I am a little behind in blogging about this particular trip, but I'll try to remember everything that has happened since I got here Tuesday night (June 17).
I'm not a huge fan of flying long distances and Almaty, Kazakhstan is probably about as far away from California as I can get - in fact it's on the complete opposite side of the world, but that just makes it easier to know when to call back home (just replace the PM with AM). However, the 27 hour flight (including connections and layovers in Denver and Frankfurt) becomes a distant memory of the past when I get off the plane in Almaty. This is my second trip to Almaty and I love this city. It is one of the most cosmopolitan and eclectic cities I have ever traveled to. The Soviet Union controlled this part of the world until its dissolution in 1991 and you can still see signs of the former Soviet Union with the unique architecture, statues, and Russian language written on almost everything. Russian is the main spoken language here, but Kazakh, German, and English are also very common languages to hear. That is part of what makes Almaty such a cosmopolitan epicenter. It is also a city where the West (Europe and the Americas) collides with the East (China, India, and Russia) in an incredibly synergistic fashion. This is not the Central Asia that Americans typically think about. Most consider any country that ends with the letters "S-T-A-N" to be dangerous and full of hateful, religious nuts, but that's just shear ignorance. The people of Almaty are not all that different than the people of America - they wear jeans and t-shirts, they get stressed out at work, they take summer vacations, they play with their kids in the local parks, and they get stuck in rush hour traffic every day.
Anyway, let me get on with telling you about my week thus far here in Almaty before I get too carried away. I traveled here with Jason (my professor) and on Wednesday we both found out that it is always always always better to fly in on Saturday and have Sunday off before going to work. It was a very tiring day of teaching and training, but the upside was being able to meet the 9 new people that came to take the GIS course. This group of ecologists and epidemiologists was excited and ready to work - they actually asked several questions after 7 hours of training and they were good, in-depth questions. We also went out for lunch at a nearby restaurant where we had some awesome chicken and lamb shashlik (shash-leak), which is basically a shish-kabob. The meat is cooked on skewers that closely resemble small swords at first glance. I had eaten shashlik the first time I came over here in 2006 and it was still just as good as I had remembered. We didn't do too much Wednesday night when we got back to the hotel because we were both beyond ready to go to sleep.
We woke up rested on Thursday morning and had breakfast before being picked up and taken to the GIS lab. I can't continue without telling you how incredible the breakfast is at the hotel - every morning there are fresh fruits everywhere, a made-to-order omelet and waffle section, fresh breads and local pastries, as well as the best apple juice I have ever tasted. Almaty (also known as Alma-Ata) actually means "Grandfather of Apples" and is named so because of the enormous apples that the area has been known to produce. Needless to say, the breakfast is what helps me wake up early every morning. Anyway, Thursday and Friday were quite similar in the lab. I began to teach the different tools and applications of a GIS (Geographic Information System) to the group while Jason took notes about supplemental training that we need to provide. After work on each day, we went out to a great local restaurant near the hotel. On Thursday night we ordered Tandyr (large, round freshly-baked bread), mutton shashlik, and manty (large, steamed dumplings with meat, onions, and spices in them). We also ordered a delicious pot of black tea that nearly made us fall asleep. On Friday night we ordered the bread and shashlik again and we also ordered Uzbek pilaf (Uzbek rice with lamb on top....at least I think it was lamb). I am beginning to learn that the people of Kazakhstan love meat in their diets - I don' think they could be by without it and I don't think that's a bad thing.
There is no GIS training over the weekends, so we decided to do a little sight-seeing. Our van driver, Ginardi, picked us up around noon and took us up into the mountains, which are just to the south of the city. The mountains are named the Zailiisky Alatau and are part of the Tyan Shan mountain range. The snow-capped peaks are easily visible from every part of the city and I have always wanted to walk up to the top to see the snow and glaciers up close. We took a winding road that lead us out of the city and up towards Chymbulak (the ski resort near the top). On our way, we went through a valley known as Medeo where we could see the beautiful and diverse flora and fauna that changed rapidly as we climbed higher up into the mountains. Large conifer trees began to take over the landscape about halfway to Chymbulak where we also passed the worlds largest outdoor skating rink (named Medea) and we drove over a monstrous earthen dam that was built to protect Almaty from potential mudslides and avalanches. Finally we reached the top and decided to take the ski lift up as high as it would go, then walk the rest of the way to the top of this particular mountain. The ski lift was the easy part - all we had to do was sit there and ride - then came the hard part of hiking the rest of the way up. At first glance, it doesn't look like much of a hill to walk up, but after a lot of heavy breathing and near falls on the loose gravel, we made it to the top. It was a lot cooler at this altitude, but luckily we came prepared with light jackets. It was an amazing view that I can't really describe - I haven't downloaded my pictures yet, but I will post them on here once I do. We could see the snow on the peak to our right and the jagged peaks to our left. An immense valley separated us from the even larger peaks in front of us - I think that these peaks create the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (if Google Earth is correct). We took pictures and walked around for awhile, but then the sky began to darken and the wind started to pick up so we decided to carefully (and I emphasize carefully) make our way down the steep slope to the ski lift to avoid being soaked in the rain. We arrived at the bottom after the 15-20 minute ski lift ride and decided to grab something to eat at the ski resort. However, a drunk Siberian guy started holding my hand and asking me questions in broken English that I didn't understand so we decided that we weren't that hungry after all and met Ginardi back at the van. We rode back down through Medeo towards Almaty and I think that every couple in Almaty must get married in Medeo because we counted at least six different brides walking around and taking pictures (while the groom stood off to the side and waited patiently for the honeymoon to begin - universally the mans favorite part of the wedding). Later in the evening, we were invited to eat dinner with a friend of Jason's named Yerlin. We had a great meal with bishparmak (I think that it was dumplings with beef and lamb meat on top) being the main dish as well as horse sausage for one of the sides. We also had ample amounts of vodka and I don't remember too much after that..... haha. Yerlin's wife and youngest son also ate with us and the little boy was very funny. He's about 2.5 years old and liked bringing his toys into the dining room - I didn't want him to have all of the fun, so I played with the toys too.
Well that brings us to today - Sunday, June 22nd. Jason left this morning to fly to Baku to work on another project, but I will be in Almaty for another week teaching GIS courses and helping to organize datasets. I have spent most of the day relaxing here at the hotel, but I think that I'm going to get out and find a restaurant soon. I will try to write more often this week, but hopefully my blogs will be shorter - sorry about the length by the way.
Dasvidania! (that means goodbye in Russian)
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