08/08/08 in Almaty

We arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, very early in the morning on Friday 08, 2008. Three flights, several taxis, the London Underground, a few shuttles, and one school bus got us to our new home.

We had lunch with both of our families at the airport in Vancouver--that was great. When we landed in Vancouver Kyla said “Yippee, Vancouver!” and Cody said “I didn’t even use my barf-bag.” He seemed kind of disappointed. But he made up for it over London as we circled for half an hour. How do you leave a tip for the cleaning crew of an airplane?

Heathrow is enormous. I can’t imagine getting in and out any faster even if you knew the place well and used it every day. But we were in our hotel at 4pm and back at the airport again by 5pm in order to catch the “Tube” to downtown London. We weren’t completely sleep deprived yet, and I made the silly mistake of telling Kyla that if we had time we’d race downtown and see if ol’ Liz would come out for tea.

45 minutes later, we were standing in front of the infamous Tower of London. Around the corner from that, London Tower Bridge. The Thames is so dirty that I recommend they engineer a massive culvert project so you don’t have to see or smell it. There was actually a small, half-hidden locked gate for a centuries old water access under the bridge that was used to haul out ‘prisoners’ corpses that were flung into the river from the Tower. I’d say the Tower did a brisk business because even the good folks at Febreze (c) couldn’t get rid of that smell. But the whole area is fascinating.

We told the kids that the Queen stored the Crown Jewels in the Tower (true) and that she was probably off somewhere trying to convince yet another small impoverished, resource barren nation not to leave the Empire, and we jumped back on the Tube. Great service, the Tube.

We were back in our hotel at 10pm and asleep at 10:05. Back to Heathrow in the morning. Taxi drivers in London are great. They’re savages. But professional savages. Maybe we were too sleepy to be scared.

Seven more hours in the air and we were over Almaty at 2am. Actually seven and a half hours. We had to circle the field for 30 minutes because there was a “VIP Movement” on the ground. Maybe something to do with the Olympics or the President. Bastard. Turns out Cody’s not good with circles because he reached for the barf-bag again.

The pilot wouldn’t admit to us what the temperature was when we landed. Probably because it was +30 Celsius. Nice for a day at the beach, but at 2:30am? A rather large and stern looking post-soviet customs official went through our passports and visas and then took an e-picture of each of us. I’m 100% sure that we are now in the CIA’s database. Bastards. And then I got ripped off less than half an hour later.

I grabbed three luggage carts and a kind of porter saw this and offered to help. 12 bags at 50lbs each and a wife recovering from surgery--thank you very much. But how much? He said $30. I said “How about my remaining 10 British pounds?” Only 8 of our 12 bags arrived. After I helped him load them, he pushed one cart and I pushed the other approximately 50 feet through the last customs gate and there was our boss and a school employee who each grabbed a cart and took them to the bus. So Vladimir made about a dollar per second. My bad.

We didn’t really sleep that morning. The kids did, but we were a little wound up. Our first apartment was not suitable for a bunch of reasons, so we didn’t unpack. We just lazed around waiting for the moving crew to come back with a truck. By the time they showed up, Edna and I had been awake for about 30 hours. When we got to our new home the crew realized they had the right place but the wrong keys. Back in the truck to yet another place. By the time we got to sleep on our first full day in Kazakhstan, we’d been awake for about 40 hours. We’re temporarily housed in an empty apartment waiting for our permanent place on Monday.

We’re adjusting to the time difference slowly. We nap a lot and the kids have climbed into bed with us at 4am, wondering why it is so dark outside.

Because we sleep so irregularly, we are often fully awake at 6am and out the door by around 8. Walking around and exploring our new neighbourhood is great this early in the morning because it’s relatively cool out--20 Celsius. But we need to be back home by 10 or the kids will melt. And the smog really starts collecting as the morning progresses. I pity the athletes in Beijing. I’m thinking of taking up smoking again in order to coat my lungs with a protective layer of tar.
Our morning walks have led to a few startling realizations. All of our previous research stated that Kazakhstan was 90% Muslim. We hear the Imam calling the faithful to prayer every morning at 5am. Using speakers and a horn, his voice resonates throughout the community. There is also one lady who walks around our soviet-block housing at 11am admonishing the faithless quite loudly and praising Allah repeatedly. But I saw more burkas and modest attire in London. Apparently, only 2% of Kazaks are practising Muslims. And our early morning walks reveal that the local liquor consumption around here would surpass a first year college dorm’s best efforts even if their water was unfit for drinking--I’m sure we couldn’t count the number of bottles strewn about every morning. Allah would not be amused.

Also, there is no word in the Kazak language for ‘recycling.’ But that’s OK, because there are no recycling programs either. None. I have no idea where they haul household garbage to, or what they do with it when it gets there. There is so much plastic floating around and enough broken glass underfoot that it makes you wonder if they’re hoping it’ll eventually just turn back to sand.

We went out to our new school yesterday--fancy shmancy. I have never been in such a fine facility. You’re greeted by a guard complete with his own guard hut and an electric draw gate. It’s a completely walled campus. 32 security cameras and 13 guards on foot. Most of the building is brand new and very state of the art--wireless Internet, glassed skywalks between buildings, and it’s air conditioned. The bus drivers double as mechanics and facilities and maintenance staff. An eighty foot water tower and water treatment plant services the 16 acre site, including the landscaping and gardens which require an additional 5 staff. We're advised not to drink the city water, but the school water is fine--everyone takes it home to drink.

Within 100m of our apartment, there are 5 very small ‘convenience’ stores. They sell bread, fruit, vegetables, booze and water, etc. Quite handy. We use them at least once a day. Local entrepreneurs who live in the same buildings as us. The one we frequent the most occupies a space equal to the area under an average flight of stairs--about 4 feet wide, six feet deep, and 8 feet high, sloping downward towards the back wall. Yesterday I bought 4 ice cream bars there for 140 tenge--about $1.10. And 5 litres of water is 180 tenge. But milk is not a deal--$5.00 for 4 litres.

A curious sight in Almaty are watermelon vendors. The first one we saw caused us to stare and study. Picture a blue steel cage about as big as a small car sitting on the sidewalk, full of green watermelons, with a guy sleeping on top of it. A hand-drawn cardboard sign advertising a price of 30 tenge a kilo--about .25 cents. You pick one, he weighs it on a gravity fish scale, produces the final price on a calculator, and then you lug it home. The odd thing is, you don’t feel self conscious walking down the street with a 10 kilo melon in your arms because everybody is doing it. Within one square km, there are probably 20 vendors flogging melons. And they’re delicious. I’ve never been a fan of fruit that can grow in a ditch, but they’re really good. Edna insists that the kids eat melon several times a day because in this climate it really is an excellent way to stay hydrated. If you stand on a busy street you’ll see every manner of vehicle--Mercedes to Ladas belching black smoke--fully loaded with watermelons. Dangerously loaded. Ludicrously loaded. I’ll never look at a watermelon complacently again.

Today we are going to try the bus system. We’ve learned how to pronounce the names of a few key streets. It shouldn’t be that difficult because the city’s street patterns follow a N, E, S, and West grid. The Tian Shan mountains rival the Canadian Rockies--they are the outer barrier to the Himalayas--and they form a natural and dramatic border to the north of Almaty. If you ask people on the street for directions, every place is referred to by its relative direction “up” or “down” slope from the mountains which you can see at all times--a little like Grouse Mountain in Vancouver, except the Tian Shan average 20,000 feet and are less than 5km from downtown.

But the busses--extremely cheap, extremely noisy, and ironically, a major contributor to the pollution. Often decorated with curtains, frilly lace, and lots of good luck amulets, they are usually packed to overflowing with human sardines. The only stress involved is getting on. They barely come to a stop for less time than they have to and then they are gone again, with or without you. But once you are on it is quite leisurely. It costs me about .40 cents, Kyla is half-price, and Cody is free. You can pay the driver right away, sit down first and pay when you leave, wait until a plain-clothed civilian (whom you just have to assume is a transit employee) comes to collect your fare (and puts it in their pocket), or just not pay. Whatever you want. But it is great service. Someone is always willing to help and it is a great way to see the city.

We’ve been here for a week and we are really starting to settle in. We finally have our new apartment and it is great. The kids each have an enormous room, the kitchen is new, the living room is big enough to play baseball in, and the whole place is clean and comfortable.
We enjoy hearing from you in the comments section of this blog. We’ll try to send out weekly summaries of our lifestyle. We don’t watch that much news on TV, and newspapers in English are not available, so we do feel a little ‘off the grid.’ The trouble in Georgia is far, far away, but there is a school there that is in the same organization as us. Apparently the staff have been evacuated. We hope things return to normal soon.

Hope to hear from you. Have a good weekend. (We’ll add photos in a few days)
Pax, Dave