First day of our trip to Kazakhstan – travelling
Aren’t you worried about being kidnapped by the Taliban? Elderly Relative
It’s an amusing question. She’s obviously getting confused with Afghanistan. But, in fairness, not many people know anything about Kazakhstan. It’s quite a mysterious country, despite being fucking huge. It’s the largest landlocked country in the world. It’s the ninth largest country in the world. It is bigger than the whole of Western Europe combined. But the only thing most people know is that the fictional character Borat was allegedly from there.
There’s no Lonely Planet Guide and no Rough Guide. The best you can hope for from those outlets is a Guide to Central Asia. Yes, it’s in Asia. Mostly. But it’s so big, it’s also in Europe, hence them getting to play with the UEFA gang. (I know, Israel isn’t even a little bit in Europe, but let’s not go there.)
There is, however, a Bradt guide to Kazakhstan, so that was purchased not long after the fixtures were announced. Yes, it’s a football trip. Kazakhstan v Wales. Even though the game is almost two weeks away, we are spending most of that time over a thousand kilometres away from the stadium.
Other useful research has come from reading ‘In Search of Kazakhstan’, which is a lively read, looking at the history of the country through travelling around the country and talking to locals – I thoroughly reccomend it.
‘Dark Shadows’ gives details of the world of Kazakhstan politics – which is, shall we say, interesting. Murky might be another word. Its is not much of an inspiration for travelling tips, but gives background to how things work. There is one tip I’ve taken from it though. Behave yourself.
Kazakhstan is in a neighbourhood that could be considered ‘interesting’. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest.
Despite being humongous, it only has a population of just over twenty million, making it the most sparsely populated country in the world.
The county has been inhabited since the stone age but it was mostly by nomadic tribes. Over the years, as is the way in this neck of the woods, they have had to deal with empires, such as the Mongol Empire (Genghis Khan and all that jazz), the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union.
The Russians did a bit of a number on the indigenous population, dragging them into the first world war to fight against the Turks – despite Kazakhs being historically connected to Turkey. Many Turks had migrated here between the fifth and eleventh centuries, so being conscripted to fight the Turks didn’t go down well. It was also a bit of a dumping ground for people being expelled from Russia, further diluting the traditional ethnic Kazak population.
Upon the formation of the Soviet Union it was initially still autonomous. Its status was elevated to that of a union republic in 1936. The Soviet government settled Russians and other ethnicities in the republic, which resulted in ethnic Kazakhs being a minority during the Soviet era. Russian is still widely spoken throughout the country and many still have an affinity with the Russian Bear. Kazakhstan was the last constituent republic of the Soviet Union to declare independence in 1991 during its dissolution.
The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, the RDS-1 atomic bomb, at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan on August 29th 1949. Over 40 years, the site, also known as the ‘Polygon’, hosted 456 nuclear explosions, including atmospheric and underground tests, leading to significant radioactive contamination and long-term health crises for the local population.
Sitting on the exact opposite end of the country is Baikanour, the cosmodrome from where Uri Gagarin, the first man in space, was strapped to a Vostok One and kissed his ass goodbye in 1961. Luckily he made it back to earth. And the history books. It is still leased by Russia and plays an important part in the Russian space programme. It’s very secretive but if you have a few grand burning a hole in your back pocket they do allow a small number of visitors.
During the Soviet era huge collective farms were set up, totally alien to the nomadic lifestyle of the Kazakh. When I say huge, I mean huge. As Kazakhstan became part of the Soviet Union a series of enormous transformations took place. 45 million hectares of land within Kazakhstan was simply ploughed under the virgin land campaign, to turn grass land into arable land. There is an interesting podcast with Mark Day who is from the RSPB and part of the team delivering a rewilding project covering 180 million acres in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Altyn Dala, an area the size of France and Germany combined (I told you it was big didn’t I?), is a huge grassland that once may have rivalled the Serengeti.
Another victim of Soviet industrialisation of agriculture is the demise of and the near extinction of the Aport apple which grew in the mountains near the city of the Almaty – which is actually named after the apple. Almaty literally means ‘Place of the Apple’. Kazakhstan is where the apple originated. Most famously the Aport, a huge red apple that grew in the mountains but is now very rare. If you do find any in shops, it is probably from China and grown using lots of pesticides.
Almaty, which can claim to be the original ‘Big Apple’, has something else in common with New York. It is the biggest and most vibrant city in the county and is the cultural and financial heart, but it is not actually the capital city. It wasn’t always that way though.
Almaty served as the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1997, until the capital was relocated to Astana. There were a combination of reasons for this: the mountains around the city restricted expansion, it is an area prone to earthquakes, and it is close to the border of China, which raised security concerns. In 1997 Astana, a city built almost from scratch, became the capital. That is where Wales will be taking on Kazakhstan in the footy and we will be spending the latter half of our trip. But for the first week, we will be basing ourselves in Almaty, the Big Apple.
We are flying early, so opted for a hotel at Heathrow the night before. It’s going to be a long flight, so best not to start the journey knackered.
THE JOURNEY
We are reunited with Posh and Becks for this adventure. After much faffing about their end, they pick us up and we head for Heathrow. The journey is unremarkable and we are soon sat in the bar of the Premier Inn, next door to Purple Parking.
Megan and I are soon in the bar, whilst Posh sits in room frantically trying to get key codes for our apartments and to check in.
At one minute to seven she realises happy hour is about to end and sends a message demanding we buy two cocktails each for £14 (bargain). She arrives in person at fifteen minutes past the seven of PMs and announces she doesn’t know how to drink her cocktail. True story. Oh how we laughed.
After a few less exotic drinks and a Bombay Burger, we have an early night. The TV is full of news of Trump idiocy, horror in Gaza and the trend of painting English flags on the floor. As much as I am an avid consumer of the news, I’m hoping Kazakhstan will be a welcome break from current affairs.
In the morning we zip through security, although Becks has a moan about self check-in desks. If you fly regularly they’re easy to get used to, but if it is your first time it is an anxious five minutes when you wonder where you have just sent your bag. It’s not Becks’ first rodeo though.
After an hour of a young Chinese lad sleeping with his head on my shoulder, we are soon in Frankfurt, which is an enormous airport. Last time we flew through here we nearly missed our connecting flight – despite there being a two hour gap. Fortunately it only takes ten minutes to make our way to our terminal this time, leaving us with an hour to spare.
There are slightly concerning announcements about the flight being overbooked and offers of £500 compensation for people willing to to fly via Baku. It’s actually a good deal, if we were going home we might have taken it up, but we wanted to get to our apartment.
Thankfully some other passengers opted to get paid to go to Baku, and our flight started to board. Although we soon found out why it was so quick to get to our terminal. There’s a shuttle bus that takes forever to get us to out plane. I started to think the Baku trip might have been quicker.
When we eventually reach our plane, which was actually in a different time zone to where we were dropped off, it’s a lovely big thing. There’s free food and drink throughout the trip and a shed load of movies to watch. For the first five hours I have my nose in ‘In Search of Kazakhstan’ and learn stuff about Trotsky, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan, which im sure I’ll share over coming days. The final two hours were spent watching Season Five of Yellowstone.
On arrival at the airport, after waiting an ice age for our bags to arrive, we walk out to be pleasantly surprised to find our Taxi still waiting for us. It was free due to ‘loyalty points’ Posh has racked up with Booking.com. However, slight break down in communication. Whilst the car looked huge, it was the anti-tardis. There wasn’t a lot of room inside. An almost, but not quite, heated exchange took place about the necessity of paying for another taxi, using currency we didn’t possess.
To cut a long story short we are soon collapsing in our apartment which, despite being down a long dark ‘mugger friendly’ alley, is well appointed.
Now the adventures really begin. Well, in the morning after we’ve had a kip.