Almaty
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2006
1
7
32
Trip End
Jun 14, 2007
Almaty,
Kazakhstan
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
I'm sitting in the Ritz Palace shopping mall in Almaty. It's a fancy mall with everything and anything you need. There are all of these strange Italian designers. The internet cafe is pretty cool though. It's right across from a bar that serves good coffee.
Zhanara and I are back because we had to deal with a leak in our apartment here. When we arrived, the whole Zal(living room) was flooded about 2 centemeters deep. The temperature in the apt. was around 40 degrees celsius and humid as all hell. We got a call from the landlord about the flood. There were complaints from the adjoining apartment tenants of flooding. We arrived a day later because we had to travel by train that takes around 10 hours. We cleaned the place out but we are still plagued with electrical problems because there is still water in the ceiling.
During this time we've been hanging out to see the city. A Professor from Cornell was visiting for the day that Zhanara knows through a friend. He lived in Almaty 10 years ago. That was around the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a much different time. Those were the lean years here. We got to see the city with him for the day. We went to the Bazaar and walked around and he talked about how different it was in those days. Now everyone is driving Mercedes Benz cars and everyone looks really hip.
I think you can compare this tranformation in this city to Chinese or Korean Cities. High rise apartments are going up everywhere. From our window on the 12th floor you could see cranes working on buildings on all parts of town. The prosperity here is amazing. It's a bit uncomfortable really. There are too many opportunities to spend money. I went to the music store with Zhanara and the access to new music was really good here.
The weather has been good here in Almaty. Taraz was around 45 degrees when we left for Almaty. When we arrived in Almaty it was around 28-35 degrees with occasional cool rains to keep the dust and smog down. Almaty is quite nice. The climate is Alpine. There are many parks and the streets are all tree lined. The snow from the mountains just around 30-40 minutes from here is visible all year. Yikes, it must be cold here during the winter.
The tomatoes are good right now. There are many varieties of Tomatoes. We've been making tomato salads a lot lately. Zhanara says if there is only one thing she could eat for the rest of her life it would be, tomato salad. I think of those beautiful tomato displays at Chez Panisse Restaurant when we eat our salad. I also think of those cafe cooks slicing tomato carpaccio salads. Yum. I can't seem to find shallots here. But the garlic is great. I think the produce here is pretty comparable to California. It's as good here in the green bazaars as it is in the farmers markets in California.
My Russian is still bad. I'm taking a class at a school in Taraz 3 days a week. The teacher is nice. I spend some time at the English school teaching kids how to speak like an American. They love it. The kids here are great.
I'm currently reading "The Modernist City" by James Holston. It's an anthropological critique of Brasilia city. I recomend this book. It's actually really well written. I like pictures in books and this one has some nice ones. Any of my friends out there who are "urbanists" should read this one. It has many parallels with the making of the capital city of Astana here in Kazakhstan.
We have to get back to Taraz. I've got to continue with my painting. I've been doing some interesting work. We will see how well it goes when I'm finished.
