KZBlog

Being an Expat in Kazakhstan (4)

Posted by KZBlog on 14 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as Astana, cold, Siberia, summer, temperature, weather, wind

Despite my attempts to be a serious blogger, I have noticed that some of my chattier “what is life like in Kazakhstan” posts actually get more attention than the news coverage. And I certainly get lots of emails with questions about what to bring to Kazakhstan, can you get ketchup here, what’s the food like.

So as spring starts to come, and we get ready for the Nauryz rainstorm and the April blizzard, I was thinking about how to deal with the weather in Astana and what you need to bring with you or buy here.

First of all, the fact of the matter is that it is very cold here in the winter and the winter is quite long. The average yearly temperature is 1.8C according to the World Meteorological Organization. And the summers are quite hot, reaching 25-30C. So that gives you an idea of how long and cold the winter is to bring down the average like that. You will need a warm coat, gloves, a warm hat, a scarf and long underwear. I recommend buying the coat elsewhere because here fur coats are expensive and Goretex or other synthetic winter coats are even more expensive. Also buy serious winter boots or get a nice pair of fur-lined boots here. It does make a difference.

It’s also worth noting that many apartments have no thermostat or heat controls. The heat just blasts out of the radiators. So many people end up opening windows to keep the interior temperature down. This can lead to a never-ending cycle of opening the window, getting cold, closing the window, getting hot, opening the window… Another issue is that the constant heat makes the air quite dry (and of course we’re nowhere near the ocean), so I have heard of some expats getting a humidifier.

Also the Kazakhstani tolerance for heat is much higher than the American tolerance, in my experience, so if you go over to someone’s house, dress in layers so you can survive the street and then strip down when you get to your destination. Personally I find myself sweating away in the winter in stores and taxis because they keep the heat so high and I’m so bundled up.

Now the flip side of the long cold winter is the short, but hot summer. It really can get up to 30C in July, especially in the sun. I actually worked in an office once where all the men would close themselves in their offices and take off their shirts to work! Investing in T-shirts and lightweight work shirts is also worth it. Particularly as it’s not very socially acceptable to go around in shorts. All that stuff can be bought here, of course.

Interestingly it doesn’t rain or snow very much here, so you don’t have to worry too much about precipitation. It does get quite windy out here on the flat steppes with nothing to break the wind between the Ural mountains and the Chinese border, but that’s mainly an issue of keeping warm against the wind. And bringing a heavy rock to hold things down if you go sit in the park.

Koktem Keldi (2)

Posted by KZBlog on 12 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as Astana, camping, Fun, outdoors activities, Tourism, yurts

Inshallah.

Finally it’s getting a bit warmer out here on the frozen steppes. Astana is not as exciting a place to live as Almaty for outdoor fun, but over the years we’ve discovered a few places to go. I’ve posted on some of them before like the yurt camp near Astana and Eco-Village where you can actually ride horses. Never been out to the reservoir, but I always see my neighbors packing up on the weekends with their Big Agnes tents, shashlik grills, and camping supplies to go out there. One of these days I’ll have to try some camping here, but haven’t been able to find the time to do much more than go up to Boraboe a few times a year and stay in a guest house.

Any suggestions for good outdoors activities and places to go outside of Astana?

Steppe Diet (6)

Posted by KZBlog on 10 March 11 • Categorized as Life in KZ • Tagged as agriculture, Astana, food, imports, meat

Not to suddenly harp on food, but I had an interesting conversation the other day with a group of colleagues. I mentioned in an earlier post that one stereotype here of the US is that our meat does not taste good (I put this down to differences in what constitutes properly cooked meat). Another is that all of our food is genetically modified and chemically altered. Now on that second point, I can’t argue as much. A lot of food in the US is altered in some way. I did put up a half-hearted fight for the idea that breeding food that doesn’t spoil as fast or is pest-resistant is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

But what I thought was most interesting was that one woman claimed that the solution to the problem was to grow all your food yourself. Now here in the northern part of Kazakhstan, where there is snow on the ground 6 months of the year and the temperature gets down to -20 or -30, I’m not sure if you can really grow enough to feed yourself in such a short growing season. I’m not sure you can grow anything much more than potatoes in such a climate, unless you decide to use hydroponics or some kind of indoor garden.

One man stood up strongly for the argument that all a human being needs to eat is meat. Kazakh ancestors, I gather, didn’t stay in any one place long enough to garden, so all they ever ate was meat (and animal by-products such as milk and blood). In fact, according to this colleague, beshbarmak with onions and noodles is not real Kazakh beshbarmak. Authentic beshbarmak should be noting more than boiled meat! (By the way, it is widely believed that meat from Akmola state, where Astana is located, is the best of all meat in Kazakhstan).

I believe that back in the day, Turkic-Mongolian nomads ate a diet that was largely meat. But I’m not sure how long they lived back then or how healthy they were! I’m not ready to cancel food imports from the rest of the world to Astana quite yet.