For some reason, Fia recently decided to teach the song ‘99 bottles of beer on the wall’ to her friends. To make it work in Russian, she changed the wording a bit, but we now like her version better than the original:
“99 bottles of beer on the floor,
99 bottles of beer;
You pick one up and throw it at the wall,
98 bottles of beer on the floor!”
Friendships come and go in the dvor. Families move, kids outgrow old friends and form new alliances. Diyana, the pint-sized pistol who has been a fixture in the dvor as well as in our apartment for the past two and a half years, has left us recently. Her family moved to a new apartment about a mile away. For most kids, such a move would signal the end of the friendship. In Almaty we are lucky, however; azhe (grandmother) lives just downstairs, and we know we will always see Diyana on Sundays when she comes to visit.
Not your average mini-market
Many evenings, groups of kids run to the small market adjacent to our apartment block for a small treat: ice cream, a lollipop or the locally popular sukhariki (dried bread cubes that come plain or in flavors like cheese and sausage), or packets of semechki (roasted sunflower seeds). The mini-market and the produce stand next to it are an extension of our dvor and just as full of life and color.
The owners of the mini-market are from southern Kazakhstan, the Shymkent region near the border with Uzbekistan. They know all the regulars from our building. It’s the kind of place where, if you are short a few tenge today, you can pay next time; a place where the clerks remember which kind of chocolate your kids like and remind you when you haven’t bought a treat for them lately.
My youngest daughter is partial to the fresh potato pies, or pirozhky, that the store makes and sells for about 30 US cents each. When we pull into the small driveway that separates the store from our building, the girls clamor for a few tenge to buy something for themselves, then head straight away to the dvor to play. Often they buy extras to share with their friends, and their friends do the same. Sharing is a way of life in the dvor.
On the street outside the store, past the ice cream freezers that tempt customers with frozen treats year round, Arstan, the produce man, talks to me frequently about language and culture. He says he admires how well the girls speak Russian. He says he and his wife speak Kazakh at home and that sometimes Russian is a challenge for them too.
We talk about which apples taste best – I tell him in America I don’t like the red ones that look picture-perfect but taste like sawdust – and he waxes nostalgic that the Aport apples for which Almaty was once famous have disappeared from the city, the orchards having given way to overpriced housing developments. Recently, on a day when an aggressive customer kept me waiting for service, Arstan lamented that in the bustling city, some locals have lost their sense of politeness.
This year I watched as Arstan and his crew painstakingly stuck large letters onto their canopy facing our dvor – a colorful sign in Russian read, ‘Vegetables – Fruits.’ The next day all of the letters had been torn down from the canopy. I had a hunch that this was not an act of vandalism.
“Look over there,” I said to my girls, “the letters have been torn down. I bet they got into trouble because the sign was in Russian but not in Kazakh.”
A day later the sign reappeared, this time in two languages – Kazakh in large letters on top, with Russian in smaller letters underneath – evidence of the pro-Kazakh language policy in action.
Goodbye for the summer
Last week marked the end of the school year and the day was bittersweet: my daughters and husband were to leave early the next morning for summer vacation. I would not see them for more than a month while they spent time in the US with their grandparents. In the evening the girls asked to play outside with their friends. While I desperately wanted them to spend these final hours before their vacation with me, I decided to let them savor their time in the dvor.
Like most other summer nights, my daughters stayed out until the very last child was called home. They came home tired and satisfied that they had played till the end. Then, as they were washing up, the doorbell rang. A girl of 11 or 12 stood outside, asking for Fia. When my daughter came to the door, the girl held out a pen and pencil.
“This is a gift for you, to remember me by,” she said.
During our eight-plus years in Almaty, we have always chosen to live in apartments: to afford ourselves a more ‘walkable’ urban lifestyle and to allow our children to socialize more easily with local kids. When I am having my occasional doubts about our lifestyle choice, about not giving my girls the joys of a house and backyard, I think about these moments and know I have made the right decision. I think about the girl standing at our door with pen and pencil. I remember how my daughter described our dvor to relatives in America, not as an overheated and barren concrete slab, but as a fantastic play area “with the most beautiful flowers you have ever seen”. I think about the surge of positive energy I get each evening from the football boys. I think about Diyana’s smile and about my conversations with Arstan. I think about a place that often seems frozen in time with its simplicity and innocence, our safe haven from the stresses of contemporary life.
These are the images that form the richly textured multicultural landscape of my day-to-day life in Almaty. Even more than the dramatic mountain landscape, the dvor is the place we will remember most fondly. This is the place where my children learned to bike and skate, about sharing and compromise, and where they learned about the strength and kindness of the Kazakh people. In the dvor, in our magic dvor, they are having the time of their lives.
Celebrating Art in Atyrau
by Alejandra Reyes
What have you heard about this huge country located in the heart of Eurasia? My family and I arrived not knowing much at all – just that we were to spend three years here, based in Atyrau, a small city near the Caspian Sea. In that time I had the opportunity to travel all over Kazakhstan, and what impressed me and my kids the most was the country’s variety of exceptional natural landscapes: spacious steppes; mountains, such as Khan Tengri or the Zailijsky Alatau range; and lakes, like the Balkhash, the only lake in the world with both fresh water (in the west) and salt water (in the east).
When we first arrived though, I didn’t know what to do with myself… I felt disoriented. The kids were enrolled in a lovely little school with other children of all nationalities, but arriving in such a different place, to an alien language with letters and sounds I had never heard before, was a challenge for me. In the beginning, I spent entire days learning simple words and trying to figure out how to request items in the supermarket! Once I had set up all the basic needs – and by basic I mean only food and water – I realized the rest would be taken care of by the company that had brought us to Kazakhstan. But even when I started to participate in coffee meetings with other expat women, something was missing… I missed my old life as a cultural administrator, a career I had found by chance after I had the opportunity to be an assistant at an exhibition in the MNBA, the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts.
One day I asked my driver to take me to a local art academy, where I asked to speak to an art teacher. A lovely woman who spoke English well, showed me to a door. I knocked.
A secretary behind a little desk asked me to wait and I sat for about 20 minutes in the teacher’s peach-colored room. He was a painter with vast experience; a member of the Artist League of Kazakhstan, and a long time teacher at Maaly Art Academy. As he entered the room, I noticed his dark wild hair, which fell to his shoulders. His name was Adilhayer Pangerevic. I didn’t realize at the time how important this meeting would turn out to be.
I started my drawing lessons in Adilhayer’s studio, a big room divided in two; one part for students and a smaller section for his own works, where he had almost 70 paintings and a few sculptures. One of my favorite sculptures was a piece of wood in the shape of a horse, which he had decorated with some metal pieces and stones.
Twice a week I spent my mornings in front of a huge window that overlooked the Atyrau White House, a government building beside the Ural River, one of the oldest rivers in the world. Every day brought a different view. In winter the panorama was white – has white ever been so amazing? If you sharpened your vision, you could see all the colors of the spectrum in the snow. Water fell from some pipes, freezing on the spot and becoming sharp icicles hanging from the roofs. It was an image stuck in time, as if in a photograph.
I committed those mornings to memory as they gave me the peace of mind and the inspiration I needed to do my drawings. I sketched for hours, looking out at that peaceful scene, listening to the pianoforte being played in the next room by young students learning symphonies by the great composers. The world stopped for a moment and warmth filled my heart.
My technique in drawing human figures and sculptures was slowly developing. My perception and analyses of the objects I drew had improved; so too had my point of view, shadows and textures. Sometimes I had a young student modeling for me for hours! I was surprised, because no one in my country would do this. It can only happen in a place where people are used to living life at a different pace, with other priorities.
Kazakh people are quiet; they don’t show much emotion, smile, or make gestures when first meeting, but with time and after gaining their trust, they become more relaxed and enthusiastic – especially during official celebrations such as Nauryz and Victory Day. The Kazakhs are descendants of the Mongol Empire, which incorporated a vast area of Central Asia and extended into what is Western Europe today. Nomadic tribes, they are the survivors of the Siberian Steppes. They are excellent warriors and not easily conquered. They preserve the distant memory of the original founding clans through traditions and oral history – and they are very proud of their culture. Kazakh artists tended to paint mythological characters of Kazakh history and the wildlife of the steppes. In visual arts, heroes, political leaders, musicians and poets are the most represented.
After about six months of almost religious dedication to my drawing lessons, I realized many of Adilhayer’s colorful images of tigers, horses, women and unknown faces, surrounding me every day, had given me the inspiration I needed. I realized how talented my teacher was. I realized also that my first impression of him, as a serious and hard-talking person, had been mistaken. After spending time drawing with him, I had come to know him as a kind, sensible, and intelligent man.
One day, I broke the silence in the room.
“Adilhayer, what would you think if I organized an exhibition of your art works?” I asked.
He looked at me, doubtful, so I explained what I had studied and what I had done before, and how I envisioned the exhibition. By the end of our conversation, he had agreed.
I started to meet with people who I thought could collaborate on the project, and I asked around art academies for assistance – without any success. Time went by, summer arrived, and the children finished the school year in Atyrau. My family and I left for the holidays, but I could think only about coming back to “Aty”, as I had started calling it.
On my return, Adilhayer and I finally found a sponsor, with the help of another artist, the Scottish photographer Robert Kerr. We were three volunteers of three nationalities sharing one language: a love for communicating the Kazakh culture through the arts. After endless meetings, agreements and phone calls, Agip KCO, an Italian oil company in Kazakhstan, agreed to sponsor our long-awaited art exhibition. They would provide the venue and they would pay for the refreshments and invitations. It was the first time that Agip had sponsored an art event in Kazakhstan, so I felt extremely fortunate.
Adilhayer and I met frequently to talk about oils, techniques, measurements, and to decide on the exhibition details. We had around 70 paintings at our disposal. In order to select the final paintings, I grouped them into size and type: portraits, landscapes, still life pieces and figurative paintings. Finally, we decided on 36 oils, all of them beautiful pieces of art that showed the spirit of the country.
The exhibition was to be hosted at Chagala Club House. Chagala is seagull in the Kazakh language and, when springtime arrives and the weather becomes warmer, you often see these sea birds flying over the Ural River. I liked this space in the Club House because it had big windows all along the wall, so the lighting was excellent.
On the day of the opening, the paintings were in place and the TV was ready to play a short film showing all of Adilhayer’s artwork. I had arranged for a journalist and a photographer to cover the opening ceremony. The guests started arriving at 7 pm with Adilhayer and me standing at the main door welcoming everyone, really pleased with the turn out.
I had the chance to meet two of Adilhayer’s friends, as well as his wife and two relatives. My children were there, and so were my neighbors from the compound, who arrived with their relatives. Other guests included local businessmen and businesswomen and the principal and teachers of Maaly Art Academy, as well as staff from Agip KCO and other oil companies. Adilhayer couldn’t believe that so many people had come to his exhibition to support him and his work.
As the ceremony began I started reading the speech I had written. I introduced the artist and spoke about his hard life, and how he’d dedicated his life to art. I thanked everyone who had worked with me on this project. I also thanked those who had come to see how this Kazakh artist expressed his particular vision of the world.
A year later I still remember this great experience in Kazakhstan. It showed me that if you take on a challenge and have faith, you will find a way to succeed. The Atyrau exhibition was only the beginning… at the moment I am preparing my next exhibition, this time in Milan and again in the company of my dear friend with the dark wild hair.
Winters in Astana
by Claire McCarthy
What do you do when the temperature drops below –20° Celsius? How can you live? Do you ever leave the house? What is there to do? These are the sorts of questions friends outside of Kazakhstan ask me. They can’t imagine functioning in a place where you don’t see the ground for up to three months of the year.
I spent my first Kazakh winter break enjoying the Australian summer. With its temperatures of 35° Celsius, I grew to enjoy pulling on a T-shirt and skirt and slipping into my flip-flops. On my return, alighting from the plane at 1 am into the freezing Astana night, dressed pretty much the same way, I realised I was going to have to change my attire. From then on, each morning would involve putting on the thermals my family had so kindly given me for Christmas, as well as my beaver fur hat, woollen mittens, fur boots and 50-year-old mink coat (kindly donated by my parents’ neighbour).
Yet that first morning back in Astana, I awoke to discover the beauty that lay behind the freezing conditions. When the temperatures are so low, it seems that frost and blue sky cause everything to sparkle. After a relaxing day of getting over the long journey, I went out in the evening in an attempt to find my new gym (the address gave nothing away and it was unknown to every taxi driver I spoke to). I started to walk down my street towards the river and the park, where I was sure the gym would be. I soon found that there is plenty to do in Astana and that it is possible to escape from the house, even at temperatures of –52° Celsius!
Opposite my block of flats was a large building, which appeared to be some sort of educational establishment. The grounds were full of ice sculptures. Having been away for three weeks, I was not sure if they had been carved in situ or brought there. Either way, they were rather impressive. Continuing around the corner, I was met by the sight of a huge crowd. In the summer there were always lots of people going for their Sunday promenade along the river bank, but I had (wrongly) assumed that this would not be the case in deep mid-winter. People of all ages appeared to be throwing themselves down the river bank! Closer inspection revealed that slides had been built into the river bank. The walkway was lined with the old women who had sold popcorn and ice cream in the summer, now wrapped from head to toe in fur, and selling plasti
c sledges. All ages, from one to 90 were standing, sitting and lying about along the banks. I looked out across what had been the river and realised this was the place to be when you had free time. There were cross-country skiers, people on snowmobiles, others sledging or ice skating. Fishermen sat under tent-sized plastic bags, each with what looked like a large metal screwdriver (used to make a hole in the river) and a stool. They sat inside these bags waiting to catch fish (though considering the river is man-made, it was not clear to me what fish they would catch). I stood and watched the shivering fishermen for a while and then wandered through the park in the subzero temperatures, finally coming upon the gym.
On my way back, I came across another winter pastime in Astana… It seems that, to have a good time as a young male Kazakh, you all pile into a Lada and drive down to the riverside. You then drive at high speed along the frozen embankment until you come to a roundabout, where you pull a handbrake turn. The noise and resulting ice spray are really impressive but rather scary if you are walking alongside.
Another extreme ice sport I noted while walking through the park was snow-jogging. I am a keen jogger, but as I watched these guys turning blue in temperatures colder than a freezer, it seemed unnatural. They would jog past at a snail’s pace and seemed to be deriving little pleasure from the exercise. I was just happy that I had found my gym and could wrap myself up in mink to get there.
By mid-February, the temperature still way below freezing (and set to stay that way for another month or so), and it was inevitable that one would be drawn towards any place that was warm. One Sunday afternoon, I decided to visit the city banya to warm myself up (and get clean in the process).
A banya is a form of steam bath. It was first heard of in Russia about 1,000 years ago and is similar to the Finnish sauna and Turkish hammam. It is basically a wooden hut, heated to temperatures above 90° Celsius, and there are various procedures to follow. I first discovered the joys of the banya back in the ’90s, when I lived in Yaroslavl, a small city near Moscow, situated on the banks of the river Volga. On an early morning in mid-November, we dragged ourselves out of our warm beds, piled into our landlady’s 1980s’ Lada and set off for her house in the countryside, or dacha, to sample the private banya. On arriving at the village, I saw small wooden houses, each surrounded by a number of outhouses. As we were to discover, one of these was the bathing house. After a welcome vodka and some heavily salted fish, we were invited to enter the banya, which had been lit in preparation for our arrival and was now warm enough. Entering the small building, I was struck by the smell of newly cut grass and wet wood. We were told to strip off, wrap ourselves in a sheet and put on the felt hat given to us. We carefully entered the tiny, wooden room and were hit by a blast of scorching hot air. We sat on the wooden benches and started to slowly melt.
Drinking Camel's Milk in the Yurt – Expat Stories From Kazakhstan Page 6