Ira will be driven to Astana airport, where she will fly to London, via Austria, for a meeting KMG has. The kittens have enough food in the cupboard, there is juice and water, the bills have been paid, and I’ve promised to not set fire to anything. Fingers crossed, all will be well
Seriously, although my dearly beloved will be away, I have enough work to do, to keep me occupied, and I’ll be meeting up with David and another Chris this Friday, as David has arrived in Astana. (I say that, but the last I heard, his flight from Almaty was delayed. On a positive note, it turns out Almaty airport has free wi-fi available, so at least I know for the future that I can distract myself next time we fly through there.)
I hope Ira has a safe journey, a not too stressful time in London, a safe return, and that I manage to keep the flat in some semblance of tidiness…

I have started reading an (English language) book Irina recently bought, that is on the country of Kazakhstan. It stated that nearly all Kazakhs can ride a horse, but to be honest, I think if you remember to include Astana and Almaty in the statistics, I’d be surprised if most citizens here are actually able to ride one, let alone own any horse riding apparel. There are a few other interesting opinions stated in it, but I’ll hang fire on posting them until I’ve finished the book.

OK, this is one of the last posts I will make whilst in Kazakhstan, so I intend to use it to catch up with a few articles, videos and sites I have been meaning to post about in the last few weeks. Otherwise I will return in a little under a month, and forget all about them probably…

BBC article on the growth in high tech online crime.
Article on 50 Cent’s promise to quit, which he gave prior to his album being beaten to the UK#1 spot.
Related article on fiddy postponing his European tour.
Cool article on speech to sign language translation software. Most impressive.
Another article, this time on how DNA data could be at risk if funding organizations succeed in twisting researchers’ arms.
Article on how Chernobyl is to receive a new steel cover.
Were they pushed, did they jump, or were they stage managed dives? Check out a little background info here on the continuing political family soap opera that is Kazakhstan…
Article on beloved uncle Pres Nazarbayev not being nominated for the Nobel prize. Never mind, he got a consolation prize.
From 3 weeks ago, an article on arrest warrants being issued over the Aliyev case.
Piece on two bodyguard’s return to Kazakhstan and their confession live to the media. (Related to Aliyev’s alleged criminal activities).
VOA (Voice of America?) summary of the recent elections held in this country.
Is Kazakhstan to follow Russia’s example by moving in on, or at least re-negotiating contracts with, Western oil and gas companies? The International Herald Tribune’s website has a report on the goings on.

Reports from foreign diplomats/govt workers on Astana and Almaty. I had especially wanted to give these two pages their own post. Some of the information is incorrect, some is simply out of date, though there are some gems in there for those considering moving to this country. I may remember to make a more detailed post when I get back half way through October.

Finally a couple of YouTube vids that caught my attention, both from members over at the channels.nl forum I believe. The first is on a man with a lot of vision, and quite a variant on the static art you’ll see in most galleries…

Secondly, we have a video that will have little cultural reference if you are not in the right age band, but is about who would win if all the super heros and villans had a big scrap. Hmm, not sold that too well, sorry. Unless you have tight bandwidth restrictions per month, trust me, it is worth listening to

Here in Kazakhstan, even 2nd hand cars are still relatively expensive. I will never forget my first ‘bargain basement’ car - it had no door locks, there was no 3rd gear, the boot would open itself if nudged, and I eventually had to carry 16 litres of water with me every day, as it leaked onto the road whenever I was in a traffic jam on a hill! That said, it only cost me $100, and it took me all over Western Britain and Wales, when I was a credit card engineer, so I can hardly complain.
A couple of times the alternator played up on it, so I also carried jump leads, though if I had known about the no cable jump product, I perhaps would have not had so much hassle each time the battery was flat.
Although I do have my international drivers licence, as long term readers will remember, I have vowed to not drive on a daily basis. Why? Primarily, the driving over here scares the crap out of me - in the same way that British people will stand in a queue in an orderly manner, in England, people rarely swerve across lanes, nor cross a double white line. Over here, the driving style matches their ‘queueing’ style - first come, first served, and a little bit of pushing, shoving & general brinkmanship is required. Secondly, we don’t own a car, so driving is not really possible right now anyway… If I do ever lose my mind, and decide to try and drive here, a Rules of the Road Driver’s Ed DVD would be quite useful, if a Kazakh specific one exists at all. If we had lived in Almaty a few years back, I know for a fact that I could have just bought a Kazakh license, which does scare me a little when you look at the amount of traffic now on their roads.

I was checking how this blog was doing in the search engines, for terms such as Kazakhstan Blog , Astana Blog , and of course Chris Merriman, when I came across a site written by an American who lives in Almaty.
She is a Peace Corps volunteer, and has recently found out she is to stay in Kazakhstan a little longer than originally planned. For anyone who has not come across the Peace Corp before, they work in almost 140 countries, trying help out local people with global issues.

Anyway, enough of the intro, check out the Kazakhstani Extravaganza blog for another look at life over here in Kazakhstan.

This post is not sponsored, nor did she ask for the link, I just thought it might be of use to some people. Which reminds me, I need to add this site to the links page - check the menu at the top to get there.

As you may have noticed, I’ve not yet posted anything about our trip to the UK, and now we’re already back in Astana. Hope to post more details over next week or so. Summary of our return journey is that Nick, Dad & I went via Istanbul, Almaty, Astana, and Ira went Moscow, Astana.
In case I miss posting tomorrow, Happy New Year to everyone.

For those of you that have been reading this since the start, you’ll know I’ve made occasional reference to the interesting ’system’ drivers use over here. Since then I’ve discovered someone who has put a lot more information, more concisely, than I could hope to. It is based on the drivers in Almaty, not Astana (ask ChrisD for help on that subject), but well worth a read.

Oh, and ChrisD, when you going to get round to posting on here about your trip?

Ah, just noticed I haven’t actually linked to the blog itself, apologies - you can find it here…

OK, as promised, here is some more info, from Mum & John’s perspective.

This is basically a cut’n'paste job from an e-mail they sent to family and friends (with permission I hasten to add ;>)

“”For those of you ancient enough to Radio 4 be familiar with Alistair Cooke’s “Letter from America” this is likely to seem a pale comparison. Certainly less erudite and not as well crafted - but hopefully it will inform and maybe even amuse, though the political comment will be markedly absent!

This is Carol’s second visit to this amazing country and my first. As we flew in at night the lack of any settlements for hundreds of miles prior to landing in Astana was perplexing. It was hard to comprehend such vast tracts of land without population. Then Astana appears on the Kazakh Steppes resembling a modern Emirate city. Disney could not have bettered it! When Carol was here last she arrived through the back door, via the old capital of Almaty, then a twenty three hour train journey across a hot and dusty terrain. She made the trip for her son (Chris) & daughter in law’s (Irina) marriage. Jokingly she had said as she left to Irina’s father that he was to have a new airport built on her return. He did - and a pretty impressive airport to boot! It is so refreshing to see architecture which is not afraid to be adventurous, particularly in the teeth of such extreme weather conditions. Thankfully on this trip it has been kind to Carol & me, between 21°C & 30°C. The temperature can famously vary between -30°C in the winter to +40°C during the short summer months.
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