Republic Square and St. Nicholas Cathedral

My roommate is off in Kyrgyzstan for the weekend. The trip was unexpected and I didn't have a visa, so I'm home alone for the next few days. 

I decided to go for a walk to Republic Square, the former seat of Government in Almaty before the capital of Kazakhstan was moved to Astana in the North. The first thing I was struck by was the lack of trees along Satpaev street. As I approached, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. It was just so sterile. I was only one of five people in the general vicinity of the monument at the center of Republic Square, one was guard leaning up against one of the four statues that surrounds the central spire, the others were a mother and her two young children. No street vendors, no ice cream carts, nothing. Just quiet.  Across the road, I could see three glass domes belonging to mall in the foreground of the official building. There were two entrances to the underground mall on my side of the road and I ventured down. The mall was also very sterile. There were guards on every floor and at every entrance. Only a few well dressed people milled around. Everything about it was perfect, and I hated it. I exited on the other side of the road from the monument and walked around the perfectly manicured park that decorated the foreground of the mall and the official building. I did like the variety of sculptures present in the garden and I also enjoyed looking across the road to see the words of Nazerbayev strung across the top of one of the opposing buildings "Political Stability and a Single Kazakh People are the Main Values of the State."

Republic Square is not a reflection of the Almaty that I have come to know and love. It was too clean and too perfect. Almaty for me is the Green Bazaar with people selling their wares, though I have been told that today's Green Bazaar is different from the Green Bazaar of two years ago, but for me it feels more alive and more real than the square. In addition to the Bazaar, Almaty is also the beautiful mountains, the churches and the mosques. So, while the monuments and gardens were beautiful in their own pristine way, I did not think it was representative of what I have come to associate as Almaty.

_______________________________________________________________________________

After lunch, I went out for a walk with Mariana. We walked down Abai Street and turned down one of the side streets, coincidentally the same one that the building that houses the Migration Police is on. Somehow during my search for the Migration Police, I missed the church which is not far from it. The Cathedral was our destination today, I read up about it in Lonely Planet during some down time in the office and wanted to see it for myself. It was built in 1909 and used by the Soviets as a Stable after the Revolution. Outside the church is a statue of St. Nicholas, for whom the church is dedicated. Inside the style of the painting reflects is early 20th century origins, it looks more Italian than Russian. Most of the icons seemed rather new, except for one, the Icon of the Mother of Kazan', whose painting had darkened with age. While we were looking around, I pointed out the Icon of Prince Dimitrii, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible (Stormy). In response, Mariana told me that there was an Icon of the last Romanovs. From that I discovered that our interest in Russia stems from the same source, the movie Anastasia.

I saw the movie Anastasia for the first time between the summer of sixth and seventh grade. I had not wanted to see it when it came out because it was just another princess movie and I was too old for that, so I didn't see it until many years later. I watched the movie and was intrigued, what really happened? I was lucky enough that the following year I had a teacher who recognized my fleeting interest in Russia and I fell in love with it. The rest, they say, is history. Thank you, Mr. Sawyer.

We walked around for a little bit more before walking around the neighboring park. From there we went and got an ice cream and began walking back. We found a cherry tree on the way back and Mariana climbed it, we managed to get two cherries for our efforts, they were sour. We walked around a bit more, through two parks by the opera house, before I began my journey home.

Oh the Memories: These three stooges are well known features in Soviet Era comedy films.

A park near the Opera House. There are seven arches for the seven days of the week.

A Familiar Face in A Foreign Land

I have adapted well to Almaty, something that has been commented on numerous times. Even so, it was nice to see a familiar face. One of my fellow classmates from the Harriman Institute is Kazakh and currently in Almaty for the summer. Timur and I, along with one of his friends, Ekbal, met up yesterday evening for dinner on Kok Tobe, the Green Hill. 

Like Shymbulak, the top of Kok Tobe is accessible by a cable car. It was a five or ten minute ride to the top of the hill. We walked to a observation platform to look over Almaty. On the hill, it was sprinkling, but from the observation platform, you can see that parts of Almaty were being drenched. 

The hill is also home to the second highest radio tower in the world, this is in part due to its location on top of the hill. 

The Skyline of Almaty

The ride up the mountain on the cable car

The private homes on the ride up to the mountains.

The Second Highest Radio Tower

After taking photos and looking through a set of binoculars down at Almaty, we walked through the park. Like Gorky Park, it had a small number of carnival rides. It also had a statue of the Beatles, they are very popular here (I apologize for the blurriness of my camera, it is difficult to operate with the hairband holding it together, its permanently on landscape). They also had a small petting zoo. Thankfully, the conditions were better than those I witnessed in Kazan'. 

I always love reading English translations. The Distribution and Duplication of Peacocks.

Timur and I

Ekbal and I

After walking through the park, Timur treated us to a dinner of Shashlik at the restaurant on  top of the hill. The food was good and the conversation was better. Ekbal is Cherkess from the Northern Caucasus and holds a Russian passport, though he only began learning Russian eight years ago. He grew up in Syria and speaks Arabic and the Cherkessian/Circassians  language. I asked who the Cherkess were related to in Russia, and Ekbal said that they were a distinct group with a distinct language. From there are conversation ventured into the media as both Timur and Ekbal worked together as journalists. We discussed the biased and often times unprofessional nature of media, he admitted that if he were in Syria now he would not be able to film an unbiased picture of what was happening, he's on the side of the revolution. We then discussed religion and the new President of Egypt, who Ekbal views as very pragmatic for his decision to appoint a woman and a Christian as vice presidents. 

Almaty at night

Timur, who has a car but thankfully drives like a civilized person, drove me back to my apartment and gave me my first Almaty souvenir and told me to call if I needed anything while I was in Almaty. It's good to see a familiar face in a foreign land.

"This is a Pleasure Hike, not a Death March... That's Next Time."

I climbed a mountain today! And I made it down in one piece, mostly. I consider that a major achievement on my part. 

Jessica, Antoine, Ed and I decided that we were going to hike/"trek” Medau, the mountains to south of Almaty today. I was up and at the bus stop across from the Hotel Kazakhstan before 9 am. While I still hold to may statement that Almaty is a sleepy city in the morning, this particular bus stop began to fill up early, all preparing for a day at Medeu. Once our group was complete, we crammed on the bus, the six, and headed for Medeu. The bus ride was twenty or twenty-five minutes long, but it was hot and uncomfortable. Hikers and bikers had crammed on to the bus with all their equipment, the bus attendant hardly had room to gather the fare.

We finally reached the base of the mountain and took a gondola up to the Shymbulak. The view from the gondola was extraordinary, we passed right over top the ice-skating rink, which was used during the Asian winter games and is now a basketball/soccer court. 

The Gondola, 2,500 Tenge both ways. It offers amazing views of the mountains and valleys on the way up to Shymbulak.

The ice-skating rink, which currently has a tennis, basketball and soccer court on it.
Apparently, you can stay in the athlete's dormitories for $10 a night. 

In the valley, a guy had professed his love to a girl in a very dramatic way. "Sveta, I Love You."
This young Romeo was one of many with the same idea.

From Shymbulak, the climbing began. We climbed up from Shymbulak along a road gravel road, passed the hotel; Shymbulak is a ski resort during the winter, and up the mountains. When we came to the fork in the road, we chose the more direct but more challenging route through a dried river gorge. There we were forced to climb over larger boulders and rocks that had washed down when the gorge was filled with water. It was easier to move over the larger stones than through the small stones, which we encountered later. The small stones tend to dispurse when you stepped on them, making it very slippery. We trekked through the gorge for a couple hours, in addition to boulders; we climbed over the ruins of an old ski lift, which had obviously been thrown down there at some point instead of being trashed properly. We made it up and over the boulders and then were faced with a hill of small rocks, which felt like walking through snow. I must admit that I was the slowpoke of the group. Ed climbs mountains on a regular basis, so this must have felt like a hill; he assured me that this was in fact a pleasure hike not a death march, so I could take my sweet time. Antoine wasn’t fazed by the climb and was right behind Ed most of the time and Jessica held her own.

Ed and Jessica, well ahead of me at the beginning of the climb.

In the river gorge: Ed, Antoine and Jessica. Taken from my position well behind the rest of the group.

One of the many items left behind in the gorge. 

The rocky/gravelly hill between me and lunch.
It was like walking through snow, not that I have much experience doing that either.

 I eventually made it to the top, well after the other. It was cold up there. I had worn short, which was good for the physical effort required to reach the top, but once there I couldn’t help but wish I had brought pants. Unfortunately, the weather was closing in, so we didn’t get see much of the magnificent view. We could see snow on an adjacent peak and we had seen others climbing down the mountain with skis and snowboards. 

The adjacent peak from the top of our ridge. The weather was closing in and it was beginning to drizzle.

We ate lunch, quickly, and then walked along the ridge a little ways. I had seen a patch of snow not far from where we were eating and I really wanted a picture with it. This Florida girl has now seen snow eight times. An adolescent Saint Bernard greeted us by the snow patch and played in the snow. When her owner, who was up in the building by the unused ski lift, noticed that she had disappeared he came out calling her, “Shimba, Shimba come here.” Shimba was quite reluctant to leave us, possibly because I had given her a biscuit a few minutes before, but eventually she returned to her waiting owner.

Shimba, guarding her patch of ice and snow.

We continued down the mountain, slipping and sliding. It was much more difficult to go down than to go up. I ended up falling more times than I can count, though I only scrapped myself badly once. At one point Ed said that it was better just to run down, I tried this theory and found that this was in fact false. Antoine had to catch me so that I didn’t run off the edge or slip and fall trying to stop. Didn’t do that again. As we were navigating a rather precarious wet hill, a well-dressed Kazakh man, in a white suit jacket and dress shoes, on a phone ran passed us and somehow managed to navigated the hill without falling and dirtying that pristine white coat. We finally made it down the mountain. Finally! After using the facilities, we rode the gondola back down and took the bus back into Almaty.

Even Ed had to perform some impressive maneuvers not to end up flat on his bum. He succeeded, I did not.

Very furry bovine hanging out on the mountain.

My prize at the end of this was Shashlik, a chicken kabab, which I ate one full stick and packed the other one away for tomorrow’s lunch. Now I am home and about to head to bed. I won’t need any rocking tonight.

Dinner! The bottle in the center holds pink vinegar, according to Ed's flat mate (center),
it is so strong that it is sometimes used to commit suicide. 

Shashlik, bread, onions and cucumbers. My post-trek treat.