The flight to Almaty was fairly easy. I tried something called Air Astana, a Kazakhstani airline, and it was very professional with good food. They give you a cute little pouch, too. With ear plugs and a shoe horn (!!!). It took about five hours, which I spent finishing the Stegner novel and thinking more about my stay in Balat.
I really liked the mix of old and new. The fancy places had an old man with a whetstone outside sharpening their knives. There's no hipster replacement for the grinderman!
When we deplaned, the baggage claim carousel was all tarted up to look like a roulette wheel. I find this very funny (and a little scary). Was it a gamble to have checked my bag? I never used to do that, but... it's proved to be a great convenience on this trip. Who have I become?
Fortunately, I got a taste of trouble with the cab to the apartment. It had all been going a little too well.
It's a story as old as time. Guy exchanges his money for the local currency. Guy is spotted by taxi driver. Guy had planned to use a taxi app, but guy's phone hadn't adjusted to the new country's data plan yet. Guy takes chance on taxi. Driver takes advantage and extorts an unreasonable amount of money from him. Dog bites man. It happens once a trip in some form or another. Usually with taxis.
It was a shame. I was very worn out and vulnerable, and it made me feel weak and sad. I didn't want to hold it against the country, even though the first person from the country I met had robbed me. I mean, it's hard enough to say you're coming here without people quoting everything from Borat they remember.
Like everywhere I travel, I try to go with an open heart and a desire to dispel myths and stereotypes. I suppose in this case I would have preferred them to be true. Much better if he had said "My wife is prostitute. Very nice, yes? High five," etc. I made the decision to file him in the "cab driver" category and not the Kazakh category, and I was at peace.
Nobody here looks or sounds anything like Borat, by the way. He was doing Eastern European drag, but.. ah, that's the last I'll mention him.
Piling onto the dodgy landing was the discovery that the apartment had no bed, only a couch, and the sheets were dripping on a drying rack. I suppose they had been washed an hour or so before I arrived.
It was ok. I don't stay in hotels. I may be transforming into the sort of Fancy Dan who checks a bag, but I'll be damned if I become a Marriott Man!
Popped out very quickly to find a convenience store. A fairly sizable grocery was open, but it had only liquor and fish. Absolutely fascinating. Huge fish department and aisle after aisle of beer and vodka. I didn't think trout jerky and a shot would be good for me, so I got some water, discovered some "lobster flavor" potato chips in the corner and went back the the Scratch Pad. Darkness.
In the morning, I was (mostly) refreshed and ready to find a proper meal and see the real Almaty. It's pronounced "All Ma Ta" to my surprise and to the ruination of all my "lord almaty" jokes. The name means "Father of apples" or "Papa Apple." And it's true, some botanist with no agenda was able to prove apples come from Kazakhstan.
It's hard to imagine something so common coming from somewhere, but... they do. Here. Once the Romans got a taste, they got spread far and wide, of course.
My only real goal for the day was to buy an apple.
It was cold, which I was grateful for. A little overcast, but it's autumn. I walked down wide, leafy avenues. Got some more of their Grateful Dead Bears money to replace what the cabbie had filched. Watched folks going to work and school while I drifted downtown against their tide. Like a lot of post-Soviet places, the streets are very wide. The better to float tanks and missile trucks down.
Interesting pedestrian crosswalks with a sort of 70s San Diego Padres' uniform color-scheme. I was quite taken with them. The traffic was crazy, but it was rush hour. I made sure to only cross with a group or to draft off an elderly person.
Glorious views of snowy mountains shone on the horizon, a surprise every time they came into view.
Tons of cafes and independent restaurants. One had a logo of a spatula with a roof and chimney. I guess it was supposed to mean "home cooking," but I got a lot of pleasure at how poor the execution was. I spent a few blocks imagining the conversation between the guy who conceived of it and the designer.
Got coffee and eggs benedict at a trendy little place. My first real meal since the airplane! I would have preferred a local dish, but they didn't do that sort of thing. Tried to read a little. but my brain was a little too disorganized. A night with sheets will sort me out.
Happy, damp wander over to Panfilov Park where a candy-colored clown they call the Panfilov Cathedral delighted with its harlequin domes. They say it's made of wood! Assembled without nails, they say! But some say there are indeed nails! But the nails are made of wood!
Very nice public space with pretty white-bark trees tossing their yellow confetti everywhere. Strange crows with enormous grey beaks. I was totally captivated. Tried to capture one with the camera, but the focus is all fucked up. Both the manual and the auto focus. The AF is blurry AF. I hadn't used it much in Turkey and thought maybe it was my eyes, but.. it's the camera. Decided not to let it bring me down.
Used the phone camera to capture a stunner of a Soviet war memorial. It's a map of Russia with men bursting out of it. I can't think of another like it. Such a cool concept. The figures themselves are typical, which is to say serious faces, wide-spread arms, and fists full of grenades. But the idea of having them exploding out from the country was fantastic.
Huge, serious place with an eternal flame. The Soviet stuff hasn't all been wrecked here, though Stalin and the gang didn't treat them any better than in the Eastern Europe wing. Maybe they just didn't have Europe to look at and be jealous of. Like, Romania could be like, Damn, we're so close to the countries where you can buy blue jeans. I can kind of see them through the fence.
But Central Asia only had Communist China to look at. Not a lot of pop culture there. Maybe they didn't know how many seasons of Cheers they were missing out on or what Simple Minds sounded like. So they haven't painted the Joker's face on the monuments like they did in Bulgaria or sawed the Lenins in half like in Azerbaijan.
Coffee in a little side place and a detour into a local market where the vendors were in competition to have the fanciest stalls. It was the usual card-table-and-cardboard underground farmer's market setup, but they had everything set up in delightful little pyramids. Colorful rows of apricots and dates. Sandy beaches of walnuts and almonds. Many different varieties of apple. I risked toppling a triangle to buy one.
Goal achieved!
A strangely shaped, twisty, gourd-like apple turned out to be a pear. Surprise. But the apple was an apple. Both were juicy and perfect. It felt good to eat them, like I was doing myself a favor.
More coffee, and I was settled enough mentally now to read. Ripped through a few chapters of The Twelve Chairs. This proved inspiring enough to get me thinking about situations for the new play. I felt back to normal. All it took was a cold, early walk, a sort-of pear, and a gallon of coffee spread out over several cafes.
Cracked up at something called Hrust Fried Chicken, perhaps made with Czar Sanderov's secret recipe. Tried to come up with a commie equivalent to "finger lickin' good" but failed. The mental exercise got me to the metro, though.
It was a nice, deep one with attractive stations flashing by as the train made its way to where I wanted it to be. I'll never get over how well the public transport works in these places. It's a dime to get on, it's incredibly clean, a train comes every five minutes. Not just here. It's like this everywhere but the big Western capitals, where they are expensive, shitty, and unreliable. It's fascinating.
Easy ride home where, as predicted... the sheets were dry!
Spent the rest of the evening arranging a tour to some natural places for tomorrow. You can't come all this way and not see Charyn Canyon, they say. I was able to work that out. Hopefully it will go better than the cab ride.
Watched a video on how to fix the camera, ran out to find a place selling more than fish and liquor. Found a grocery with a deli full of horse meat and some very nice chocolates. There was also a dairy case with camel and horse milk! I bought some dumplings and didn't ask what was in them.
Ate them with my fingers and did some writing in the dark. A full recovery from the bumpy start, I think.
💖
ReplyDeleteThe cab ride No ma ta at All ma ta
ReplyDelete