Welcome to Almaty: Almaty, Kazakhstan

The pilot of Aeroflot flight 101 from JFK to Moscow decided it was time to go: we started pulling out of the gate while people were still heading to their seats and arranging carry-ons. Even as we were taxiing down the runway, a desperate young woman to our left was trying to fit her carry-on suitcase under the seat in front of her because there was no more room and she insisted that she needed it with her—and then proceeded to get on her cell phone one last time before the nearly 10-hour flight. The Aeroflot flight attendants were around, but barely attending to much, and no one seemed interested in listening to them anyway. Traveling is always an adventure, but usually not within the first 15 minutes!

Before long, though, everyone settled in, the flight was perfectly calm and smooth, and we were officially kicking off our sort-of-around-the-world travels! Despite talking about it ad nauseam over the past year and having a full week off in New Jersey to focus on getting ready, much of our time spent on trip planning was really about logistics related to our life in the U.S.: bank cards, address changes, phone service, insurance cancellation, packing, storage units, etc…and less on thinking about the actual trip itinerary itself. All we had was this first chaotic flight to Kazakhstan and a hostel in Almaty for three nights. Part of the goal in traveling for a year is to be flexible and see where the world takes us, but with the trip finally happening now, we were feeling comically unprepared as we sat into our seats: “So, what exactly are we doing again?”

As it turned out—as it always does—things were fine. The frantic woman slept the entire way, we watched BlacKkKlansman (brilliant, somehow manages to be both depressing/poignant and humorous at the same time) and The Hustle (less brilliant, but entertaining), and we were on time to make our tight connection in Moscow. (Travelers note: we did not have a Russian Visa and had no issues transiting through; they just looked at our next boarding pass at a small passport and security checkpoint, all of which took all of one minute.) While this layover was obviously not enough time to make a snap judgement about Russia, we did note that we would need to learn the Cyrillic alphabet in order to get around this region, as it’s fairly incomprehensible to the untrained eye.

Looking out the plane window over north Kazakhstan as we flew down to Almaty, all we saw was a flat, brown, treeless landscape. In that moment, it seemed fair to call it a vast land of nothingness. It reminded us of our time in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in 2013, when we visited Mongolia, Xianjiang, Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan (with a respite in Greece and Turkey at the end). That previous trip was definitely our most adventurous to date in terms of remoteness, and it had set the stage and desire to further explore this region around Central Asia and the old Silk Road—and explains why we decided to go to Kazakhstan first. But looking out that window, we were beginning to question our decision.

After trying to get some sleep, but distracted by a cute cat sitting in front of us who was also looking out the window (yep, you read that right), the captain announced that we would be landing in Almaty shortly. The scene out the window did not confirm what his radar saw: still nothing out there, let alone what we had read was a large city.

Suddenly, the plane turned right, and out of the brown flatness rose the dramatic snow-capped mountains of the Tian Shan. Almaty, sitting Denver-like at the base of the all-encompassing range, is a gleaming mountain haven—our first stop on this journey, and, it turned out, a great decision after all.

Fresh cool air and an immediate taxi fare hustle attempt greeted us upon landing; however, our packs did not greet us, as they decided to spend more time in Moscow. Thus, our first night in Almaty was spent with just the smelly clothes on our backs. (Fortunately, they arrived and were delivered to our hostel the next day.)

The next morning, we went to the Green Bazaar, or Орталық Көк Базар in Russian. (See? Cyrillic is hard.) Food markets are one of our favorite places to go when we visit a new country, to see what the locals eat and buy. We were very impressed by the variety of meat products here, as well as how clean and orderly it all was. There are distinct rows and sections for each of the different types of meat: cow, goat, pig, chicken, and horse. We sampled smoked Kazy, horse meat stuffed in horse intestine to make a sausage.

Now, before you cringe, the Kazakhs, who are descendants of the Mongols, have a long and time-honored history with horses—as a mode of transportation, a staple food source, companionship, and an important cultural icon. (Plus, we don’t get why folks are anti horse meat, but will not think twice about biting into a juicy hamburger or steak that came from another large, intelligent four-legged animal simply because we have been socially molded to think it is more OK—but we’re not writing to start debates here, just some literal food for thought. Also, we did get very vaccinated for this trip!)

Kazy tasted decent, if a bit salty, and is more of a delicacy that only the wealthy afford. We also tried Shubat, fermented camel’s milk that is more common, which, in our opinion, was less good than Kazy. Think of carbonated sour. Sparkling yogurt. Kombucha milk. Yeah, all of them are hard to imagine until you try it. Finally, the bazaar featured excellent fresh sour cream—sold by the buckets!

(Side note: In addition to the shared history of horses, there are other real parallels to Mongolia, as well. Kazakhs themselves are Islamized Mongols from the Genghis Khan era. Before the Russians came, Kazakhs were nomadic just like the Mongols, and “Kazakh” actually means “adventurer” in Turkic. Amateur-anthropologically speaking, many Kazakhs we saw also exhibit similar facial features as Mongolians.)

We continued our first day in Almaty, strolling around a city that we—and probably most Westerners—knew nothing about. It was, unexpectedly, incredibly nice! And yes, to say “unexpectedly” is disappointing even to ourselves, because it forces us to recognize our own biases and the fact that we probably imagined much of Central Asia to be backward, uncivilized, or “barbaric;” we certainly heard that sentiment underlying everyone’s questions when you asked, “Kazakhstan?! Why are you going there?” The truth is, our Western environments and media have often incorrectly colored our notions about most of the rest of the world, no matter how hard we try to see around it. Even the two of us—who had been to Central Asia before, who had deliberately sought out this area’s history, and who had collectively been to and seen over 50 countries in far-flung places across the globe before arriving—still thought that Almaty might be underdeveloped, disconnected, maybe dirty. It is refreshingly healthy to see that notion be challenged and overturned, time and time again.

With about 1.8 million people, Almaty has most of the makings of a great city, especially from an urban planner’s perspective. It is green (tons of public parks and benches), clean (frequent trash bins and no open sewers), and, as the financial hub of this oil-rich country, seemingly well-to-do across a large spectrum of the population. It has paid street parking, drivers that stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, effective bus systems, a gorgeous new underground subway, and protected bike lanes and a bikeshare system. There are thousands of fountains sprinkled throughout the city, each one flanked by endless rose beds, all of them in full bloom this time of year. (Interesting tidbit we learned after Googling how it’s possible for a city that’s frigid much of the year to have so many roses: rose plants don’t die in the cold, and in fact, snow is the best winter protection to help insulate them from harsh winds. Huh.)

One downside of the city is its architecture. Almaty was an old Silk Road city that was demolished by the Mongols and wasn’t rebuilt until the Soviets came in the 1800s, essentially forcing the Kazakhs to end their nomadic way of life. Born during the Communist age, it has unnecessarily wide streets and unnecessarily ugly concrete buildings. With the backdrop of some of the most beautiful mountains in the world, though, the buildings and cityscape have so much potential in the future.

Finally, let’s talk about the people. Oh, the amazing people!

Kazakhstan seems to embrace its diversity. The beauty of Central Asia is the confluence of cultures from across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Interestingly, we noticed this diversity most acutely within the “ethnic career paths” at the Green Bazaar. Generally speaking, Kazakh women handled the red meat, cow, goat, and horse; Russian men tended to the pork; blonde Russian women worked the poultry aisle; dark-haired Russian (or other Slavic?) women sold the cheeses and other dairy products (including the Shubat); Middle Eastern men hawked spices, dried fruits, and nuts; and Korean women sold Korean salads, which are a curious but prominent part of Kazakh cuisine today. (We don’t know the entire story, but as we understand it, in the lead-up to WWII, Koreans escaped Japanese occupation in Korea and emigrated to far east Russia, but then under Stalin’s ethnic cleansing, hundreds of thousands of Koreans were deported to Central Asia in the 1930s/40s, which is how they have a presence in Kazakhstan today.) The historical significance of this melting pot of cultures is obviously much more complex than we can understand in a couple strolls through the bazaar, but what we do know is that it’s really fun (and fascinating) to see Asian ladies buying sour cream from the Russian dairy ladies—all while speaking Russian. It is possible that we mildly blended in, as Michael is a Russian-enough looking man and Karen is a Kazakh-enough looking woman, and we didn’t too get many looks walking around.

That night, we met up for dinner with Bonya, a friend of a Kazakh friend whom we know in San Francisco. We ate delicious international cuisine (think: salmon poke, spaghetti with crab meat, and thai curry soup) at a beautiful restaurant, which is when we realized that most people do not go around eating Kazy and Shubat all day in Almaty. She told us about the difference between uptown and downtown. We were staying downtown, which we thought was already very nice. But apparently, uptown—which is directionally south, but “up” toward the mountains—is even nicer. (Side note: Bonya also told us that Cyrillic is being replaced by Latin letters by 2024, and Kyrgyzstan is doing the same by 2025…so attempts to learn Cyrillic begone!)

Bonya was right. Uptown is full of swanky coffee shops, restaurants selling deconstructed Caesar salads, and fresh juice stands—all of which cost real money that was far more than the total $5 USD lunch we had the first day eating traditional manti (Kazakh dumplings) and spiced Moroccan meatball soup. Young people dressed in the latest fashions and touted designer bags and trendy sneakers, making us backpackers look super schleppy; we both thought that if you dropped this population into San Francisco, you probably wouldn’t know the difference (except that maybe the Kazakhs would be even better dressed!). We even ate a “Californian pizza” topped with arugula and fresh ricotta that we’re pretty sure most pizzerias in the U.S. outside of California wouldn’t get right.

All this may describe a superficial wealth, but the Kazakh culture is much deeper than that, and it is most felt in their legendary hospitality. In the short span of just three days, we experienced so many examples of this kindness and hospitality:

There was the kid in the subway who, upon seeing the two of us act like buffoons trying to buy a ticket for the subway, just bought us our tickets, dropping a token into each of our hands with a simple “let’s go.” It turns out those were some of the only English words he knew, as we couldn’t even get to his name nor where he was going; we did learn that he practices judo…unclear if it was for his school or for the country? (See photo of his Kazakh judo jacket.) He refused to accept payment from us when we tried to pay him back multiple times. Two stops later, we parted ways and will likely never see each other again.

There were the college girls who helped us negotiate a taxi for the ride from Medeu to Chimbulak, the ski resort in the nearby mountains, then joined us and helped pay the fare. A couple broken-English conversations and selfies later, we would also not see them again—just a tale of strangers helping strangers.

There was Bonya’s attempts to pay for the entirety of our dinner after we had just met her (we did not let her!), and there was Shynar (another friend of our San Francisco Kazakh friend), who offered laughs and sound food advice, and did successfully pay for all our drinks together.

And then there was the ultimate display of hospitality, when we left Almaty on our fourth day and went into the countryside. But that’s for the next post.

Karen & Michael

Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 10-14, 2019