About the Author
I am social development consultant from the US working in the education industry in Astana, Kazakhstan. I like to keep myself as anonymous as possible so that I am free to say both good and bad things about my life here and about the news, without hurting anyone's feelings. Everything here should be understood as my opinion or in some cases, my reporting on other people's opinions. I am not interested in badmouthing the nation, individual people, or institutions just for the sake of badmouthing, and I do not serve any special interest or political group.
I hope this blog does several things including providing some insider insight into current issues and news items including what the rumors on the street are. I also like to provide some information that may not be up on the Internet and thus not accessible to the world outside of this nation. You can also find entries on life here as an expat. Very few blogs focus on Central Asia, especially in English and even fewer focus on Kazakhstan, so I hope to fill that gap. You can check the Blogroll for other blogs by expats, by Kazakhstani, by experts and lay-people alike. I try to keep my blogroll comprehensive--so if it's about Kazakhstan I'll put it on there.
I highly recomend:
as the most authoritative and entertaining. I try to put anyone on the blogroll who deals with this region, so let me know and I'll add you too.
If you're looking for info about life here, check out the Life in KZ category. If you're looking for Culture, you can check out the Culture category.
By popular demand, personal details in the form of common questions asked by me here
- How old are you? 32 (from the 76th year)
- How long have you been here? More than 4 years now.
- Where have you been in Kazakhstan? Far too few places. Mostly I've been in Almaty and Astana except for a side trip to Taldykorgan and the Altyn Ameil National Park. We also hit Uzbekistan--Samarqand, Bukhara, and Tashkent--a few years ago. I would love to see more of this region, just as soon as I get a job with lots of travel.
- So do you find Astana cold in the winter? No, it's really warm. I love -30 weather. Where I come from it never got above -40, so I just sweat the winters away outside naked...of course it's frigging cold here!
- What part of America are you from? The Northeast, so I am actually used to snow and cold and strong winds and spending winters bundled up.
- Are you married? Yes
- Is your wife American? No, she's Kazakh.
- What? Really she's Kazakh, I'm an American qyubala
- Ha, ha, ha, Molodets! Thank you!
- Do you like Kazakhstan? I really do. I probably wouldn't be here still if it wasn't for my wife, and I do want to move to Almaty if at all possible. I do wish I could travel more around the nation. But it's a nice place. It's perfectly comfortable, even if I complain in these pages from time to time. The people are kind, the food is good, the culture is fascinating, the language is beautiful and I feel that my work makes a difference. Most of the time.
To clear up any misconceptions--this isn't me, this was a waiter at a local cafe
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