Up Means Down, North Means South, Do You Have Any Vodka?

Of course, you knew apples are from Kazakhstan, right?

 

 

A few anecdotes to share about Kazakhstan

As we have now departed from Kazakhstan, I wanted to reflect on a few amusing and interesting odds and ends (mostly odd).

The place is a paradox, new and modern mixed with ancient and historic.  Efficient and hard work interwoven with indifference and poor service.  

Here is an example:  We took overnight train trips to-and-from the remote outback of western K-stan. 
On the first trip we were delighted to find a healthy and pleasant breakfast.  

The next trip ... not so pleasant.  We went down to the dining car in the morning after sleeping all night on the train anticipating a repeat of the nice meal on the previous trip.  

We found the crew still asleep for the most part and not terribly helpful.  We were told to go sit down and we would be taken care of.  We asked for some eggs and coffee and maybe some toast with butter and jam.

After about twenty minutes of no response, they wandered back in and told us they had no eggs. "Do you want to come and order off the menu?" they said.  I was surprised they had a menu, this is a train with minimal services. 

So I went and looked at the menu and tried to discern something useful.  All I could see was one thing.  When I went back to sit down, Fiona asked if I ordered some breakfast.  My response: "All they had on the menu was Vodka!"

We eventually got some bread.  And it took about twenty minutes for a cup of coffee.  Hey it's just instant coffee, how long can it take to dump some powder in a cup and boil the kettle?

And when we finished our meager ration of bread they came up and asked us - "you ...  bread ... butter?"  meaning, "do you guys want some butter?"  Ummm, a little late ...

They have a long way to go in the realm of customer service. 

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Almaty is filled with wonderful parks and trees

 

One of the more ironic (moronic?) things we found was that up was down in Almaty, the biggest city. And North was South.  This makes it very difficult to find your way around and figure out where things are.

Let me explain.  The maps they use are based on the terrain.  Which means that the city layout - north to south - is based on the slope of the ground.  Readers of this blog may recall that there are some serious mountains to the south, so the city is a downhill slope to the north.  Without getting too complicated, they refer things as uphill (south), to downhill (north).

So when you want to look at a map, the higher elevations (south) are at the top of the map, and therefore ... the north is at the bottom.  

Only when you use Google maps or other "modern" devices, well, North is where it's supposed to be - everything looks backward.  It is seriously confusing.  It took a lot of work to not get lost.  I was scratching my head the whole time ...

If this sounds baffling, trust me, it was.

 
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And one final major impact on the culture of K-stan was the Russian influence from 1840 to 1991, when they achieved independence.  

In that time, they were heavily "colonized" by first the Czars of Russia, and then the Soviets.  For a long time, Kazakhstan and the other "stans" and many other countries, were controlled as part of the USSR - remember those days?  

 

They were part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.   Once they achieve sovereignty, that influence was woven into their DNA.  It's changing now, but it is still part of their everyday life in some ways. 

Most Kazaks speak Russian.  They use the often incomprehensible Russian alphabet, even when they speak Kazak.  And they drink a lot of Vodka. It will take a generation or two before this influence is washed out of their culture.  

So that's today's history and geography lesson.  But one that is essential to the Kazak people.  

 
Kazakstan is an emerging nation, one with a lot of natural resources (especially oil) that will provide for wealth and a growing middle class.  In the meantime, it's a country in transition ... and a surprising, often puzzling, but fascinating place to visit. 

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A couple more brief anecdotes:  We were walking around one of the excavation sites in Turkistan and we saw some guys supervising the workers.  The supervisors not doing any work of course, and were pretty fat, and were pretty bossy.  

Our guide stated: "The bigger the belly, the bigger the boss!"  Kinda like the USA or anywhere else in the world?  I'm just sayin'  ...

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And we were wandering around in a small town looking for some abandoned ruins, and we couldn't get a gate unlocked, even with the right key.  We asked a middle aged guy riding by on a bike if he could help us open the gate.  Obviously, as a local he knew how to work the faulty lock.

He looked at me and Fiona and asked our guide if we were Russian.  
"No," she said "they are American"  
"Like American-American or Russian-American?" whatever that means.  Only he said it with a heavy accent like Ameri-conski?
"Like real Americans"  she told him.
He stared at us.  "They look Rooski (that's how he described Russians)"  He pointed at me: "He looks more Rooski than I do"  
Hunh?  Wait?  What?  Me?  Never been called that before ...