KZBlog

Men Lose Weight, Women Gain (1)

Posted by KZBlog on 1 April 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as diet, health, peace corps, weight

Found an interesting post on Peace Corps Volunteers and weight loss from 2008. Apparently due to the heavy carbohydrate and meat diet, women tend to gain weight in Kazakhstan and men lose it. Some of that is because men process carbs better than women and some of it is because PCVs are more likely to be vegetarians than the average American and women are more likely to not eat meat than men. So a significant chunk of females are getting only carbs.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you’re a man coming to Kazakhstan you don’t need diet pills, but if you’re a woman start looking into adapexin-p.

Getting a Car in Kazakhstan (3)

Posted by KZBlog on 30 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as auto insurance, Bureaucracy, cars, driving, driving license

A dear friend of mine recently bought a car here and I do occasionally get emails about driving in Kazakhstan for foreigners, so here is a basic rundown of what you need to do to register a new car. Buying a car wasn’t that much different from buying a car in the States. However one big shock I had was that no one let us test drive the car before buying it. I assume they were afraid we’d steal it but it was a bit inconvenient since the only cars I’d driven before coming to KZ were American models and I didn’t want to buy an American car here-I wasn’t sure I could find a good mechanic who knew US-built car. So we had to rely on recommendations of friends and family (see earlier post and comment about communal living in KZ).

• License: We got conflicting stories about licensing. On the one hand we were told I could drive on my US license if I had a notarized translation. On the other hand, I was told I needed an international license. I ended up doing both. The international license is easy to get in your home country, and when police threaten to take your license away, it’s not a big deal to get another one. The bit about organ donations on US licenses did confuse the translator here so she ended up not translating that bit.
• Tech Control: All cars, even new ones, do have to go through technical inspections. For a new car, it’s not too bad, just a rubber stamp. But you still have to go to the Tech Control site and wait in an extremely long line. And we had to try several times as they seem to close at random or suddenly declare they aren’t taking more customers that day.
• Insurance: The cheapest auto insurance is the state minimum, 10000 tenge a year. Doesn’t matter how old you are or what kind of car you drive. No idea if there is other insurance available. The few crashes I, or my friends, have been involved in were settled informally with an exchange of cash or in one case, I followed the other driver (clearly at fault) to a mechanic, where he just paid the mechanic directly.
• Dovernost: No idea how to translate that into English but apparently every driver of the car, besides the owner, needs a notarized document from the owner saying that the owner allows this person to drive the car. And of course you have to set a time limit, so eventually you have to do it again. Without that, I’m told, police will assume the car was stolen and then you are in big trouble.
• Medical Exam: Drivers have to go through a very thorough medical exam, including a psychologist, a drug test, and a dermatologist (no idea why!). While the exam itself wasn’t a problem as I am in perfect health of course, the going around to different clinics, waiting for doctors and keeping people from cutting in line was the usual pain that going to public clinics always is.

Other than the tedious registration process, there aren’t too many problems driving here as a foreigner. Although it shocks some locals, I have almost never been pulled over by the police for no reason. Sometimes the reasons seem a bit silly (driving a dirty car is apparently technically against the law), but except for one morning when a persistent officer insisted I must be drunk for no particular reason, every time I’ve been pulled over I did in fact violate the rules. And usually admitting my guilt and explaining why I did it has gotten me out of any fine.

Any other suggestions for drivers in KZ?

Roadside Non-Assistance (2)

Posted by KZBlog on 29 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as flat tire, hospitality, snow

Reading through Wide Open Spaces’ list of cultural tidbits from Kazakhstan, I was reminded of a paradox of sorts that has always sort of bothered me. On the one hand Kazakhs pride themselves on their hospitality. Anyone who has been a guest in a Kazakh (or Kazakhstani as hospitality for guests seems to be a national trait) home can attest to the mountains of food and fountains of drink, not to mention the gifts, and the small things done to make guests comfortable. I remember once the mother of a colleague at work had bought instant coffee for the first time in her life because she had heard that Americans prefer coffee. I had to make it for myself because she didn’t even know what to do with it. But she was willing to make the effort to get it for me (And instant coffee is much more expensive than tea in Kazakhstan).

On the other hand, visitors to Kazakhstan also note the brusqueness or even rudeness of people outside the home. Customer service is lacking and it’s not uncommon to be pushed and shoved on the street or to be ignored if you ask a stranger the time. I won’t start with the discourteous behavior in lines.

But it was really brought home to me the other day when I got a flat tire during a snowstorm. To keep my hat on my head while I was jacking up the car, I had to ram it down below my ears. As I was jacking the car up, and having trouble because the ice and snow was making it keep the car level, I heard an odd noise. Figuring it was the wind, I kept winding the jack. After a bit, I felt someone pound my shoulder. I turned to find a red-faced guy in a nice suit shouting something. I pulled my hat up to hear him better and he shouted, “Hey, where’s the cafe here?” I told him I didn’t know and he gave me a diatribe about how he’d been shouting at me for five minutes and what was wrong with me not to hear him and make him get out of his car in the snow and wind and then not know where the cafe was. I hadn’t been expecting a bit of roadside assistance, but the sheer self-centeredness of his rant really made me wonder where the famous hospitality was.

Obviously this was an extreme example and things like that happen all over the world. However, it did bring home the paradox that if I was one of the people he was meeting at that cafe, I’d probably have been treated to ten salads, two main courses and a bottomless glass of vodka and then he’d pick up the check without question.

What Americans Notice About Life in KZ (1)

Posted by KZBlog on 28 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as babies, bags, culture shock, Greetings, Kazakhstan, KazNet, mannerisms, peace corps, resources

A Peace Corps volunteer has a series of great posts on cultural tidbits in Kazakhstan, which really come down to what Americans find interesting or different about habits and life in Kazakhstan.

This one cites the habit of wrapping babies up in so many layers they can’t move. I call them “potato sacks” because the only way to then carry the kid is like a sack of potatoes, as well as the politics of straws, man-purses (I don’t get it either especially in such a homophobic country), plastic bags (much the same thing), and greetings.

I would say the bit on having to greet every single man every day is a bit exaggerated. Many people do go through the office shaking hands with everyone. And occasionally someone will come to the office to talk to person X and shake hands with every man in the office. Imagine working in an office and every time a customer came in, he shook hands with everyone in the whole office. On the other hand, not everyone is quite that hardcore. And I don’t do it. If that’s annoying anyone, I haven’t heard feedback yet.

If you look under Life in KZ or Culture you can find my own observations on interesting differences between Kazakhstan and the US.