The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

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.