Aug 10 2007

Finally Met Mira…

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 5:47 am

Though I think I should check how to spell her name tomorrow – Ira (or Mira) if you read this before I speak to you next, feel free to leave a comment laughing at my attempt to spell the name 🙂
Anyway, for those who don’t know, she works with Ira over at KazMunaiGaz, and seems like a nice lady. We all went to the EastWest restaurant, as BG (British Gas) had organized a charity event to raise funds for Kazakhstan’s Paralympics team. The idea is to raise enough cash to help them attend next year’s Olympics over in Beijing. They also made reference to the BG Energy Challenge, another event to raise cash, where teams from companies are sponsored to take part in what looked like a cross between an endurance challenge, and the TV show It’s A Knockout. We arrived perfectly on time to the restaurant (which in Kazakhstan means about 50 minutes after the official start!), and eventually found a table to accommodate the three of us, sitting next to two Kazakh ladies. I forgot to bring my camera, and the shots I took with my mobile are not very good. (I also need to get ActiveSync working first anyway), but I’ll try and post photos later on today or tomorrow if I can.

Tags: , , , , ,


Aug 08 2007

One Year At KMG

Category: Eating Out,Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 2:28 am

My wife (Irina) has just finished working at KazMunayGaz for one year now. Although the first few weeks were actually unpaid training (sadly not too unusual here in Kazakhstan), she has now been travelling to the building for 52 weeks now.

KazMunayGaz Logo Kazakhstan Kazakstan Astana Oil Gas Petrochemical

My congratulations to her for coping with the transition to the Kazakh style of working, and not getting too freaked out by it all. We are hopefully meeting one of her work colleagues after work tomorrow, at a charity event at the local EastWest restaurant. (I’ll post more details on it tomorrow, I believe it is to raise funds for the paralympics team.)

Although life has definitely been quite different in this country, I think she is still glad we moved, and that there are many, many worse companies she could have ended up working for.

Tags: , , ,