Oct 28 2009
Beer in the river, kebab (kebob if you’re American?) on the fire, friends all around. Another trip into Almaty’s surrounding natural beauty. If only he’d be in Astana, he could have done so in the desert instead. lmao.
Seriously, we do have some pretty lakes and stuff around Astana, it isn’t all steppe.
Aug 22 2009
Ha. Assuming you count a fortnight as being within ‘a week or so’, I’ve just met the dead line for ‘proper photos’ that I promised when I tweeted from the Melnitza restaurant on the 22nd of August. Melnitza is situated on SaryArka, quite near to our apartment, and as we hadn’t tried it before, were already heading to a nearby shopping centre and I wanted to grab a shot of the Khan Shatyr entertainment centre.
The service was superb in the restaurant, the prices not too excessive considering its reputation, and I can honestly say they served the best tasting sashlique I’ve ever eaten. This is Kazakhstan, and given my meat and potato type meal preferences, I’ve eaten a fair few of the barbecued kebab like meals over here. The exterior of the building is surrounded by flowers and vegetables, giving a real dacha-like feel to the outside seating, the staff were very attentive and smiling, and their take on garlic bread (see photos below) were delicious.
Oh, and my thanks to this post for reminding me of the name for the big glass yurt like structure up the road from us. I left a comment there in an attempt to correct some of the inaccuracies in the article, but it remains an interesting post.
Jan 01 2007
OK, a couple of people have already e-mailed and asked “so how much money should I bring?”
Well, I’m not sure on an exact total, but if I give you an idea of how much stuff costs here, you’ll be better informed to guess a holiday total I suppose…
20 fags (Parliament) – 80pence
20 fags (Marlboro) – 40 pence
20 fags (Russian smokable stuff) – 20-35 pence
Bottle of coke in a shop – 50 pence
Bottle of vodka in a shop – 90 pence to 5 pounds, depending on brand (drinkable – nice), can pay more, but what’s the point?
Bottle of beer in a shop – 40 pence to 90 pence (Russian to European brands)
In a restaurant/cafe, fags, coke and beer maybe double the price, or there abouts, vodka costs maybe two pounds for 200ml
PC Games/Applications/MP3 collections – 2 pounds to 5 pounds, depending on amount of discs in box, and how obvious the copy is
Music CDs – between 40-80% of UK price
Taxi ride (real taxi) – 2 to 3 pounds for a 10/15 minute ride
Taxi ride (flagging a random car off the street) – haggle price, normally little cheaper than real taxi
Meal in a cafe (salad (ha ha ha), meat dish, chips, coke, vodka) – Between 4 and 12 pounds per person, depending on type of place you go to
Meal in a restaurant (same stuff as above) – Between 6 and 20 pounds tops, per person
Obviously, if you want to get drunk, rather than merely relaxed, add more money for the extra vodka/soft drink/beer
Entrance fee to a club – 5 to 7 pounds – basically, the more ‘exclusive’ an activity or brand is, the higher the price soars, prices for drinks in clubs a little higher than elsewhere.
Next door to China, so disposable electronic trinkets, that might last 5 years, or 5 days, are to be found in plenty of shops.
If you want any ‘Kazakh’ souvenirs – cultural stuff, definitely bring along a little bit extra cash.
Re. Money – bring at least 100 euros or a little more in dollars, the rest is up to you – there are ATMs over here (don’t forget to budget for banks comission/charges for this service), and there is ONE place that we know of that will exchange English pounds for Kazakh Tenge, but Irina says you shouldn’t rely on it still working/taking UK currency by the time you come over. Your choice basically.
Re. CDs/DVDs vs. portable hard drive. I’ve read around, and people have less difficulty taking hard drives out of the country than lots of discs, apparently. Couldn’t find any info on importing. Personally, I’ve never had a problem in either direction. There is apparently a rule, on your way out of the country,that if Customs discover discs in your luggage, they must have been previously inspected and sealed by a dept. elsewhere in Astana. You’ll need to do this four or five days before the flight.
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