Eating in Central Asia

As my time here dwindles, I have just ten days left, I wanted to reflect on the food that I have eaten here. While traveling, I make a conscious effort to avoid eating at the western style fast-food restaurants, of which there are plenty in Almaty, including Hardee's, KFCs, Pizza Hut and dozens of knock-offs. Instead, most of my food intake is street food from kiosks or food from the same restaurants that the locals frequent.

Like clockwork, when noon rolls around, I leave my computer in the office and walk to the underground walkway on Abai street near Baizakov Street for my daily samsa. Dana, one of my colleagues, jokingly named Antoine and I the samsa club. Unfortunately the other half of my club is now in Shymkent, so I am forced to go buy my lunch on my own. Samsa is a stuffed pastry. In Kazakhstan, the pastry is the texture of a croissant with either chicken, cheese or meat fillings. I almost always get samsa with cheese, the meat can be a little suspect. The best thing about samsa is the price, it costs 70 KZT or $0.50. The other great thing about samsa is that you can find it just about anywhere. Samsa in Almaty is not the same as the samsa which is sold in Bishkek. The samsa in Bishkek is made out of a heavier pastry and is not flaky. It was also smaller and more oily than the Almaty samsa. Another major difference is that Bishkek samsa has more an additional filling option, cabbage, but cheese by itself is less common. 

From my earlier posts, you know that I also enjoy Shashlik. Shashlik, or shish kabab, is a staple of the region. It is always done over an open flame and can be any type of meat. In Ufa, my host family would make it with pork and chicken. In Almaty, you can order shashlik sticks of mutton, chicken, beef and chicken kidneys and livers and it is served with uncooked onions and a very strong vinegar. The best shashlik that I've tasted here came from a hole-in-the-wall place on Bogenbai batyr street between Begalin and Kastev streets. Unfortunately, the name escapes me.

Fresh fruit is very common and relatively cheap in Almaty and even cheaper in Bishkek. I always supplement my lunch with a banana, an apple or, if the price is right, a small melon. Dried fruit is also very popular and can be purchased for cheap in the Green Bazaar in Almaty or in the Osh Bazaar in Bishkek.  I have been warned that you should wash the dried fruit after you buy it because some of the vendors will cover it in oil to make is seem moister than it is. I think washing it is just common sense because there are always bees and wasps flying around it.

Above all, I have fallen in love with lagman, a Uighur dish. There are two types, one is a soup and the other is dry, I prefer that type. Lagman is made with noodles, meat and vegetables, including peppers and onions, and in the case of the lagman featured in the picture, eggs. It is often served with a very spicy red sauce, laza (in the left hand corner), which I have come to love, though the first taste was quite a surprise. According to Asel', laza is made with spicy red pepper fried in very hot corn or sunflower seed oil with garlic. I hope I can find a way to replicate it at home, else I may have to open up my own import market.

In Almaty, a hearty lagman can be found at Kishlak, on Abai and Seifullin. 

In Bishkek, Acel' took me out to Arzu, on Togolok Moldo Street, for their excellent lagman. 

One of the first things people learn about me is that I have a major sweet-tooth, especially when chocolate is involved. Below is Kazakhstan's national chocolate and it is amazing. Its taste is somewhere between sweet milk chocolate and dark chocolate, like nothing I have ever enjoyed before. I wish I could fill my suitcase up to the brim with it and bring it home. Unfortunately, I don't think it would survive Thailand, either it would melt, or more likely, I would eat it all before I got home.

Mind the Gaps...In the Road

As is my custom, I chose the morning to walk around the city preparing for forecasted 100 degree weather during the afternoon. I started by walking along Chuy but then found my way into the parks surrounding the monuments. After wandering around in the shade, I found a bench and curled up and read for an hour or so. It seems to be a popular pass time here, I was one of many using the park to read. After my nook began to loose power, I continued walking. I wandered through Panfilov Park (yes there is one of those here too), an amusement park like Gorky in Almaty. From there I went down to the Orthodox Church, but I didn't go inside because I was in shorts and didn't feel comfortable, especially during a service.

The American University Central Asia

Lenin at the back of the Museum

Panfilov Park

After the church, I wandered back to the museum behind the statue of the man on horse back and the large flag. It was rather small and unimpressive, much like the one in Almaty, though not so empty. There were two dozen military cadets milling about the museum. My perception of the museum is probably skewed  because I was made to pay the foreign student price, which is twice that of a Kyrgyz adult admission, the foreign adult price is six times the Kyrgyz adult price. The museum had national costumes, artifacts from early Kyrgyz history, including many rocks with engravings and an exhibition of carpets. There was also an exhibition of the Soviet Military, with different types of weapons and reliefs picturing Lenin, this is where the cadets spent the majority of their time. The docents glared at me taking pictures even though I paid extra for the privilege. Overall, I spent less than an hour in the museum.

In Bishkek, I've learned its important to watch where you step because here, more than any other place I've been, the roads are hazardous to pedestrians. On every street, I've seen holes, usually at the seams between pipes, where the road has collapsed and you can see the fast flowing water underneath. There are also open manholes, but that's something to look out for in Kazakhstan and Russia aswell.

Osh Bazaar and Bishkek

I am exploring Bishkek the same way I got to know Almaty, on foot, for hours at a time. As I had planned yesterday, I left the house early this morning to try to beat the worst of the heat. I decided  to walk down to the Osh Bazaar, which, according to lonely planet, is 3 km from the center. I walked down Chuy Prospect but had to make a detour just before the state history museum. Chuy Prospect in front of the museum and down passed the White House was cordoned off by police cars and I could see that there were police officers congregating further down the road. I decided to  walk south a block. I continued walking down that street, Kiev, until I reached the square across the street from the State History Museum and the tall flag pole that I photographed yesterday. From there, I had a good view of the hundreds of police officers that had congregated in the road. I did not stay around long enough to find out why they were there. 

The Walk to The Bazaar

A MIG in front of a military school of some description

Lenin in Mosaics 

I got to the bazaar forty or so minutes after leaving the square. The bazaar is held in several buildings, hangers and open areas with kiosk. They sell fruits, vegetables, clothing, shoes, traditional clothing and souvenirs. I was there for the souvenirs and the shoes (I had killed off my last pair of non-sneakers on Thursday). It may not surprise you but the further back into the bazaar you get, the cheaper items become. I went way in the back, making my way through clothing stands that had barely a foot between them. While back there, I saw the most beautiful cloth I have ever seen, deep blues, greens, reds and purples, many had beautiful patterns of bead work and gold filigree. It's been a while since I bought a souvenir for myself, but I was sorely tempted to get myself some if only to stare at it. I resisted temptation, just barely, and left the cloth stands and found several kiosks selling traditional Kyrygz souveniers, including felt dolls, hats, scarfs and pictures done on felt. I ended up spending about $50 to get something for everyone on my list. 

The sign reads: "A Clean Osh Bazaar, A Clean Bishkek"

The Entrance to Osh Bazaar

After the Bazaar, I headed back to the apartment, I plan to relax until the worst of the heat has gone off. One the way, I stopped off to get samsa, which they didn't have so instead I got a hot-dog. The hot-dog was in a long roll of bread along with lettuce, cucumbers, ketchup, mayonnaise and french fries. I ate about half of it but it was just too much. Now, I'm off to take a nap.

Arriving in One Piece... Not As Easy As It Sounds

Getting to Kyrgyzstan 

If you look at a map of Central Asia, Almaty and Bishkek are very close. In fact, if you decide to fly, the flight is only 40 minutes (but they do give you a meal). Instead of flying, I decided to take a shared taxis from Almaty to the border, three hours, and then a mashrutka (mini-bus) from the Kyrgyz side of the border to central Bishkek, forty minutes.

The private taxis to Bishkek congregate outside the Sayran bus station. It's a little out of the way, so, I hailed a taxi to get me and my suitcase there. As I stepped out, my driver announced to the Bishkek taxis drivers, "you have a passenger, she's English but she speaks Russian." The taxis drivers came over to ascertain whether this was true. One told me that he had never heard an English speaker speak Russian and thanked me for it. The system for hiring a taxi to Bishkek is that you can either buy the whole cab for yourself and leave right away, the price tag is 10,000 KZT, or you can pay 2,500 KZT and wait for the cab to fill up with other passengers, which is what I did. Thankfully, it only took about twenty minutes to fill up and we were on our way. 

As we left Almaty, it was quite obvious we were leaving a metropolitan city. For the first fifteen or twenty minutes, we traveled through the industrial part of town. it was dirty and grimy and the picture of a soviet-era industrial city. Once we cleared that, we passed through small towns and auls. Most of the little auls had small mosques at the center and little cemeteries with graves that looked like miniature houses and usually a small mosque with its crescent moon facing Mecca. As we drove further in to the steppe even the little auls became scarce. Occasionally, we would pass a herder on his horse tending his sheep or cows, but other than that, the foothills were still.

The ride itself was interesting. My driver was nice and I sat up front, a place I had chosen strategically to combat my motion sickness. However, the ride was punctuated by rapid deceleration and the driver frantically grabbing his seat belt to make it look like he was wearing it when ever we approached somewhere that was a likely or verified speed trap. At one point, the other woman passenger, in frustration, muttered, "they [the police] hide like cockroaches." 

Then there was the time when the driver decided to drive on the wrong side of the road. I don't just mean that he was driving in the middle of the road because the white lines are just for decoration, which is normal. This time, he pulled into the opening between the two sets of lanes and began driving into incoming traffic. This caused quite a reaction from the other three passengers in the back who started yelling at him and asking him why he was doing such a thing. He replied that there was a sign that said the road travelling in our direction was closed and that yesterday every car was on this side of the road. The other passengers kept yelling at him that it was an old sign and the other drivers travelling in our direction were driving down the correct side of the road. Eventually, he turned around, returned to the opening and returned back to the correct side of the road.

There was no more against traffic driving for the rest of the trip. We stopped once for a rest stop and I had to go buy some candy because the bathroom attendant could not break a 500 KZT for a 30 KZT bathroom fee. We kept driving through the hills when the driver pointed out the carcasses of three dead cows on the side of the road, he said that there had been an accident with them and that cows on the road were the most dangerous obstacle on this route. 

Even though the taxis say that they go to Bishkek, in truth they only go to the border, its another 20 km to Bishkek. We got out, collected our items and proceeded through the gates. We were ushered in to the migration office, which had ten or twelve windows. I thankfully got into a line that moved fairly quickly, unlike the line next to me. The cause for this discrepancy became apparent when I reached the window, the woman manning the other window was texting on her phone, even with a patron in front of her. During my five minutes at the window, the officer in front of me was carefully looking through my documents, she didn't help one person from her line. When my passport was safely returned to me, I left the Kazakh border, crossed a bridge over a river and entered into Kyrgyzstan. Their migration office was quiet. The officer waiting looked at my passport and pointed me to a separate room because I am foreign. In the room, an officer took my passport, scanned it, stamped it and returned it to me. I inquired about an immigration card, which I have had to fill out for every other country I've entered, but he said I didn't need it and I was done. So, I left. Outside the official control area, I was bombarded by taxis drivers but Aisulu gave me the number of a mashrutka that goes directly to the cross streets of her apartment, where I am staying. I boarded the mashrutka and bantered with the driver, he wanted me to take him home to the U.S. I said I didn't think he would fit in my case. In any case, he did make sure to let me know when I arrived at the bus stop. 

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A Walk Around Bishkek

I rested for an hour and chatted with Aisulu's friend Asel, who was at the apartment with the keys, before heading out to explore the city. Bishkek is sweltering, its forecasted to reach 100 on Sunday.  I spent about three hours walking around the city, it took me a good hour to get my bearings. I finally ended up walking down one of the main streets, Chuy street, passed a statue honoring those who died in the revolution, the State History Museum and the giant flagpole and flag and finally the White House. After that, I stopped for dinner and then heading back to the apartment. I think that I will stay in to tonight, I'm tired from the driving and the heat. I get an early start tomorrow, when it is still cool.

Statue to the Martyrs of the Revolution

Posters bearing the name, picture and description of a Kyrgyz hero from World War II

Cooling off in the fountains outside the State History Museum. Can't say I blame them, even I was tempted.

A friendly game of chess in the shade.

Beating the heat.

Sorry about the odd angle, I wanted to show the two guards standing watch over the flag.
I hope, for their sake, that those posts are air conditioned. 

The White House.

The view from the apartment.