Tengri Hotel Astana

... and splendour, is the small street where the workshop is and co-incidentally Nikolai lives. The workshop looks locked up for the weekend but there is a small door slightly open so I test it and open it does. Inside is Dmitri and a friend, Nikolai (no, another Nikolai) and they are having a small celebration to mark the opening of the workshop.
I am dragged in, a beer is poured and I am told to help myself to the pile of smoked salt fish on the table. The afternoon passes ...

... and a presentation to me of a baseball cap and polo shirt. More photographs. There are only two slight problems. A battery has not been located so Sasha is trying Almaty and there is no explanation as to why the battery failed.

Nikolai, Sasha, Assel and I head off to Dmitri's workshop. Yes, he has solved the problem but I still cannot find out the WHY. He can ...

... gallery is enjoyable if you like modern art. I fall in love with the paintings of A. Hoda, born 1962 but I cannot trace hime on the internet.

Astana itself is a mixture of old and very modern architecture, colouful and brash. Anything goes. It is strange to find this completely modern city rising out of the steppes after passing by so many dreary Soviet style towns over the last week ...

... there has a bed three and half to four feet high and no ramp, no tie downs, nyet, nada. There are two sheets of plywood which give us an unsteady 90 degree angled ramp. No way!. Serge, the driver and Vladimir his young friend scratch their heads. I don't know what they were expecting but a fully laden BMW R1200GS had not come into their reckoning. Serge wonders if it would go in on its side but did not pursue that line of enquiry when he saw the look ...

... proceeded north but in any direction you looked were derelict mines, industrial sights and collective farms in ruins. A bit dismal but it's also nice to see new farming ventures replacing the old. We saw the biggest paddock of wheat growing that either of us had ever seen, and there was a lot of it all the way here. The Scrap Dealers have plenty to work with. I don't think I've ever seen so much rusting machinery laying about. The road was ...

... See bei bestem Sonnenschein und ein paar netten Minuten Aussicht folgte eine Flucht im Hagel steil b**gab üb** Steine und G**öll. Hat es sich trotzdem gelohnt? Ja, wenn man dann im Auto sitzt, Pizza ißt, Tee trinkt und sogar die Straße, die schon teilweise von Schlamlawinen aus früh**en Unwett**n weggespült wurde, noch befahrbar ist, weiß man was man hat.

Das hin und wied** gute Wett** v**anlasst die lokale ...

... Als er nach einer unruhigen Nacht mit viel Kopf hin- und herschmeißen aufwachte hatte er die 1.200 Seiten fertig geschrieben (und da sich die Typenhebel hin und wieder verhakten nebenbei auch gleich noch ein neues Alphabet erfunden). Da ihm die Wort- und Buchstabenkombinationen, die er da erschaffen hatte, nicht alle gefielen hat er sich einen Spaß gemacht und sich Aussprachen ausgedacht, die nur im Entferntesten etwas mit den niedergeschriebenen ...

... neweurasia.net. So look for me on their Kazakhstan blog. I'm writing about the arts here in Almaty and wherever I go in Kazakhstan. I have an exhibit coming up in August. I'll let you know more about this as it develops. This project should take up the whole summer. Danielin

... don't consume enough water to spare any for sweat. It was so hot on the train that when I jumped out for a second at a stop I was only wearing a t-shirt. One of the ladies rushed after me and wrapped me in her fur coat until I was ready to get back on. We looked at pictures of my family (I learned "Babushka" means Grandma. I'm practically fluent). Before we got off, they loaded me down with extra food and carried my bags off the train and clucked their tongues at any ...

... Zhezkazgan. This was a wonderful way to make a connection between volunteers and government officials. It also was a way for us to network and open up our projects to other cities. After the presentation we were able to explore Astana. We all went to a Uzbek restaurant and had different types of Plov and salads. The next day I went to my host cousins Eurasia University to speak to her English students. They asked questions and I talked about ...