Unintentional Yet Highly Effective Bargaining:

Nora [looking at lovely daffodils being sold along the sidewalk]: How much are these?
Middle-aged Russian Woman: 30.
Nora [thinking she has misheard]: How much?
MRW: 30 som.
Nora [thinking this is way too cheap for pretty spring flowers]: Wait, how much are they?
MRW: OK, I'll give them to you for 25 som.

Bishkek Hapenings

It's been too long since the first post from Bishkek... That's a sign that things have settled into a routine, perhaps. Research is coming along slowly, connections are coming along quickly, since there are so many wonderful people to meet in Bishkek! Most days find me wandering the city a bit, meeting friends and colleagues, and snapping a precious few pictures. Here are just a couple shots of the city. I need to get them posted before all the snow melts and these become horribly out of date... Also, they are a bit hazy because coal fires and car exhaust keep the city warm.

Lenin waves "hello" on the way to the University where I am based.
Often there are small protests on this square.

Soldiers guard the flagpole, the warrior guards the square.
In the background is the national museum.

A highlight of last week was giving a presentation to International Relations undergraduate students on how to get into gradate school in the United States. The presentation was fun and the students had some great questions: for the record, if your email starts with BadBoy31@... you might want to get a new address before you start emailing admissions departments!

In just a few short weeks the routine will change again as research and travel pick up. Never a dull moment!

An empty building on the main drag, Chui.
Shows the reach of American advertising: Don Draper would be proud.

Me in the snazzy apartment! Had a few guests over a couple weeks ago (hence Jiselle in the background); yesterday friends came over to lead a plov-making workshop. Pictures perhaps to follow, too bad I can't share the delicious plov with you all!

Welcome to Bishkek: Ski Adventures

Greetings, intrepid blog readers!

I’ve been in Bishkek a week now, and wow, have I met a lot of people and done a lot of stuff! It’s been a whirlwind. Happy to report that my apartment is great, the research looks promising, I have tutoring starting this week to brush up on language, and I haven’t eaten anything too weird yet.

This weekend was a highlight of the trip so far. On Friday I attended the opening of a new American Corner at a local library and got to meet the US Ambassador. That evening I went to a dinner hosted by a new acquaintance from the embassy – Bishkek is a small world in a lot of ways, and I met plenty of people at the dinner who either work at the same university where I am based or have interests similar to mine.

On Saturday I went to the ballet with my fellow Fulbrighter Ailey and some new friends, an American couple and a Kyrgyz doctor. The ballet was, as always, a cultural experience. In particular, the norms of cell phone use during a performance are quite different in Kyrgyzstan. But the dancers were great, the music was good, and the setting was fabulous. See the picture of the outside of the building below…

The opera and ballet theater in Bishkek with New Year's tree

We topped off the evening with a few beers and a ride home from a female taxi driver. I know that there are plenty of women drivers in Central Asia, but it was still unusual for me to see a woman hanging out at the taxi stand. A highlight of my night was negotiating a lower price for the taxi. I’m going to do my best to spend all of your hard-earned tax dollars right.

Today (Sunday) was another good-luck, met-the-right-person sort of day. A new friend told me on Friday about a trekking group based out of Bishkek. They run trips every weekend, rent out gear, and have a nice mixture of locals and foreigners. This weekend, they happened to be running a cross-country ski trip, so of course I jumped on the opportunity. Actually, my friend Sally jumped on the opportunity for me and made sure there was space on the trip.

Skiers are rarely serious

As you can see from the photos, I did manage to join the group. Right now I am tired, a bit sore, but very, very happy. It was wonderful to get out of the city and to see the mountains that I can usually only glimpse on a clear day. We wandered about a bit getting used to the skis and the snow, and then we came around a corner and discovered a sledding hill. There were kids and some adults sledding on giant tubes, horses towing more tubes to the hill, and cars bearing small cooking stoves for tea. Naturally, we had to try the sledding. I was only able to handle about a run and a half before I was reminded that I don’t have the best history of safe sledding. I stopped then, but not without a bruise or too…

Post-sledding. How many types of transport can you count?

We headed back to the van eventually and then the day got even more interesting. The spot that we went to ski turns out to have quite a bit of importance; it hosts a national memorial complex. The story goes like this: in the 1930s, during the Soviet repression, 137 political dissidents were taken to this remote location and shot. They were buried in a mass grave that was hidden under a brick factory. The atrocity was witnessed by a young girl, whose father told her to never speak of what she saw. When the Soviet Union fell, the young girl have become an old woman, but she remembered the story and told about those that had been killed. The grave was exhumed, and the bodies were given a proper burial. Now a monument stands at their grave site; the original mass grave has also been preserved. It is a reverent but unsettling place.

Amongst those killed was the father of Chingiz Aitmatov, who is considered to be the premier figure in Kyrgyz literature and activism. He was well-known throughout the Soviet Union. Aitmatov died in 2008 (I believe) and was also buried at this site, not far from the new grave of his father.

A memorial statue for repression victims; in the background is the 2010 monument

As if this weren’t enough sorrow and remembrance for one spot, the complex also holds a memorial to and the graves of many of the individuals who died on April 7, 2010 during the anti-government protests. Of course, this meant that I had both a humanitarian and an academic interest in the site. It was a moving place. As we stood there, fog began to roll up the mountains, making everything just that much more eerie. The mountains disappeared into the clouds as the day wore on.

Visitors to the monument for the April 7, 2010 victims

I will admit that after looking at all these sites, we returned to our skiing. Heading up the hill at one point, we heard the call to prayer echoing from a nearby village. It was one of those classic incongruities of Central Asia: cold air, snow, skis, the mountains, and the lilting song of Arabic prayer.

The foothills where we skied today

To leave things on a slightly lighter note, I would like to report that the belief that women should not sit on bare concrete is alive and well in Kyrgyzstan. No matter that we were out skiing in the cold. No matter that we are hearty women. As soon as we sat down on a narrow concrete slab for lunch, the driver came over worried about our health. He brought one of the cross-country skis and insisted that we put it down between our butts and the concrete. Glad to know that a ski is proper protection for our ovaries.

Week two looms, I can only hope that I will have something as interesting to report next time.

Life-list with Dima Bilan

It’s not every day you can check something off your life list. Climb Devil’s Tower, run a marathon, go to New Zealand, see Dima Bilan in concert… they all seem so out of reach.

BUT WAIT! Dima Bilan, you say? THE Dima Bilan, of glorious Eurovision Awards fame? (If you don’t know what the Eurovision awards are you have some serious Googling to do) The Russian King of Pop? The man who made the mullet into the glorious fashion statement we all know and love? The man who is so cool that Evgeni Plushenko chose to appear in his music video, doing quadruple axels along to the schmaltzy pop tune?

Yes, my friends, the Dima Bilan. Who just happened to be in Almaty giving a FREE concert in one of the central squares on a gorgeous summer night between rain storms. That’s right, I have placed a big check mark next to the most ridiculous point on my doesn’t-really-exist life-list. And I also officially have one more reason to love Astana Day/the President’s Birthday. The celebration has continued all week!

I wish I could say that I am too cool for Bilan, and that I only went to the concert because it was there and my friends were going. But really, I was the one that made my friends go… and yes, I may have squealed just a little bit when I saw him walking to the stage. Many people love to hate Dima Bilan, and to be honest I probably wouldn’t really have much to say to him in person besides, “Who chooses your clothing?!?” I have never owned any of Bilan’s music, mostly because the lyrics in the English versions are so painful, see for example: “Believe! As long as I’m breathing, there is not a limit to what I can do!”

However, by easily quoting the above lyric I have revealed the truth. I have been in enough buses in enough countries and watched enough music-TV in post-Soviet countries* to know a lot of Bilan songs. On Saturday night at the concert, I was singing along. A lot. And dancing along with the grooves of the back-up dancers and Bilan himself. Ridiculous. It was a good show, I think even Bilan-haters would admit that. Plenty of lights and smoke and streamers and large screen projections of the action and spurts of flames coming from the stage.

Lots of people turned out for the free show, but it’s still Kazakhstan and there still aren’t that many people in the country, so there was plenty of space for everyone. During the opening (local) acts there were more police/security officers than spectators. Among those in the crowd were young Russians, old Kazakhs, and, inexplicably, a man with a very large live boa constrictor around his neck. He tried to insist that I really wanted to pet the snake. I declined. We tried to imagine what his conversation was like with the police officers who were checking bags at the entrance to the concert (“No, officers, no weapons or alcohol. Oh, the huge snake? She’s no big deal, really").

At any rate, having now outed myself as the Dima Bilan freak that I apparently, I will leave you to your Googling. I am sad to report that the mullet has been replaced by an appropriately sleazy ponytail, complete with pencil mustache and patchy beard. Bilan can still dance, and he can still sometimes sing/sometimes lip sync with the best of them.

*Funny moment, today Kimberly referred to the FSU (aka the Former Soviet Union), and I couldn’t understand how she knew my favorite frisbee cheer (aka F--- S--- Up). I should try to get my academic and athletic worlds sorted out one of these days…

Blog fail

Had planned to post about the trip last weekend... but my free word trial ended so there goes that file for now. :( If you are on facebook, see pictures there.

Instead, if you really want a treat, check out http://www.kok-tobe.kz and look for the section on the Fast Coaster (there is an English translation that will rock your socks off). We rode it last weekend, and it was amazing. The English at the zoo was also quite fabulous.

Hugs!

Nora

Bus 63

Bus 63 is my go-to bus in Almaty. The route takes me up to class everyday, and on the days after work when it is too late to walk, bus 63 takes me home again. It also goes past the Peace Corps office, which I’ve taken advantage of twice so far on this trip.

It’s not a particularly convenient way to travel. For the first couple of days I underestimated how long the trip would take; now I know to plan on a solid 45 minutes on the bus, about an hour door-to-door to class. When I first get on the bus, it is usually packed, standing room only. But after a few stops it empties out and I can snag a seat (though of course I am always ready to give up my seat to more deserving riders). Often we pause for a long while at the Green Bazaar, a major transit hub for the city. Sometimes as we approach this stop, the bus conductor will yell, “Ok, everyone off! There’s another 63 bus up ahead!” And everyone pours out of the bus at a frantic trot to switch vehicles. When this happens, everyone checks to make sure that they have their tickets in hand to avoid having to pay the 30-cent cost per ride again.

The Kazakhstan bus system is a complex universe. City buses, private buses, mini buses… each have their own conventions. Bus 63 is a well-run route. The drivers and the conductors, who wander the bus collecting money and giving out tickets, work together to regulate the bus, sometimes yelling back and forth to coordinate door openings and length of pauses at stops. Monitors stand at specific stops along the route noting the times that buses come and go. They help space out the flow of buses on the route.

I would like to know more about the schedules that the drivers and conductors keep. I’ve had the same conductor almost every morning this week, a blond Russian woman about my age who smokes pink-tipped cigarettes during the long stop at the Green Bazaar. At least once she has been the one to initiate the bus switch, meaning she gets to go on break, but clearly her schedule is irregular, as she doesn’t get that break at the same time everyday… Today I switched on to her bus, and it was the same bus as yesterday (same interior decoration of half-dressed women and football pennants) but I swear it was a different driver…

A couple days ago I ran for bus 63 at after a delightful dinner of shashlyk, plov, and beer. I’d gotten a ride as far as Furmanova and could see the bus trundling along. I dashed down the hill and into the bus just as it began pulling away. We started up and then began barely creeping down the road. One woman, with a bunch of grocery bags on the seat next to her, eventually put her foot down. “Hey,” she yelled, “Are we going to go or not? Some of us are trying to get home here!”

The conductor, a young Kazakh guy who is becoming familiar, was sitting up in front with the driver. “Sorry,” he called back, “There are just some really beautiful girls walking by…”

The whole bus smiled, though we tried to hide it from each other because no one smiles on a bus in Kazakhstan. Even the grumpy woman smiled. The conductor came back and apologized to her in person, and the driver picked up the pace.

It was a nice moment, and as the ride continued I began to suspect that our young conductor had probably had a drink or two on his last break. He was certainly not as diligent in his calling out of stops as he usually is, not to mention he seemed to have a bit of trouble navigating the floor of the bus.

Ready, ready, ready for a long weekend. 4 days off, with two holidays! Working on plans for travel or hiking. In classic KZ style we have not at all planned in advance.

Week 2. Check.

Friday when I got home from class, via an ecotourism agency where we scoped out the possibilities for a mountain adventure next weekend, I was put straight to work. To be fair, I did walk into the kitchen bearing a bag of strawberries and asking if I could help. In short order I was slicing pickles and carrots and potatoes for soup. Host mother, host sister, sister’s friend, host brother: we all jostled for counter space and the stove. It was an amiable mess, with some moments of concern, such as when the oven door opened inches from my leg…

Hot oil, boiling soup, steaming oven. Good thing it was such a cool and beautiful day in Almaty. We’ve had a couple days of rain and cold (I’ve been vindicated for bringing along a few articles of warm clothing), so it was a joy just to walk home from class in the sun. Almaty is oriented with the mountains as compass rose. The whole city is on a slant. Class is “up” from where I live, so I take the bus. Coming home is all “down,” which makes for a pleasant walk through the heart of the city.

Of course, living on a mountain slope has its disadvantages. On Tuesday I was caught out on a walk when it started to pour. There have been a couple of thunderstorms so far, but this was a riot of rain that quickly turned into a flash flood. Rain in the city means it’s been raining for a while up above, and all that water has to go somewhere. Most of it seemed to end up in my socks.

Fortunately enough, the place I was going for an interview was not deterred when I showed up soaking at their door. From here on in, I’ll be spending a few hours a week with the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia. There are quite a few interns on board this summer and currently we are all housed on the fourth floor of the building around a conference table. We are basically a secretary corps; my current task involves translating cross-tabulated data sets (don’t tell my Kazakh teacher that most of it is translation from Russian to English…). I am enjoying the chance to see how the organization works, and also the chance to shake up my schedule a bit!

Kazakh is difficult, but it is rewarding to be starting to recognize new words. Watching television is no longer quite such a mystery; I’ve even glimpsed a Turkish soap opera dubbed into Kazakh, which was my favorite way to learn Russian, so maybe I should re-develop my addiction. Speaking Kazakh in Kazakhstan is still a magical key. Yeah, people will stare at you like you are even more crazy than usual, but it’s fun to watch the reactions when they match your face to your words. I like to think I brighten the day of the two young people working in the samsa stand near the university when I make it to the front of the line and order my hot pastry puff filled with salty cheese. Russian is still far and away the lingua franca, but there is more Kazakh on the streets than I remember from two years ago.

Did you know that just last week in Ankara, Turkey they unveiled a new statue of none other than Our President? Whose birthday is on July 6, which just happens to be a national holiday (ok, so technically it‘s a holiday for Astana…)? Who was referred to in a poem in the state newspaper as “Ata-Kazakh”?

Really, I have no comment, just wanted to frame some rhetorical questions.

Also, for those who are concerned, we are keeping our eyes on Kyrgyzstan, though there hasn’t been too much in the local press about the on-going situation in the south. Osh and Jalalabad are both very far from here. I met an fellow ex-pat last weekend who drove through the region sort of accidentally (he had been out of contact for a few days before driving from Tajikistan north to Almaty). His report involved being shot at while driving around a road block; I’m sad to say this is probably the least harrowing of the stories coming out of the area. Let’s all just keep hoping for peace, and maybe for some answers.

My homework this weekend involved writing a 5-page paper in Kazakh. The theme was Human Relations. Somehow the length was both too short and far, far too long, especially after I spent two evenings in a row at Kazakh theaters.