V drugom aeroporte, Astana KZ, circa 1pm (GMT +6)
You know what I want? I want to go through that security gate. Like, really, really want to. Security won’t let me, ‘cause my flight doesn’t board for another four hours. But on this side of the gate the shops only accept Kazakh tenge, and I’ve already exchanged all of mine for dollars, and I really want lunch!
You know what else I want? I want a razetka (an electrical socket ... but razetka sounds much better). Really, really want one.
I’m just a bundle of wants right now.
Anyone the tiniest bit familiar with Buddhism, Shamanism or any other want-abhorring philosophy would be ashamed of me, and I’d be duly lectured. And I probably deserve to be. Still …
Let me through, you bastards!!!
Part 2 of my ‘day of airports’ takes place in Astana, KZ’s gleaming capital-on-the-steppe, where I’m doomed to wait for five hours for my connecting flight to Frankfurt.
A brief wander outside confirms something that I already know about this city: it’s one of the coldest corners of civilisation! Last time I was here was back in February, when I came to do some seminar presentations for teachers using Oxford University Press course books in their high schools. On the first morning, we awoke early to discover that a blizzard was in progress outside our hotel – and when I say “blizzard”, I’m not exaggerating for effect.
It was -20C, and great flurries of snow were zipping about in all directions, some heading downwards toward the Earth (as you’d normally expect snow to do) while others soared wildly upward and away from it.
I asked if the seminar was going ahead, naïvely thinking that a blizzard might call a halt to plans. But this is Astana, and hence nothing out-of-the-ordinary. These are the kind of atmospheric conditions in which the daily business of life is carried out here as per usual. The seminar went ahead, and it was great … but on at least two occasions, I was amused and bemused to overhear people chatting during coffee breaks about the mercifully ‘Nye kholodnaya pagoda’ (“not-cold weather”) they’d been having so far that winter.
Hmmm. I guess everything really is relative.
That visit was also my first opportunity to see the recently completed, Norman Foster-designed Khan Shatyr. This is basically a shopping centre located about a kilometre beyond the far end of Astana’s main boulevard – so no big deal, you might reasonably think – but I’m betting that most people reading this have never seen a shopping centre of quite this kind.
- hurry indoors out of the frigid cold, in your super jacket
and your big woolly hat that ties at the chin
- take a lift up four floors
- strip off to your underwear
- relax among the trees or simply luxuriate on the sand,
in partial view of shoppers
- take a dip whenever you like
- repeat steps 4-5
The premiere weirdness here: Khan Shatyr’s inward-sloping walls are all glass, so as you sip your tropical cocktail and adjust your speedos, you can survey the ice- and snow-covered expanses of the Central Asian steppe.
Of course, not being vippy* enough, I didn’t go to the indoor beach. I did, however, let two minimum-wagers strap me into a chair, send me up to the roof of Khan Shatyr, then drop me like a stone through five storeys. I’m sure many of you have seen a ride at fairgrounds (if you can even call it a ride) which is basically a tall metal pole with hydraulics inside and chairs attached. The chairs are lifted slowly up to the top of the pole, and then the hydraulics are released and anyone foolish enough to be in one of the chairs comes free-falling back to Earth. It’s pointless and terrifying, and I had to do it.
In fact, I was voluntarily sent into freefall seven times inside a Temple of Retail shaped to resemble a giant tent, in the absolute centre of nowhere … which frankly, looking back, makes me wonder whether I’m really playing with a full set of marbles. Feel free to join me in doubting this if you’d like to )))
With that little adventure over, it was back to the absurdly opulent hotel (previously some kind of theatre, now a virtually deserted fiesta of lavish carpentry, statuary and plasterwork) to enjoy sweet tea and lemon while the weather continued violently arguing with itself outside.
So yeah, that’s Astana: an architectural fun park, largely unknown to the world, where the most whimsical demons of Lord Foster’s imagination are allowed to physically manifest. (Foster has collaborated with President Nursultan Nazarbayev on several architectural behemoths, all of which seemingly bear witness to Pressie N’s wish to be remembered as a kind of ‘New Sun King’ of the East.) It manages to be both fascinating and abhorrent, admirably bold and mildly obscene** at the same time. But still, it’s definitely nowhere as difficult to leave as Almaty is.
See, in addition to being home to quite a few of my favourite humans, Almaty has the undeniably impressive Zailiskiy Alatau mountain range towering over it like a chain of huge mountains over a medium-sized city.*** They’re unbelievably tall, wild-looking, fearsome rock massifs that are terrifying to walk on at night, and require a serious commitment to climb at any time of day, in any weather, at any time of year. Or, if you prefer your descriptive prose short and sharp, they’re freakin’ big, freakin’ tough and freakin’ goddam cool.
My personal favourite thing about the Zailiskiy Alatau is their noticeable mood swings. A little over three years ago, I moved into a top-floor flat on Zharokova street, from which I had a frankly stunning panoramic mountain view, and this is when I got acquainted with the many moods of the Zailiskiy. They could be bright, cheery and cogent one morning, sketchy and vague the next, and then turn positively dark and Mordory the morning after that.
What all of this means, in relation to the present entry, is twofold: first, the Zailiskiy Alatau have always contributed to my feeling that Almaty is “a great city to come back to”. (I stuck that in quote marks because I’ve said it so often.) Every time I return there, whether from another country or another part of KZ, the mountains give me a fresh thrill on my way into town. And secondly, they make leaving Almaty a somewhat fretful experience. As you look over your shoulder at the receding peaks, you think “What the heck am I doing, travelling away from those ridiculously cool things, instead of towards them?” And then “If only I'd spent more of my weekends up there in the Zailiskiy”. And so on.
* A word I made up specially for this occasion – it’s an adjective, and it means “possessing the qualities of a V.I.P.”.
** (Because these building projects have cost SO many billions of dollars, which could have been used to improve conditions in other parts of the country.)
*** This is a new literary device I’ve invented called “zero simile”. It’s easy to master: just describe something performing an action, and say that it performs the action “like xxxxx”, where “xxxx” is the thing itself. (Example; “The Desert Sun, which had been punishing us so mercilessly since early morning, finally disappeared in the West like a fierce red celestial orb dipping below the horizon of a vast sandy plain”.) I think this is definitely gonna catch on … don’t you?
You know what I want? I want to go through that security gate. Like, really, really want to. Security won’t let me, ‘cause my flight doesn’t board for another four hours. But on this side of the gate the shops only accept Kazakh tenge, and I’ve already exchanged all of mine for dollars, and I really want lunch!
You know what else I want? I want a razetka (an electrical socket ... but razetka sounds much better). Really, really want one.
I’m just a bundle of wants right now.
Anyone the tiniest bit familiar with Buddhism, Shamanism or any other want-abhorring philosophy would be ashamed of me, and I’d be duly lectured. And I probably deserve to be. Still …
Let me through, you bastards!!!
Part 2 of my ‘day of airports’ takes place in Astana, KZ’s gleaming capital-on-the-steppe, where I’m doomed to wait for five hours for my connecting flight to Frankfurt.
A brief wander outside confirms something that I already know about this city: it’s one of the coldest corners of civilisation! Last time I was here was back in February, when I came to do some seminar presentations for teachers using Oxford University Press course books in their high schools. On the first morning, we awoke early to discover that a blizzard was in progress outside our hotel – and when I say “blizzard”, I’m not exaggerating for effect.
It was -20C, and great flurries of snow were zipping about in all directions, some heading downwards toward the Earth (as you’d normally expect snow to do) while others soared wildly upward and away from it.
I asked if the seminar was going ahead, naïvely thinking that a blizzard might call a halt to plans. But this is Astana, and hence nothing out-of-the-ordinary. These are the kind of atmospheric conditions in which the daily business of life is carried out here as per usual. The seminar went ahead, and it was great … but on at least two occasions, I was amused and bemused to overhear people chatting during coffee breaks about the mercifully ‘Nye kholodnaya pagoda’ (“not-cold weather”) they’d been having so far that winter.
Hmmm. I guess everything really is relative.
That visit was also my first opportunity to see the recently completed, Norman Foster-designed Khan Shatyr. This is basically a shopping centre located about a kilometre beyond the far end of Astana’s main boulevard – so no big deal, you might reasonably think – but I’m betting that most people reading this have never seen a shopping centre of quite this kind.
Modelled after a ‘royal yurt’ typical of those used by the Khans, shatyr’s exterior combines the sterile futurism of post-2001 spaceship design with the somewhat comical form of a partly-erected circus tent, its central supporting pole leaning heavily to one side. It squats on the steppe like a stubborn mirage, determined to make you believe that it's real despite your brain’s insistence that nothing so preposterous could actually be loitering out here in a place like this.
Inside you’ve got three floors of predictably overpriced boutiques, some game arcades and similar amusements … and then you’ve got the upper floors, where thankfully things get a little less run-of-the-mill. The highlight is a beach about 50m long, hermetically sealed and temperature controlled, with real beachfront sand trucked in from Turkey (if I remember correctly) and palm trees from somewhere that has lots of spare palm trees. If you qualify for V.I.P. status, you can buy a membership card which entitles you to do the following:
- hurry indoors out of the frigid cold, in your super jacket
and your big woolly hat that ties at the chin
- take a lift up four floors
- strip off to your underwear
- relax among the trees or simply luxuriate on the sand,
in partial view of shoppers
- take a dip whenever you like
- repeat steps 4-5
The premiere weirdness here: Khan Shatyr’s inward-sloping walls are all glass, so as you sip your tropical cocktail and adjust your speedos, you can survey the ice- and snow-covered expanses of the Central Asian steppe.
Of course, not being vippy* enough, I didn’t go to the indoor beach. I did, however, let two minimum-wagers strap me into a chair, send me up to the roof of Khan Shatyr, then drop me like a stone through five storeys. I’m sure many of you have seen a ride at fairgrounds (if you can even call it a ride) which is basically a tall metal pole with hydraulics inside and chairs attached. The chairs are lifted slowly up to the top of the pole, and then the hydraulics are released and anyone foolish enough to be in one of the chairs comes free-falling back to Earth. It’s pointless and terrifying, and I had to do it.
In fact, I was voluntarily sent into freefall seven times inside a Temple of Retail shaped to resemble a giant tent, in the absolute centre of nowhere … which frankly, looking back, makes me wonder whether I’m really playing with a full set of marbles. Feel free to join me in doubting this if you’d like to )))
With that little adventure over, it was back to the absurdly opulent hotel (previously some kind of theatre, now a virtually deserted fiesta of lavish carpentry, statuary and plasterwork) to enjoy sweet tea and lemon while the weather continued violently arguing with itself outside.
So yeah, that’s Astana: an architectural fun park, largely unknown to the world, where the most whimsical demons of Lord Foster’s imagination are allowed to physically manifest. (Foster has collaborated with President Nursultan Nazarbayev on several architectural behemoths, all of which seemingly bear witness to Pressie N’s wish to be remembered as a kind of ‘New Sun King’ of the East.) It manages to be both fascinating and abhorrent, admirably bold and mildly obscene** at the same time. But still, it’s definitely nowhere as difficult to leave as Almaty is.
See, in addition to being home to quite a few of my favourite humans, Almaty has the undeniably impressive Zailiskiy Alatau mountain range towering over it like a chain of huge mountains over a medium-sized city.*** They’re unbelievably tall, wild-looking, fearsome rock massifs that are terrifying to walk on at night, and require a serious commitment to climb at any time of day, in any weather, at any time of year. Or, if you prefer your descriptive prose short and sharp, they’re freakin’ big, freakin’ tough and freakin’ goddam cool.
My personal favourite thing about the Zailiskiy Alatau is their noticeable mood swings. A little over three years ago, I moved into a top-floor flat on Zharokova street, from which I had a frankly stunning panoramic mountain view, and this is when I got acquainted with the many moods of the Zailiskiy. They could be bright, cheery and cogent one morning, sketchy and vague the next, and then turn positively dark and Mordory the morning after that.
On this particular morning – my last in Almaty – the mountains were in stunning form. There was a low cover of cloud blanketing the city, so they were invisible at street level, but in the air you could see them soaring majestically skyward, their sunny sides a brilliant white and their shaded sides a deep, mystic blue. From where I was looking, they actually seemed to be sitting on top of the cloud bank, slowly floating across the sky in a way that somehow reminded me of a Terry Gilliam animation. And I thought what I usually think: "Well, bye guys. Prob'ly see you before too long."
And then we were over the horizon, and I was heading in the general direction of a funny, lop-sided circus tent with a thermally heated beach inside.
Funny old thing, life.
And then we were over the horizon, and I was heading in the general direction of a funny, lop-sided circus tent with a thermally heated beach inside.
Funny old thing, life.
* A word I made up specially for this occasion – it’s an adjective, and it means “possessing the qualities of a V.I.P.”.
** (Because these building projects have cost SO many billions of dollars, which could have been used to improve conditions in other parts of the country.)
*** This is a new literary device I’ve invented called “zero simile”. It’s easy to master: just describe something performing an action, and say that it performs the action “like xxxxx”, where “xxxx” is the thing itself. (Example; “The Desert Sun, which had been punishing us so mercilessly since early morning, finally disappeared in the West like a fierce red celestial orb dipping below the horizon of a vast sandy plain”.) I think this is definitely gonna catch on … don’t you?
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