Kazakhstan [and Scotland]

UnBoratistan and the Dangers of Scenic Scottish Sheep Pastures

Flickr photo link

Kazakhstan- can a "reasonable" white-skinned traveller really go there? And a non-Muslim (to say the least)? Do they actually have real hotels and roads? Is it safe? Can you speak freely? Will a vegetarian / pescatarian starve to death in the world's largest land-locked country? All questions demanding consideration when I first came up with the idea last spring after finding out that Air Asia has a non-stop flight from Almaty to KL. The vast expanses and countries of Central Asia had long beckoned as the last large region of the inhabited globe that we had not visited.

Conversations with JC's travel agent/ guide aunt and cousin [the latter whom even I consider insane, having led tours to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan/Chad among other places], and later a new British-accented, fashionable and cosmopolitan Kazakhstani patient of mine, supported my pre-existing impression that the "Borat" movie was far off-base [at least for its chosen Central Asian setting of Kz , if not its neighbouring countries], and that it actually was both very modern and safe. I was, nevertheless, still surprised to find out that the Government of Canada's travel.gc.ca site actually rates Kazakhstan as "green / take normal precautions", as opposed to the yellows given to Mexico and much of Western Europe [including England and France], and Malaysia.

As I start to write, we are now "home" in Penang, after a very enjoyable and educational eight days in Kazakhstan. We flew from London's Stansted airport [its 3rd largest of now 6, opened to public in 1991, but 90min from city center via underground/train or taxi] into Kz's capital of Astana, via Istanbul on Pegasus Airlines [Turkey's {I'm refusing to use new english spelling as a tiny personal jab at Erdogan- we don't call Germany Deutschland or China Zhongguo} high-volume budget airline, cramped seats can't recline, no seat-back pocket, no free water provided, even with paid-for meals, flies through Istanbul's 2nd airport, Sabiha Gokcen, named after the world's first female fighter pilot and adopted daughter of Ataturk, also no free water anywhere in that terminal!].

If Kazakhstan is UnBoratistan, then Astana is Anti-Dubai. At 51 degrees north latitude in a flat semi-arid steppe it has an extreme continental climate, and, on becoming Kz's new capital in 1997, it displaced Ottawa as the world's 2nd coldest [Mongolia's Ulaan Baatar #1]. The day we left London, Astana was at 20c, but our timing was not auspicious, and the day after we arrived it snowed! Yet our climatic problem there actually was dealing with the heat! In a mirror- image inversion of Dubai, where they air-condition 40c desert into an indoor shopping mall ski hill, in Astana the ultra-modern tent-shaped [world's largest tent-like structure, area of 10 football fields] Khan Shatyr mall contains a tropical beach with sand and water on its highest floor! The mall, as well as museums, hotels and other buildings, restaurants and taxis [actually yandexes, Kz's very efficient version of Uber] are all overheated. With aircon off for the season, in our hotel we had to choose between roasting or 2nd hand smoke from open windows. I also got complaints from 2 yandex drivers [1 visibly shivering despite a heavy sweatshirt] on opening the back window for similar reasons. Our hotels included some heated pools, saunas and steam rooms in addition to mostly dysfunctional gym equipment. Most of Astana has been built post-1997, with large, wide boulevards [traffic, with everyone going directly from buildings to cars], and, like Dubai, multiple show-piece architectural sights, including the emblematic Baiterek observation tower [where kids, adults, and tourists alike take turns putting their hands inside a golden mold of 28- year former autocratic ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev's hand-print (and making a wish that is supposed to come true)], and the pyramidal Palace of Peace and Reconciliation [where every 3yrs the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, conceived by NN, is held, but, ironically our private guide there refused to answer any political or Russia-related questions]. The mirroring of the UAE is clearly intentional and overt, with the tallest building [in both Astana, and all of Central Asia at 320m, 75 floors] named the Abu Dhabi Plaza.

Kazakhstan is the world's 9th largest country [about the same size as Argentina] and by far the largest of the 5 post-USSR 'Stans that officially make up Central Asia, several times the size of the other 4 combined. It is also by far the richest [oil and gas near Caspian Sea], most modern, and most progressive [although the latter is not saying much], and really should be thought of as qualitatively separate from the others. Just how much things differ outside the large cities I'm unable to say. The majority of the ethnic Kazakhs [who make up ~70% of the 20m population] physically look typically Asian. Russians make up a falling 15% [from 35% pre-USSR breakup], although the language is still spoken as much as, if not more, than Kazakh. With its vast sparsely populated area, Kz was the destination for much of Stalin's forced ethnic migrations from other parts of the USSR, and the location of large gulags. Forced attempted farming and collectivization of the nomadic peoples [who never went back to their traditional yurts] led to an early 1930s famine equivalent of the better-known Ukrainian Holodomor, also killing about 3 million, and 90% of the sheep and cattle. A Bolshevik named Goloshchekin seems to have been Stalin's right-hand man here, he also played a central role in the killing of the Romanovs [Tsar and family] a dozen years earlier, but was ultimately put to death himself in 1941 as "an enemy of the people". Nevertheless, superficially at least, relations seem good between ethnic groups and religions. Kz is officially secular, but 75% Muslim [followed by Christianity]. Only a small minority of women wear any head-coverings [the only full black burqa seen was checking in for our flight to Malaysia]. Such is actually illegal in schools, and there is concern over increasing extreme Islam. We did meet a very modern mixed religion english-speaking [rare] Russian couple at a museum, who, when asked what they planned on teaching their kids, responded "love".

What might be a more significant divide, but harder for an outsider to evaluate, is between the 3 large historical clans [termed "hordes" or "juz"]. Interclan strife and power-politics has been put forward as the real explanation behind the poorly understood and not officially talked about, seemingly isolated, 1/2022 unrest [after a gas price hike] that led to the deaths of 230 protestors. In 2019, Nazarbayev had voluntarily resigned, handing over the presidency to Tokayev [from diff clans, the latter, in turn, renamed capital Astana as Nursultan, until 2022 events], but had maintained considerable behind the scenes power until those events. Tokayev did request and receive Russian troops, however their stay was short, and generally Kz is trying to shift west-ward, staying neutral on the war in Ukraine. Traditionally, there is no intermarriage between clans, and, at least in the past, one was expected to know one's genealogy going back 7 male generations, with intra-7-male-gen-family marriage culturally forbidden.

The food was surprisingly good [and like everything else, relatively cheap]. Horse meat, "kazy", is the local specialty [with some bred specifically for consumption, despite horses remaining a revered part of their culture], and I enjoyed a couple of dishes with it [rice-based, and a pizza]. Less enjoyable was the much more adventurous kumis, fermented horse milk, a stinging and sour half glass was as much as I could slowly stomach. JC enjoyed the tomato, cucumber, and dill salads, with protein mostly eggs at good breakfast buffets. She certainly didn't starve. We also had very enjoyable meals at Georgian and Uzbek restaurants. Phonetically pronouncing out the Cyrillic lettering into terms like spaghetti bolognese and fettuccine alfredo was an enjoyable side-show.

From Astana we flew 1hr40min straight south without crossing borders into Kz's 3rd city of Shymkent, from where the snow-capped Tian Shan mountains dividing Kz from the 3 poorer mountainous -Stans can be seen. We flew Kz's SCAT airlines- sounds awful [stands for special cargo air transport, they seem to be gradually switching over to their much more pleasant sounding subsidiary, Sunday Airlines], yet larger reclinable seats with pocket and water. The highlight there was the small Museum to the Victims of Political Repressions with a free private english-speaking guide [the displays have no english, although our recently hired guide plans to work on this], which deals completely with the horrors under the USSR, and the guide was willing to openly discuss the more recent events of 1/2022, and other controversial topics. From there we took a 2hr yandex ride at speeds of up to 162km/h [the equally fast ride back even less enjoyably included high-speed tail-gaiting and a cigarette break for the driver] to the historic town of Turkestan, with a famous 14th century dome-topped mausoleum of a Muslim scholar, and an underground mosque. Confusingly, the place "Turkestan" today refers to only this small city in Kz. A century ago, however, it was Russia's term for the whole region ["land of the Turks", never completely ethnically accurate], it never referred to an actual country.

A second short SCAT flight eastward with an excellent view of the mountains took us to Almaty, Kz's largest and most cosmopolitan city, and former capital. Yet, even here we saw few to no other Westerners. The highlight of our time there serendipitously occurred when, heading out from the Georgian restaurant, I walked over to the central women-only [aged 20s-60s evenly] long-table of nearly 20 finishing a large feast. Soon they had invited us to join them, and it came out that they were actually the representatives of various Central Asian women's rights group who hold meetings every few years, with attendees about evenly split between 4 CA countries [as well as an Indonesian organizer living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and a local translator who, also with perfect english (others spoke some), served as our main contact], with only ultra-dictatorship-repressed Turkmenistan having no representative.

I suggested introductions around the table to include name, country, and 1 interesting fact about anything they wished. In addition to our basic origins, I decided the setting was right to be "provocative", and tell them we had no children by choice. Surprisingly, the collective reaction was to tell us we still had time, and would have 5 children [when JC mentioned her age, one of the older women, a 60-something Tajik in more traditional dress with a headscarf, albeit colourfully yellow, who later bundled up a large bag of leftover bread products for us, told us that women in Tajikistan were still having babies into their 60s!]! Later, in a private conversation, the 29yo translator, Maral, who is single and sceptical about interest in marriage or kids, expressed dismay at this very outdated reaction from the majority of no less than a women's rights group, several of whom had also chosen to tell us how many kids they had as their interesting fact, and apparently all but 1 other of whom were married. In my concluding remarks I commented on how important we felt that groups like theirs were for ensuring equality of education and opportunity for women, presuming it was unnecessary to bring up any gender-based violence-related issues. A great time was had by all, including a rhyming joke about many having names ending in -ina [JC sometimes uses Lina as her nickname to keep things easy], and everyone getting up to dance to traditional music for a while. An evening we will long remember!

Part of the disconnect may relate to what I only later became aware may be the principal women's rights issue in CA, bride-kidnapping [ala kachuu, esp in Kyrgyzstan where estimates are 5-40% of all marriages], with entire families of the man being complicit, with a grandmother holding out a headshawl, and wedding feast all ready for arrival of the unsuspecting, and now visibly suffering, crying guest of honor. Things apparently are in many places still more backward than I'd imagined...

A major source of information for much of the above has been the travelogue / history lesson, "Sovietistan", by Scandinavian, Erika Fatland, describing her solo travels through the 5 countries several years ago. It is very easy and interesting reading and I recommend it highly to anyone interested. She exposes the dark sides of all 5, including Kz, and being aware of such and little about just how tight controls on expression of dissent were, several times the notion of maybe I should not have the book in my carry-on going thru immigration crossed my mind. However I experienced nothing to validate such worries, with immigration being straight-faced, military-like uniformed passport stampers, with no even superficially- probing questions whatsoever such as purpose of visit or place of stay [unlike Canada or the USA]. Similarly, I never felt scared to ask controversial questions of anyone I felt linguistically capable of answering them that we came across.

A very quick summary of the other 4 countries:

Turkmenistan-desert, Caspian oil/gas-wealthy, at least lining the pockets of the region's most repressive cult-like dictator, essentially on a par with North Korea without the nukes and resultant attention

Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan [politically freer], Uzbekistan [more populous, and repressed]: all poor and mountainous, intermediate repression, send lots of migrant workers to Russia. Kyrgyz-Uzbek conflicts.

Speaking of nukes, one unquestionably good decision made by Kz's Nazarbayev was [with US&Russian help] to get rid of all the nuclear weapons Kz inherited on the break-up of the USSR. Kz continues to champion global nuclear disarmament. Also worthy of praise is that Kz, conversely, has maintained the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport it inherited with unparalleled international use.

Initially we had planned 5 days in Almaty, including side trips to the mountains and, several hours away, Charyn canyon for hiking, however given Cyrillic road signs, unknown trailheads, hired-driver habits, distance and my Scottish sequelae, the morning of day 3 we both felt ready for Penang [those of you betting that the titular foreshadowing referred to my stepping in it, are, unfortunately, wrong. Unlike cow pastures, in sheep pastures, "it" is spread thinly virtually everywhere, so each step lands you in SCAT, and even if I were to admit to stepping in a Pegasus-sized pile, I wouldn't put it in the title for that reason alone...]. Although I thought success unlikely, JC got on the internet with an AirAsia representative and managed to get us on that evening's flight without even a change fee! So, although many of her relatives disagree, we have generally been satisfied with our AirAsia experiences- she even got her special meal on ~7hrs notice!

So we said good-bye to Kazakhstan, but would not rule out a possible return someday, and might even be brave enough to visit some of the other 3 semi-reasonable[?] -Stans. As for Kz itself, we would whole-heartedly recommend it [some yandex drivers aside] to anyone interested.

Our other major destination for this circumnavigation [my 5th, JC's 4th, all eastward] was Scotland, where we spent nearly a month before a few days of visiting in seaside Blackpool and Fleetwood [where our AirBNB host, Chris, is a local marine rescue hero with his name on a seaside walkway plaque], Reading and London. However, as most of you have either been there or are very familiar with it, I have reversed our order here so that no one would tire of my megillah prior to the Kz section, and will also keep this part short. We flew into Glasgow, then went through Fife including St Andrews, the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel (a rotating boat lift instead of canal locks), then did the so called NC-500 up to the far north of the Highlands, including a day trip to the Orkneys with its impressive neolithic sites including Skara Brae and the Standing Stones, then 3d on the incredibly beautiful but touristy Isle of Skye, before heading south, where we were surprised to learn that many businesses in London will not accept pounds printed by the Bank of Scotland!

Unfortunately the big turn on our trip was taken unintentionally by my left ankle literally, if still uncertain figuratively, at The End Of The Road, also known as John O'Groats, the furthest north one can drive on the island of Great Britain, making it the destination of many modern pilgrimages. It occurred on a bleak day beneath a thick overcast dark grey blanket of cloud. The rock that is GB is bound by many beautiful cliffs and countless sea-stacks that easily out-do Vancouver's Siwash Rock. We were hiking around such an area, headed for the two Duncansby Stacks, tall, sharp, pointy stacks like a pair of Witches Hats. Many of these hikes are in sheep pastures which are deceptively flat from afar, but filled with little ridges and divots up close. I'm not sure exactly what happened, or why I wasn't able to instantly transfer weight to my hiking pole, but my booted- foot missed its landing badly and, in severe pain to the degree of nausea and lightheadedness, I instantly knew I was done for. I must have just caught my first glimpse of the stacks, and been distracted in a place that seemed safe but really wasn't. JC was about 50m ahead, and with the ground being a carpet of sheep scat there was nowhere even close to clean to sit down, or even put down my knapsack. Able to put light weight on it I struggled to a couple of only mildly dirty planks a couple minutes away, before lying down and staring at the sky for a while. Eventually making it back to the nearest parking lot, I was bad enough that we had to hitchhike the kilometer or so to our car. There are no medical services anywhere closeby, and we had booked the last slot on the ferry to the Orkneys for the next day. As I was able to put some weight on it [in conjunction with my pole, which I did not walk without for the next 4 wks], and there was no severe point tenderness, my opinion was that I probably had not broken any bones. There was severe swelling and pain centered around the lateral malleolus, with the whole foot looking like a swollen bag [a large bruise in that area extended with gravity-tracked blood appearing at my toes the next day, and even the medial side of my foot the day after- I wonder if I ripped a major vessel in addition to the obvious severe ligament tear]. So I decided to hobble on, initially very slowly. Significant hikes had to be cancelled both in Scotland and Kz, and even now, 6 weeks later I am at times still limping [today carrying luggage, tho faster than most others walk...], but range of motion seems normal and I have been doing quite a bit of other sports, so hopefully a full recovery without surgery [I would not do well with a boot and instructions to not weight-bear...] will occur in another month or so. UPDATE: X-ray yesterday showed a distal fibular fracture with non-union [Dr Clement was surprised I didn't have more ongoing pain, he wonders if it's my diabetic neuropathy!]- will need an ortho consultation...

JC had also had a rough couple of days, needing an emergency root canal in Invergordon a couple days earlier. However, I don't want to end things on a sour note, so one last story...

FREE LOBSTER!!

While waiting to pick up her antibiotic prescription, we decided to drive to the closest peninsula end, where there was a small picturesque fishing town, and a boat had just pulled into the quiet pier. We wandered down and asked how the fishing was. A fisherman answered that it was good, showing us a large catch of lobster, and asking us if we wanted a couple. We asked how much, and he responded "nothing"! Initial elation turned into thoughts of irony when we realized that we were far from our place and would not be able to get the live lobsters into a pot soon enough... however from behind a voice "I can cook them for you"! It was an old man in a scooter, ex-marine merchant Hugh, now with what we think is mild dementia, but he and the fisherman seemed in agreement, pointing to his house at the start of the lane. So we took him up on it, and returned an hour later after a short hike- and indeed 2 cooked lobsters!

Currently in our secret lounge with free empty showers near the transfer desk in Taipei airport. Only 9 weeks of work until I retire- hard to believe!

-Stu