Duman Astana

... of.
At around 5pm Sergei, Dmitri's landlord and neighbour arrives. Katya, Sergei's wife, brings more fish, including delicious slices of sturgeon from Magadan, bread and butter. The beer is constantly being replenished.
"Peter, have you ever had Russian bath?"
"Can't say that I have."
"You will have Russian bath with us!"
Even if I hadn't wanted to, no or nyet, was not a word on the agenda. Katya is despatched to light the fire for the bath and we carry on ...

I get up at the crack of dawn, have breakfast and take my 65 tenge bus ride to the workshops. No, it doesn't seem to be the starter motor. Head scratching. Almost by magic as soon as I am in the workshop Assel appears to translate. I think she will have a lot of catching up to do on her normal work by the time this is over. If it ever is. She did mention something about experiencing Kazakhstan in the winter. Don't make jokes Assel!
Astana, Kazakhstan petcul

... busiest junction yesterday. The traffic lights were suspended and a policeman was directing traffic. An artist if I ever saw one. And the flow of traffic was as efficient as you are ever going to get.

There is neither an overweight person in sight nor a Macdonalds or KFC or Pizza Hut! Is there a connection?


There has been no word from Sasha. Bad news?

... and handshakes all round we headed south across, yes, your right, more steppes to Astana and, through the help of Denis and Sasha, a rather more expensive hotel for the night than I would organise myself. But hey, I've saved all that money camping!!! And I AM a BMW customer after all! I might as well await the verdict on the bike on Tuesday in comfort, Monday being Constitution Day. It's a bit unfortunate that of all the places to end up in I have ...

... by, one with 70 wagons! Am I boring you? We arrived in Astana early in the afternoon and had a nosey around and a real coffee before settling into a nice pub. What an amazing city and one of the must do's for our trip. Tomorrow we look forward to exploring the 'New' city .

Footnote: Driving impressions. Maps in K'stan are few and far between and you can't just walk into a petrol station and grab one. All street/road names are in Kazakh ...

Als ich unserer Anwältin neulich sagte, dass ich ohne Gegenbeweis auch glauben würde, dass man im Handstand zur Arbeit laufen müsste, weil man sich sonst zur Zahlung einer Sondersteuer verpflichen würde, hat sie das für einen Scherz gehalten. Aber eigentlich meinte ich es ziemlich ernst. Jeder der deutsche Bürokratie und Steuergestzgebung kennt wird hier nochmal negativ überrascht. Muss man wirklich ausrechnen wie viel Benzin ...

... um den Tag auch wirklich nutzen zu können muss man von Almaty um 6:10 los fliegen, also um 4 Uhr aufstehen. 4 Uhr in Kasachstan ist 23 Uhr in Deutschland, so dass man beim kurzen morgendlichen Computergang noch die ganzen Deutschen in Skype sehen kann. Ein komisches Gefühl schon wieder aufzustehen, wenn die anderen noch nicht mal im Bett sind. Da kommt man sich irgendwie weiter weg vor als sonst. Eines der positiven Erlebnisse in Astana war das Treffen mit unseren ...

... women once used this sport as a means of training their husbands in cold weather home maintenance. I just had the best train ride ever. Well, it was almost disaster, but turned out very nice. Last night we boarded a train to take us from Almaty, Kazakhstan, to the Kazakh capital of Astana. John found his seat and sat down, but I couldn't locate mine. I showed my ticket to the many people sitting around, but they couldn't find it either. The seat that should have been ...

... feet) does not seem that impressive, that is only for the few short seconds that you forget about the pressure gravity is putting on your body! The pressure on your body at 5000 plus meters in unbelievable. The best way to describe it is the same feeling you get while you are scuba diving and are unable to equalize the pressure between your ears. The simple act of walking 5 feet at that altitude makes ...

... There we had a view of the whole city and also put our hand in a replica of the presidents hand. Once you touched the hand the Kazakhstan National Hymm would play. There is a tremendous amount construction going on in Astana. We drove around and saw other buildings and he pointed out the Embassy and several ministries. They have a building that they called a lighter and others barrels because the one looks like a lighter and the other 7 look ...