Romania and stuff

[TommyPlus]

Welcome to an ongoing blog encompassing my life as an expat living in Almaty Kazakhstan.

I'm not overly keen to expose my identity as the expat population here is fairly small and as I'm a private person(hark at him writing a blog) but I'll try to answer any queries and questions and provide as much information and context as I can about this fantastic, ridiculous and downright bizarre country.

I've lived here for several years with my family and I work as an English language tutor. More on me later.

Almaty

A city located in the south of Kazakhstan with a population of 1.7m people. Sitting in a bowl between two mountain ranges. The closest and most spectacular is the Tian Shen range located about 8km north of the city.



The currency is the Tenge, when I arrived the exchange rate was roughly 250 tenge to £1 and now it's around 500 tenge to £1. This is due to price of oil falling rapidly and the fact the currency was floated on a global free trade rather than being artificially linked to the Rouble and propped up by government money as happened since independence.

Last month we had a new banknote introduced into circulation...


I feel that's long enough for a intro post. I'll be happy to answer any questions and I will probably ramble on a little more in those posts. I think that's a better idea than me just writing down a long list of stuff all at once.

Thanks for reading.

[tikay]

BOOM, been waiting for this, good luck.

Oh, & as the cool kats say (G2L, nirvana etc) "subscribed".

[TightEnd]

cheers tommy

rock on, looking forward to lots of pictures of Kazakhstan!

[Eso Kral]

Subscribed

[bookiebasher]

I'm in

[TommyPlus]

The Kazakh people

Our glorious leader...



Nursultan Nazarbayev, a local boy done good type. Started off working in a steel mine, joined the communist party as you do and rose through the ranks to lead Kazakhstan since 1989. Wins elections with 99% of the vote and the only other candidate is from the same party.  It's a dictatorship in all but name and he is a tyrant. Embezzling money, killing opponents, stifling free speech and press but he is our despot and we love him. He would genuinely win elections comfortably without rigging them and for many people here it's a case of better the devil you know. They and I look at other similar states where so called tyrants are removed and the country falls into civil war. It would happen here.

The Kazakh nationality is made up of 120+ ethnicities and origins that have all melded together over the years. The people are fiercely protective of their origins and become offensive when you call them Kazakh when they are in fact 1/4 Dungan, 1/4 Kazkah and 1/2 Russian etc etc. For most of the Kazakh is just what it says in their passport.
Locals can pinpoint different mixes of ethnicity just by looking at faces whereas my expertise stretches to "you look a bit Russian" or "you look Asian".

Russian and Kazakh are the two official languages. Everyone speaks Russian and it's the 'business' language so to speak whereas Kazakh is traditional, spoken amongst the old generation and sometimes ridiculed by the younger.
A fair comparison is Wales speaking English(Russian) and Welsh(Kazakh). English is becoming more prevalent(due to brilliant tutors like me!) and the younger generation understand the importance of learning English as a tool to further a career.

The people are reasonable tolerant of foreigners but the typical English mentality of speaking English slowly and loudly doesn't work here. People working in service industries very rarely speak English so it's a very steep learning curve when you arrive trying to ask for a bottle of milk etc.

Just as English people expect foreigners living in English to have a grasp of English the same goes here. Quite fairly.

The women have a reputation of being on average very attractive and I'd agree with that. No pyjamas and Ugg boots going to Asda here, it's a big shame to be seen looking anything less than your best so women are always nicely turned out and presentable. A refreshing change. The men are men's men. They don't really give a crap what they look like because they are men and here men rule the roost and women do not.

Here is your average Kazakh woman...

Click to see full-size image.

Not really, this is Sabina Altynbekova, the Kazakh volleyball player who turned a few heads at the 2012 Olympics but you get the jist.

PS I'll post some of my own pictures in due time but I'll need some time to find some good ones and I'm using my iPad right now so these are just stock.

[bookiebasher]

I think I'm going to like this diary

[Steveswift]

Subbed, more diversity for Blonde, love it.

[muckthenuts]

I'm incredibly interested. Central Asia is an area you seldom hear anything about and i would love to go visit someday. In the meantime living vicariously through you would be great!

[TommyPlus]

Last one for tonight.

Food and Drink



Yes they eat horse, yes I've eaten horse and it's very tasty. It's a delicacy, very expensive and only eaten on special occasions. When invited to a gathering as a special guest( as foreigners tend to be) it's extremely rude to refuse the best cut of horse.


All local cuisine is cheap to make, energy laden and heavy on the stomach

Plov

Click to see full-size image.

Spicy rice, carrots, meat. Job done.

Beshbarmak

Click to see full-size image.

Flat noodle, onions, meat. Ditto

Shashlik

Click to see full-size image.

Skewers of meat or fish(chicken, lamb, duck etc) marinated and grilled.
Dozens of restaurants dotted around the city. You find one you like and stick with it. To visit another shashlik restaurant is akin to cheating on your wife.

Kazy


Horse meat sausage. Looks disgusting and is an acquired taste. Quite daunting the first time it's given to you on a plate.

Chechil



Originally from Armenia this is our version of Cheesestrings, it's a cheese cured in brine and it's the absolute best accompaniment for beer. Salty, smokey and delicious.

Fruit and vegetables are plentiful and cheap. No pesticides are used and they just taste fresher and better. A few irregular shaped carrots here and there that wouldn't make it past Tesco quality control but they are great.
People like to drink alcohol. A lot of it. Vodka is the poison of choice for many and again it's shameful to refuse an alcoholic drink from your host. Beer is also popular and a couple of Russian brews are very popular. Baltika and White Bear.

Price comparisons

I'm blissfully unaware how much food costs in the UK now so this is purely for your reference.

Milk 1lt - 60p
Bread medium white loaf - 20p
Apples 1kg - 40p
Onions 1kg - 10p, yeah 10p
Chicken 1kg - £2
Mars Bar regular - 30p
Coca Cola 500ml - 30p
Beer 500ml - 40p
Vodka 1l - £3
Cheese(local) 500g - £1.50 and tasteless
Cheese(imported) 1kg - £13! And by imported cheese I don't mean a nice mature cheddar for England, I mean the day glow luminous orange 'cheddar' from USA.

More to follow maybe tomorrow or maybe at the weekend. I like to ride my bike into the mountains so I'll take some photos on the way.


I think we will end each post with a picture of a famous Kazakh and in the interest of fairness amongst the many bikini clad Kazakh beauties here is...



This is Al-Farabi, and according to wiki he was a renowned philosopher and jurist who wrote in the fields of political philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and logic. He was also a scientist, cosmologist, mathematician and music scholar.
Kazakhstan, not just a pretty face. Interestingly(?) the main road in Almaty is named Al-Farabi street. I'd like to think his name was Alan Farabi and he shortened it once he became renowned but seems unlikely.

Thanks for reading.

[tonytats]

A friend of mine has been working over there on an oilfield devolpmemt in Tengiz Atyrau for 3 years now and seems to like it
Quite a change from being a geotechnical consulting engineer in the uk !
I must ask how that all came about !

[TommyPlus]

A place to visit

Big Almaty Lake

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

30kms south of the city lies this succinctly named beauty. It's a big lake, near Almaty. Makes sense.
The drive to the lake is usually punctuated with 'official' checkpoints which are usually nothing more than two blokes dressed up in an old military uniform trying to extort money (a road toll) from unwitting tourists. 500 Tenge(£1) usually does the trick.
The lake itself is obviously a beautiful attraction and it a main water source for the city of Almaty.
Crystal clear and beautiful blue in the summer, milky and turquoise in spring and frozen and covered in pure white snow in winter.
Temperatures vary between bloody cold and boiling hot and can change rapidly so if you do want to visit try to be prepared for extremes.
Be careful not to get too close to the edge of the water or you will be confronted by the 'Ecological Guards', these guys are genuine government workers carrying around automatic guns and they are not to be messed with or argued with. Everyone here is in it for the money so you will be 'fined' around 2,500 Tenge (£5) and sent away with a kick up the arse.

 'Fines', 'tolls' 'bribes' etc will becoming a running theme in the blog. The back handed handshake is really the only way things get done here.

An anecdote to sum up how crazy the situation can get...

A friend of a friend owed a kindergarten in the city which unfortunately caught fire in the early hours one morning, the owner phoned the fire brigade and was told "unfortunately we can't locate any water right now but we have a special supply we can access, it will cost just $4000"
Madness.

Our famous Kazakh this morning is quite astoundingly another Alan...

Click to see full-size image.

Alan Buribayev is a composer who is the current Principal Conductor at the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra which is the national symphony orchestra of Ireland.

[TommyPlus]

A beginner's guide to speaking Kazakh and Russian

English                             Kazakh                            Russian
one                                   бір(bir)                             один(adin)
two                                   екі(yeki)                           два(dva)
three                                 үш(ush)                          три(tri)
four                                   төрт(tert)                         четыре(chityri)
five                                    бес(bes)                          пять(pyat)
six                                     алты(alta)                        шесть(shest)
seven                                жеті(zheta)                     семь(sem)
eight                                  сегіз(segiz)                     восемь(vosem)
nine                                   тоғыз(toghz)                   девять(devit)
ten                                     он(on)                             десять(desit)

Enjoy.

[titaniumbean]

Lagman though <3

[Ironside]

wohooooo thanks you for the blog
but thank you for your help in finding out where Almaty is
its a city state in Civilization V and its the only city state i didn't know  the location of but kept forgetting to google when i wasn't playing the game