Walking to Asia AGAIN

On Thursday the 10th of November it snowed for about 12 hours...all day long. As the temperature was right around freezing the snow didn't settle at first.  But after a few hours it just seemed too much and it started to accumulate.  This was the view from the apartment window

In the afternoon I walked up to Ram Store, this was the view of the mosque and Ardiger is the big shadow behind it.  We had a good snowfall for this desert region.

In Atyrau about 15 years ago there were only a couple of paved roads.  Now the whole town is paved.  About two years ago there were very few paved side walks, but they have been building them most aggressively as explained elsewhere in this blog.  So now there are side walks along all the major roads. The problem is that they don't seem to be constructed with any real consideration of drainage...so rain and melting snow are a walkers curse.

Looking out of the window on Friday morning (above) you can see the melt has started.  And I am due to go down there and walk over the bridge to a restaurant just on the other side (in Asia) to meet Sandra for lunch.  As you can see the route is not immediately appealing.

 As one approaches the bridge one comes across one of four little monument things marking Europe and Asia, they are on each side of the road on each end of the bridge.  They are all the same except the labels, the Europe monument...I don't really know what to call it... is below.

The  footpath over the bridge was icy packed snow making the walk slow and dangerous.  The picture below is looking back to Europe, the Marriott is the tallest building.  The building to its left is the office building headquarters of Agip.  The foot bridge was built about two years ago over Satpayeva Street.  I will do a blog on it later as it is quite something to 

 behold, and example of how construction "ages" in this part of the world.  The Ural river has not yet started to freeze but it looks suitabley cold and uninviting, except to the fisherman.  One of the other visiting male spouses (there are 3 of us) comes from Texas.  He had brought his fishing pole and had been fishing down on the river.  Unfortunately he didn't realise he needed a licence and he got accosted by the game warden or equivalent.

 He had no Russian and the warden had no English, but he was given the wardens phone and the person on the other end suggested that he might like to give the warden a "gift".  Unfortunately he had no Tenge, and no phone of his own to use to call security, so ended up reaching an agreement with an adequate gesture of US dollar...but I digress....ahead is Asia.

On the left of the building below is Sancak, the Turkish restaurant where I was due to meet Sandra.  She was late so I wandered around waiting for here.  There is always something to entertain and amuse.

Below is the are six shots I took of the side-walks outside Sancak, as you can see, drainage is not a strong suit.

I then started looking at the lamp-posts.  They are made of concrete and they are all painted at the bottom.  There is a white bit, then a ring of Kazakh blue (it is the colour of the flag and used everywhere) and on this ring are painted fleurs de lis.  I have no idea of the significance, they are not particularly finely painted, and it would seem to me an unnecessary maintenance challenge, but there they are....

 Notice the Nurbank sign on the right post.  Admire the quality of the wiring!  The roundabout at this junction is a big and fairly busy affair. with about 4 or five lanes going round it. There is a spiky statue in the middle, a sort of mini Place de la Concorde but with a confusing right of way system designed to cause collisions.  I am particularly intrigued by the van with advertising hoardings on its side which is parked with no driver in the middle of the road leading into the roundabout.  I wonder if they have permission to park it there or how that happens.  

 I have said in an earlier blog that there are whole gangs of tree painters devoted to painting the bottom meter or so of the trees, all the trees no matter how small or skinny, white.  I thought this looked particularly unusual when they had snow piled round the base and also sitting on the top.  


Mercifully Sandra arrived before too long, thus sparing you a protracted expose of the odds and sods that I found amusing outside Sancak.  The picture on the left was taken this summer inside Sancak.  They make (top picture) a very good type of thin Turkish bread (bottom picture) which we have with kekabs that are cooked to order on a charcoal fire (middle picture).  I like Sancak but they do not serve alcohol so it is not a place we go for dinner.  


After lunch we walked together towards Sandra's office.  She went back to work and I went on to Rahat Market to shop.

When I finished shopping I called a taxi and went out to wait in the car park outside.  I couldn't help but think about waiting in the Safeway carpark in Sonoma.  It is a bit different.

The blue awning (bottom left) is an entrance to the market.  

After   couple of minutes my "taxi" arrived.  You can see why Landcruisers are the vehicle of choice.

The map below shows the route of my walk to Asia...total distance...about 1 mile.

Walking To Asia

Unfortunately the bloging software does not work very well, and this blog just disappeared in its entirety as I was editing it...so I'll have to do a walking to Asia AGAIN!

Sandra's New Apartment: Goodbye Ardager, Hello Marriott

About a ten days before I arrived in Atyrau, Sandra received a phone call from “Housing” asking if she was interested in an apartment in the Marriott.  The Marriott built a 21 storey housing block about six years ago, officially comprised of Executive Apartments.  It is really a cross between apartments and an hotel, with a gym, very small lobby store and a restaurtant.  The build quality is about as good as it gets here in Atyrau.

The Marriott is the big tower on the right, Agip (ENI) main office is on the left

Unfortunately the building was fully utilized by Agip and some of the other oil companies and was not available for Shell.  However, as Agip’s involvement changes and some of the other oil companies have pulled people out of Atyrau, apartments have become available, and Sandra (who is pretty high on the entitlement list) was offered a two bedroom corner apartment on one of the top floors with river views.  She moved in three days later, less than a week before I arrived.  In fact when I arrived she had managed to unpack quite a lot of things but there was still more to do.  We have since made some progress.  Let me take you up for a look around.

So you may not be very impressed by a picture of the inside of an elevator, but to us here his is a thing of beauty!  There are two of them and they go up and down with reliable monotony, which is all that one needs to hear about an elevator.  However these have the added benefits of not smelling of anything obnoxious, being regularly cleaned, so devoid of sticky patches on the walls and floors, and even requiring key passes to make them go.

It's the little things that make a difference!

Water color is not always appealing

Unlike Sandra's last apartment (they are called flats here actually) this is purpose built and not a converted office block.  This means that it has some useful features like plug sockets where they are needed, in Ardager there seemed to be about one socket per room, so if any of you need about two dozen extension cables with socket blocks on them, as we seem to have quite a surplus... European and US?  The plug sockets also seem to stay in the wall, this is a novelty; in Ardager, sometimes when pulling a plug out, the socket came with it.  Another useful feature is closets, proper built in ones and not free standing afterthoughts.  We also have water that stays a constant temperature thus making the morning shower less of a "jump in-jump out" exercise routine.  Though, just as in the old place, the color of the water can be a bit off putting when cleaning ones teeth.

We do appreciate the windows being low enough to actually be able to sit and look out of them.  In Ardager, if one was lucky enough to have a large window (and Sandra was) it was so high that one had to stand up or sit right next to it on a dining chair to get to see the view, if one had a view (which again, Sandra did).  Sandra has made her priorities for housing - location, light and views.  Some people do prefer or need to have more space and so live in purpose-built terraced houses in a couple of small gated communities.  The largest of these is River Club which is be still being expanded.  

River Club (pictures taken in August)

So when we step through Sandra's front door we have a door and a small closet for coats, no coat-stand any more.  The closet had a safe in it which was unfortunately so high that Sandra had to have some steps in there to reach it, but they came and moved it onto a lower shelf in another closet.  This type of service is not be scoffed at. 

And we look straight into the living room, and out of it again through the window at the far end.  There was a dining table with 4 chairs in the area just as one entered but we moved it to the far end so we can dine with a view, though it may be more that we dine as a view, we are not sure if people can see in.  We are assuming they cannot though this may be giving the CEO of AGIP (in the building opposite) a rather more intimate insight into our life style than either we or he wants or needs.

The Sitting Room

In the background of the top pictures you can see that we look out over something....it is the Satpaeva Bridge and the Ural River.  As we are almost on the river (about 200m) we are actually in Europe looking over Asia.  (I will take you on a brief walk to Asia in another blog.)  There is not much to say about the pictures, all the furniture is provided though Sandra brought a few choice pieces from the UK (mostly IKEA, but the leather chair here is a freebie from Harrods, that we got when we bought our London furniture).

The other rooms all come off the hall.  You can see the kitchen in the bottom left picture of the above collage and on the left below.

Kitchen, hallway and guest bathroom (Mark's Bathroom).

The kitchen has been reasonably well equipped.  In Ardager it was fitted out so that the occupant could boil an egg (not eat it, just boil it!).  It meant we had to buy or bring quite a lot of equipment (pots, pans, knives, crockery, cutlery\silverware, and other bits and pieces- induction hob, bread-maker and so on...).  Now we have to store a lot of this, or perhaps give back the Marriott stuff.  We are still trying to decide.

There were two bedrooms.  We have taken an high level strategic decision and assumed that we are not going to get many visitors.  Though we are surprised that so many people first said they would come and visit and now appear to have changed their minds.  Anyhow, this has resulted in us having the bed removed from the second bedroom, and installing instead one of our two owned tables (we had to buy those for Ardager as they had planned for occupants to eat their eggs alone at a very small table).  We also put the IKEA desk and bookcase there, and moved the credenza to the bed headboard side as the headboard appears to be a permanent fixture...quite literally wired in with four lights mounted on it.

This has now become my study.  I could call it a den, as I don't do studying here, but the TV is disconnected (socket's on the other side of the room) and there is no comfortable chair.  It really is more my "trap" because I get caught here on the web just like a fly, unable to pull itself away.  

As you can see I even have a table and two chairs for my meetings, which are so unlikely to occur that I think I might have to ask Sandra if she would mind coming in and discussing "objectives", or perhaps I could risk offering to do a performance review!  But as you can see, the view is great.

And so to bed.  The master bedroom with its own bathroom is on the corner of the building with the best views.  I don't know why it isn't the living room, maybe just the spite of the architects, or perhaps we will freeze in winter and bake in summer, now in the fall, all we know is it fluctuates a lot in temperature, and we have suspicions about the apparently aluminum lined drapes/curtains.

Bed, Bath and Beyond (ie the views)

Each room had a desk and an office chair.  We had the desks taken away, but we have three office chairs in our bedroom so we can use them for bigger dinner parties.  

In the top right picture you can see the lit red and green signs showing date/time and temperature on the AGIP building.  This makes a bedside clock unnecessary as we get a clear view from the bed (we sleep with the drapes open).  The only problem is that I got up at 1.11 the other night, and then got up again after what I thought was a few hours sleep and it was still 1.11, so one has to be careful about whether it is the time or date.


Last but not least we have a gym.  Located on the 21st floor, this has great views on three sides of the building, as well as very good equipment and a sauna.

However, we do not have to go to the gym to get good views.  We have virtually the same views.  Facing east we get especially good sunrises, possibly helped by the smog from a couple of refineries.

In conclusion I am going to experiment with some video footage of a conducted tour of the apartment.

Through the front door and into the living room

Looking back from the living room window

A look around the office

The Master bedroom

Back up the hallway

The Ural River views

The Bike Ride

On Saturday morning we woke at 7am.  We had a difficult decision to make, lie in bed and have an relaxed Saturday, or get up and go for a bike ride which was scheduled  for an 8.30 start.  Sandra said we should get some exercise!

The Marriott has a couple of mountain bikes that can be rented so I had no excuse.  The outside temperature was about zero and forecast to get a little warmer.  Unfortunately neither of us really have cold weather cycling gear so we did the best we could, which was not really very effective.

A group of about 10 cyclists met outside the Chevron compound at 8.30.  There is an A team and a B team, we were in the B team, but only because there isn’t a C team!  We were supposed to go about 30km in a desert loop.  Initially it had been 40km and we had declined.  In summer, my first ride for ten years had me extremely saddle sore at 25km, so I knew I would be pushing it.

We cycled out towards the airport on Satpayeva Street, then turned off the road onto one of the levies that run alongside the irrigation canals.  I don’t know what the canals actually irrigate as the desert is all scrub and dust.  It is the kind of dust that turns to very sticky clay when it gets wet, so not much good for agriculture, though we do net our carrots coated in clay.

The desert…not much to it!

We cycled round the periphery of Atyrau International airport.  We even saw a plane land! 

Helicopters did leave fairly frequently to the oil drilling islands

Atyrau Airport terminal building

           

The B Team taking a break, cemetery in background

Our first stop was by some Muslim graves. There were two or three sites with several graves in each.  They are extremely  crudely constructed out of bricks or breeze blocks, high walls and no roofs. 

Not a very happy looking place, but very quiet!

Camels, some with one hump, others with two

We biked on with Jon leading the way and looking out for camels, which he says he has never failed to find.  This ride was no exception.  We found a small group plodding around.  They seem quite oblivious to us, though I don’t suppose they feel that they have much to fear from “animals” a about a tenth of their size.

One big fellow

The B Team, camel watching

Me, riding back to join the Team after my closer encounter

Cow Herders

As we continued  around in a big loop we encountered some cows being herded by two men in a truck.  They didn’t seem very pleased to see us and responded to Sandra’s greeting with a few blustery words.

We rode on back into town, by this time I was firmly established as the rear marker, and feeling extremely saddle sore, winging at every bump and rut in the trail.  It was a relief to hit the road back into town, though 3km against the wind seemed like hard work to me, not made any easier by the other bikers deciding it was a good opportunity for a sprint.  I was about ready to walk it!

We hit the river by the rusting boats, featured in an earlier blog and another bike ride.

Susan photographing the abandoned ships, probably left when the fish stocks ran out.

The last 5km of what turned out to be about a 38km ride were along the river bank.  By this stage we had sent the rest of the group ahead, and were making our own pace home.  However, in the end even Sandra abandoned me and biked off into the distance.  I had a sleep Saturday afternoon.  In the evening we had a leaving party dinner, so I had to recover!

The B Team. taken by Jon

The Road to Atyrau

Last Thursday at this time I was just about to land in Istanbul, en route to Atyrau.  I was trying a different route, San Francisco, Chicago, Istanbul for Thursday night then into Atyrau on Friday, arriving at 5pm.

It worked out quite well.  I had booked an hotel close to the airport.  It was not what I expected at all!  Firstly, I tried three taxis before anyone agreen to take me there and like the other three he had no idea where it was.  But he got on his cell phone, driving and shifting gear and swerving in and out the traffic (Istanbul driving is very impressive, I don't often shut my eyes when I am a tourist), and eventually managed to get me there, taking 20 minutes for a 10 minute or less drive. But there was no meter, and his rate was just what the hotel said it should be.  So an honest cabby, gave me my first and good impression of Turkey.

The hotel was in a small wealthy district which I think is called Yeşilköy.  It was an old building, possibly once a large private house, on a narrow sidestreet with only about 20 rooms. 

It looked a bit like a terrace version of Faulty Towers.  The common parts looked like they hadn't been touched in 100 years (including what was left of the once carpet).  However the rooms had been recently refurbished and were clean and comfortable if a bit small.  My only cupboard, a wardrobe, had a footprint of about two feet square, but it was fine for a night and B&B for $60! 

Besides it was very close to the sea shore and there were lots of restaurants along the harbour front.  I went out almost immediately to explore, but it was rapidly getting dark.  I hiked around looking at restaurants and ended up going to one recommended by the hotelier.  It was a small cafe type place with a fish shop attached.  The shop really more an hole in the wall, a few feet wide with lots of different types of fish on display.  Inside the restaurant there were 3 cooks, working like mad, one on a grill, one on the fry pan, and one making up the salads and filling in where he had to.  I really liked the look of the crispy fried sardines which were being cooked in large fry pans, carefully crammed in one layer in a wagon wheel design.  The cook had a centimeter or so of oil in the pan, he fried them crisp on one side, then poured off the fat, held a large pan lid over them and turned his fry pan over so they sat on the lid for a second, until he slide them back into the pan, put the fat back in and fried the other side.  It was all done in a few seconds and I watched him do it many many times over in the half hour or so I was eating.  When finally finished the fish were stuck together like a big doughless pizza.  He then tore it into portions to serve.  So why did I have the sea bass!?


I had to choose my fish by pointing it out to the waiter on the ice in the adjoining shop.  I pointed at a few randomly and making a confused gesture said "good?", and that is how I got to be recommended the sea bass.  I'm not the biggest fish fan, but that fish, plainly grilled on charcoal was fantastic.  The best fish I've had for a long time (even better than the one John Green caught in Bodega last summer...sorry John!).  


However, what made the most impression on me was this little restaurant serving up hundreds of fish a day, with an open air fish shop right next to it, did not smell at all of fish.  That was really impressive, it was all so fresh.


It was rather awkward taking pictures but I had a shot at the restaurant.

I was sitting next to the fellow you can see through the window, left of the tree, with a clear view of the cooks that you can see in the center.  The fish shop is on the left.

In short, Bizim Balik Evi is a restaurant to go back to!







The next morning I had a noonday flight to Atyrau.  However I was awake at about 2am, so went out as soon as it was light to see the seaside in the light of day.  There was a narrow park along the shore with a walkway which seemed a popular spot for morning walks and runs.  There was a light mist which didn't help taking photos but served to add atmosphere to the scene.  I was also able to see the planes coming in to Istanbul airport over the town, showing just how close we were.






I had a good walk, but having been awake for so long was already very hungry so bought an annulus shaped bread thing from a street vendor to keep me going till breakfast. Covered in sesame seeds it was pretty good if a bit on the chewy side!

The taxi to the airport was uneventful as was the last three hour stint on the plane.  Air Astana flies its big wide bodied planes (767s) into Amsterdam, and they are rarely very full.  The Istanbul flight is a smaller Airbus (320) and it was full.  A large group of Kazak musicians were on the flight, and many of them had decided to carry their instruments as hand baggage so the overheads were full of odd shaped music cases as well as the spoils of young Kazak women (that should be girls to be PC here!) returning from shopping sprees in the pseudo-West, and the maximum duty free quotas of the men.  


Trapped in the window seat, I was surprised that the two rather burly Kazak men next to me ordered cokes to drink, but they redeemed themselves by quickly breaking out the duty free vodka and having a few very stiff ones!   I don't think they realised the airline drinks were free.


Atyrau airport was surprisingly busy.  A plane took off just after we arrived and there was also a third plane on the tarmac, but it wasn't doing anything.  We deplaned onto the buses which took us to the terminal building via the peripheral roadway.  The picture on the right is a Google satellite view of Atyrau Airport, the red cross is the terminal.  As you can see the largest plane looks like Russian Tupolev with rear engines...it probably.


Immigration and baggage claim called for the usual degree of patience.  After queuing to go through immigration and get photographed and have ones papers stamped, there is the wait for the baggage in the baggage hall, which one steps straight into as one passes through one of the six (three in action) immigration booths.  The baggage hall quickly gets filled up as it is a small room with one fairly short conveyor belt.  Very soon the bags have to be offloaded into piles, as the line into the hall moves slowly.  When people and baggage starts to match up a line forms out of the hall as everyone has to go through a personal search, and their baggage has to go through an x-ray machine.  There is only one for the whole flight so the baggage hall quickly becomes full with people tying to get into the scrum for the exit.  And then there were those musical instruments, now joined by their large companion pieces from the hold!  A few feet beyond the x-ray machine behind a barrier are the waiting greeters.  I could see Sandra waving above the crowd.


Sandra had an Agip "Taxi" waiting and we were soon home (about 15 minutes straight down Satpaeva Road) at here new flat in the Marriott Executive Apartments.


We had about 30 minutes before we walked 20 minutes up the Satpaeva to Champions Bar in the Marriott Renaissance Hotel for a birthday party and a chance for me to meet up with some old familiar faces. 






   

Gone Home!

It has been a pleasure to blog, it has helped pass the hours and given us a record of life in Atyrau.  I will however be back in few weeks and start blogging again.  Chow for now.