Almaty, Kazakhstan

It's snowing. But more on that later. I was robbed last night right after arriving in Kazakhstan. It was a very complicated scenario and not as scary as it sounds, but I lost a lot of money and therefore the lifespan of my trip has been shortened even further. I'm trying to not let one incident ruin my impression of Kazakhstan, but I am really upset. I'm trying to just enjoy things, and I'm at least comforting myself with the fact that I'm finally out of Scamistan (India) and in the land of Borat. Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is a great example of how Indians can ruin a very nice building. I think it was recently renovated and looks beautiful at first, then you realize who's running it. It's very spacious, but remember, every Indian travels with an Everest style mountain of luggage. And that's one mountain per passenger, not per family. So as a consequence, there is nowhere to move at all. The Air Astana check-in agent phrased to me the check-in questions in a way that I wasn't used to: "I hope you're not carrying any liquids or gels." OK?? Yes I was, and not properly contained, and I had no problem getting them past security. You know when you're sitting in an airport and they keep making announcements (over and over again) for passengers whose flight is about to leave without them? Ever notice that at least half of those names are Indian? I now understand why. Indians check-in, go past security and sit wherever the hell they want. They find no need to proceed to their departure gate at boarding time. Rather, an airline representative scours the airport, bouncing from gate to gate announcing the flight that's about to leave and escorting passengers to the proper gate. Sitting at the gate waiting for my flight to Almaty I couldn't help but wonder about the stories of the passengers on this flight. Seriously, who the hell is flying between India and Kazakhstan? That's a random flight, and yet it was full. They packed this A321 to the brim. There were about three American businessmen, and one girl that was desperately flirting with them, I guess hoping for a green card marriage. Her nationality puzzled me. It looked like she was carrying a Kazakhstani passport, but she didn't look Asian and had very dark skin. Then there was a white lady with two Indian looking babies. She had a Russian passport. What Russian lady went to India, found two dark skinned babies and was flying them to Kazakhstan? I'm sorry, but that's just fucking weird. But the most intriguing was a big group of men from Kyrgyzstan. They were devout Muslims. Another guy joined them (have no idea of his nationality, but he seemed to speak broken Russian) and they began discussing religion. Then they prayed together. My imagination went wild thinking that they were jihadis fighting in Kashmir or something. Probably not, but isn't that more fun to believe? Finally when we got on the plane I found myself sitting next to two of these Kyrgyz guys. One stared at me for a few seconds, I guess trying to figure out what language he should address me in, and finally decided on Russian and said "zdrastvuytye." I did my best to reply with a correct "zdrastvuytye." From now on, I'll just refer to this "hello" as "the safe word" (reference my previous post). He kept speaking to me in Russian, and I had to tell him that I didn't speak Russian. Later in the flight he started speaking to me with the few English words he knew, and we also spoke a little in Arabic, which being Muslims, they spoke decently. Like most people I've met so far, he asked me if I was Muslim, and I of course said no. I just don't get this, because they always ask this so casually as if they actually expect an American to say that yes, they are Muslim. I mean, me being in India, I'm not going to just ask somebody if they're Baptist. It's definitely possible, but so unlikely I just wouldn't think to ask (assuming I cared). He then asked me about LA, and if there were many Muslims there. I said that yes, there were. He asked what percentage of people in LA were Muslims "10% ? More than 10%? 5%?" I had never actually thought about that one before. I told him that it was definitely a very small percentage, but since the population of LA was so large, there were very many. Anyways, they had been in Bangladesh for religious reasons. Neither of us spoke a common language well enough for me to understand exactly what their religious reasons were, but whatever. He then told me he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca this year. He was very proud of this, and I congratulated him. This is the proper response to somebody who tells you that they've made the hajj, since people save their entire lives to be able to and are very proud when they finally accomplish it. Air Astana is actually a very good airline and served good food. One of the flight attendants, Yuliya, was a Svetlana with chola eyebrows. Unforgettable. Since my flight arrived at 3 AM, I had made an on-line reservation with a decent hotel for security purposes. I guess this was dumb since I was robbed anyway. This morning, somebody was knocking on the door as I was in the shower (too freakin early), and when I answered it there was this drop dead Svetlana maid standing there. She started talking to me in Russian and I had to apologize since I didn't understand, and asked her to come back later. Damn. If the Minuteman Project has its way and we lose our supply of Mexican maids, I know where I'm looking for replacements. It's snowing lightly today and there's light snow cover on the ground. Despite this, it could be a lot colder than it actually is and I'm thankful for this. I've been walking around outside wearing layers of the one long-sleeve shirt I brought, a sweatshirt, and the medium strength jacket I brought with me. I pulled the hood up over my head and kept my hands warm in my jacket pocket, but I'm considering buying gloves and a hat. I've seen a lot of people wearing those great Russian hats, but I haven't seen one for sale yet. The soldiers wear Russian hats that are dyed blue, and I'd really love to have one of those but I'm not sure I could afford the bribe. Believe it or not, Almaty is an incredibly beautiful city. I'm glad to have the third world squalor behind me, and I feel like I'm back in the West (I sort of am), only a slightly screwed up version of the West. But really, I'm not joking, Almaty is beautiful. One never would have imagined given what Borat showed us (i.e. Romania). I saw two total Svetlanas walking down the street and decided to see if my Russian phrasebook was a worthwhile investment. "Pazhalsta, gavarit pa angliski?" (My Russian friends, what the hell did I actually say?) They both burst out laughing, smiled at me and apologetically said no. I said "gdye internet?" I wasn't actually looking for an internet cafe at the time, I just wanted to talk to them. This made them laugh even more. They looked at each other and exclaimed "internet!!" They were obviously very amused by the concept. One of them looked at me said "I don't know." Figuring I wasn't going to get any further, I thanked them ("spasiba") and left.