on that photo: she has gold teeth! Many people in Kazakhstan have gold teeth)
The streets too look like in Russia or in Odessa: most of the footpaths, or trottoirs (the Russian word for sidewalk is тротуар [trotuar] ...) are in a quite desperate conditions, as are most of the streets. They have the same ugly soviet-style buildings. But many streets are bordered with trees: like in Odessa the towns are quite green, mainly Almaty and Shymkent, but in Astana there quite many trees too.
There are many parks as well with typical soviet-style monuments: usually pompous war-memorials or huge statues of historically important persons. Oh, talking about statues: I didn't see any Lenin-statue so far - one big difference to Russia where you'd have to try hard not to see any! Furthermore: the street-names, which used to be Soviet too (Karl-Marx-street, Lenin-street, street of 8th March,...) are all re-named hence leaving a big confusion in the towns: the people would still refer to the streets using the old names, while the street themselves and on maps are labeled with the new names. (I really struggled to find an address that somebody gave me with the old names, as google-maps only knows the new ones...)
And of course the shops are typical soviet-style too: small, not self-service (so you'll have to tell the person behind the counter everything you want) with quite a limited offer of things.
You will always only find fruits and vegetables in season, which look really healthy: all apples have a different shape, small or big, with some natural marks. Like real apples should look like! Not like in China where all the apples are huge, of the same size and the same taste - you can literally see all the chemicals that went into the production of them!
Oh, and of cours the Russian cucumbers, hhhhmmmmmm delicious
Not to mention the bread! YES!!! Dark bread again, wohoooo :)
The train I took - 24h from Almaty to Astana and then again 24h from there back South to Shymkent - was like in Russia too: плацкарт - 3rd class wagons. I really like these trains (well, after 48h sitting in an overcrowded Chinese train you'd love any train with a bed I suppose). Whereas the people in Chinese trains would throw everything on the floor or out of the window (well, they do that too here), the trains here are mostly clean: people are walking all the way to the end of the wagon to throw stuff in the bin.
So what is typical Kazakhstan you might ask?! Well, hm, I admit that I got more in touch with the Russian part of the culture than with the Kazakh part. I only spent a bit more than a week in Kazakhstan, and visited only a few places: the former capital Almaty, the new modern capital Astana, making a side-trip to the Borovoe lakes at курорт Боровое. Furthermore I visited the Southern town of Shymkent and the nearby center of pilgrimage Turkistan.
In many ways Almaty remembered me of beloved Odessa (although the Italian style buildings in Odessa are much more beautiful than Almaty-buidlings): a lot of trees, shashlyks on the street, big streets and broken pavements, a lot of parks, many marshrutkas (small busses). I really enjoyed simply walking around the streets and enjoying my time. There are many cafés too. I was not really able to travel out of Almaty though as my passport was stuck in the Tajik embassy...
The only place I went to was Medeu, just outside the city in the mountains. There is a huge ice-rink, but people would go there even in summer to relax and enjoy the cooler temperatures. I went there as everybody I had met had asked me if I had already gone there. Well, so I finally did. Regarding all the hype around it I was kind of disappointed: it is only a big ugly ice-rink and the landscape around is not really spectacular neither.
Astana in Kazakh means "capital". Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997, and it is indeed the big project of the all-time president
Nazarbaev. The whole part around the main boulevard in the new part of the city is really futuristique: all the tall buildings and skyscrapers have some special shapes, mirror-glasses and do look really fancy.
They have a really beautiful mosque too that I visited. I am really looking forward to all the muslim countries and buildings I gonna visit in the upcoming months, I really like muslim architecture!
While in Astana, I was really happy to stay with a really nice Kazakh woman, with whom I had great conversations over a few glasses of wines. Oh yes, wine...
Borovoe Lakes
While being in the North I went out to see the Borovoe lakes, a spa-region with many sanatoria. Many people had recommended me to go there, and this time I did understand why: I had two really relaxing days at the border of the small lakes. Even Nazarbaev has a villa in the region.
I just walked around the lake during the day, lay in the sun and went swimming, had some beers in the evening at the border of it, and some vodkas with the family of the room I rented.
Well, Russian people are special: in public they usually look really grumpy, never smile and would keep to themselves. However, they start quite fast to talk to you and ask also personal questions quite fast. And once you ask them for help, they will quite surely help you a lot! On the bus from the train-station to the lake
one woman would take me under her wings. And as she didn't go as far as I did, she asked another woman in the bus to help me - so I was passed from one pair of wings to the next one: this woman would walk around Borovoe for nearly 30min with me to find a perfect and cheap place to stay for me.
Man, without her I would for sure have paid at least the double!! Thanks to her I staid in a small room next to the house of a Russian babushka. I had my own room, toilets (two-holer) were outside and a keg of water too. Perfect, all you need for two days on the countryside!
While drinking vodka with these people I was again surprised by the Russian way of seeing the world, and at the same time about the often opposite Western way. Of course they presented it a bit black-and-white: for them the cold war didn't really stop and they do have the impression that every country America is backing, Russia wouldn't back and every country Russia is backing or collaborating with, is on the American black list...
Anyhow, I don't know why - I definitely didn't bring up this subject - they as well (like the Uyghurs) asked me what I think about homosexuals. Because at least for the guys who were in the round two men making up were "disgusting". Well, surprise, I asked them what they thought about two girls making up - oh, that's sexy, but two guys, uiiiii... Anyhow, one of the things people are apparently really perplexed with, when hearing about the West, is the way we much more openly deal with homosexuality, which is still one of the big taboos in their countries.
But we talked a lot about Kazakhstan and Russia as well. In the North, where I was at that time, are a lot of Russians. And they do definitely feel Russian. There is a lot of rivalry and racism between these groups. They told me that life is much harder for them in Kazakhstan than for the Kazakhs: when you want to earn real money, like set up a business or work in public service, Kazakhs have it much easier. Of course everything works only if you pay a certain sum of money. Corruption is still a big topic. But they would mostly have to pay more being Russian. And if you don't know the right person in the administration, well... it's gonna be even harder!
Shymkent
After my short encounter of the Kazakh North I went all the way back to the South, to Shymkent near Uzbekistan. Shymkent as a town and region has a really bad, if not the worst of all, reputation in Kazakhstan. Because - yes - because there are mainly Kazakhs living. Still I had the feeling of being in a typical post-soviet town, with the same style of streets, building and parks.
Only the really bustling bazar remembered me that I was in fact in Central Asia, not in Russia. A huge market area with different stands of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, a big area with fresh meat, different sorts of honey, another part only with sausages, cheeses and different types of butter (yes, huge blocks of butter from different regions),...
I guess in every town the market is one of the most interesting and bustling places to visit, right?!
Turkistan
Close to Shymkent, in Turkistan, I went to visit the old
Yasawi Mausoleum, built in 1389 to honour the poet and Sufi-mystic
Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi, together with two Italians who also stayed at my CS-host in Shymkent (check out their
travel-blog and
photo-page, from where I got the photo of the Kazakh women - both in Italian though)
It is a really fascinating beautiful building, and again I am really looking forward to all the similar buildings I gonna see mainly in Uzbekistan!
So what else can I say about Kazakhstan?! Well, I didn't stay long enough - only 10 days - to really discover the land and it's hidden corners. And the towns are the most russified parts of the country, leaving me with quite few purely Kazakh impressions. But not with none, so you can already check out my
gallery of Kazakhstan.
Coming back to a culture which has been the start of my trip - Russia - rather made old memories come up than gave me the feeling of being in a new country. Of course, it is a huge country, with big steppes in the middle, which I could see from the train-window, with many horses and the odd camel standing at the edge of the streets...
But one thing is sure: I am really happy to speak Russian again and feel really confident doing so! So I do feel ready for the other Central Asian countries, so bring it on!!
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