KZBlog

Thanks to Tom Toomey for pointing out that recently the New York Post published Cindy Adams’ latest column where she does Kazakhstan. Disclaimer for those who don’t know Cindy Adams: she’s a gossip journalist and scandalizing is her job and her style. Don’t be too offended. She has to say bad things about everything she writes about; that’s why people read her. And incidentally the article has many good things to say about the nation.

The article is funny in bits. I thought she got some things very wrong though, even allowing for her style.
She wrote: “FASHION: For a man, black tie is a T- shirt worn outside the pants. But the local ladies are nifty.”

You do occasionally see business men out on the town in appallingly informal clothes. I recently spotted a big man on the town in an old sports suit and no T-shirt underneath. The zipper was pulled way down so all the chest hair showed. But it is much more common to see dark suits and colorful ties. Kazakhstani dress extremely formally by US standards, even when going out to a cafe. Sunday I see people walking in the park with their kids wearing khakis and an Oxford shirt. Especially in Astana.

She says: “Kazakhstan is the world’s ninth largest country, and the 375th ending in the suffix stan.”
OK, it does get old hearing about -stan. There are plenty of countries that end in -land (Iceland, England, Poland) and a fair number that end in -ia (Albania, Romania, Latvia). Why does -stan bother people?

The highlight of the article, I thought, was this bit on her first taste of beshbarmak. Or her first non-taste.

ANIMALS: This is the beginning of the horse family, 55 million years ago. They began on the archeological site Krasnyi Yar in northern Kazakhstan. I don’t know how to break the news . . . but in the mountain region of Borovoe, they served it to me for lunch. With noodles. I had a salad.