Aug 21 2009
Taken on the same day as Anna’s triumphant bottle feed, we were once more walking through the park again. Stopping outside a restaurant that hadn’t impressed us much last time (grumpy service, not amazing selection of food actually available, despite a promising menu), we noticed a pretty effect the gardeners had created. Despite walking past it pretty much five times a week for months, the flowers had somehow not caught my eye previously.
Stream Of Flowers
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Aug 19 2009
Just a single image this time, snapped on the 29th June. To the right you can see the new bridge, with its lights that flash and change colours. In the middle you have Astana Tower, which is inter-connected with Ramstore (or Pam-C-Top if you’re Mum 🙂 ) and the North Wind ‘pub’. Finally there are some residential flats. In between us and those buildings, in the dark, we have the main road, tennis courts & gym, Astana park and the river Ishim.
It Looked Prettier At The Time...
Ah-ha, found another image, before we covered all the windows with mosquito screens, this one was taken on the 3rd July. You can see the rainbow effect here, though obviously the fact that the colours rotate across isn’t so obvious 🙂
Dawn Breaking - Lights Changing On The Bridge Over The River Ishim In Astana
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Aug 17 2009
Dasha&Tishka(in-laws’ mum+daughter cats)both heavily pregnant.Wondering who will produce first.Aunty Sasha returning to Russia this evening.
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Aug 10 2009
At Astana Park hotel restauraunt to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. Anna dropped off 2sleep on the walk here http://twitpic.com/ddz5t
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Aug 10 2009
10th August. I’m sure on the date for this Anna’s Photos post, because it was taken on the same day as Irina’s and my anniversary. We returned to the Astana Park Hotel outdoor restaurant, and I discovered their pizzas were lovely, definitely better value for money than the sashlique I’d tried previously.
Anna was once again very well behaved, and the gazebos offer enough privacy that Anna had a meal with us at the same time 🙂 No photos of that…
However, also in this post are some photos of the Kazakh-style wiring we found at the entrance to Astana Park. I had originally thought that the structure was permanent, and thought that supply of mains electricity jerry rigged from the nearest lamp post was utterly laughable. However, the piece has now been removed (installed for Astana Day/the international conference for religious tolerance), so the wiring was only ever supposed to be temporary. Worthy of a giggle then, but not a full blown guffaw. The structure was a combination of a traditional drink vessel found in Kazakhstan, and the ventilation area at the top of a yurt.
Aug 05 2009
The last couple of years have seen quite a few changes over here in Astana. Since the police cracked down on the use of very dark tinted windows in the front of a car, you can now normally see the driver (reassuring when trying to use a pedestrian crossing, at least for me – I want him to see my moral indignation as I bounce off the bonnet :)), if not the passengers in the back. The spate of badly affixed spoilers seems to have passed, with only a few cars now sporting non-factory add ons, and those that do seem to have had a decent amount of money spent on them. The best change? Wearing seat belts (in the front at least) is no longer seen as an insult to the driver, as again the police have really gone through a couple of clamp downs on the abuse of this law. In the past, I had to explain that whilst I may well trust the driver’s abilities of the car I was in, it was all the other nutters on the road that could crash into us that scared me 🙂
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Jul 28 2009
The following letter/advice sheet was stuck to our block’s doors earlier in the week, and whilst I haven’t asked Irina to translate it all, the advice given does seem to be sensible, well proportioned and in general good to see being produced by the authorities over here.
Official (Sensible!) Advice Re. Swine Flu In Astana
Hmm, pigs with wings to be seen soon? (Me praising government output…)
I’ll try and remember to ask Ira a summary of the info for non-Russian readers later. Pizza and Heroes series 3 first 🙂
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Jul 24 2009
The first hint that things had changed were when we drove Anna for her (regular) immunizations this morning. I noticed that bus drivers and conductors were wearing face masks. One driver was indeed wearing the mask, just not actually using it – the mask was done up behind the head, but hanging below his chin! I’ll leave the discussion on whether face masks are actually much use except when worn by people who may have already been infected, or in societies where (some) people spit in the street and regularly cough & sneeze without covering their mouth, for another day.
Irina then spoke to someone who had heard that Astana now had confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 virus, and that either local or national authorities had declared that shop and public workers would now be wearing the aforementioned masks.
So, am I worried, about to go and buy a dozen boxes of face masks? Well, with Anna around I’m naturally concerned, but given that Britain currently has approximately 100,000 new cases declared each week, and that the current variant of Swine Flu hasn’t yet mutated to be highly deadly and/or drug resistant, I’m not about to seal all the windows and doors and demand temperature readings from anyone we come into contact with.
It appears that the three (confirmed, as opposed to six including suspected) cases were with people who had been in Britain for academic studies.
Oh, in case 3rd hand information is not (understandably with this sort of topic) official enough to be considered valid, here is an Azerbaijan site’s report on it! I’m not sure whether this Google News search will work for other people, and whether it will stay up to date with new stories, but you can currently see that only the Asian/Central Asian news services seem to have picked up on the reports.
In case they disappear from Google’s listings, here we have Gazeta.kz’s almost translated into English story, and here we have the Indian branch of Reuters summary. Finally, Kazakhstan Today’s bulletin can be found here.
[edit]
OK, just been for a walk in Astana park. Out of a sample size of approximately 200 people, five were found to be wearing masks. That is if you include another bus driver who had it on, but slung under his chin.
Couple of photos below…
Astana Park Ride Attendant Face Mask Swine Flu
Bus Driver Face Mask Not Worn Swine Flu
