KZBlog

Thanks to Leila’s post on neweuraisa.net, I bring you:

Cars in Almaty

Leila laid out some of the serious problems with transport in Kazakhstan, including traffic, saftey and cars as economic indicators. Coupled with the previous post on neweurasia about income versus rising costs, it makes for a good indication of the situation. What percent of already too-small incomes are going to cool cars? If someone would do a cell-phones of Almaty and Astana film, we’d have the whole picture of conspicious consumption here!

Syncronistically enough, last night I ran into another problem with transport here, an extreme example, but all too indicative of the weak infrastructure, poorly managed services industry, and what it’s like to be on an autobus.

There’s a bus in Astana that runs off the main road at one point, down into the village-like rayon of Cheubarak. It goes down to a store, and then to the new mosque (not the big one), and then back to the main road before continuing on to the Left Bank. We got to the store and the conductor asked, “Is anyone going to the mosque?” One Kazakh grandmother said, “Yes.” The conductor and driver said, “We can’t go, we’re running late. We’ll take you on the way back.” Apashka started shouting that they had to take her, it was their job. The driver and conductor said their job was to be on time at certain points, and they would drop her off on the way back. Apashka said she was late (possibly relevant context note: It’s Ramadan right now), and she was scared of the dark. The conversation switched to Kazakh quickly so I couldn’t follow it, but the mocking tone and laughter were evident. Someone asked if she would write the President. As new passengers got on, the conductor would tell them the grandma

So the bus service isn’t obligated to take passengers to their destinations and the wishes of an old lady are nothing to the needs of a driver not to get in trouble for being late.

And after, that downer, Cars in Almaty, for reals
Lamborghini Gallardo vs. Ferrari F430

And some more stills of cars:

Look for the 01 KZ here–that’s the President’s number!