Blogs from Almaty, East Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Asia - page 7

Wanderung zum ersten See Am Morgen brachen wir frohen Mutes zu Fuss zum Kol'saj See auf. Auf der ca. 7 km langen Strecke bekamen wir einen ersten Eindruck vom Kol'saj Nationalpark. Sanft gefaltete Hügel gingen langsam über in schroffere Felsformationen und weiter Richtung voralpine Bergformen. Die zuvor fast baumlose Gegend wurde zusehends bewaldet, primär durch die Tien-Schan-Fichte. Vorbei an einigen Jurten kamen wir schliesslich zur Anhöhe mit dem letzten Kontrollposten vor dem See und einer wunderschönen Aussicht. Als wir uns auf ein Bänklein setzten gesellte sich eine häkelnde Kasachstanerin zu uns. Sie bezeichete sich selbst als Babuschka - Grossmutter. Nebst dem, dass wir mit ihrer halben Familiengeschichte vertraut wurden, bemerkte sie immer wieder, "Friede und Freundschaften" sei das Wichtigste. Sie erzählte von ihre Vater der bei Stalingrad gekämpft hatte und wir ... read more

Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Our next stop on our rail odyssey (via attempted bribery by a border official), was Kazakhstan. We stayed in the city of Almaty, which was the capital until 1998, and still remains the biggest city in the country. We went from the sandy-toned romance and steamy, mysterious atmosphere of the Silk Route citadels of Uzbekistan to the cool, sleek affluence of one of Central Asia's biggest cities. It was drizzly on arrival, which was a welcome break from the relentless sun we'd had up until then. Almaty is a strange city, in that it is virtually impossible to pinpoint a centre to it - we saw the new 'Independence Square', which consists of some space for some symbolic statues by the side of one of the main roads, rather than a square ... read more

In an effort to avoid my normal boring titles, I was going to title my blog “Kazakhstan is nice”, and then after a few days I was going to title it “Kazakhstan has a veneer of niceness”, but I was already sick of people making the Borat references, so I decided not to reference that film at all and instead go with the title from the Beatles song which got stuck in my head. In his book “In Search of Kazakhstan”, which I mention here in my attempt to sound more literate than I actually am, Christopher Robbins talks about how in conversation with one of his friends he made the politically correct point that Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”) would probably never have even felt that it was OK to pretend to be from Germany or ... read more

Rond 7 uur 's morgens arriveert onze trein in Tobolsk. We hebben een dagje tijd om de stad te verkennen, laten onze bagage achter in een locker van het station en nemen de bus naar het centrum. We zijn gewaarschuwd door onze reisgids: "laat je niet ontmoedigen door de immens grote en vele sovjet-appartementsgebouwen die de nieuwe stad sieren maar geniet van de pracht van het witte Kremlin en kuier een beetje door de oude stad". Dat is precies wat we doen! Een warm zonnetje maakt het allemaal wat aangenamer. Maar meer dan het prachtige Kremlin is er ook niet te zien. De oude stad is volledig in ontwikkeling: de originele houten huisjes moeten wijken voor grootse immobiliënprojecten. Na een dagje hebben we het hier wel gezien en met een groot vraagteken hoe deze stad in ... read more

I wandered past the Uzbek embassy an hour or so before it was due to open for visa applications, just to get the lay of the land and see if anyone had turned up to start queueing. I spoke to the guard, who wrote my name down on a list and told me to come back at 2.30pm. Instead of hanging around there I had a pleasant hour or so mooching around in Gorky Park, and then psyched myself up for another afternoon of hassle and returned to the embassy, fully expecting a sea of flailing elbows and women with russet beehives yelling at each other in Russian. Imagine my surprise to find about 15 people sat calmly on benches chatting. This was looking decidedly unlike the Kazakh embassy in Bishkek, but I wasn't about to ... read more