Weekend in Kazakstan
(Marie-Mail entry #30)
ALMATY
MAY 11
At around eleven p.m., I checked into Hotel Zhetisu. I had booked an older "cheap" room through Asia Tourism, in order that they might sponsor my visa. Tourists can't just cruise into Kazakstan; they need letters of invitation, which can be arranged by fax and e-mail, for a fee.
"You mean, if I pay for tonight, I don't have to leave the hotel until eleven tomorrow night?"
"Correct," smiled the lovely Kazak receptionist who had been assigned to deal with me, the English speaker. I had interrupted her telephone call with her young daughter. She was fluent in Toddler-ese as well as English, Russian, and Kazak.
Great! What a bargain for me! I could check out at four p.m. on Monday without paying for another night, and I didn't have to store my bag in someone's closet. No doubt the Russian hotel system wreaked havoc on hotel's cleaning schedules, but it was much fairer to the consumer than the one universal kickout time we had at home.
I carried my monster pack onto the elevator and pushed "5." The matron on the fifth floor examined the card the front desk had given me and presented me with a key to a room that seemed to be miles away (it was closer when I was pack-less).
My cheap, old room was completely acceptable. It was large and clean, with a proper hot water shower instead of the nozzle and drain in the floor I'd come to expect. Windows looked out onto a courtyard and the television received a million channels, all incomprehensible to me. The mini-bar was lacking water, but I was so thirsty that I drank a liter of orange Fanta.
I considered collapsing into bed, but the days of accumulated Trans-Siberian filth wouldn't let me. I stripped off my clothes, quarantined them in a plastic bag, and took a forty-minute shower.
MAY 12
My preconception of Almaty was this: it would be a bland, concrete, flat city; an ex-Soviet capital with ugly gray buildings, covered with smog. The people would look Russian, with the occasional crusty mountain climber walking among them. I was completely wrong about everything -- it wasn't even the capital anymore -- except the mountain climber.
I got up with the sun. The hotel-sponsored breakfast was nothing special. I'd be hungry again soon. But first, I had to find Asia Tourism and register my visa with the police.
Almaty turned out to be warm, green, pleasant, and cosmopolitan. Tall, white mountains stood guard from the south. Before leaving New York, I had photocopied (ahem, at the office) the "Almaty" chapter out of my "Central Asia" guidebook, so I followed the map and walked to Asia Tourism, accompanied by melodic bird songs and the swish-swish of the faint wind in the leaves. I changed money at one of the hundreds of money-change stalls, and hesitatingly knocked on the door of the Asia Tourism office.
The young travel agent I had been corresponding with, Kochenco Alexander, let me in. He took my passport and said he needed my used train ticket to confirm my arrival date.
"What? But the Russian visa stamp shows when I crossed the border. I've thrown away my train ticket -- it is in the trash can in my hotel room!"
And that is how I learned to take a taxi in Almaty. Back on the 'Direct Kiwi' ship, Oleg had described to me how, if he wanted a taxi in Russia, he'd hold out his hand and a private car would stop. The guidebook confirmed this.
The travel agent walked me to the curb and held out his hand. A private car pulled over, received instructions, waved me in and we were off. The unofficial fare in the unofficial taxi, to anywhere in the city limits, was 100 tenge, or sixty-eight cents.
My unofficial taxi driver smiled goodbye and I thanked him in English. The language issue was becoming increasingly more complex. In Kazakstan, everyone knows Russian as well as Kazak. But now, it could be rude to stumble through Almaty speaking in inept Russian to people who hadn't necessarily had any great desire to see their homeland Soviet-ized in the first place.
I ran up to my room. The train ticket was still in the bin. Relieved, I went back to Asia Tourism. "Spasiba," said the hotel matron as I left. At least thirty percent of Kazak citizens are ethnic Russian, complicating the language issue even further.
Asia Tourism gave me a splendid, official-looking letter written in Cyrillic in exchange for me passport. I'd pick it up on Monday.
Totally confused about the language, I decided to try out my Russian at a kiosk.
"Vada," I said, pointing at the bottled water.
"American?" asked the guy behind the counter.
"Yes, I'd like some water please," I said, deflated.
"California?"
"No, New York." (Most of the world thinks all Americans are from California or New York.)
"Ah, New York. I went." He pointed to himself and made airplane motions with his hands.
So much for preconceptions. It hadn't occurred to me that Kazak water dealers might also be world travelers.
I walked to Datarkhan, a nice restaurant recommended by my guidebook. The menu was in several languages, so it was easy to read that horse meat was a specialty of the house. I gave it a miss, instead opting for "pancakes and meat," to supplement my light breakfast.
I expected the waitress to say "bacon or sausage," and when she just wrote down my order and left, I started to think that maybe I was in for a special treat.
I was. The pancakes came rolled around wads of mystery meat, dumpling-style. I wolfed it down, deliberately not considering the contents.
I left Datarkhan and took a walk around town, checking out cathedrals, the Academy of Sciences, and the Hyatt book stall (where I acquired an expensive copy of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"). My legs ached -- sitting still for three days had taken its toll on my muscles -- but I was too excited by the pedestrianized walk-streets, green grass, and traffic-that-stopped-for-me to rest.
The locals were cosmopolitan, and appeared to have much faster lives than I had anticipated. Everyone seemed open and relaxed, smiling easily. Whenever I tried to communicate, people would work with me. Obviously, Almaty was used to foreigners. There was a UN presence here, a history of Russian influence, Eastern influence from the China border, and Western influence pouring in through investment and aid. I was nothing new in Kazakstan.
The Western influence was probably changing Almaty. There was a "McBurger" franchise across from my hotel. But it was hard for me to get upset about this. What could I say, that western cultural imperialism was damaging the fragile Soviet-dominated Kazak culture? The "prime directive" had been violated a long time ago. Besides, it wasn't up to me. The more I had traveled, the more I'd learned that I knew a lot less than I thought I knew.
I used to fancy myself a pretty sharp cookie. I was indignant, full of righteous outrage and idealized solutions. Down with cultural imperialism! Down with bad companies doing evil things! But nothing is black-and-white, as was pointed out to me in '98 by a Pakistani man near the Afghan border -- two countries south of Kazakstan.
"What if," he'd said, "a family has only one parent. And that parent is disabled. And it is rural Pakistan, so there is no state aid and no NGO. The child must go to work."
"I know a family like this," he continued. "The child, a 12 or 13-year-old, went to work in a factory making soccer balls for a U.S. company. Then the company found out there were children working in the factory, so they withdrew the contract and the child had no work. That family will starve, because the U.S. had judged that children should not work."
This left me speechless and confused. I chewed it over for a while before uttering some feeble response about how there had to be a better way. It was a catch-22; either you condone child labor or condemned the family to starvation.
Likewise, I had been surprised in Iran, when I'd been told that illegal satellite TV, with its images from other countries, helped empower the Iranian women to fight for property and divorce rights. The melting pot may have a lot to answer for, and it is easy to be self-righteous and appalled, but I've learned that the answers aren't easy or obvious, and I know a whole lot less than I thought I knew. If a citizen of China wants to eat at KFC, who am I to tell them that they should eat stir-fry instead? But then, that's an easy one. There is no risk of Chinese food dying out across the world.
MAY 13
My new incarnation as a Trans-Siberian self-caterer needed re-supplying. I went to a grand supermarket, filled with foods mysteriously labeled for sale in 'Shop-Rite.' The lunch meat section was huge. One type of meat looked especially appealing, like thickly-sliced slightly pink roast beef. I studied my phrasebook, finding nothing that looked like the label on the deli meat. A counter girl walked up. Sensing my uncertainty, she clearly said, "horse." I put it back.
get your fresh horse here!
I tried to call Tour Asia from my hotel but got no answer. Tour Asia was different than Asia Tourism, and I needed to get my train ticket from them.
Pre-booked Trans-Siberian tickets exist in a fragile house of cards. Because tickets must be purchased at the point of departure, a daisy chain of travel agencies acquires and delivers tickets in each separate town. It was impossible for Helen, my Australian travel agent to buy the Trans-Siberian tickets from Melbourne, so she had lined up a local agent in each town. Tour Asia was due to deliver my train ticket for Chimkent.
Zenkov Cathedral
Since it was Sunday, no one was at Tour Asia. No problem, I'd call them Monday morning. I went for a walk around Almaty. I noted the popularity of Turkish and Pakistani food places, and visited the golden-domed Zenkov Cathedral. On I went to the Zelyony Bazar, where I was suddenly back in Russia. It was a classic large market, identical to the one in Irkutsk. The meat section was divided into sections -- one each for pig, cow, chicken, fish, and horse. Outside, poor old women sold secondhand goods on the pavement.
The rain started as I left an internet cafe in the late afternoon. I stuck out my hand. An unofficial taxi pulled over. He looked at my hotel card and happily delivered me in exchange for 100 tenge. It was still pouring at dinner time, so I ran across the street to McBurger. A kiddie playground by the cashier was decked out in Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Batman.
Almaty meat market
Back in my room, I watched TV and listened to the rain. During the night, I had several enlightening telephone conversations with a woman who kept calling. She spoke Russian or Kazak, and had no idea what I was saying when I kept repeating, "sorry, wrong number." Finally, I unplugged the phone.
MAY 14
Getting into Kazakstan had been difficult. I'd had to do a lot of research, obtain the invitation letter over the internet, and then gotten the actual visa after a visit to a nice fellow at the Kazakstan Consulate near the UN. Getting out of Kazakstan, however, was even more complicated.
After picking up my passport from Asia Tourism, I called Vladimir at Tour Asia. He had never heard of me. I faxed him my voucher. He had still never heard of me. I e-mailed Helen, who faxed her Uzbek agent, who talked to Vladimir.
Someone had screwed up and it wasn't Vladimir. The Uzbek office had been responsible for contacting the Almaty office. When they'd changed outfitters sometime over the course of the last several months, no one had changed my ticket. Or maybe they'd forgotten to tell Helen. Or maybe she hadn't confirmed me in the way they wanted. Everyone was very confused and no one could agree on what had gone wrong. Regardless, I needed a train ticket and the fragile daisy chain was not going to get it for me. I'd have to go and purchase another ticket.
I took thirty dollars worth of tenge out of the ATM and, worried, trudged three blocks to the train station.
Touts, addressing me in Russian, accosted me from all sides. I grumpily waved them away and made my way to the ticket window.
"Billet," I said, holding up one finger. "Chimkent."
The cooperative ticket seller thought a minute, no doubt reviewing her high school English, and then enunciated carefully.
"Date?"
"Today." I pointed at the counter and tapped, as if that meant something.
She somehow got it. She nodded affirmation and looked at her computer.
"Nyet." She shook her head sadly. "No billet."
Shit. Undaunted, I read out the entire "train" section of my phrasebook.
"First class?"
"Nyet."
"Second class?"
"Nyet."
"Simple seat?"
"Nyet."
I subdued a slight feeling of panic. There was always a way.
Suddenly, the ticket seller perked up. She said something I interpreted as "if you're willing to go on the local, slow train, there's a 6:15 bound for Chimkent."
"Da!" I replied. "Yes. Okay."
She sold me a ticket, for only ten dollars. I was concerned -- a $30 ticket for $10? How bad was this train? I walked back to the hotel and asked a travel agent there to explain the ticket to me.
"You are on train no.179 leaving at 6:15 p.m. for Chimkent. You are on car 11, berth 24, top bed. You arrive Chimkent at 15:05, 3:05 p.m. tomorrow."
I stared in horror. My original train had arrived at 9:05 a.m.
"That's a long train ride," I told her.
"Yes, but it is a comfortable train."
That gave me some hope, but my dreams of seeing a bit of Tashkent, my destination from Chimkent, were evaporating. I'd be spending my days at embassies, acquiring transit visas and extending my Russian visa for my website-voted added-on trip to St. Petersburg.
Exhausted, I went to the hotel business center and sent an e-mail to the Tashkent travel agent, instructing him to not meet me at 0905, because I was on a train that arrived at 1505. I'd see him then.
I flagged down another unofficial taxi and got myself and my luggage to Almaty-II railway station, where I boarded the bargain-basement train.
It was old and rundown. Like so many Russian trains I'd been on, it needed upgrading and could learn a few lessons from the Chinese railways. The good news was that my compartment, while full, was occupied with friendly, non-threatening sorts. Two middle-aged army guys changed immediately out of their uniforms and into civvies, and then occupied the two berths across from me. An ancient granny sat below me, watching them change (I left the apartment for the occasion).
Relaxed, I gazed out the west-facing window at the remarkable lush Almaty suburbs and the distant mountain range, complete with snow-capped peaks. The east window looked over flat grasslands. Any time the scenery changed -- such as when a patch of vibrant orange flowers suddenly appeared -- the soldiers would tap my shoulder and point excitedly out the window. This trip had a different flavor than any other trip I'd ever taken, aside from one fantastic trip in Java last year. Both were local, and the Kazak passengers hung out of the windows, waving at their friends and neighbors until we were so far out in the countryside that no human could be seen on the plains.
An hour into the trip, everyone broke out their dinner. The two soldiers shared meat, bread, and cheese with the granny, then brought out wine and chocolate. They offered me food with each course, but I had my own sandwich and declined. Finally, they refused to take no as an answer and left a piece of chocolate on my lap. It was delicious.
I feel asleep, and woke up in the dark. The granny was asleep, so I quietly slipped out the door and into the corridor. Outside, the only lights in the Kazak countryside came from our own train, and clear, bright stars were visible overhead. The two soldiers were drinking beer in the corridor. They spotted me, corralled a young man as a translator, and started asking questions. I was prepared for the usual "what are your doing here" and "are you married" routine. Instead, they surprised me.
"Where are you from?"
"New York."
"Ah... U.N. Do you know Kofi Annan?"
"Wha..? Uh, tell them no. I mean, I know who he is, but I have not met him personally."
This sent them into peals of laughter.
"You're from New York and you don't know Kofi Annan! Here everyone knows Kofi Annan."
I laughed along with them, not sure if they thought I had never heard of Kofi Annan, or if Kofi Annan was indeed a frequent visitor to Kazakstan.
"Not many people here travel the way you are," they offered.
"Not many people travel this way where I come from either," I laughed.
MAY 15 (or 1505 if you catch my drift)
The train conductor shook us all awake at 8:30 a.m. I looked and my watch and rolled over, but the two soldiers leapt up.
"Chimkent!" They motioned for me to get out of bed.
But we weren't getting to Chimkent until 1505. What was going on?
Nevertheless, I knew enough to listen to local language speakers, so I prepared to leave the train. The two men were ready quickly and sat down to explain my trip around the world to the granny.
We pulled into Chimkent at 9:10 a.m. As we disembarked, the granny called to me.
"Hello, hello!" she said. I looked back. She was beaming broadly, and gave me two enthusiastic thumbs-up. I smiled and waved, leaving the train teary-eyed.
Of course no one was at Chimkent to pick me up, because I had told them to meet me at 1505 and it was nine in the morning. I'd have to get myself the 90 miles from Chimkent to Tashkent.
NEXT: More nice Kazaks! The Uzbek opera! And... a harrowing match of wits and will between Marie and corrupt Uzbek policemen out to steal her money!
