This Borat thing might have some truth behind it

When the movie Borat first came out I pretty much assumed that it was based on a made up version of Kazakhstan. Even though I’ve never actually seen the movie, even the trailer was so over the top that there was no way that it was real.

I spotted this poster on a shop today here in Petropavlovsk so now I’m not so sure…(in all seriousness I haven’t seen a single person wearing one of these since we arrived…so I doubt the shop has a lot of customers for them)

The Real Kazakhstan

The Theoretical Kazakhstan aka Borat

Signs of the Apocalypse

If it wasn’t enough that Kazakhstan runs on instant coffee, today I spotted instant Espresso in a grocery store.

If this isn’t a sign of the Apocalyse I’m not sure what is. Granted if you’ve ever had a coffee at a gas station pretty much anyplace in the US, instant Espresso likely tastes like heaven in comparison.

Video Skype from Kazakhstan

Given the up and down nature of the Internet connection here at the Hotel Skif, we hadn’t really tried to do a Skype video conference with home as of yet. Also the timezone isn’t really conducive to it as the only real overlap is early in the morning eastern standard time unless we drag ourselves out of bed really early.

But we gave it a shot on Saturday night and Sam was able to connect with friends back in the Boston area. I was surprised how good the connection quality was…so we can call this test a success. You can in fact video Skype from Northern Kazakhstan.

Samantha catches up with the news at home

Wikipedia on Petropavlovsk

The Petropavlovsk page on Wikpedia is pretty weak but there is in fact one. It doesn’t say much other than:

Petropavl (Kazakh: Петропавл), also known as Petropavlovsk (from Russian: Петропавловск, not to be confused with Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky) is a city by Ishim River in North Kazakhstan Province of Kazakhstan close to the border with Russia, about 350km west of Omsk along the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is capital of the North Kazakhstan Province. Its population is 193,300.

It was founded in 1752 as a Russian fort extending Russian settlement and influence into the nomadic Kazakh territories to the south. It was granted the status of city in 1807. Petropavl was an important trading center for silk and carpets until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Kazakhstan beer

We have been partaking of the local brew for the last few days. It actually isn’t bad.

Perhaps the coolest thing we’ve seen is the pull top beer cap:

Kazakhstan Dress Code

Not that outrageous by the standards here

When we were getting ready to travel one of the things that seemed to be emphasized over and over is how well the Kazaks dress. We were encouraged to leave our faded jeans behind and bring nicer things to wear or we would stand out.

So now the reality. Yes, the majority of women dress up to go out and I haven’t seen a pair of ripped jeans since I got here. But dress up means that if they are under 30 they wear high-heeled boots, tight jeans (dark not light) and lots of make-up and over 30 they look like grandma going to church. There doesn’t seem to be any in-between.

The men wear dark dress pants, pointed (really pointed) shoes and dark jackets – often leather. Think Neo in The Matrix.

So the reality is that unless this is how you actually dress, nothing in your wardrobe is going to make you not stand out. Plus as soon as you open your mouth you are tagged as a foreigner. So my advice is to wear what makes you comfortable and ignore the stares as they are going to happen anyway. If you want to temper it a bit invest in a couple of pairs of black jeans and a wool coat (it is still cold here in April) which is what I did. There is no way they are getting me into one of those pairs of pointed shoes though.