CauKazEthnoexp. XIII. Kazakhstan. Part II. Kyzylorda, Zhezkazgan, Karaganda, AstanaMap
August A Kazakh kilometer post stands beautifully twisted in the concrete. ![]() Interestingly, the legal framework for the interaction of highway patrol officers with citizens in Kazakhstan is practically the same as in Russia. Only Kazakhs haven’t yet gotten so cocky as to ask for officers’ credentials, demand to know why they’ve been pulled over or argue. The overall increase in public legal awareness hadn’t skipped over yours truly. Out of the six times I was pulled over while traveling around Kazakhstan, I managed to talk my way out of five. For example, I get pulled over after turning right at a T junction (where, accordingly, you can only go either left or right). A cop comes up. I ask him to tell me the reason for pulling me over. He doesn’t know the reason, but his partner in the car does. I walk over to the car. “Reason.” “Moving violation. Failure to signal a turn.” “I was staying in my own lane and had right of way, it doesn’t matter which way the road turns.” “Let me see your license and registration.” “And what is your official basis for being here? This isn’t a patrol car.” And all of a sudden I see the pen start shaking in his hand. These guys had just decided to make a little extra money on their day off. I simply turned around and left. That was the first time in my life when I didn’t hand over my documents to a cop. By the way, the speed enforcement cameras all over Kazakhstan are just as hideous as in Switzerland. I have yet to see a nice-looking speed camera. ![]() Photo 3: Attention! Children! KyzylordaMapNot exactly the city of anyone’s dreams. ![]() A local digger. ![]() A traffic light with walking movement phases. ![]() Moving on. ![]() ZhezkazganMapTraffic sign poles are bent in the shape of whale-spray water fountains, like in Krasnodar. ![]() Zhezkazgan A Zhezkazgan trash can. ![]() Complex traffic light growths. ![]() There’s absolutely nothing here, just like in any other normal Kazakh city. But they’ve invented and deployed their very own diamond-shaped signs. ![]() At one of the gas stations, we discovered a stunningly designed bathroom. Two whole seating units side-by-side, form and function developed with the human anatomy in mind — !! ![]() AkoyMapKazakh monuments are all incredibly beautiful in their hideousness, but this entrance stele with a wash basin at the base surpassed them all. ![]() KaragandaMapKaraganda is known to most Russian speakers through the catch phrase “Where, where? In Karaganda town square!” which is used to sarcastically answer obvious or silly questions about where something is. So go ahead, ask me where this photo was taken. ![]() The reader can safely assume that they’ve already seen everything in the city. Let’s add a bus stop. ![]() And a phone booth which we haven’t encountered in other cities. ![]() Kazaktelecom Karaganda is a mining city. One feature it shares with Donetsk is the complex and intricate billboard supports. ![]() AstanaMapIn the middle of the Kazakh steppes, there is one square kilometer where all of the country’s money goes. This is the capital, the city of Astana, previously called Tselinograd. ![]() It’s something like a cross between Dubai. ![]() And China. ![]() With various ambitions thrown in. ![]() Here, you’ll see propaganda promoting the image of a new kind of policeman. ![]() Here, architects’ boldest fantasies come to life. ![]() Here, there are street name signs at intersections. ![]() Here, plants are treated with care. ![]() Here, you’ll find the most decent traffic light poles on the territory of the entire former USSR. They’re almost like the ones in the US. ![]() Here, buses have signs asking drivers behind them to yield when the bus is moving into the left lane, like in Germany. ![]() Here, there are buttons to trigger the traffic signal at pedestrian crosswalks, like in England or Georgia. ![]()
Yoga. People enjoy life here. ![]() Garbage enjoys garbage dumpsters. ![]() Neat five-story buildings adorn broad avenues. ![]() But if we approach them from the other side, we’ll see that they’re just regular Khrushchev-era apartment buildings with new facades stuck on the front (see also Murmansk). ![]() Glimpses of interesting buildings are obscured by the unfortunate reality of tacky fences. ![]() Bland Middle Eastern skyscrapers stand side-by-side with hideous concrete panel apartment buildings. ![]() No glass walls can intimidate the worker who’s here to fire up a bitumen boiler. ![]() Europe can’t be built at the party’s command: you’ll always end up with drab socialist ugliness, like Brasilia. ![]() And you can’t buy love with Norman Foster: Astana is still an unpleasant, cold, wind-swept, desolate monument to the stupidity of single-party rule. ![]() * * * The other participants of the expedition decided to fly home by plane. At this point I boarded Coucousique and drove to Moscow in four days, stopping for the night in Kurgan, Perm, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod. And so the tale of the third ethnographic expedition comes to an end, and everyone lived happily ever after. |
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CauKazEthnoexp. XII. Kazakhstan. Part I. Atyrau, Aktyubinsk, Aralsk, Baikonur |
august 2010
CauKazEthnoexp. XIII. Kazakhstan. Part II. Kyzylorda, Dzhezkazgan, Karaganda, Astana
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