Back from Kazakhstan!

I'm back on American soil and, although a bit jetlagged/dehydrated/loopy, I'm delighted to be home. "So, PSK, whatever was it like? Pray do tell us!" Eh, I know you're just being polite, but below are some snapshots of my trip, bearing in mind that I can't talk about the specifics of the election itself.

My journey began at 5pm on Sunday, August 12. I was sitting outside my apartment building, waiting for my ride to the airport and listening to my neighbor yap on and on about nothing in particular (she smelled like liquor, and she kept hugging me throughout--that much I remember) when--saved!--the SuperShuttle finally pulled up to the door. I sprinted to the van and plopped myself in next to a guy who was talking to a foreign couple sitting one row behind. I'm trying to be polite and not listen to their conversation, but I couldn't help but overhear when the guy next to me says that he's going to Kazakhstan. "You're kidding! Me, too! For the election?" He was, indeed, one of the other observers on my trip. We introduced ourselves and pretty much ignored the poor foreign couple for the rest of the ride to Dulles. With hours to burn at the airport and still more to burn on the flights, Josh and I became fast friends and each other's Field Trip Buddy.

After close to ten weeks in the air, we met up with other observers upon late-night arrival at the Astana airport, where we piled into buses and were shuttled to our hotels. A third of the group was dropped off at the Radisson. A name-brand, Western chain--this is a good sign. Another third was dropped off at the Rixos President Hotel. Wow. This was a lovely hotel that could fit quite well in midtown Manhattan. And then there was the Hotel Abai. This was the Hotel That Hospitality Forgot. Okay, okay, it wasn't that bad. But, unlike the other two hotels, the front desk attendants didn't speak English, we had to share rooms, and the rooms themselves were straight out of an unrenovated freshman dorm. Mind you, this was about what I expected, but it was a bit of a drag to see others dropped off at the Kazakhstani equivalent of the Four Seasons (the bastards at the Rixos had jacuzzis in their rooms!) when we shuffled off to our own little twin-bedded closets.

Anyway, it was good to have a friend with whom to tour Astana, because it was a strange city. Everything was just so... new. Cranes were everywhere. Construction, dust, gaping holes in the streets--it was all there. So, blah blah blah, we wandered around, took photos, failed to blend in, etc. The one thing we didn't get to see on our free day in Astana was the giant Bayterek Tower, aka the Wigsphere. One of the things Josh and I bonded over was our love of the Simpsons, and we couldn't help but shake that the tower looked suspiciously like the Knoxville Sunsphere from the 1982 World's Fair. Simpsons fans surely remember this differently ("It's a wigsphere now. You fellas going to buy some wigs, or ain'tcha?"). Long story short: we didn't make it to the wigsphere on our first day... but keep reading, because you never know what could happen on our last day in Kazakhstan!

An aside: I really did make an effort not to be so conspicuous (i.e., no sparkly jewelry, no quintessentially American clothes, etc), but evidently my effort wasn't good enough, because it seemed that my presence offended a cashier at the local supermarket. A can of paprika-flavored Pringles and two liters of water in hand, I approached the checkout counter and put my stuff down on the conveyor belt. The cashier looked up at me and glared. It was like she was shooting daggers into my face with her eyes. She then motioned to the woman behind me to hand over her yogurt for payment. Wtf? What on earth did I do? I was stone-faced throughout, I didn't smirk or smile all goofy-like. As far as I could tell, I'd done nothing to offend. I mean, damn, I know customer service is a dying art, but come on. It could be, though, that she was in a foul mood because she didn't like the music played on the store's sound system. Check this out: They. Played. Weird. Al. No joke--Weird Al! As I walked in, I smiled at hearing a familiar song (I disliked Kazakhstani Top 40 about as much as I dislike much of American Top 40). It was "White and Nerdy"! Seriously! I had to do an aural double-take (if such a thing exists) to make sure, but it truly was Weird Al, and I was happy. But I digress.

Another random aside: I had to enter the country with almost 2000 bucks on me in cash. Kazakhstan is a cash economy, and although some places take credit cards, to use one is flirting with identity theft disaster. I know 2000 dollars isn't much, but it was still a bit nerve-wracking to have to carry it around. Solution: a sports bra! I tell you, those suckers were made for smuggling currency into foreign countries; the money fits snugly and discreetly between the two layers, and no one's the wiser. I highly recommend wearing one the next time you travel to Central Asia, especially if you happen to be a woman.

Right. Now, about Kazakhstani television: it's terrible. There is, however, a delicious unintentional comedy to it that one cannot help but be attracted to. The A-Team, dubbed into Russian? You bet! (We kept waiting to hear the translation of "I pity the fool," but it wasn't meant to be.) "Naked But Funny"? Of course! Old-timey propagandist shows from the 1950s? I wouldn't have it any other way. It was really great. Normally I wouldn't be watching that much tv while traveling, but when jetlagged at 3am, it's one way to pass the time.

After a couple of days in Astana, we were divided up into our teams and sent off to our areas of observation. Mine was the oblast of Karaganda, pretty much in the middle of the country. The city of Karaganda (within the oblast of the same name) was actually a pretty cool city: lots of cafes and restaurants, amazing shopping (including supermarkets that are far superior to most I've seen in the city limits of DC--I'm looking right at you, Giant at the corner Wisconsin and Newark), and a passion for all things cosmonaut. There was a huge mural of Yuri Gagarin on one street corner, a hotel named after Valentina Tereshkova, and monuments here and there dedicated to space flight. Very cool. Apparently Karaganda was the stomping grounds for the cosmonauts upon completion of their flights. I'm not sure why--it's not like it's super close to Baikonur, but it's also not like I could really ask my interpreter or partner (more on him in a minute) for clarification, because neither spoke really good English. The one thing that Karaganda didn't have was water that didn't reek of sulfur. It was horrible. My hair smelled like sulfur, my skin smelled like sulfur, and I feel like it took me a good three showers here at home to finally scrub the stench from my body.

Karaganda was only the home base, though, because my partner and I would be driving from there to a town called Abai about 45 minutes away. It was a very sad place that I've described elsewhere as an almost post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's a depressed mining town with Soviet-style block apartment buildings that are completely abandoned in most cases. The roads are deeply rutted (as if from bombing), weed overgrowth is rampant, and packs of stray dogs roamed the streets. I can't say I felt 100% safe.

My partner didn't do much to inspire confidence, either. He was generally a nice guy--we did what we could to attempt to bond over music and hockey--but his English was horrendous, and we disagreed more than agreed on how to approach things. He did seem fascinated by my vegetarianism, however--telling pretty much anyone who would listen that I was (1) American and (2) a vegetarian. Okay. He did have a sense of humor, though: when driving past a herd of cattle, he pointed them out to me and said, "Meat!" Nice. Oh, and my driver kept kissing my hand, which was adorable.

As for the election itself, there are some non-voting-related highlights I can share. The hospitality that greeted us as some polling stations was quite charming. One station in particular gave us miniature yurts (yes! I have mine on a bookshelf already), fed us at a table filled with fruits (can't eat--contaminated), vegetables (can't eat--contaminated), meat (can't eat--icky), and pastries (ate those). We also toasted our respective countries and the friendship among them. The station chief and her assistant made sure we'd had our fill of tea and juice before they ushered us into the theater for a show by a children's dance troupe. The kids, done up in traditional garb, were fantastic! This was by far the highlight of the election (with a close second being my encounter with the close-talking, tiny, feisty, elderly Communist Party woman who was all done up in military regalia and who waxed nostalgic for US/Kazakhstani/Russian space partnerships while lapsing into German and playing with my hair). Sadly, though, I didn't have my camera handy to capture the kids' show. I'm waiting for my partner to email me his photos, but I have a feeling I could be waiting a long time.

Blah. I'm growing weary of writing, and you're probably growing weary of reading this. Some final odds and ends, as my attention span fades: (1) Clif Bars and vitamins kept me alive; (2) I averaged about 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and strangely became accustomed to it; (3) the wigsphere, which we did get to visit on our last day in the country, was the absolute best--we giggled the whole way there and the whole way to the top of it; (4) I've now twice gotten into a random car in a former Soviet republic and asked the driver if he'd serve as a cabbie (although, yes, both times I was with other people); (5) I really need to get better at Russian; and (6) I was reminded again of how small a world it is as I met people from around the world with whom I had some connection. So, yay! Viva Kazakhstan! Viva American tap water! Viva everything! Go see my pics, if you're interested, at http://picasaweb.google.com/myfirstname.mylastname.