Kazakhstan in the news

Kazakhstan has been in the US news quite a bit this week, as President Nazarbayev is meeting with President Bush on Friday. You can read about it in the latest Time magazine. The addition also features a Kazakhstan photo essay.

In other news, the US State Department recently released its latest International Religious Freedom Report. You can read about Kazakhstan here.

Photos: Astana New City Center

This was the first weekend in three weeks that I did not go into the office. Fortunately, things have settled down a bit, and I was able to spend some time this weekend uploading photos to Yahoo. The first batch of photos were taken during my first weekend here. These photos are of the new city center on the left bank of the river, containing mostly government ministries and new residential housing. Most of the buildings were constructed within the last few years, and the area is still under intense development.

I tried to put them in some sort of logical order, but it didn't work. You can see them here.

Autumn in Astana

We had our first snow yesterday. It was the very light, slushy kind, and disappeared as soon as it touched anything, but it was still snow. I'm told it will be here to stay within a couple of weeks. It's definitely coat, hat, and glove weather. The leaves haven't even had time to change color. They'll probably all die and fall off in one night.

Milestones

As of two weeks ago, I set a new personal record for length of time spent outside of the United States on any one occasion (I set the previous record in 1995, on my first trip outside of the United States-- a six-week study abroad program in exotic Kingston, England, with a side trip to the Netherlands). Life here is starting to feel normal. When I wake up, I feel like I'm in my own place. When I walk around the city, I don't feel as out of place (though people still stare sometimes, especially if they hear me speak). The lunch lady in our canteen knows that I never order soup with my meal (she thinks this is very strange). And I've achieved the mark of a truly seasoned ex-pat: I have my own regular bag boy at the grocery store, Armbek. The bag boys don't actually work for the grocery store; they are kids off the street, hoping to earn a small tip. Through whatever informal system they've developed, Armbek apparently has rights to my business and can bump other kids when he sees me in line.

Fortunately, there is still enough of the new and strange to keep things interesting and prevent the stresses and routines of work and daily life from dominating everything. Last week and I had my first haircut in Kazakhstan, which turned out very well (though I got lost on the way, called to ask for directions, was proud of myself for understanding the directions in Russian, but then got further lost and realized I didn't really understand the directions). I recently attended my first opera in the new opera house in Astana. And this Thursday, I plan to attend a "KVN” competition, which is some sort of comedy/improv event popular in the former Soviet Union (it was banned for a while under Brezhnev because of its potential to become too critical of the powers that be). I have no idea how the competition works; hopefully some of the humor is visual. I'm still hoping to take in a soccer game and make another excursion out of town before the weather turns cold, though I seem to be working most Saturdays now so I'm not sure that it will happen. The weather has been beautiful the last couple of weeks, but the leaves are already starting to turn yellow.