KZBlog

Added a new blog to the blogroll. I’ve been reading it for months, but forgot to add it earlier.
Bogar Harrison’s Move to Kazakhstan is a great expat blog about the frustrations and the joys of living here as an expat. Really good read if you are thinking of moving here, especially if you have kids. Good on details of daily life. An excerpt below the cut on making agreements in KZ.

Some everyday reality is more annoying second time around. Like the way people treat agreements. About two weeks ago we started to look for a driver. Tristan bought the paper and I selected the ones that would be suitable for us. Yes, I can actually read the ads now . Simple enough if you can read the Cyrillic letters. First type of car, years of experience, number of seats (for idiots like me, who still think that colour is the most important differentia specifica of a car) and finally expected salary. This latter one you must multiply by 1.3 and then you get to their starting price. In one of the ads I found an unusual word. Consulted my dictionary and got the result: egg plant. After further investigation I figured that it’s the colour of the car. I didn’t even bother to write up his phone number in spite of that he had the required 7 seats. After I made my selection I even tried to call some of them. Anyway finally through Anastasia (Nastia, as she prefers) we made an appointment for interview with a driver called Vhyacheslav. I was convinced that we found a driver with the most difficult name available. Vhyacheslav (“you call Slava”) managed to work up his expected salary with a couple of hundreds (US$, I mean) during the ‘interview’. Two days later he came alone and we agreed in the final price and that he’ll starts on Thursday. Wednesday he phoned Nastia for further pay rise (he hasn’t even started yet) then Thursday morning he phoned her again that he changed his mind and not going to work for us as English is too hard. I was supposed to go shopping with him that afternoon so I was less than impressed. In fact I was toying with the thought of promising him a very high salary then letting him go after a week. I dropped it. That day I went out for lunch with ‘the wives’ and they all had similar stories. (Since then he regularly phones Nastia that he might want to work for us after all (like we would want him) or asking if we could pay more and other funny ideas.)