Almaty is our new home.
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2006
1
11
32
Trip End
Jun 14, 2007
Almaty,
Kazakhstan
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The population of Almaty is 1.2 million. It was founded in 1854 as a Russian fort.
Anyhow, Leon Trotsky and many other Russian's were sent here into exile during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Almaty is the richest city in Central Asia. I've never seen so many Mercedes and BMW's on the road in my life. I live two blocks from a Cartier jeweler! In Oakland I lived 2 blocks from the liquor store and a donut shop.
capitalism meets comunism
On the flip side to all this wealth, there are many people here who have not benifited from this new capitalism. My neighbor, this little old Russian woman spends her day digging through the garbage to survive. She's quite paranoid of people because she thinks they want her apartment. She lives alone and her apartment a 2 bedroom, could easily fetch 200,000 dollars U..S. here. The real estate specuators here are exploiting every possible way to make money. Many people have lost their apartments to new construction. They offer these apartments to the new rich. It's quite disturbing to me to think of how little people have for their own apartment rights. There is an economic bubble in this city that reminds me a little of San Francisco in the mid to late 90's, only more extreme.
Anyhow it's not all bad. The town is quite nice and safe. a lot of interesting Soviet architecture and all this strange new architecture that looks a little like Las Vegas or some Hollywood set. Somebody said the new buildings looked like the new Star Wars film series buildings.
There are a few old Tsarist building in the city. It seems as if they're trying to maintain them. Many people are remodeling their old Soviet apartments to modern standards. "Remont" or to remodel is actually a popular pastime amongst many Almatinsky. I keep hearing of people doing different kinds of Remont. Some are doing Euro-remont, while others are doing delux-remont. I heard somebody say they were doing a super delux Northern European remont! Wow, that must be fancy.
Comments
pictures
great pictures. Keep having a good time.
Nora V