Feb 19 2011

Travelling Without Moving

Category: Kazakhstan,Videos,Weather — ChrisM @ 2:21 pm

A friend of Ben’s uploaded this video to YouTube a couple of days ago. The slippiness could well be down to the fact that a day or so before, the weather actually got very mild, with temperatures above 0C. Some rain fell, which then sat on the road/pavements and re-froze, when Kazakh winter temperatures returned, along with a very biting wind. I’m not sure whether some of the people were “playing” in the wind, or whether they were all trying to cross from top right to bottom left of the screen, but you can see just how difficult moving around the city can be on harsh weather days.

4 Responses to “Travelling Without Moving”

  1. John Kav says:
    February 20th, 2011 7:08 pm

    I think that it’s a case of ‘stay indoors’. Rather you then me

  2. Alex C says:
    February 21st, 2011 3:07 am

    It’s crazy. I can’t believe people actually get blown backwards. Especially that person at the end! It almost looks fake.

    • ChrisM says:
      February 21st, 2011 2:13 pm

      The icy conditions mean you can end up with no traction at all when trying to walk. Most of the time there is fresh snow on top of the ice, meaning you can shuffle along fairly safely, however if the wind blows the snow away leaving just ice, you can end up struggling just standing still, let alone moving forward. Because this city is in the middle of the steppe, there is no real protection when strong winds form, and in some areas of the city, the construction of buildings mean that wind tunnels are produced. As to whether any of those people were playing on the windy ice, as opposed to really wanting to cross the courtyard I don’t know, but I can guarantee that there will have been plenty of (unrecorded) people unable to safely move around that day.