The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

Kazakhstan is an enormous country. This obvious fact has been practically demonstrated by the fact that nearly a month after entering it, we are still on the first side of the map – and this was the one with the smallest scale (least area per page) available.

A consequence of this is that we will also unfortunately only be able to see a small fraction of it. In particular, we will not see anything of the South around Almaty, the Soviet-era capital. Certainly a good excuse for a return visit in the future.

One place I would have liked to have passed by on launch day is the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from whence all sorts of things are launched into space on behalf of a variety of countries. As we left Aqtöbe a week and a half ago, I looked into the sky and saw something shooting up vertically into the heavens, and having at that point not actually checked on the map where the Cosmodrome was (nowhere near us), assumed it was a rocket. My excitement was quickly dampened upon asking a local what it was – just an aeroplane. Oh well.

We are presently just east of Auliekol, a bit more than half way from Aqtöbe to Astana. Since leaving the former we have cycled for eleven days, covering almost 900km and passing nothing larger than the occasional village – and even then, only a handful. It has been a tough time indeed.

Firstly, we have had the weather to contend with. On most days, we have had a strong headwind, massively reducing our speed and sapping all energy and enthusiasm at the same time. When the wind has been absent, we have had to deal with tremendous heat during the middle of the day – at one point, almost 40°C. One day we even had both, with hot winds like the back-draught from a furnace. It is hard to stay motivated at such times.

To try and deal with this, we have been getting up at around 2am and doing all our cycling while the air remains mercifully cool and the winds have not yet picked up, before setting up camp and trying to sleep through the middle of the day. This last has not always been so successful, leaving me very tired to add to the other difficulties.

The country through which we have passed is also extremely empty, just as that before Aqtöbe was. This has meant that it has been necessary to make sure we buy enough of everything for two or three days at a time. This in itself is not a task about which I can get too enthusiastic, given what is generally for sale in the shops – precious few vegetables, stale biscuits, alcohol, and very little else. Still, we have managed to be quite creative with our little petrol stove, more often than not managing to eat well with what is available. Via a complicated procedure, I have even been able to produce something resembling pizza.

One other annoyance about the part of our journey just completed is how indirect it has been – for the lack of any direct route to Astana means that we have spent more time heading north, skirting just around the Russian border, than actually in the direction of our target. Now, at last, we are on a road which heads more or less straight for the capital.

Many months ago, back in Amsterdam, we spent quite some time planning our route for this journey. Sometimes the way is quite obvious, but sometimes it was difficult to know which to take. One such section was that between the main road north to Qostanay, just east of the border with Russia, and the main road between Auliekol and Astana.

The problem was that the main road (yellow on the map) made an enormous detour via the city of Qostanay. We could save almost 200km by taking a short-cut over a minor road (white on the map), but it was by no means certain that this was a realistic option.

We decided to ask the advice of some locals is Aday, the last village before the short-cut. We were told in no uncertain terms (no knowledge of Russian necessary) that this was a very bad idea, since there was no road of any kind and only steppe for much of the way.

There are times in life when you must realise that you are being given good advice, and should follow it. There are others when you must ignore what you are told, and go your own way. The problem is, of course, knowing which is which.

After much discussion and doubt, we decided to take the second option in this case, and head out along the long, dusty, stony track which greeted us at the turn-off from the main road. This was not before heading about 15km too far to the north along the “safe option” road, which wiser types may have taken as a sign of some sort. The deciding factor was that it would be a terrible shame not to go off-road at all on the whole journey, which would have likely been the case otherwise.

I am happy to say that our decision has paid off enormously. Not only have we had great fun heading over all sorts of gritty tracks, sandy paths, and occasional sections of badly-potholed asphalt, but we have seen some of the best countryside and most interesting sights of the journey so far.

Firstly, it is quite an experience to head 30km along a gravel track before reaching a village which is otherwise completely inaccessible. These places have been generally quite deserted, the population having headed off for a better and easier life elsewhere, leaving behind a crumbling time-warp trapped somewhere in the shadow of the 1980’s and the Soviet Union. I could not help noticing that the majority of the inhabitants of these villages were of Russian rather than Kazakh origin (the difference is obvious). I have not been able to verify it, but it would seem that these settlements are perhaps the remnants of the “virgin lands” programme of the post-war Soviet administration. This scheme sought to encourage people from the more populated parts of the USSR to start a new life as pioneers on the Kazakh steppe. Naturally this caused much conflict with the indigenous, often nomadic, people who were already living there. Since independence, many Russians have headed back for the Motherland. This means that the remaining settlers, who once outnumbered ethnic Kazakhs, are now themselves an ethnic minority. One wonders how long it will be before such places are totally empty; already we have passed numerous abandoned schools, factories, and collective farms. No work, no money, no infrastructure, no future.

Halfway across this stretch, we camped in a canyon – by which I indeed mean the sort of thing you only see in cowboy films. A small lake had formed from what was left of an otherwise dried-up river, set into a hollow in the land. Great for swimming in, and of course cleaning up after a week without a shower. It was a fantastic place to find yourself in, totally hidden and yet open to the sky. And not a sound to be heard at night.

Indeed you might well call this the “Wild East”. It has a lot in common with the imagery of the Western film, including cowboys with weather-worn faces on horses, long, straight roads, and even tumbleweed.

The morning after this, we came across something distinctly more East than West – camels. I was busy daydreaming on my bike and had not noticed them at all, until Astrid started shouting excitedly behind me. So I turned my head, and there they were. Massive beasts they are.

This was on the most rugged part of the trail, where there was indeed no road of any conventional sort but instead just a track through the steppe. The zig-zagged route which we had to take, aided for the first time on the journey by GPS, confirmed that the road shown on the map was pure fantasy – or perhaps just a pipe-dream which had never left the drawing board of the Department of Road Planning or suchlike in Soviet times.

Strangely enough, this middle-of-nowhere place was the first on the whole journey where we have been stopped and questioned by the police. A dirty, battered Lada came bumping over the dirt track from the nearest village, and a variety of people fell out, including a massive policeman. He demanded to see our passports, perhaps more out of curiosity than anything else, after which he left us alone. We were told of course that this would happen all the time in Russia, which was not the case. China may be a different story.

Shortly after this, we reached Moskalevka, a fine example of the sort of semi-abandoned village described above. One friendly lady we talked to said that things were not going so well because of the “crisis”, as seems to be the case worldwide, but to my eye the dereliction seemed a bit older than that. All the same, a small team of people was busy sweeping up the street around the (empty) school. I do not know if they were being paid to do this, or if it was purely out of pride in their hopeless little village.

Later, as we sat eating biscuits and crisps in an abandoned play-park – or at least one in which the remaining children of the village had less interest than the chickens and cows wandering around – I saw something growing which looked sort of familiar. Leaning closer and smelling it, it was as if I was walking down the Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam – wild cannabis. Not sure if it was very potent, but it looked and smelt like the real thing.

After Moskalevka, we were rather disappointed to find ourselves back on boring old asphalt. From here it was a much less interesting slog to Auliekol, and the normal world.

Having reached the same, stocked up on food, and filled ourselves up by a café, we were just preparing to leave when a man approached us with the usual enthusiastic questions about where we were going and where we were from. What was unusual was that he then invited us back to his house, in order to celebrate his small son’s birthday. Of course we could not possibly say no.

And so it was that we spent yesterday afternoon with Aymat, his wife Zhanna and her brother, and little Adlet, who had turned seven. They filled us full of pancakes, fried eggs, cake, and vodka, and seemed totally delighted with our presence. Myself and Astrid each had to give a toast (me in English and she in Dutch, since no-one could understand what we were saying in either case), we received some lessons in Kazakh culture, and many photos were taken. Finally we were sent on our way, but not before being escorted to the road out of town by Aymat and Adlet. I made to shake Aymat’s had before we parted, before he explained that Kazakhs don’t do this at such moments. You must hug instead.

The plan was that we would rest today by a large lake indicated on the map, but not for the first time this lake does not exist. We have still taken a day off, time to rest tired legs and arses before the week ahead to Astana. And tomorrow, finally, we can turn to the second side of our useless map.

So, here we are. Seven days across the semi-arid Kazakh steppe, and the first city in five hundred kilometres – Aqtöbe.

In these seven days, the road has passed through just two villages. Late one evening, in search of bread and water, we made a detour to a third over several kilometres of a road so bad the locals had taken to driving over the steppe instead.

There is precious little to be said about this except that this countryside is the most empty we have come across so far. Day upon day of flat plains extending so far to the horizon that I can begin to imagine that I can see the curvature of the earth, countless dead crows squashed on the road, and many more live ones screeching in the trees. It is all very impressive in terms of its scale alone, but I cannot say that it has been very pleasant or interesting. It is possible to look at the map of Kazakhstan and see that we have covered a respectable chunk of this enormous country, and that is quite satisfying. But the upcoming two to three weeks, which promise more or less the same, look like being very long indeed.

It has also started to become unbearably hot in the middle of the day. The solution to this has been to take a sort of extended siesta through the worst of it, cycle again until late in the evening, and get up once again very early in the morning. At least that’s the intention, but it’s been a bit difficult to get used to. Hopefully, the motivation of getting to Astana and the comfort of a hotel room will be enough to push us into getting up on time and cycling a good number of kilometres each day from now on.

Now and then, there has been some relief in the form of a river or lake to swim in, a café for sweet tea and sticky orange fizzy drink (sadly not Irn-Bru), and of course the long hours sun-bathing in the middle of the day. I have taken to cycling bare-chested, and have developed quite a nice brown colour as a result.

We are constantly stopped by curious people wanting to ask us things. This always starts with “откуда?” (“where from?”). The answer to this, “Голландия”, always provokes amazed shakes of the head and whistling through the teeth. If it gets as far as explaining that I am actually from “Шотландия”, people always make a gesture with the hand against the thigh – “where is your kilt?”. I am ashamed to say that I doubt many people in Scotland would have any idea about Kazakh national dress.

In Aqtöbe, we have had the luxury of air conditioning in our hotel room, as well as an enormous bed, fridge, wireless Internet and one English-language channel on the TV (amongst about sixty Russian and Kazakh). Given that there will be no such luxuries again for a very long time, we have spent three nights here and thoroughly enjoyed all of this. Tonight, it’s back in the tent.

It’s a nice city. The streets are very lively at night, with not only young people but whole families coming out to enjoy the cooler air. Around the corner is a combined mosque and shopping centre, opposite this a funfair complete with live giraffe, and everywhere fountains and parks. It’s very Mediterranean, and certainly a contrast to Russia. The other evening, around midnight, we passed some small boys, not older than about ten, enthusiastically playing chess with enormous pieces almost as large as they were.

It’s different here. I am not entirely sure what it is, but in any case it seems just much more relaxed and agreeable than Russia.

The best theory I can come up with for this so far is that while many Russians seem for reasons unknown to have a major chip on their shoulder, the Kazakhs appear to have nothing to prove. They just seem to want to get on with things, and it appears that they are doing pretty okay at this. While life in the countryside remains simple and maybe also quite deprived, the city has an air of quietly growing prosperity without the so much of the flashy conspicuous consumption evident in Russia. There’s also none of the silly macho attitude that is so characteristic there. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed our time in Russia, but I feel a lot more at ease here. Which is just as well, because we will be here for quite some time to come.

If everything is working properly, which I can only hope for since I lack the technical means to see for myself, it will be apparent from the map above that we have successfully reached Kazakhstan. I write from the luxury of a small but comfortable room in Hotel Sayakhat in Ural’sk, otherwise known as Oral (stop laughing at the back of the class, please).

In the last few posts I wrote of my worries about getting a hard time of it from the Russians at the border, but in the end they did not cause us too many problems besides a lot of delay while asking endless absurd questions (“How many kilometres from Voronezh to Saratov? Do you have any Russian cultural artifacts? How much did your bicycle cost?”), searching through our stuff, and even checking the contents of a USB stick in my bag. Finally they let us go, even chasing us away as we stopped for a quick sandwich in no-man’s-land.

The Russian and Kazakh checkpoints were not immediately adjacent to each other. To reach the Kazakh side, we needed to cycle to the summit of a hill.

What greeted us at the top felt more dreamlike than reality. The sun was shining, and as we reached the top of the hill, a vast panorama of rolling grasslands opened up before us. As we approached the gates of the Kazakh checkpoint, a man in a green uniform with an extremely wide hat approaches us, smiling, and greeted us in friendly English. It already felt like a whole new country.

The bureaucracy on this side took quite a bit less time, although not without the usual form-filling (in duplicate) and waiting in line at a series of small offices for things to be stamped. Each time, business was concluded with a very sincere “Welcome to Kazakhstan!” from the official who was dealing with us. This is the first border where we have been afforded such a courtesy.

Finally done with the formalities, we stopped for a coffee at the first café on the road. Here a busload of Uzbeks sat patiently in the sun for their turn to cross the border, many with very conspicuous gold teeth. We have seen more and more of these on our travels.

And of course, a new country means a few changes. No more Roubles, here they use Tenges (about 210 to the Euro), and the clock is yet another hour forward. In fact it’s two hours forward, but they don’t have summer time. So at the moment it’s just an hour ahead of where we last were in Russia, where they do put the clock forward in summer. In the winter, the difference will indeed be two hours. Quite confusing.

After this, we headed off again through the prairies, which began to look more and more like a film than anything from my own experience of real life. I saw a man on horseback herding horses (as you would herd cattle), and the slow, drifting, soundless movements they made through the shimmering grass seemed totally unreal, something which could not possibly be from this world, ghosts in the noonday sun. So this is Asia.

During the day-and-a-half that it took to reach Ural’sk, we passed through just one village. The road ahead will be even emptier, but what we have already seen has been itself quite a shock. I have the feeling that it is really getting to be quite a serious business now; we can no longer make rough guesses about how much water, fuel for cooking, and food we need. If we run out on the road, it could be days before we come across the next village. It is also becoming hotter and hotter during the day, meaning that we absolutely cannot go short of water.

But first, Ural’sk. Our visit here began with the usual extended search for a cheap hotel, which ended up not very cheap at all but at least less than all the others. This is probably because they are currently rebuilding it, meaning that it is necessary to dodge past men on ladders sawing plasterboard and pouring concrete on the way to the lift. But it is a nice enough place to stay and the breakfast is fantastic.

It seems that in just about every city we have stayed, I have ended up setting out on a quest for something which is difficult to find. In Saratov I spent about two days seeking and eventually finding a 1 hour charger for AA batteries. Here, amongst other things, I really wanted to find a small pair of Soviet-era binoculars, having had a go of a set belonging to crazy ol’ Grigori back in the Ukraine. Not just because they are cool, but for practical reasons too. Very often while cycling, I become very interested in things which are far, far away. This especially so since you can see such enormous distances without there being much in the way. It would also sometimes be handy to know if the small building in the distance is a shop, café, petrol station, or just an abandoned shed. Hence binoculars.

I asked the receptionist at the hotel, the only person around who could speak English, for advice on where I should look. She had no idea but said that her boss would take me to look around town.

So it was that I ended up in a car with the manager of the hotel and two other massive Kazakh blokes, driving around various antique shops. No luck with the binoculars, but we did see some interesting busts of Lenin and Stalin, war medals, icons, and suchlike. I am in any case grateful for their help. Better luck next time.

One very important task needed to be completed before we could leave town: just as in Russia, it was necessary to register our visa. Except that here, you must do it with the OVIR, a special sort of visa police.

I need hardly say that this was a massive pain in the arse, requiring no less than three visits and an extra night in the hotel before it was sorted. On the first visit, we were told that we must have a letter from the company we are “working” for (since we are here on a business visa). A few e-mails and a one day later, and this was duly arranged. But visit two was not the end of the matter, because of a mistake in the letter: it said that both myself and Astrid were German, which is of course nonsense. Another day and various e-mails, phone calls, and faxes later, and the problem was sorted. But not without costing a whole load of time, stress, and money. Sorry guys, but you need to get your act together a bit more if you expect anything more than the most determined foreign tourists.

Despite this, I already like Kazakhstan more than Russia. The people are more relaxed, more elegant, and surprisingly also very mixed. The majority Kazakh ethnic group are joined by plenty Russians, as well as many people who might as well be as western European as we are. Added to this are those who are perhaps of Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, or Armenian descent, and many more mixed folks of indeterminable origin. They could well teach us something about integration, given the ease with which all these people seem to get along. There may well be tensions under the surface, but I don’t see it.

Yesterday was Flag Day in Kazakhstan. The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate nineteen years of existence of the country’s distinctive blue and yellow sun-and-eagle flag, the symbol of its independence and emerging post-Soviet national identity.

We watched the formalities on the city’s main square, where some not-so-well-rehearsed soldiers paraded onto a podium, a brass band played, speeches were given, and diplomas were handed out to various meritorious individuals. While I usually dislike any sort of nationalistic outburst, the spirit of this one seemed very positive and non-threatening. A sort of touchy-feely-feelgood celebration of nationhood.

On our tour of the city’s hotels a few days ago, we passed by one which was much too expensive but which did have the unbelievable luxury of English-language newspapers to read in the lobby. I passed by yesterday morning to plead with them to give or sell me one, but this did not succeed. Instead, we spent a few comfortable hours in their restaurant reading them while drinking coffee, beer, and tea. This seems to be a very good way of enjoying the pleasures of a posh hotel without having to pay for a room, and is thus a practice which we will hopefully be able to repeat in the upcoming cities.

But these are some time away yet. It will probably take about eight days to reach the next, with not more than two or three villages on the way. This will be either extremely relaxing and peaceful, or very very boring indeed. I will explain which next time!