Borat

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Christmas time is not only a time for spending time with your family, spending money, eating good food, exchanging gifts, watch classic movies on television. It is also a time for travel. For most people, this means traveling “home”. Also for myself this was the reason for making a short stop at Malmö central station; in transit between Amsterdam and my hometown in Sweden. Screening the main board for my connecting train, I feel a tap on my shoulder and hear someone speaking English with a strong eastern European accent. “Which train do I need to take to Landskrona?”. I’m not the least surprised, since I'm usually being the target for strangers’ craving for tourist/travel/map information.

It’s rather late though, and you never know what kind of dodgy people hang out at public places at night, so I politely ask him to find the information desk. Turns out that he tried that already, and it was closed. Since it’s Christmas and all, and he seems genuinely lost, I decide to try to help him find his train. After a bit of search on the boards we finally manage to find his train. He is very happy that someone took the time to help him. “Sweden is the greatest country in the world” he says. Curious where this person is from who thinks that Sweden is heaven on earth, I ask him. “Kazakhstan”.

With the recent hype of Borat and his film about the cultural learnings of various things, my immediate reaction is to look around for cameras and a film crew. Seriously, how often do you meet someone from Kazakhstan? His name is actually not Borat, but Alexij. It’s not clear why he is in Sweden and wants to go to Landskrona, a small town about as exciting as a pile of laundry. Being a bit suspicious towards strangers approaching me at train stations, I don’t ask for too many details. “You travel Russia?” he asks. “No, unfortunately not, but would like to. Maybe St. Petersburg some day” I reply. “Oh, then you have to come live with my aunt there. No problem.”. “Eh, well, I’m probably not going within the next few weeks…”. “No problem, when you go you contact me. My name is on website for DJ in Germany”. “Ok, I’ll do that”.

The conversation is getting a bit too personal, so I excuse myself to go find my train. “No problem. Nice talking to you. Maybe see you again” he says. Here a handshake would be ok, if not a bit personal with a stranger you talked to for a couple of minutes. Alexij wants to take it a step further. He hugs. “This is how we do it in my country”. Holding on tight to my belongings, just waiting for a group of Kazakh thugs to jump me while this guy is distracting me, I try to break free. Nothing happens though. Alexij was just happy to talk to someone. I guess that was my cultural learning about Kazakhstan, much more tangible than the Borat movie…

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