Picnic on the Ural

As regular readers will have realised, this is not a part of the world that easily lends itself to casual outdoor recreation, just for reference the temperature today was about 42C (107.6F) and quite windy, yesterday it was not quite as hot, but also so windy that it tore Sandra's umbrella apart as she walked home in the warm rain. It is also not a part of the world that is obviously endowed with the remains of Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Egyptian or any other great civilisations existence. But that is not to say it is without an important history. The silk road, the trade route between Europe with Asia for several hundred years was not actually a single road but a network or routes acroos asia and eastern europe. one route went south of the caspian, another north, crossed the ural river about 50km north off Atyrau. There are still the remains of this crossing and the city, Saraijuk (present name - Saraichik), to be seen. So on a pleasant Saturday afternoon we, Sandra and I, Mary and Lee, and Ben, set out in an official vehicle to visit Saraichik, to see the ruins and picnic by the river.


The main road was fine, but then we had to turn off onto a dirt road and bump along for a few kilometers.

We approached the trees that lined the river bank and suddenly came upon a makeshift gate across the dirt road.  We stopped and out from the trees emerged a man.  This was the "park" entrance and he had emerged to negotiate or entry fee.  After some conversation with the driver we were called upon for a few dollars each, almost certainly ten times more than a local would pay, and we entered the park.  There was nothing there to show it was a park, and the driver got us as close to the river as he could, about 40 meters away.  

The river had steep banks which were very muddy from the high water.  We could not actually get down to the river so we selected a picnic spot that was on the bank and clear of the scrubby little bushes that were everywhere.  These are the weeds that were growing wild all along the river side.

The mainstay of or picnic was liquid. it is important to stay hydrated in this hot weather, so we had plenty of beer and wine! 


I took some meat pies that I had (made with the local bread dough that is sold in the shops here), scotch eggs and stuffed zucchini, Mary had brought chicken salad and all the sandwich makings.  I was responsible for dessert so has some home made chocolate mousses.  I find this an easy dessert here as the classic Elizabeth david recipe usues only eggs and chocolate, which are always available.

The driver waited patiently in the car.  We shared, or attempted to share, our picnic with him but I am sure that he was thinking "you cant really trust what those foreigners eat".


You will notice all the weeds growing in the woods.


It was rather make shift but we managed to while away a couple of hours before loading the van and setting off towards the famous ruins.



























The local housing was not very inspiring at the small village near the ruins, which sadly, were not very inspiring either. 

Being right on the river bank they get flooded most years and so are being eroded very quickly.  Hopefully there is more under the desert sand, and it is better protected.


I am not sure what Yorik was doing there, but he was real enough!  I wondered about bringing him home as my souvenir

Here are the happy explorers, engrossed in the archaeological mystery of it all....well maybe not, but we had a quick look around, before heading back...

...and HOME SWEET HOME

Marriott Building, Home is near the top on the left corner.

ALMATY, Apple of My Eye.

Almaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan with over 1.3 million people, nearly 10% of the population.  The name means City of Apples, and it is where apples first came from.  Although a nice city, I am afraid it is no Garden of Eden.  It was the capital of Kazakhstan until the president decided to build a new capital, Astana, the subject of an earlier blog.


Sandra had to go to Almaty for a Friday business meeting, so I tagged along, making every effort to earn the title of "trailing spouse".


I don't think I have had the opportunity to introduce you to Air Astana, Kazakhstan's national carrier.   Air Astana is a good airline, with new planes, well trained staff, reasonable food (by airline standards, not human consumption standards!) and traditional service values (they still give out sweets on take off and landing, and offer economy passengers little travel kits-socks and toothbrushes).  Unfortunately, this all comes at a price, and at a price that is so astonishingly high that only a semi monopolistic airline could survive with it.  Actually fares are not too bad within Kazakhstan, but today's return economy fare to Amsterdam (3400km) was $1,966 booking over a month in advance, a connecting flight to San Francisco (8943km) cost $1,315.  So Air Astana costs $0.58 per Km and American costs $0.15 per Km.  So I suggest you do what I do and take an extra sweet on take-off!


But the other thing about Air Astana that confuses is the schedule.  There are flights from Atyrau  to and from Amsterdam every day of the week except Saturdays.  This flight is about 95% business people who typically end the week on Friday and want to fly home the next morning, but there is no flight!


But back to the point, in order to get to Almaty for a Friday morning meeting we had to fly out of Atyrau either on Wednesday night at 9/50, or Thursday afternoon and go through Almaty.  The Wednesday flight would get you to the hotel at 3am Thursday morning, and the Thursday flight cost an afternoon but would mean that one could check in around 11pm.


The Friday meeting ended at 3pm, but there was no return flight until 8pm on Saturday.  The one week night with no Almaty Atyrau flight is Friday, when businessmen probably want to go home....or perhaps they want an excuse for another night in Almaty!


We took the Wednesday 9.50pm flight and arrived at our hotel before 3am.  It was the luxurious Rixos.  I am sure they had read my blog about the Astana Rixos, because they had given our room to somebody else, which we eventually ascertained when we managed to persuade them that we had not already checked in, I don't know what they were thinking, as if we would suddenly say "Oh yes, sorry, quite forgot, we did check in 3 hours ago, completely slipped our minds"!  Anyway they got revenge by checking us into a broom cupboard, a corner room so small they couldn't fit a chair in it, and if the bathroom door was open one couldn't access the toilet. It also had two single beds not the queen/king we had booked.  But at 3am one doesn't feel like trying to change hotels, and they assured us that we would get the correct room in the morning.


The plan was to sleep in a little, have breakfast and Sandra would work and I would keep out of her way, get the room changed, plan the weekend etc.  We hadn't bargained for the inability to connect to the internet.  None of the NCPOC staff in the hotel could get onto their network, and gmail did not connect either.  Not the best working environment, so a few annoyed people.  The hotel said they would sort it out, but never did.  I managed to connect our ipads to the internet through a different route.

Meanwhile they told us that they had no rooms but that we could have one the next day.  That is when I played the "potato chip" card.  When we had lifted up the clean bath towel in the bathroom we found a bag of half eaten potato chips (or something) between the towels.  So I handed it back to them and asked why they were there, and it was not a feature of five star hotels to which I was familiar.  This was enough to raise our case to the manager, and we did get a room and a plate of fruit by way of an apology.  Thank you Rixos.

I actually did not get out much on the Thursday, what with all the excitement!  Venturing out in the evening with Sandra we wandered over to the Cathedral, which is on Trip Advisors list of top things to see in Almaty, TWICE.  http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractions-g298251-Activities-Almaty.html  It would appear that it is entered under two different names, so we managed to kill two birds with one stone!

From the Cathedral we went in search of the Green Market, which we knew was Down from the Cathedral.  Almaty is a city built in the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, and is itself on a gradual slope going up from north to south.  So the convention used when giving direction is to that of Up and Down, not South and North.  This works quite well unless you need to go east or west!

As we hunted the Green Market (Zelyony Bazaar) which I warned Sandra was not green as in the colour, but green as in vegetables, we came across the large green coloured building!

Which of course is not just a vegetable market but an "everything" market, hundreds of little storesmany of them almost identical in what they stocked, indicating commodity buying where price is the differentiator, hence the need to bargain as no prices are posted.

The buildings in Almaty are typical of a city that has been developed over many years, although the money has only really started to arrive more recently.  In Almaty there is the old and the new, Astana is predominantly new and showy, Atyrau is old and rather dull. 

These two older buildings were, I believe, from around 1900.

 And this was clearly from more recent times.

We stopped at an outdoor restaurant for some thing to eat on the way back to the hotel.  Our timing was quite good as it poured with rain as we ate our Shaslik; beef, lamb and horse skewers of grilled meat, some grilled vegetables and enough raw onion for 25 hamburgers.  We ate it all except the onion!  One of the essential pieces of furniture in a Kazakh restaurant, even more important than the cloak-room (to leave winter coats and hats) is the television, or more likely televisions.  They are usually flat screens mounted on the walls playing either a music channel (half naked people, usually female, dancing) or a fashion channel (sometimes scantily clad females prancing), the sound is usually turned off and different music is playing in the background, making the music videos even more inappropriate.  In this outdoor restaurants the TVs were mounted on tripods, so they could be easily taken indoors for the night.  

The next day Sandra was in her conference so I explored the city.  The first place I went was up the cable car to the top of the mountain where there is a very tall TV mast.  It was an hazy day so the view was not perfect but still good.  It was interesting to look down from the cable car and see all the homes huddled together.  These were large homes.  They often house three generations of a family together.  In between these homes were other buildings, some of which looked hardly fit for habitation in a cold climate.

From the top there were views north (Down) back over the city of Almaty.

And views south (Up) into the hills, and of the TV mast itself.

There was a small petting zoo and carnival games as well as some pleasant gardens and paths with a restaurants and cafes; it was a family type of place but with the 5 minute cable car ride costing about $7.00 it could be rather expensive for an average Kazakh family. 

I completed the day by investigating the The Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan which was a little disappointing as very, very few signs were in English (why should they be?) so I couldn't really understand the detailed and very busy contents of numerous display cases. I can say there was quite a bit about the tribal movements and the development and formation of the region and the Republic, quite a lot about textiles, pottery and agricultural tools, something about the military and the Second World War, and plenty to laud recent Kazakh history.  You probably get the picture, I decided that it wasn't likely to be a must-see place for Sandra.

One thing that Sandra might have been interested in was the shops.  I made sure to note where the temptation lay so that I would be able to navigate a safely distant route through the city.

Not all the stores were doing so well...

The Rixos Atrium

Saturday was our joint sightseeing day.  But before anything else we had to change hotels for our final night.  As we were now no longer "on business" we were free to select an hotel of our own choice for the last night.  I had found an hotel called the Worldhotel Sultanat Almaty, which has been recently renovated, and was not far from the Rixos.  To be honest I was a bit aprehensive when we arrived, it had very limited signage and had a very modest entrance.  Inside reception was very modern, very clean and very efficient.  Our room was like a breath of fresh air after the grandiose pomposity of the Rixos.

The room was a cross between Legoland, Ikea and Computerstore.  Not only did the free WiFi actually work, but there were connectors to link our pcs to the tv, and play sound through room speakers.  There was even a printer.  So, I do admit that we were surprised to find the toilet and shower behind white cupboard doors, but we could afford to use the minibar without taking out a second mortgage.  So this is now my hotel of choice in Almaty.

After the move we headed on back up the cable car, and met up with Sandra's colleague Jan, at the top.  Where we took more pictures.  

Notice that the view north over the city shows just how flat the land is stretching across the steppe.  There is also a picture in this collage of the ski jumps for the Asian Winter Games that were held last year in Almaty.  The previous day I could not identify the large structure in the distant haze, but Jan clarified things as did the enlargement in Photoshop.

We ate at a restaurant overlooking the southern hills and the TV Tower.  The Tower is actually very tall, in the world's top 15 highest towers, 371.5m and built out of steel in 1982 (when it ranked higher on that list!).  It was over lunch that Jan said something that made us rethink our plans.  A number of people had looked a little quizzical when we said we were going back to Atyrau on the Sunday afternoon flight.  That was because there isn't one and I had erroneously booked a flight at 3.20am from Almaty to Atyrau, we didn't need to make plans for Sunday, in fact we didn't need to change hotels!  It just goes to show how conditioned I am to the flight curfews that most western cities have. I never considered a 3.20AM flight.  Mea Culpa...again.

That afternoon we wandered around Almaty.  We did go and check out "The A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts" which was quite interesting, but had as its main feature a visiting exhibition of French paintings and etchings.

There is quite a lot of water in Almaty.  The snow capped mountains may give a clue to where it comes from.  There is Big Lake, which serves as a reservoir for the city, up in the mountains.  we wanted to go and see it but the logistics didn't work out.  This is a quote from the email the taxi service sent us...

"There above the Alpine Rose hotel  (3 000 m before the lake) foresters of the National Park set up a barrier and block the road at 9 AM (they appear there 10-15 min earlier especially on weekend days so It is better to be there 20 minutes earlier.If we can't start before 9 AM will be necessary to pay bribes about 2000 KZT at the barrier and sometimes they do not accept any bribes....
It is possible to do the tour by parking the car at the Alpine Rose and to do the rest of things on feet (3000 m one way it is not so big distance) but it is better when the car is with the group."

We decided to give it a miss, which is just as well as it turned out we didn't have any Sunday to sightsee.

The water from the mountains flows through the city in open drains, they are not smelly or disgusting, though we did get to see a nice big fat rat walking along one.  The many fountains around town were more pleasant.

Under the Soviet central planning policy, when a city reached a population of 1 million people they built a subway or Metro system.  Almaty achieved this distinction in the late 1980s and construction began in 1988.  However after the USSR collapsed there was no funding to complete the project and it languished for many years until in 2003 when the government approved a new initiative to complete it.  It opened at the end of 2011 and is now the newest Metro system in the world, and very nice indeed.  The 8.5km section that is currently open cost about $1.1billion but it is just the start of a bigger system.  We took a brief ride, and found that the few other passengers were almost all local sightseers, posing and taking pictures.  On weekdays it carries well over 30,000 passengers a day but on a Saturday afternoon it is a tourist attraction.

Subway Scenes: a really nice, efficient facility.

We returned to our hotel ready for a drink, food and an early night as our car to the airport was arriving at 1.15am.  

 Drinks in the hotel lobby bar were followed by an OK meal in a deserted restaurant...not a sole, even a waiter!

We did get a couple of hours sleep before heading out to the airport and were actually quite pleased to be home on Sunday morning with a day for Sandra to adjust before going back to work.  In Atyrau we don't have all those distractions to tire us out!

Painting, Planting and Repairing Season

I left Atyrau in March just as winter was receeding.  In fact my last week was the first week that it had got above freezing.  There was still solid ice on the roads and the Ural was frozen, but Spring was clearly just around the corner. 


The ice and snow along with temperatures as low as -25C (-13F) are harsh on the roads and buildings.  By the end of the winter one could see the damage to Ardager. Slabs of the outside walls had fallen off as well as a couple of windows.  The repairs were makeshift at best...the holes had been bricked in.

Outside the tiles had chipped and broken, with no attempts at repairs.

Similarly, one could see the toll taken by the winter weather on the roads and side-walks, a toll not lessened by typically poor cold weather construction.

The article linked here, http://en.tengrinews.kz/emergencies/10021/ , gives some insight into the construction difficulties.


Anyway, summer is upon us and repairs and painting are under way.  Though I haven't seen any work being done on Ardager yet.  


There are rumours that the venture is wanting people to move out of some of the more expensive apartments and consolidate in some new facilities, called Isker.  Isker looks like some of the best buildings yet, but unfortunately they are in in what might graciously be called an up and coming area, though just exactly when it will Up and Come is not clear.  Meantime, Ardager is crumbling away so people who are hoping to stay there may see it disappearing around their feet, literally!


The footbridge that I blogged about a few months ago has been painted.  As I watched a few men going about the painting job with small brushes and an even smaller roller it brought home just how differently things are done here.  


It strikes me that one of the big differences between the way that professionals go about doing a job, and the way that amateurs approach the task is the time the professionals take before and after the actual "doing" to deal with the details.


For example, professional chef will set up the Mise en Place before starting to cook and will wipe and clean as he goes along, the professional programmer plans and codes and then TESTS before saying the job is done.  The professional painter or decorator spends a long time putting down dust sheets and taping to protect the areas to be left unpainted, and then cleans up carefully afterwards.  A few men moved onto the footbridge with a bucket of water, a cloth, a step ladder, a roller and a couple of paint brushes.  One man  did the washing and the others followed with the paint.  I don't think they used any cloths to protect the floor, and they didn't tape the glass in the railings with obvious results.  The paintwork is a little haphazard.

And the granite floor and steps did not go unscathed.

But the steps below are evidence that there is clear improvement.

Painted on one side

The main Satpaeva Bridge across the Ural is also being painted.  I didn't see the grey undercoat being applied but watched with interest as they put on the finishing coart with a spray gun.  It was fairly straightforward as the man doing it (and there was just one man as far as I could tell) stood on the footpath and aimed the spraygun at the rails and over the river.  But how I wondered was he going to do the other side?  Everything was half finished. 


The next day I was walking back from lunch and the lone painter was working on the railings with his spray gun.  He was a wiry little man with his head completely swaddled in a scarf, not the thin cheesecloth that most street workers wrap their heads with but a thick woollen cloth that made his head unusually large.  He wore tatty ragged clothes and in particular a pair of half denim pants.  They were "half" not because they only came halfway down his legs, like capris, but "half" because he had one long leg and the other leg was missing from mid thigh.  Not only was it a strange sight but an ineffective garment.  This was because the technique used to paint the water-side of the railings is to lean over the rail and aim the spray gun back bridgewards.  Correct! that means that he was spraying towards himself, so the pantless leg was dark suntanned brown on the back but finely sprayed and hairy on the front, a sort of black stuccoed knee and shin.


This meant that the sidewalk got a light paining as well.

 There is a place at the start of the bridge where the tree tops brush the rails.  Obviously this would not be a suitable place to use the spray gun so for the moment remains unpainted.  I expect they will be back with a brush at some point.

Yesterday there was a man on the bridge with the spray kit, though he wasn't the poor half self painted backside rail painter.  I snuck a picture of him having his lunch break.

The repair work has also been going on around Marriott as you can see from the before and after pictures below.  The bricks at the bottom of the footbridge (top) steps have been re-laid though the edging is a bit rough, the big hole in the ground in front of the front door (middle) that emerged due to some broken pipe in November has been filled in and the pavement found the front entrance (bottom) has been replaced.  

And then there is the planting, the pots that were piled with snow and being pushed around by the earth movers that were used to clear the snow, have been repositioned and replanted.  There must be hundreds of these plantpost all over Atyrau, all filled with plants and all watered by hand from water trucks.  It is an amazing effort to pretty-up the streets.  

Likewise traffic circles/roundabouts and islands have been planted.  The view below over the bridge taken from the famous footbridge shows the transformation from winter to summer.

But summer brings with it leaves on trees, and this also makes a big difference to how much more appealing the city looks.  

You may be able to see that the temperature on the top picture taken on February 13 was -12C, and the bottom picture on a wet July 4 was +28C.

Side-walk laying work is also picking up.  These past three summers have seen miles of side-walks laid.  It is now possible to walk round most of the major city streets on proper side-walks, not too much of a benefit in summer, but in the winter and mud season a real godsend.

I notice too that many of the lamp posts have been re-badged and of course the trees have new white paint on them.

So we seem to be well on our way into Summer here in Atyrau.  All that remains is for Sandra to get her bike serviced and she can join the cyclists on their Saturday morning desert rides.  Unfortunately I will have to head back to California soon, and wont be able to join them!