julian A anderson
Almaty - the dark city
Part two
I spent most of my first full day in Kazakhstan sleeping and dreaming of aeroplanes or more specifically, of all the storms we passed through between Istanbul and Tashkent before the final leg to Almaty. These unwelcome recollections were thankfully disturbed by a knock on my hotel door. I had no idea what time it was but it seemed to be the middle of night. Hurriedly making myself decent, I opened the door to find standing just few short centimetres away, what can only be described as a blond bombshell. Tall, slender, with deep blue eyes and a smile that could melt steel.
Anyone who grew up during the Cold War, would like me, have a very specific view of what Russian women should look like. They were to a man, I mean woman, large, muscular, draped in huge cardigans from which emerges a shapeless skirt at one end and a face lined with the years of driving tractors, at the other. We had all seen them in television documentaries and in pictures from Pravda, so it must be true.
I must have made a bemusing sight as I stood, open mouthed but the bombshell continued to smile as she asked in broken English whether there was anything I wanted. My sleep befuddled brain struggled to grasp the meaning of her words as all I could think of was aeroplanes.
“No.” I replied and was puzzled by her obvious expression of annoyance.
It was then that I noticed a man standing at the top of a small semi-circular flight of steps that led to the main doors. He was a small man, dressed in a scruffy coat and he wore round glasses and a beret. Every now and then he would look up from reading a newspaper when someone approached. I must have sat there for at least half an hour watching and to this day I no idea how such an inconsequential figure could have caused all those people to backtrack so quickly.
Later that night I was sitting in the bar after dinner when in strode around five or six striking women. They stood at the bar, giggling, checking their perfectly made up faces and exchanging pieces of paper with the barman. It was then that I realised just what my late night visitor had been offering when she asked whether there was anything I wanted. When I told this story to my colleagues on my return to Britain, their reaction was both predictable and remorseless.
Next time, why I will always think of Almaty as the dark city.
The next morning, I ensured that I was up time to have breakfast. If you read the first part of this tale, you might recall my game with the toast. Every day during my stay in Almaty I would order toast and every day it never came, no matter how long I waited. After not having toast I decided to walk to the exhibition complex where I was due to start work. It was quite a distance but the whole point of visiting new places is to explore and the best way to explore is on foot.
My pre-visit research had identified that a popular place with the locals was Panfilov Park in which sits the striking Zenkov Cathedral. My guidebook described it as the world’s second tallest wooden building but a plaque at the entrance was having none of that and to prove that it was right, the height grew by a few metres. Panfilov is well worth visiting for its Soviet style memorials to the Great Patriotic War but it also a great place to people watch. Being in no particular hurry I found a bench from which I could discretely take a few pictures. Although Kazakhstan was doing its best to shake off its Soviet past, Westerners remained a rare sight in 1991 and it was prudent to be cautious. After a short while I noticed that any locals walking towards the entrance to the Cathedral were abruptly turning around and walking back the way they came. There did not appear to be anything remarkable to cause such a sharp change in direction but not a single person failed to make a sharp u-turn once they were within twenty metres or so.
