We went out on Wednesday to an Uzbek restaurant, near KMG (where Ira works).
Unfortunately, Walton was ill, so couldn’t make it :<
Click the link below to see the pictures
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Feb 23 2007
Last Night Out With Tom
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Feb 23 2007
Last Saturday Night With Tom
An evening with Tom, a sad moment, and yet a happy time.
For our last Saturday with him, we were honoured with (finally) being invited round to his flat for a meal.
You can read more about it here, but to keep you going, here are some pictures of the evening.
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Feb 23 2007
Interesting summary of the Estonia War Memorial saga
I read this around a week ago, but forgot to link to the excellent article.
If you’ve not caught any of this on the news (or only heard a 30 second segment on it), please do click the link, read through and then leave a comment at his site, if you feel like giving some thought on the matter.
Estonia: Battle by Bronze Proxy
Why is it that a WW II-monument repeatedly sparks bilateral crises between Estonia and Russia? This question has, in recent days, gained new relevance after strong Russian reactions against the Estonian parliament’s decision to remove the so called Bronze Soldier (Pronkssõdur) soviet war monument from central Tallinn. The reason is simple: The Bronze Soldier has become a proxy for the conflict between Estonian and Russian interests in Estonia before the 4 March parliamentary elections.
To read the rest, please click here
BTW, all of the above is Vilhelm’s text not mine, I’m just hoping to whet your appetite enough to make you check his blog out, if you haven’t already done so.
Also, I’ve checked out the details of Vilhelm’s Creative Commons License here, and think it means I’m OK to quote his work, as long as I state it is his, and where to get the full text from, sure someone will correct me if not…
Finally, I know this doesn’t really belong under the category of Kazakhstan, but it isn’t really Personal, nor am I too likely to be posting about Estonia again.
Feb 18 2007
Astana Weather in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana – check out the climate section in the Wiki for Astana
Is it just me, or do the average temperatures for Astana in the summer seem completely unrealistic?
I’ve left a comment in the discussion section ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Astana#Climate ) for Astana’s entry in Wikipedia, or have I misunderstood the figures?
Feb 18 2007
How To Communicate With Customers
As readers may have noted in the past I have serious issues with the way many shops & businesses treat their customers in this country. (See Birthday Presents For Nick Customer Relations and One For The Milk Drinkers Out There… & various other moans from me ;> )
Recently, John fwded an e-mail he received, after ordering an item from a website.
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, January 26th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’. We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, President
Whilst it may not appear very business-like, it made me smile, and if nothing else, certainly guarantees customers will remember the company the next time they consider who to place an order with.
Whilst we’re on the topic of communication, I should mention that it is possible that this blog will have a small amount of advertisements placed on it soon. Again, for anyone who is new to this blog, you can read a little of the history Google and I have had here
We’ll have to see how it goes, but I’m intending to use Oxado as a replacement for AdSense on all my other sites, as I need to start generating some income, whilst I continue to build up the affiliate sales side of things.
Feb 11 2007
3 Quick Links
Kazakhstan: Money, Kidnapping, Money, Power, Money…
Video of a giant slingshot (sort of) – http://www.thecodecave.com/article334
http://librivox.org/ – looks like Project Guttenburg, but with audio books instead. Think I found it through TheCodeCave (see above)
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Feb 04 2007
Its Getting Better All The Time
OK, so once again, my posting has been sporadic as of late. I’ve now pretty much recovered from the illness though, so I’m hoping to be writing a little more.
In the mean time, here are a few links I have been meaning to suggest –
www.robertamsterdam.com – Perspectives on Russia, Europe, and International Affairs
kazakhstan.blogsome.com/2007/02/03/126/ – KZBlog’s look at KZ Blogs!
kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/?p=248 – Kazakh queues
PS This post’s title is a reference to a Shed Seven song, in case anyone cares…
PPS Had my third Russian lesson today, all went well. The ride back cost 600 Tenge, which was a rip off, but it was balanced out by a friendly driver giving me a lift for free on the way there – he decided a foreigner coming to live in RK and trying to learn Russian was something to be applauded…
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Jan 23 2007
Saturday evening was most revealing…
Check Tom’s post (My Brief Life As Exotic Dancer) for some more information.
I discovered two things taking a snap of the evening….
1) My camera phone really can’t handle low light situations, even on Night Time setting
2) Club staff don’t like photos to be taken when people have more skin exposed than normal (I dumped my phone in my pocket at this point, hence the one below is only pre-strip, sadly)
I also have a few vids of the evening, but these turned out even darker 🙁
Monday, I went for my first (formal) Russian lesson here in Astana. All seemed to go well, and I’m going back on Wednesday for another session.
Jan 19 2007
The Most ‘Baptised’ Muslim in Kazakhstan!
Catchy post title I thought, as Irina explained what a gentleman had just (jokingly) proclaimed, just prior to jumping into water in a frozen river, wearing just his underwear.
It was a little after midnight, on the frozen river, here in Astana. We had walked down to see what was going on, as this is the day that the local (Orthodox?) church cuts a hole in the river’s ice, blesses the water, and some people go for a quick dip in the freezing water.
Tom has explained the process a lot better than I can, so for a little further background info, please head to his post HERE. Then come back and gawk at the photos.
(Tom himself is heading down to the river for a quick dip, in a few hours, but I’ll be in bed by then, and Ira will be at work, so we decided to take a peek ourselves at the river escapades. Hope Tom and (his librarian friend) Irina survive the cold and find something to drink to warm themselves up afterwards.)
If you want to see last night’s photos, please click the link below this line, or the title of this post. (I’ve taken it off the front page to try and save a bit of bandwidth on the server….
Continue reading “The Most ‘Baptised’ Muslim in Kazakhstan!”
Jan 09 2007
Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Resigns…
Thereby forcing the removal of the entire cabinet.
Don’t feel like commenting on this, especially until I’ve done a bit more research, but for now, check out these links for a bit more info…
Playful’s article , First and Second Times (UK) articles and finally Bloomberg’s report on this event.
[UPDATE] KZBlog has collated a lot more information here.
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