Kazakhstan - The first wild flamingos

May 6

Hello everyone!

After a three-day week in school – an occurrence that we could definitely get used to – the first weekend of May was upon us. Now that the snow has melted and temperatures are more than bearable, we want to get outside and explore Astana and its surrounding areas as much as possible before the inevitable and harsh winter forces us into retreat once again.

As mentioned previously, Kazakhstan is a rather large country which possesses an often desolate landscape known as the steppe. Whilst other cities such as Almaty have beautiful mountains and other appealing day trips within striking distance, Astana, the capital, sits in the middle of this barren wasteland. Consequently, there isn’t too much we can see without using a plane, as we had to do last weekend to get to Aktau.

There are a couple of options available to us. We went to the ‘Switzerland of Kazakhstan’, Borovoe, in September, and Malinovka is also close enough to see in a day trip. There is one other location of interest, and this is where we spent our Sunday.

Korgalzhyn Nature Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site situated roughly 120km south-west of Astana. It is a protected area of wetlands that are vital for millions of migratory birds every year. 50million, actually. Kazakhstan, and this area in particular, is seen as one of the priority areas for wetland conservation in central Asia.

The ‘Pearl of Central Kazakhstan’ is based in the heart of the steppe. After a visit to a museum and lunch we had the opportunity to walk around this most deserted of locations. As you can expect, there isn’t too much to see. Aside from the occasional mound that housed important people that had died a long time ago, the landscape was as flat as a pancake.

Lunch was an interesting event in itself. For the first time since I moved to Kazakhstan, I had proper beshbarmak. Almost. It was beef instead of horse, but essentially the dish was the same – meat and potatoes on top of lasagne pasta layers, all in a clear broth. The dish is not made for an individual – it is comfortably sufficient to feed ten people, and placed as the centrepiece of the table. Heavy, hearty food, but absolutely delicious.

Kazakh fun fact #1: Beshbarmak is often served at celebrations such as weddings.

Whilst we were eating our feast we were entertained by some local music; firstly on the dombra, before a large man started belting out some popular Kazakh folk songs. We were sat with many of our friends from school who were born in this wonderful country, and they told us many fascinating stories about their homeland.

Kazakh fun fact #2: Stealing of women is, whilst not common, a disturbingly frequent occurrence in Kazakhstan.

Yes, that’s right. Apparently if you like a girl, you can kidnap her and take her to a different town. If he has her under lock and key for long enough, she becomes his. Surely the woman can escape? They could, but the men allow lots of old women to lie on the floor in front of the door. A young girl is not allowed to step over an older woman out of respect, thus is stuck. It can be used for good, however – some poor men ‘steal’ their true love and take them away. As a result, they can elope together and live happily ever after.

One of the main attractions of Korgalzhyn at this time of year is the potential to see flamingos in the wild. There are many species of bird that move north through this region in early May, including eagles and hawks, but the reason for our attendance was to hopefully see some long-necked, vividly pink animals gracefully waltzing through the lakes of the nature reserve.

It was thus unfortunate that we were told in the museum that there were no flamingos within the grounds of this vast nature reserve, and that we would be disappointed if we spent our time looking for them. We would instead have to be content with the paintings of our elegant feathered friend.

Alas, they were wrong. We were trudging along the quiet, flat steppe towards one of Korgalzhyn’s bigger lakes containing a game of swans. Someone peered through their binoculars and spotted an animal that was not particularly white and swan-like. Its long, bendy neck was moving serenely in and out of the water. We had found the flamingos!

We later found that we were lucky – a group after us had not been able to locate the birds, and had gone home disappointed. We, on the other hand, went home more than satisfied with a day out in nature. Korgalzhyn Nature Reserve was a welcome break from the concrete jungle of the city, and is an easy enough and enjoyable day trip from Astana.

Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan – The first dip in the Caspian Sea (extra video)

Here is an extra video of me swimming in the sea...enjoy! I'm not sure if I did...

Kazakhstan – The first dip in the Caspian Sea

Kazakhstan – The first dip in the Caspian Sea

April 28-May 1

Kazakhstan is a country that isn’t particularly easy to locate on a map. One reason for this is that it doesn’t have an Ocean along its long borders. The country is the biggest landlocked country in the world, which means that a trip to the seaside is rendered impossible.

It should be impossible. However, the west of this massive land mass is flanked by the Caspian Sea. It is the largest inland body of water in the world, and the northeast of it is bounded by Kazakhstan. The basin also contains a lot of oil – recent estimates value the oil reserves in the Caspian at over $12trillion.

Consequently, some major development is taking place in cities on the western coast of Kazakhstan. The biggest of these is called Aktau, and we took advantage of a long weekend to investigate and relax on the beach.

 

The latter objective was difficult to accomplish. It does have sandy beaches – the only problem is that there are lots of other materials in and on the beach, such numerous shards of glass. Luckily, there are several flat, low-lying rocks adjacent to the water which were perfect for the four of us to lounge on.

 The gentle lapping of the waves onto the rocks was a peaceful sound. On one of the days it was interrupted by a group of young boys deciding to madly divebomb into the water right next to us. They were clearly trying to impress the girls in our group, but they were cute and some had wonderful smiles which could radiate across any sea.

One of the boys was larger than most and was trying to push the other lads into the chilly waters, but we managed to persuade him that he also needed to jump in. needless to say, he immediately regretted that as he was soon stood shivering on the side. All good-natured fun.

These boys weren’t the only people to brave the sea. We even saw a man snorkelling, although the fact that he was wearing a full diving suit was a clue about the temperature. We had sworn to ourselves that we would enter the water at some stage during our long weekend. This seemed unlikely after the first day, when we merely dipped our feet into the Caspian and found that they turned numb.

Nevertheless we were determined to achieve our goal. Before the kids were busy goading themselves into jumping in we had managed to dunk ourselves into a small lagoon. On the Monday, we finally managed to swim in the Caspian. Less of a swim and more of a thrash, admittedly, but mission was accomplished.

I could talk about sunbathing and ten seconds of swimming at length as we didn’t do too much else. Aktau is a town that is in the embryonic stages of development. There are a couple of statues – the one of a MiG plane overlooking the beach is spectacular – but aside from that there isn’t too much to see. We enjoyed our evenings, and spent the final night watching the sun set on the beach.

 We came out here with the intention of recharging our batteries before taking on the final six weeks of the school year. We have definitely achieved that goal. Aktau has what most of Kazakhstan simply cannot offer – sun, sand and (a very cold) sea.

Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan – The first meeting with Olympic athletes

April 18-22

2012 is a year that promises much. From the European Championships in the summer to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it is a year whose calendar is already packed close to capacity. There is one event that has captured the imagination of (most) British people, however. 2012 is an Olympic year, and this 29^th Olympiad will be hosted by London.

One of the downsides of living so far away from home is that the hype and anticipation isn’t quite the same in a country that isn’t inviting the world into its house for a few weeks to play sport. It is strangely difficult to get too excited about events that take place on man-made beaches in Hampton Court when my ‘local’ man-made beach is in the Khan Shatyr complex in Astana. Whereas the London Evening Standard may have at least one article a day talking about the summer’s shenanigans, media here are not yet ready to devote their time to an event that, for them, is distant both geographically and chronologically.

Luckily for us, our school has strong links with many Embassies here in Astana, including the British Embassy. On April 18^th, we joined forces with them to host an event celebrating a poignant moment in the build-up to London 2012. That date, if you are unaware, marked one hundred days until the start of the Olympic Games.

The British Ambassador, a few more dignitaries and some Kazakh Olympic officials came to the school on a bright, warm Wednesday afternoon to share this moment with us and the children. We watched a video which informed all about the importance of the whole country to the London Olympics – including places as different as the Royal Mint in Wales and an airbase in northwest England.

After this and a few speeches in various languages, we convened outside to hold two relay races. One involved the children, and the other involved the adults. For the latter, each team consisted of one male teacher, one female teacher, one member of the Embassy and one Kazakh Olympic athlete.

Did I forget to mention that Kazakh Olympic athletes were at the school? How silly of me. Admittedly there were only three of them, and they were all swimmers as opposed to the runners we had believed would represent the team. However, they proved enormously popular within the school, with children asking for autographs and hugging them. Through two girls in my class I discovered that the two female swimmers were swimming butterfly and breaststroke respectively. As you would expect, they looked very athletic and ready to accomplish their dreams this summer. Even if one of the girls laughed when I suggested to her that she would win gold.

I didn’t run in this race – partly because other people deserved a chance to run, but also because I had my own Olympic-sized mountain to climb merely a few days later. On the following Sunday I competed in my first ever triathlon. Those of you who know me and, until recently, my inability to ride a bike will realise that it is a big achievement for me. I learnt to ride less than two years ago, have hardly ridden since, and I still hate bikes.

A triathlon is three events: swimming, cycling and running, completed in that order. There were 36 people suckered into competing. The joy – or the antonym of that feeling – of a triathlon is that different people have different strengths and weaknesses, so completing three diverse events allow the playing field to be levelled.

To say the swim was chaotic would be a major understatement. Everybody swum in the school’s small swimming pool simultaneously, with six people in each lane. This meant that people regularly crashed into one another, and swimming at a reasonable speed was rendered impossible.

As mentioned before, I’m not best friends with bicycles. I borrowed one from a parent in order to compete, and had completed two practice runs of the circuit which ran through the pyramid park and under some bridges. It also went into a construction site. Until the Olympic Wednesday I had never cycled off-road before, and didn’t enjoy it.

After surviving 20km on two wheels, it was time to use my strength, my two feet, to run the final 6km. Possibly owing to my lack of speed on the bike, I had a little bit of energy for the run, and completed it quickly. I finished the whole triathlon in 1 hour 41 minutes, which I was happy with. The winner, a fitness instructor, had finished over twenty minutes before. He was in my swimming lane, and you could tell that he was going to be good from his distinct lack of body fat. A worthy winner.

It’s been a sporty week that has encouraged our children to strive for athletic perfection whilst showing them that the adults they respect – be they parents, teachers or others – that they too are capable of completing challenges that make us feel like Olympians.

Love you all

Matt