Peeva spaseeba, probably the first two words you should know in Russian, beer please (not necessarily in that order mind you). I suppose this sets the tone for what I am about to write. I haven’t put togther a travel note since some of my early visits to Africa but as this was my first trip to the FSU (former Soviet Union) so why not?
A couple of us (Robbie and John) flew into Almaty (Kazakhstan) expecting to be greeted by our hotel transport not the local hustler. There must be one in every airport. Without anyone else in site we went with the flow. He said he had a taxi (in broken English). We saw other taxi drivers waving us over but we went with our guy. After he had our bags in the boot he pulled the (temporary) taxi sign off the roof and threw it onto the floor in the front. We looked at each other and shook our heads. We made it to the hotel US$60 lighter.
I don’t know what it is about fancy hotels in run down places. I just can’t get my head around it. We were so far out of our comfort zone it wasn’t funny. Give me a bed and breakfast any day. It was so flash that our car was checked for explosives (mirror underneath) on the way in. Maybe they recognised our driver? Chalk one up to our new travel agents… We decided while checking in that we would walk somewhere local for a feed.
After grabbing a map from the concierge we went for a stroll. Walking around was pleasant. We couldn’t find either of the two places that she marked on the map so we follwed out nose. After about half an hour we found a place that severed peeva. The sun started to go down about 10pm. This is when all the neon signs started to light up and we started seeing everything we had missed during our walk. Side street resturants etc. We found a resturant that looked good from the outside and walked in.
Well we just about fell over when we walked in. There were about a dozen models (maybe more) sitting on one big long table dressed up to the eyeballs. We think it was some kind of birthday or something. Well it gave us something to talk about for the next hour or so. We had no local language skills so ordering food was interesting. I pulled a couple of pages out of the in-flight magazine which had English with Russian and Kazakh translations. Didn’t help much but just so you know, thank you very much in Russian is bol shoe spaseeba! We were going to try it on the models but we didn’t really have any thing to thank them for… well nothing we could translate anyway. We managed (in the end) to order a (tasty) salad and some meat on a sword! The swords weren’t huge mind you, just kababs on steroids.
We made our way to Astana (capital of Kazakhsatn) the next day. It is like Canberra, a purpose built city for the government. With a heavy work schedule we expected some time in the afternoon to finalised some presentation material etc. We didn’t expect a 5 hour bus trip! Our destination was a Kazakh “resort” on the edge of a lake. A popular holiday place for the locals. Our resort was on a quieter side of the lake. The first night was spent working.
Evryday day and night after that was spent working, eating and socialising. We had a pretty good mix of people; Russian, Canadian, Australian, English (sorry Robbie), German, Kazakstanian, Kyrgystanian, American, Brazilian (now working in Peru) and Malian (West Africa). One of the reason I like my job so much is the people. So much diversity and culture. Francois (Malian) was the locals favourite (rock star). He had people taking his photo everywhere we went. People were even giving him babies to hold! I guess West African’s don’t get to Kazakstan too often.
On the second night someone worked out the resort had a “pool hall”. We were about to experience pool Russian style. Picture a full size snooker table with larger balls and smaller pockets than the standard Oz size. How hard could it be? Near on impossible. I quickly worked out that to sink a ball you had to be right in front of the pocket. They wouldn’t go in along the cushion or at an angle. I was so amazed I had to take a photo. Anyway the games took so long that we took turns in having a shot.
It was one of these nights that I learnt the art of drinking vodka. I thought the Russians drunk Vodka like we drink beer. I was mistaken and pleasantly suprised. You see there is preparation involved (food mainly). Most Russians would find it offensive if you just sat down and just drank (well Vodka anyway). Before us were plates of dark rye bread, fresh mushrooms,cucumbers and roma tomatoes that had been soaked in salt water and fresh corriander. In Russia every drink must also be accompanied by ceremony or a toast. My new Russian word was nazdarovia (cheers-good health). Now for the good? part; make the toast, try some food (cucumber), drink the vodka (honey chilli in this case), smell the bread, try some more food (tomatoe) then taste some of the bread. Believe me it works and it is quite an experience. We were told later that the honey chilli vodka was not for the inexperienced. Just as well we only had a couple. Yeh right!
After some busy and productive days it was time to hit Semypolansk or “Semy” for a couple of mine visits. Semy is about 70 km south of the Russian border. It is an old industrial town. Fairly run down these days. This was my first ever flight in an Antinov. Not one of those big cargo carriers where the door drops down at the back but a 50 seater. One thing is for sure when the Russian do something they do it well. Pleanty of room and the seating position was like a lounge chair…nice. Our hosts in Semy welcomed us with a (tug) boat trip up the river for some lunch and few drinks. The weather had been warm (~25 degrees) so far. Today was about 30 so being on the water was nice. We even stripped down to our jocks and went for a dip.
Any trip to a new place comes with the threat of eating/drinking something that doesn’t agree with you. In my (and John’s) case it was something at lunch? By the time I got back to the Semy Hotel I was feeling a bit worse for wear. The toilet was a priority as well as vada (water). A fever started to set in and I was in a bit of trouble to say the least. I left the guys to their evening meeting on tectonics and went to bed. I got one of the guys to check on me later that night. John had it coming from both ends. I woke up feeling a bit better but not 100%. I also had this rash beginning to appear on my chest? After spending a day on my feet I started to deteriate again so I went for the medical kit. I’m not sure if I hit my elbow or what but it had swollen up. No signs of a cut or scatch but I was in a bit a pain. My drugs of choice were antibiotics (in case my elbow was some how infected) and pain killers. Seemed to do the trick (for now at least).
That pretty much sums up the first part of the trip. We all flew back to Amaty for a wrap up session and a last dinner (and bar stop for the hard core). People were heading off back to their repsective destinations (or so they thought). Robbie and John managed to get stuck because their connecting flight in Moscow didn’t appear on the local computer. No connecting flight means you can’t board. Of course their flight did connect but it was not on the computer so they had to fly home via Frankfurt! Myself, I was heading to the heart of Russia, Moscow…
Baza