Something Soviet-esque

I was looking through my pics the other day and realized I never posted the photos I have of some very, very Soviet-esque monuments. So here you are. (It’s weird to be looking at these pictures of sun and short sleeves when everything around here is now covered in snow!)

Park Panfilovna, or more fully, 28 Panfilov Heroes Memorial Park was named for the division of the Kazakhstan Army fighting against the Nazis in WWII. The park is huge, and sports a very, very old Orthodox Church on the other side of it. Yes, the juxtaposition of a place of worship and a communist monument seem strange. But under communism, the church was turned into a museum. (More on the church below.)





Here’s a shot of the eternal flame. It lists how many Kazakhis died in the “Great Patriotic War for the Motherland,” or Great Patriotic War as WWII is more commonly referred to in former Soviet countries. Dude, they lost 16 million people during the war. Nearly all men born between the years xx and xx (sorry, I forgot the years) died. The Soviets took the biggest hit, casualty-wise, out of all countries engaged in the war. I think that gives them the right to call it whatever they want. (Read about the blockade in St. Petersburg…I watched a documentary about it and it was enough to make you want to renounce being human.)

Here’s another. I see this style of monuments as the Soviet style: Massive, in-your-face, and slightly scary. (I remember a similar monument to freedom fighters, including Goce Delchev, in a park in Skopje and feeling awed and slightly afraid of it as a child.) As Steve said as we were looking at it: There’s nothing subtle about the message that they were imparting upon you. Nor was the style subtle.

I don’t know. Maybe if you grow up being around monuments, parks, and buildings like this, you find it normal and not slightly disconcerting. So perhaps my Americanness has something to do with my interpretation of such Soviet-esque places and things. But sometimes I feel myself sagging under the weight of their enormousness, their heaviness, their hammering me over the head with their emphasis.

Now onto the shiny, happy, yellow church. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Once upon a time, the city of Almaty was called “Verniy,” which translates into “faithful.” This was back when the Kazakhs asked the Russian empire for protection from some warring invaders (I think some tribe living in China). The tzar dispatched several divisions, who built a fort around the city of Almaty. Then this church was built in 1870, and the name of the city was changed from it’s Kazakh name to the Russian “Verniy.” By the by, Almaty in Kazakh means “father of apples.” And yup, scientists have traced the apple back to this place. (Too bad people have razed ancient trees to build McMansions, but that’s another story….)

Almaty is earthquake prone, and so the engineer building the church took that into consideration. In addition to not using one nail while building it (it’s all wooden pegs), he built the beams with some “play” in it so that it can move when the earth move. When this big earthquake hit in 1887, the story goes, all of the buildings in Verniy started crumbling to the ground, except for the church. So all of the townspeople flocked to the church for physical (as well as spiritual, I’m sure) security after the earthquake. Which just reinforced the notion of a faithful people, thus reinforcing the name of the city.

The church is as lovely on the inside, a typical Orthodox church. On the back wall before you exit the church there are a number of frescoes on the walls, depicting burning in hell and such. A not-so-subtle reminder not to sin as you’re heading on your way out…

Happy Thanksgiving!

My flight was cancelled Tues with no apparent rationale, and there are no tickets available for the next flight out Friday, so it looks like my Turkemenistan travel plans have been thwarted. While I like Ashgabat and would have enjoyed the balmy weather there, I'm not terribly distraught over not having to jam in one last trip before I head back to the US next month.

Funny how Thanksgiving seems like such a hassle back home (where are we going? How much time wasted driving/buying tickets/flying? The shopping, the lines, the crowds, the rude people, the hassle....). So far away from it now, I'm looking at websites with Turkeys and shoppers fondly. Am I really starting to appreciate an American tradition?? When I explained the whole Thanksgiving concept to people, they thought it was really cool, being grateful, being together with family, eating wayyyyy too many mashed potatoes and pecan pie... (And it is really cool---if you conveniently ignore the fact that the very people who ate the Native American's food that day ended up slaughtering the hands that fed them.) It's just that given all of the work and hassle when you're in the middle of it, it can definitely feel like a PITA.

But now I am fondly remembering flying to Chicago and braving the crowds at O'Hare, or loading up the car with Pookie and food (always some sort of roast, since John hates turkey) for the looong drive up to Warren to celebrate with Steve's brother. There was the yummy Turkducken phase we went through. I've done Thanksgiving at my parents' house, my godparents' house, my godsister's house, Steve's house, the McCool family homestead, the house in DC with Maria (drunk on cheap chardonnay and eating rice-a-roni, because all the stores closed before we decided to go shopping), and a few other places. Good times. So enjoy your holiday! I'm even fondly remembering watching truck drivers pee from their cabs while walking Pookie at the PA rest stop. Our routine was that I would walk the dog and scoop the poop while Steve got us Starbucks. Then I'd go in to pee while he'd sit in the car with the dog, waiting. Poor Steve has to do all of that today without me. *sniff, sniff* But I'll be back to do the drill over Christmas, so all I'll have another chance to do the rest stop dance....with the gazillion other travellers doing the same. *sigh* Now it's all coming back to me....why I thought it wasn't that much fun at the time.

For some reason the Shop-Rite stores on the east coast have worked out some deal with Kazakhstan, and last night at the grocery store I picked up a box of Shop-Rite brand mac-n-cheese. I guess I was feeling REALLY nostalgic for the US to eat that crud. (I was watching a movie the other day and saw someone eating a hot dog. I was like "Damn, I really want a hot dog!" And I average about 1 hot dog every other year.) Maybe it's just that I'm nostalgic for the food?!??? Steve and I are already discussing which restaurants we're going to hit when I get home to celebrate. Bawlmer-based readers, I'd love to take your suggestions. Especially any great new places that have opened while I've been away. (Abacrombie was at the top of my list, but it closed! Wah.) I am interested in tasting menus paired with wine flights so that I can maximize the amount of yummy things I consume in my first night out.

Turkeyday in Turkmenistan

Well, my fantasies of making a huge, traditional Thanksgiving feast here for my friends has evaporated in the mist. I'm heading to Turkmenistan Tuesday, thanks to (that's 5 words that begin with T in a row!) some ministers that have approved my not only coming into the country (thank you, minister of internal affairs) but also traveling to Mary to visit maternity homes (thank you, minister of health). Wow, what a run-on sentence. I'm not editing my work, so you'll have to suffer through that syntax.

I did spy some cranberry jelly in Stolichniy, the best supermarket in town. I'm imagining it as a mix between Whole Foods and Wegmans, though I've never been to Wegmans. They have a huuuuuge booze department, it runs nearly the entire length of the store. And the only meat I'd consider buying in town. A raw split chicken breast costs $5, by the way. This store is not a bargain. But instead of running around all over town looking for turkeys and figuring out how to convert gas mark ticks to degrees F, I'll be visiting some maternity hospital somewhere, teaching two wome the Ministry gave us to do accurate data collection. Truth be told, I'm somewhat relieved at not having to make this meal. If they didn't like something, I would be tarnishing the reputation of our country. Too much responsibility. It's a lot of pressure to be the representative for an entire country. If I do something, people are constantly projecting it to mean that all Americans do that. That is not always the case...but very difficult to explain to people. What can you do?

I have a new food obsession, thanks to Stolichniy. They have an outdoor area set up where you can buy chebureiki, manti, plov, and bliny. Their bliny ROCK. You stand outside in the cold air, all bundled up, waiting patiently for a woman to work her 5 skillets and make you 250 grams, 1 kg, however many you want....The standing and waiting reminds me of my Russia days where you had to stand in line for stuff like bread. The smell is deeeeeelicious. The bliny are divine. Here they eat them with smetana, which is a type of sour cream that is like crème fraîche but heavier. I like them sweet, so have found this Nutella-like choco-hazelnut paste that kicks Nutella's ass, because it actually has these teeny, tasty nuggets of hazelnuts in it. The bliny are so good that you can eat them plain, however.

The good news is that the store is a good 20-min walk from my place, so I don't go there often. The bad news is that it's 5 min from my favorite wifi cafe, so I generally go there on weekends after hanging out at Caffe Delia. Then I get my bliny fix.

Our cook at work, Natalya Fyodorovna, sometimes makes bliny for us. They disappear verrrrrry quickly. :) They are really quite good. Then again 99% of what she cook for us is really quite tasty...

snow!

When I stepped outside today, what I thought was rain is in fact snow! Big, fat, white flakes. I can't imagine what it's like on Chimbulak right now. I think I'll have to go up there this weekend...

Most people here don't seem overly thrilled with the snow. Probably has a lot to do with the horrific traffic jams and crappy drivers. Having grown up in Chicago, I LOVE the stuff. Don't get enough of it in Baltimore. I'm sure that living in condos where snow gets magically cleaned for you porbably has a lot to do with why I find it fun and not a nuisance.

It has been snowing steadily all morning, and it's sticking. It's very, very peaceful sitting up on my office on the third floor, looking out the windows: I see rooftops and trees covered in wet, white, fluff. I am very, very tempted to put on my boots and snowboarding pants (thanks for sending them, Steve!) and trudge to my friend's house, and drag them all out to play with me outside for a while. I know they'll think I'm crazy, but it's nice to be a foreigner in these cases---they just chalk it up to being "a crazy American." Since we're not from here, they indulge in our little whims more than they would the average adult, I'm convinced.

Now, to make this snow day complete I need to get my hands on some Slivovitz, or, "Shljivka" as my mom calls it. Hot shljivka is the perfect way to warm up after playing outdoors in the snow. Carmelize some sugar in a saucepan, dump in some Shljivka, and drink. You may want to water it down a bit, however, if you're new to the wonders of plum brandy. I served watered down stuff to my friends in DC and Baltimore and many of them don't remember very well what transpired thereafter. :) So be forewarned: This stuff packs a wallop.

hot and bothered

It was 86 degrees in my place when I got home last night. I had to open a huge window on the balcony, the balcony door, and turn on the AC to get to sleep. Thank goodness it's supposed to drop into the 40s at the end of the week. Then I don't have to walk around my place in shorts.

My friend was telling me about her experience yesterday with her mother-in-law (MIL). MIL has been having problems getting her blood pressure under control, and has been bopping from doctor to doctor--both here and in Moscow--all offering different remedies and advice. I'm not a doctor, but some of what I've been getting second hand ranges from utter bunk to thoroughly appalling.

So yesterday a doctors orders an ultrasound to check something out. They go to the ultrasound department at 11 am, no one is there. There is a hallway of people waiting. After 30 minutes, two techs arrive, take two people, then announce that they're no longer doing ultrasounds for the day. Fortunately, my friend and her MIL went there with a friend who knows a professor at this hospital. So they call him. He tells them to go to another ultrasound cabinet. They go there and are refused. They call this prof again, he argues with some people, then tells them to go to another ultrasound cabinet in the basement. They are refused. They call the prof again, and this time he succeeds in canjoling/threatening this cabinet to accept her.

My friend summed it up like this: "By the end of the ordeal, I concluded that if you don't have money or don't have connections, forget it--you'll die before you get the care you need."

I'll blog later about the emergency medical care her MIL got at home Saturday night. Let's say that instead of providing her evidence-based care, this private medical service did a gazillion unnecessary things in order to charge them an exorbitant amount of money. Insisting on IVs, cardiograms, etc. And then were like "Um, the patient's head hurts. Do you have any aspirin? We don't."

Do you feel better about the American medical system now?

Indian summer

We had a blast of fall early in October for about a week, but it has been quite mild of late. Great for walking around Almaty to concerts and enjoying the Baraholka. But not so great when the heat has been turned on in your flat and you have no way of turning it off. It is pretty toasty in my place. I've taken to turning on the AC and/or opening balconies and windows to keep the temperature reasonable. Kind of a sad waste of energy. Welcome to command economies.

What is the Baraholka, you may ask? Click here for a live tour, courtesy of youtube. It's this ginormous half-outdoor bazaar where you can acquire anything: clothes, rugs, electronics, housewares, toys, furs, tchotchkes....it's like a flea market but with new stuff. It's so huge it's square footage is measured in square kilometers, not meters. Vendors have teeny little box-like shops squeezed into these narrow rows. And it's just row after row after row of stuff.

There are sections. The "Evropa" area has nicer stuff, including shapkas and ushankas, or your traditional Russian fur hats. Muskrat, mink, arctic fox....they didn't have sable, which is the most high-end it gets. There are cheap, Wal-Marty sections, and even a seperate IKEA-like building with boutique after boutique selling higher-end stuff. I saw advertisements for snowboards, even. Too bad it's been too warm to board! (Though it's probably cold enough up on Chimbulak.)

The prices are better than what you'd find downtown, but is it worth it? If you don't mind an hour-and-a-half ride on a bus or paying $5 for a cab to get there, and don't mind wandering about through endless mazes of stuff, then it just might be. If that sort of thing drives you nuts, don't bother. If I go back, it's going to be for fur shapkas, and I'm going to do a surgical strike: in and out for only specific items in a specific place. (My heartfelt apologies to my vegetarian/PETA/animal-loving readers. I felt like Lara in Dr. Zhivago when I put one on.)

Saturday I went to the Almaty musical conservatory for a concert. There were artists from Germany, France, South Korea, and of course, Kazakhstan. We got treated to everything from piano solos to string quartets to opera singers. The piece de resistance was a 6-piano ensemble, which we were told was a very rare event. The music was fabulous and ranges from Schubert and Rachmaninoff to a Kazakh student in the conservatory's amazing modern piano trio piece.

The head of the conservatory played this Mistress of Ceremonies role where she announced every act and talked a little bit about them. Especially if they were students. Sometimes she said things I thought a bit too personal or inappropriate (i.e., this was a student of mine, his parents were famous pianists/organists that died before their time, so I told the Moscow conservatory they had to accept him because of his parents. Or announcing to everyone after someone's piano solo that he had made a mistake.). After every piece, members of the audience walked up to the stage to give the musician(s) a bouquet of flowers. At the end of the event, there were probably 80 bouquets lying at the foot of the stage.

People also clap in unison here when they want an encore. We all clap on beat together, and the person comes out, bows some more, gets more flowers, and then goes backstage again.

FYI, whistling here is the equivalent of a boo or a hiss rather than a form of "woo hoo." I learned that the painful way when I was in Moscow at the Bolshoi many years back. One of the students in my group thought the performance so stirring that he stuck his fingers in his mouth and started whistling. We quickly realized that that was a bad thing when everyone within a 20-foot radius gasped, whipped around, and stared open-mouthed at him. How could one boo the dancers at the Bolshoi??? That was terribly embarassing. Good thing I don't know how to do those loud finger whistles, since I'm rendered incapable of making such a cultural faux-pas.

A little bit of culture

Anara's neighbor works at the music conservatory, and they are having a month-long celebration of music. I inquired about going to a concert, and Anara inquired with her neighbor, who came home with VIP tickets for nearly every concert for the entire month. It's all about connections here. I would have been happy buying regular tickets, but it's not like I can refuse them. I'll see if anyone at work wants the extras.

So Saturday we're getting all dolled up and going to the conservatory. I'll let you know what it's like.

Discussing this cultural event reminds me of the night Steve and I went to the Opera, so I shall blog about that.

The Abai Opera House is quite lovely. I understand from the British Airways inflight magazine that the opera house was built buy Italian POWs, presumably WWII. It got a face lift not too long ago, and was beautiful, indeed. Don't you agree?

Now, this was my first opera so I don't have much to compare it to. I thought the singing was great. The costumes and scenery were also very, very well done. The dancing wasn't so hot. The ballet dancers definitely looked like novices. In fact, some where so bad that I started wondering if it was status/money/connections that got them their jobs. (That is very, very common here. Status buys university slots, jobs, permits.... As do bribes. Bribing is so common in some fields that a noun has been developed from the verb "to bribe" to describe a person who takes bribes for a living. Customs officials, for example. But I digress....)

To be fair, the only other ballet I've been to as an adult is the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, which is the best of the best. So I may be comparing the Almaty dancers to an impossibly high standard. But still. Even Steve felt like it was almost comic watching them.

We watched two acts of Aida and then blew before the final act. There was a screen to the right of the stage that described what was taking place in Russian, but by the time I read it and figured it out, then tried to translate and whisper the main points to Steve, I would miss another screen of explanation. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't that interesting. We definitely enjoyed our cocktails more than the opera. So much for being culture vultures...

Temujin, or Ghengis Khan

I am doing some serious backtracking with today's post, going back to some September activities when Steve was here. Let's see if the firewall allows for some photos...woo hoo, it's being nice today! :) Score.

So we decided to go out one night for dinner with my friends to Temujin. Temujin was the name given to Ghengis Khan when he was born. That's as much history I can give you, all I know is the restaurant we went to. Its decor was very warrior-like, as you can see here.

They have a typican Mongolian BBQ or Mongolian Grill there. For those of you who may be uninitiated, here's the concept: You go to a salad-bar-type set-up, and fill up a bowl with meat, veggies, oils, and spices. Then you hand over to a dude with a massive grill/wok and he stir-fries it for you. Then you eat your own concoction. Repeat as many times as you wish.



Steve and I have had Mongolian grill before, but my friends haven't so we thought it would be fun to show them how it's done. They thought it was cool. Though according to Roma, it's not technically Mongolian. Evidently (and don't ask me how he knows this, for I haven't attempted to verify it) the whole Mongolian Grill concept was developed be some dude living in Isreal as a cool gimmick for a restaurant. Perhaps this is how urban legends get started?

And this is where Steve and I got to try horsemeat. It was so good, that I had a second helping. Sorry if you love horsies, but I couldn't not try it. Tasted like meat. It was lean, not gamey. So now I can say I've tried horse. Though not authentic horse the way Kazakhs eat it, as a sausage. I've seen them in the stores and they don't look very appetizing, so I don't know that I'll actually try 'em. We'll see what happens...


My friends and their son, especially, really liked the make-your-own-dish concept. As they say, a good time was had by all. We ate, drank cocktails--including introducing Anara to margaritas and gin-and-tonics--and talked lots. They really liked Steve, despite the language barrier. But playing interpeter all night took its toll. (OK, maybe it was the gin followed by two beers.) The last photo of the night, I looked tired. Or buzzed. So I won't post it here.


Pricewise, the five of us ate and drank for probably around $100. Not considered expensive by Western standards, but for people earning an average of $750/month, it's a different story. But there are more expensive places to eat. One night Steve and I decided to have some sushi. I chose the sushi bar based on its proximity, without knowing it was the priciest in town because they fly the fish in from Japan daily. A sashimi boat for two that would have run us $60 to $70 in the US cost us $150 in Almaty. But I must say that the fish was freakin' SPECTACULAR. Best sashimi I've had in my life, hands down. Even their salmon was delectable, and I usually find the salmon so boring...Ready for two random bits of trivia? The place is named The Guiness Pub. And Richard Gere has eaten there. Go figure.

settling in

I've been in Almaty without a lick of travel for nearly two months now. And I've settled into a nice, easy, routine. When I see my office-mate dashing off every other week to here and there, taking 2 AM flights, I say to myself "Better him than me." (Though I am heading to Turkmenistan soon, once all my paperwork get approved by various officials at various levels.)

Work is close enough for a brisk walk or a lovely stroll, depending on how much in a rush I am to get to my destination. On the way there are several fruit/veggie stands, at least 15 convenience stores, and a supermarket. So picking up fresh produce or bread or whatever is easy-peasy.

Some nights I go home, other nights I hop on a bus and head to my friend's apartment. Anara has been very committed and diligent about learning English, and so we meet for 3 to 5 lessons a week, depending on our free time. She's got a great textbook, does her homework, and has a good instinct for English. It's been a gratifying to work with her. I didn't expect it to help my Russian, but it has, especially with precision in my vocabulary and grammar.

If she comes to my house, we hang for a few hours, working through her English book, drinking tea, or sometimes beer, eating pumpkin seeds, chak-chak, or suhariki. Chak-chak rocks. It's a huge, sticky, pile of thin, crunchy, deep-fried strips of dough that are covered in a honey/sugar mixture. Sometimes they add nuts or dried fruit to it, but I like the plain type best. I don't get it often because of the horrific caloric/cardiovascular implications of eating such stuff regularly. But dayyyyyum is it nummy. Suhariki are little strips of dried-out bread, nice and light and crunchy. The rye ones are especially good.

So we nibble and crunch and laugh and groan over her English textbook. She thinks articles (a, an, the) are a nightmare. I explain how their verbs of motion are even worse (every motion has two verbs: one verb to do that "motion" in general, another verb to do that motion to a specific destination, i.e., fly/fly to there, walk/to here or there, run, swim, stroll, bike.... They even have two words for here and there: here/there in general, and here/there if you're using a verb of motion to get here/there. Grrrr.) She claims that in Russian you pronounce every letter exactly as you see it. So our English with it's silent "e"s and "ph" that reads as "f" and "ti" that reads as "sh" and things like "ough" and "igh" are evil. I point out that many "o"s in Russian are pronounced as "a"s. She concedes, but then states that that's the only exception, whereas English has a gazillion variations. I agree, and explain to her that they have 30-something letters for 30-something sounds, but we have only 26 letters for 44 sounds (according to the textbook). Despite denigrating one another's languages and struggling with crazy grammatical/useage principals, it's really quite enjoyable.

Other nights, I go to her house and they feed me before we study. Now that Roma's parents are back from Moscow we are a gaggle: It's Roman and Anara, their son Svyatik, their dog Don, Roman's parents Tamara and Anatolyi, Tamara's mom "Babushka," and Tamara's dog Tyapa. Oh, and Svyatik's pet rat with some funky glorious name I've forgotten. They live in apartments next door to one another, and whether I'm in one place or the other, family members are constantly going in and out, stopping to say hello, have dinner, a cup of tea, chit-chat, ask a question, etc. Last night we were talking American movies with Roma's father, and I found out that the title of the old Marilyn Monroe/Tony Curtis film, "Some Like It Hot, " was translated to "Jazz is Only for Women" or something along those lines. We recommended films we should see, and discussed having a mini film festival.

So goes my routine. Not too different from every-day life in America, no? You get up, you go to work, you eat, you sleep, and in-between you hope for happiness, good health, and that the good times outweigh the bad.

old man winter

We went from having temps in the 70s last week to the 50s this week. My radiators have been turned on (ura! [ura=hooray]), and I've started wearing layers to work. Great walking weather, nice and crisp and brisk.

I've been eyeing all of the Chimbulak information, I am itching to hit the slopes! Fortunately next week my boss is off, which means I just might head up there on a weekday next week.

Thursday is independence day here, so I'll get to make up my Fourth of July after all! We have Thursday and Friday off, but have to work Sunday to make up for having Friday off. Does that make sense to you? It didn't to me, either. But at the office we've decided to go out and party Wednesday night after work to celebrate the holiday. I'm looking forward to a little shashleek, a little dancing, and a lot of vodka. ;> I will definitely take my camera. Stay tuned for the debrief of Independence Day, Kazakh-style.

random observations

Last night on my way home from work, I rounded the corner of my building and ran into a woman who was all decked out. Gold sequins top and metallic gold boots to match. Women here have the wackiest sense of fashion. Many of them think they're glam and western, but a lot of them end up looking like color-blind pole dancers. Less is not more here. More is definitely more. I bet they think I'm really plain and bland here. Believe you me, I can live with it.

It's nice to work in a place where you can open a window. I always hated being hermetically sealed into the Candler building, freezing my butt off in the summer with the AC blowing full blast. The only negative is flies (and the occasional bee) flying in. Some days the dogs barking (our office is on a residential street, a few blocks from the main drag) are pleasant, other days they get on my nerves. Today I'm enjoying them.

I love hacks, otherwise known as gypsy cabs. Stick your hand out, and any old person who wants to make a few extra tenge will pull over. In Baltimore, sometimes I'd have to wait up to 10 minutes for a cab. Here, I rarely wait more than 60 seconds before someone pulls over. Nice, convenient, and dirt cheap. Especially nice on those mornings when I've stayed up too late watching Boston Legal (damn you, Star World with your US programming!) and overslept. I'm at the office in 4 minutes, thanks to random men driving me to work for US $1.67. (Don't worry, mom, it's much safer than I'm making it sound.)

They've been building a metro for years here, but the locals don't actually believe it will ever be completed. In addition to the streets being filled with cars, the buses and trams are PACKED. Even during off-peak hours. Last night at around 10pm there was a bus that had every seat full and tons of people were standing throughout. Then it stopped at a stop, and about another 10-12 people got on. My space bubble sensibilities are easily offended in such situations, and I've actually not gotten onto a bus if it's been too full. But I've also ridden the totally packed, rush hour ones. We literally were jammed in there like sardines, and every time someone got on/off it was bodies smooshing into one another left and right. Not fun, totally germy, but what can you do, other than rotate your body so that it's a woman rubbing up against your butt instead of a guy? Yeah, I know: walk or stop a car.

My office buys my toilet paper for me. As well as cleaning supplies, detergent, and stuff for the apartment (which is theirs) like light bulbs, batteries, etc. It's a little embarassing to come home to a 10-pack of TP that the driver dropped off while you were at work.

Leaf Peeping

With all of the trees in Almaty changing color, it's truly a spectacular fall. We had weather in the 50s last week, but this week it's mid-60s with the sun shining brightly through the golden leaves. It makes for a marvelous walk to work in the mornings. And a lovely view out of the windows/balcony facing the courtyard full of trees.

This weekend promises to be just as nice, so I'll have to find an opportunity to do some hiking somwhere. I can't spend such weather indoors. Maybe I'll go to Medeo again? Or maybe I'll walk along the little Almaty river? We shall see what transpires. I think I'll end up at Cafe Delia one of those days, sitting outside and enjoying the wi-fi and people watching.

What is Medeo, you may ask? One of Almaty's sources of pride. It's in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's highest-elevation skating rink, built up in the mountains. It's near the ski resort Chimbulak. It's a stop for all tourists and all wedding parties. While we were there no less than three wedding parties pulled up (including one in a limo) and they danced, drank, and celebrated at Medeo. It's a tradition. Since I live on the main drag that takes you to Medeo, I'm always seeing decorated cars honking and whizzing their way uphill.

There's also a bunch of stairs (841, to be exact) to the top. Which Steve and I took. The engineers were clever, indeed, when they put this together. You look up and see the end of the steps and think to yourself, "well, that ain't so bad" and you hike up them. Then you look up and there are more. Each set of 150+ steps is inset from the other (it's probably more the shape of the mountain than engineers, right?) so you can't tell how much more you have to go---each time, you think you're almost there. That's how they get you to the top.

Or, you can pay someone to drive you up there.

They're constructing a lift with gondolas that will take you from Medeo to the skiiing in Chimbulak, which is awesome. Bus to Medeo (40 tenge), lift to Chimbulak, and you are hitting the slopes, baybee! Too bad they're still constructing. We watched them use a helicopter with moving wet concrete from the mixing site at the bottom of Medeo to places where they were installing the towers that are going to hold the lines for the gondolas. According to Steve's practiced engineering eye, it was way more cost-effective to fly the concrete and equipment around than try to build roads in the mountains. Very cool to watch. I'm glad he was there to figure out what they were doing, because I had no clue. I've never poured concrete in my life! Though I've always admired cement mixers on the highway...

I will upload pics of Medeo for your viewing pleasure this weekend.

earthshaking!

Last night at 10 PM, I felt the couch shaking. It was like I was in a bumper car and cars were bumping into my back end constantly, but lightly. I wasn't imagining it, it was my first earthquake!

My first reaction was a slightly disconcerted "What the hell?" Then, remembering I was in an earthquake zone, I was like "Oooh, this might be an earthquake." Then, remembering my cousin Ani describing small earthquakes in Macedonia, I looked at the chandelier to see if it was swinging. (He has said that sometime it's so slight you wonder if you imagined it or stood up too quickly, so he checks the chandeliers. He takes swinging as confirmation of an earthquake.)

The chandelier was completely still, and the mild bumping had stopped, so I dismissed it. Had I known I had experienced such a momentous first, I would have poured a shot of something and had a little toast.

Top 10 Ways to ID Americans in Almaty

Here is my Top 10 list for the ways I can spot an American tourist around here. American tourists:

10. Walk around reading the "Central Asia" Fodor's Guide book.

9. Carry a backpack.

8. (For woman under 65) Wear comfortable walking shoes.

7. Use the recycling bins on the street for actual recycling materials instead of ordinary garbage.

6. Are polite: Use the words "please" and "thank you," hold doors open for people, don't cut in line, don't stare, observe personal space boundaries, etc.

5. Smile way more than the locals do.

4. Are nice to waitstaff.

3. Use a garbage receptacle instead of just dropping their ice cream wrappers, beer bottles, and other assorted trash in the middle of the sidewalk (see photo below).

2. Have good teeth.

And the number one way to ID Americans in Almaty....

1. Are the only ones not hocking loogies/spitting/doing the farmer's blow while walking down the street.

I took the picture below while hiking around Medeo, up in the mountains. If it wasn't plastic bags, it was beer or vodka bottles, cigarette packages, and even the occasional Durex box. Sad, sad, sad.

To be perfectly fair, however, I have seen more trash lying around some Baltimore bus stops than I have in Almaty. For a city of 1.3 million people, and for a former Soviet country, it could be a whole helluva lot worse. But when Steve and I walked along the canal, I wanted to cry at how much garbage people had pitched into it. :*( Thinking green is pretty much unheard of here. *sigh* Maybe I should embark on a new career??? Or at least set up a local Greenpeace chapter?

kept in the dark

My power was out again yesterday when I got home. I have learned to tell by (a) the total darkness enveloping that area, and (b) the traffic lights not working.

Now, traffic is bad in Almaty and the drivers are even worse. When you couple aggressive drivers with neither working traffic lights nor a policeman to control flow of traffic, it's even more dangerous than usual. I won't discuss what it was like crossing the street last night, 'cause I know mom and dad read this blog. I felt like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode when he was trying to move the Frogger machine across the street.

Fortunately the previous resident left one candle so I wasn't completely in the dark. One's cell phone can emit quite a bit of light in a dark stairwell, which makes unlocking your door easier than feeling your way through the pitch blackness. I also have a gas stove, so was able to heat up my dinner and boil water for some tea.

I also had brought my laptop home from the office so I could watch the DVD my friends got me. It's got all three seasons' episodes (pirated, of course) of the Russian Sex and the City Show that I've fallen in love with, Balzakovskiy Vozrast. I've finally figured out why I love it so much: The main character is a kindly, intellectual woman named Vera, whose love interest is a man that very much reminds me of Steve. I'm essentially re-living the beginnings of my relationship through watching them, which is fun. (Though Steve was never married to a woman to help her retain a Moscow work permit, nor did he sleep with said on-paper-only wife, knocking her up while also professing to love me. Storylines such as this are why the show is subtitled "Or, All Men Are Bastards".) So I watched 5 episodes last night, 2 of which were in the dark. Then the power came on for about an hour and a half. Then it went off again. Laptops emit a surprising amount of light from them. Thank goodness I have a good battery. And a warm, fuzzy blanket that I can wrap myself in.

The heat doesn't get turned on until October 15th. But after playing with my AC units, I discovered that they are also heating units. The one in the living room works, but emits screeching noises that vary from barely noticeable to annoying enough to make your ears bleed. That's when it gets turned off. I'd rather be cold than deaf. The one in the bedroom refuses to work, but I've got warm covers, so it's really not needed. We'll see what it's like once the radiators get turned on....hopefully I won't be running the AC or opening windows to keep it to a tolerable temp. Interesting how most places here don't have individual climate control, no?

Friday night I went out for a drink after work with a fellow American girl, and we got some unwanted attention at one point. Three old dudes who had obviously been partying came up to us and asked us in English if we were Americans. We immediately switched to Russian (we're far more likely to convey to them that we have a clue about their culture and aren't going to be messed with/swindled/naive if we're speaking in their tongue) and when one of the guys asked what our names were, I responded "Vera Petrovna." Name + patronymic, which is the female derivative of your father's name. Between my name (it's terribly schoolmarmish), face, and lack of American accent at this point, this dude was having none of it. He was convinced I was Russian and was just faking being American. I'm sure the booze that he had consumed previously also had something to do with it. Unfortunately, I'm only "passing" as a Russian about 50% of the time. Cab drivers generally can smell my American-ness a mile a way when I'm bartering fares with them. Fortunately, most can also tell I've been here long enough to know what reasonable fares are, so I'm not getting ripped off. The rest, I just tell 'em to drive off....for some reason it's always young dudes in a BMW that want to rip you off. Like it's not enough that daddy bought you a Beemer?? Sheesh.

I'll post about the overprivileged youth of the oligarchy/businessmen/politicians/schemers some other time. That's a whole other discussion unto itself.