essays | places | Kazakhstan
Astana (Nur-Sultan) / The Surreal Deal
arbitrary travel moments you never would have guessed
Throughout my travels I found the grand moments the least surprising. After all, they were on the agenda. And while the realities of these moments weren’t exact mirror images of my preconceptions, the experiences themselves were expected: I went to Botswana to see the Okavango Delta and then I did, even though it might have looked a tad bit different from what I had pictured; I went to the Philippines to snorkel with Whale Sharks and then I did, even though I couldn’t have anticipated the feelings it evoked. These moments were undoubtedly fascinating, but their sober, factual existence in my itinerary (and many people’s itinerary) was predictable.
"Taking the extra out of extraordinary often leaves you with more."
The unexpected moments were the little ones in all their arbitrariness and ordinariness and uniqueness. Taking the extra out of extraordinary often leaves you with more. Usually, it was the partaking in mundane local moments of a given people and country. Like playing board games at a bar with two young Kazakh women at 3am on a random weeknight in a frozen city in the middle of the steppe.
Let's backtrack a few steps.
I had arrived in deep-winter Kazakhstan without any plan or reason. The Stan-countries were a part of the world I’d never been to and that was good enough. Arguably, winter wasn’t the most inviting season to stop by, but, considering that it is a large part of people’s year and life, it was authentic or something.
"That’s when Aida came to my rescue, riding up the escalator on a horse which we ate a couple of days later, but not all of this is true."
Riddled with too many stamps, my passport had died prematurely at the age of five, and I was sad and proud at the same time because of the struggle it had put up, and the eulogy should have been a beer but that didn’t cross my mind until just now. I set up camp in Astana (since March 2019 officially Nur-Sultan, named after Kazakhstan’s swollen-headed ex-president) for a couple of weeks. In order to get my papers in order, I needed some print outs, which meant trudging through the -30 °C winds to the nearest mall, where I had a hard time explaining my service needs. I asked around for a print store, but even Google Translate couldn’t overcome the language barrier between me and various clerks. After some time, I spotted a printer in a small T-shirt printing stall next to the escalators only to find that my methods of communication proved just as unsuccessful there. That’s when Aida came to my rescue, riding up the escalator on a horse which we ate a couple of days later, but not all of this is true. The young woman struck up a conversation in perfect English, helped me with my prints, and invited me to a boardgame-playdate with her friend Ainam that night.
So there I was, having drinks over board games with Aida and Ainam till the early morning hours (not like the sun would have dared to rise up against the dark Kazakh winter anytime soon). Most of all we played ping pong with questions about local customs and personal stuff. Aida had just started her own business, and Ainam was on a vacation from her cushy job in Prague to spend the holidays with her family.
Of course, meeting people doesn’t come as a surprise when traveling, nor does the locals’ hospitality. So why was this night so noteworthy, so spectacular really?
"I’m sleeping the dreamy sleep of exceptional routine. But every now and then, I wake up to the absurd reality of a situation I never could have imagined imagining, and the glitchy randomness of these instances not only renders them surreal from the outside – it makes me surreal, on the inside, my feelings, my thoughts, my being."
Months and years on the road can normalize these encounters and moments by assimilating eventfulness into an everyday travel life. And while that is special in its own way, it deflates appreciation. I’m sleeping the dreamy sleep of exceptional routine. But every now and then, I wake up to the absurd reality of a situation I never could have imagined imagining, and the glitchy randomness of these instances not only renders them surreal from the outside – it makes me surreal, on the inside, my feelings, my thoughts, my being. It just hits me: never in a million universes would I have guessed that one night I’d be playing board games with two Kazakh women at a bar in Astana, but this is exactly what’s happening right now. Isn’t it? Sometimes I doubt it.
Astana was the perfect stage for such surrealism – a planned capital that had rocket-risen from the barren grasslands over two fast decades fueled by oil, its architecture looked oddly arranged; as though a little boy playing a board game by himself had rolled the dice too often and erected nonsense all over the central section of the board, strange and overdone structures.
The most prominent landmark sprouting from the snow was Baiterek Tower, a white metal skeleton overlooking the city with its golden sphere-head. Then president Nursultan Nazarbayev had gotten into that head to leave a golden handprint that was pointed straight at his toy palace. Putting your little flesh hand in it promised good luck to the superstitious; for all others it promised a glimpse into the man’s presidency – authoritarian and corrupt, but that’s only according to independent observers. A wooden globe next to the golden strongman kitsch juxtaposed it formidably, design-wise, mentality-wise, everything-wise. Entire world religions etched into little metal plaques congregated on it most peacefully.
Over the next couple of weeks, I hung out with Aida and Ainam a bunch of times. One time, I accompanied Aida on a tour through her apartment building, where she knocked on dozens of doors on plenty of floors to ask for pots, blankets, and other material donations to support the dog shelter where she volunteered. I volunteered to watch her volunteer. The shelter was a giant former warehouse without any heating or insulation that could have kept the inside any warmer than the unforgiving outside.
Aida pushed two wheelbarrows full of dog food and snow (water) along endless rows of kennels to feed the pitiful animals, while I took pictures to help find foster humans for these orphan dogs. Soon, the frozen fingers that peeked out from my ripped gloves were too numb to press the shutter button, so I switched to feeding for about five minutes before I bailed. Admitting to myself and Aida that I’m a wuss was much easier than pretending to be a hero. I mumbled something about being ill-equipped with my non-winter jacket and spent the rest of the afternoon waiting in Aida’s car with the engine running.
Another time, I tagged along with the girls to Aida’s gym-pool-spa, where we engaged in sauna hopping. The first one was too hot for me, the second one too hotter, the third one too hottest. Afterwards, we hit the pool and produced a series of underwater clips with Aida’s waterproof phone. Great cinema. Of course, diving expeditions in family pools are not without risk, as any experienced diver will tell you. I ended up with water in my ear and little did I know that it would stay there until I’d see a doctor about it.
When my eardrum was still under water and my hearing impaired a day or two later, I ventured to the next pharmacy. The internet said that there are eardrops for pain and for unclogging, but contrary to the internet no one spoke English at the pharmacy and all labels sported Cyrillic letters. I never found out what drops I ended up with but that night I poured plenty of them into my ear. I woke up the next morning with an ear that was just as clogged, plus a cold. That day, Aida invited me over for a traditional horse meat lunch with her friends and grandma, during which I barely lamented my great suffering, and plans were made to take me to the doctor.
