Semey

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The train ride to Semey provided us with yet another incidence of suberb Kazakh hospitality. We ended up in a compartment with 3 very dizzy and probably slightly drunk Kazakh ladies who were making the same journey as we were. Tired from staying up late the previous night and getting up early to finish tidying up in the flat, we tried our best not to get involved in conversation with them but alas, it was inevitable. They spoke no english although one of them could count to 4 in german and kept insisting on us drinking tea. They told Adam not to put his shoes on the rack above his bed as dirt would fall off them and make him dirty (thats what we think they were implying anyhow) and just kept laughing at anything we said or did. That said they seemed to be lovely, friendly people and refused to accept the packet of tea we bought them at one of the stops.

We pulled into Semey in northern Kazakhstan at 15:00 and bought our onward tickets to Russia for the following day before checking in to the Hotel Semey. After showering, we headed out for some food, having eaten only a tuna sandwich in the last 24 hours and feasted on Manty (steamed mutton dumplings) and salad. We walked back to our hotel past the old Soviet fire station and settled down to watch the final group games of the World Cup.

In the morning, we got up reasonably early and headed out to the memorial for nuclear victims. The Polygon is close to Semey and is where Soviet troops tested their nuclear weapons programme which, obviously has resulted in poor health for the defenceless inhabitants of this region. The memorial itself is a 30foot tombstone with a mushroom cloud etched into it. Beneath the cloud is a statue of a woman covering her baby. Yet another show of how the Soviet system failed a good number of the people it was supposed to protect!

We had been told that there was a communist statue graveyard on the walk back to our hotel but when we got there we found it has been dismantled and that another big, grey block of flats is to be built where busts of Lenin and Marx used to stand. Fair enough I guess.

We bought some cupplies for the train and made our way to the station. We left Semey at 16:00 and within 2 hours were at the Kazakh border saying our goodbyes and having our bags rifled through by customs control. We have had some wonderful experiences in Kazakhstan and to be honest it has not always been what I expected it to be. We have had good times and bad times but for me the biggest lesson to take from here is the impact that man can have on his (or her) environment and that building for the future is not always a positive step.

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Photos

Nuclear memorial, Semey
Nuclear memorial, Semey

Nuclear memorial, Semey
Nuclear memorial, Semey