Almaty, Kazakhstan

Again, here is another post that is extremely over-due. Kind of like my library books when I was a kid. I like to think that maybe my narratives are better if I have more time to process the experience...Well enough with the excuses and on with the story! Last spring I was hired to teach about the life in the U.S. to young Azerbaijani high school students selected to study in the U.S. for a year. As part of the deal I got to go to Almaty, Kazakhstan for a week-long training of trainers workshop. There, other teachers and teachers' assistants from Central Asia all got together to learn about what we had to teach. Although I had recently come back from a short trip to the States, I was itching to travel again- especially to another Post-Soviet country. I am trying to decipher the roots of some of the cultural idiosyncrasies here in Azerbaijan- is it Soviet, Muslim, Persian or just unique to Azerbaijan. It being anything from drinking cold water causing imminent death, driving practices, bribery, gender roles or care (or lack thereof) for the environment. And of course since the Borat movie came out I was also curious as to how exaggerated Kazakhstan was portrayed.There were four of us total representing Azerbaijan- two teachers, myself and a Peace Corps Volunteer- Brendan, and two Azeris who were alumni of the exchange program(FLEX) and also our teaching assistants, Govher and Mamed.

The four of us boarded a plane headed for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This was also quite exciting to have to change plains in Uzbekistan since the Uzbek government is highly selective of who it lets in. Since we were only in transit it wasn't a big deal. But still cool to say we'd been to Uzbekistan- if only for an hour. The only notable thing on the actual flight was that there was NOTHING notable down below. It was a sunny day so we could see the ground and it was amazing at how barren and desolate Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are. I think we crossed what's left of the Aral sea but there was nothing but steppe, desert and more of the same.
In Uzbekistan we had a nice transfer, what was interesting was that from what I could see the ONLY airline that flew into or out of Uzbekistan was Uzbek air. hmmm. We did have a slight altercation with the Uzbek police when Govher was trying to take pictures of the airplane. The guard/officer made her delete all her pictures.
Because of the nature of the trip (business) I didn't have a ton of time to catch all the sights. But we did get out for a day and an evening.

The training was located at a Sanatorium (Health spa/retreat) outside of Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, located in the South only a few miles from the border of Kyrgyzstan. The building was an immense Soviet Style structure. This was where all the higher ups in the Soviet government came for vacation. It was pretty nice, complete with golf course, driving range and an indoor pool with water slides! I had to splurge and buy a bathing suit to take advantage of the luxury.

Before the training started we had one day to go and explore the city. Our first stop once we figured out which bus to take into the city, was the central Bazaar, the largest in Central Asia. As expected it was a large area of mass chaos, not dissimilar to Bazaars in Azerbaijan only larger and less concern about us being foreigners, which was a breath of fresh air. After haggling for trinkets for souvenirs we headed on our way. We stopped for lunch at a nice Italian restaurant on one of the main boulevards. The afternoon was spent trying to do a self- guided walking tour from Brendan’s lonely planet book. Unfortunately the whole group wasn’t as keen on walking so much so we only managed to see a few of the sights. The first was the large turquoise Russian Orthodox Church. We walked on to see other monuments and city anomalies including a replica of the Eifel Tower. What struck Brendan and I the most was the large grocery stores and one in particular that carried imitation Dunkin Donuts- Domino Donuts. There are no donuts in Azerbaijan and we were in heaven. After getting soaked through in a flash rain storm we decided to head back to the Sanitorium. One of the other interesting things was the Taxi system. In Kazakhstan anyone can be a taxi, there are almost no marked Taxis, ,in contrast to Azerbaijan where every second car has a yellow sign on top. We flagged down some random business man driving out our way. He told us he often picked up people and was willing to take us around again if we needed a ride. The other interesting thing was that his and many of the other cars I noticed, had steering wheels on the right side.

On another evening after the training I along with two other Americans- one a PCV in Kazakhstan- and spoke Kazakh and knew the city- went out again to see what see what we could see. We walked around some parks and some more monuments. One of the more interesting was a memorial to the people who had been sent to the forced labor camps in the area. We also saw another beautiful Orthodox Church, sadly it wasn’t lit up and the ambient light was too little to capture it on film. We walked on to see a newly constructed behemoth mosque (Note the tiny people standing in the doorway- that's me and another Kate-PCV Kazakhstan). It may be one of the largest in central Asia, I’m not positive so don’t quote me on that. It was huge! So as you can probably decipher, Kazakhstan has both a strong Christian and Muslim community. I think that since the end of the Soveit Era the scales tip more towards the Muslem side. Again, I'm not positive, I still need to do my homework.

We caught a late bus back to the Sanatorium and the bus driver was so impressed that one of us spoke Kazakh that he wanted us to go to his house for dinner.

Another highlight of the training was talking to the other Americans in the ‘stans’ and learning about the similiarities and differences between all the countries in the area. It sounded like things were pretty similar most everywhere. Turkmenistan seemed to be slightly more dictatorial and Kazakhstan slightly less. Kyrgyzstan seemed to be relatively progressive as well. I will also note that nothing I saw in Kazakhstan was remotely like ‘Borat’ The people didn’t look like that- they look Asian- , not like Borat, whatever it is he looks like- but its definitely not Kazakh! I also have to take into consideration that I was in the largest city and a resort town so things were probably better there than anywhere else. From what the Kazakhstan volunteers described of their experience outside of the city, it sounded pretty rough. One shower in the neighborhood and you only get to go once a week.

The training was great and we were all sad to leave. Although I can’t say that I’m dying to go back but it would be nice to gather even more insight into this Soviet puzzle.