The last hurdle…

It was going to be my last day in Kazakhstan. I got into Astana by train in the morning, successfully picked up my passport from the office of the yogurt company DANONE (arranged through a new Kazakh friend!), visited the president’s mansion museum (where I particularly liked the Saudi’s gift of a 24k gold machine gun on display), met some locals through CouchSurfing, and went on a tour of Astana’s new capitol promenade (which is still under construction but aims to match the Washington Mall).

What I didn’t realize when I confirmed all of the details over the phone with my aunt and got into the train bound for Ekaterinburg was that my Kazakhstan visa was going to expire at midnight, and the train was not going to reach the Russian border until another 11 hours later.

This is the story of how I was removed from the train at the border checkpoint of Kairak by Kazakh border guards, arrested and charged with illegal trespass, handed over to the custody of immigration police, and the court case that followed…

Platzkart (Sardine Class)

For no particular reason, I got tickets in Platzkart (sardine class). This train runs a many day Almaty to Saint-Petersburg

Farewell Tristan, Farewell Astrid … and then there was one ;(

Last Friday Tristan and I sold Astrid to Asylbek in Bishkek (on the condition that he send us pictures of her during all Kyrgyz national holidays) and took a Marshrutka (route taxi) to Almaty. Arriving in the middle of the night, we spent our final hours together in massage chairs at the airport napping. Then Tristan got aboard a big British (BMI) bird and flew away. Thus, in one day, I lost two companions.

“This a border zone and given that you don’t have any papers, you are in violation of code [such and such]. You are now placed under detention.”

James

I met James just a few days before. We chatted on an organized tour to the Charyn Canyon. He’s in Kazakhstan on a Fulbright, investigating the construction of the national identity on foreign relations. It’s an interesting subject. There is a lot of national identity construction going on everywhere in the post-Soviet block, in countries that have never been countries — in nations that never really really thought of themselves in that way.

A few days later we met for coffee and hung out the rest of the day, agreeing to meet on Wednesday for a hike in the mountains south of Almaty up to the Big Almatynskoe Ozero, visit the Tien Shan Observatory, the Kosmostantsija (11,500 ft altitude), and descend into the Alma-Arasan valley. We knew it was a long haul with over 3000 ft of ascent (then descent) and a total distance approaching 20 miles, and so we packed our bags and set out early.

Bolshoe Almatynskoe Ozero

From the nearest bus station, we hitched a ride with a passing car. We offered 200 Tenge (1.33$) and while he accepted, the driver called us “as cheap as the cats from Shimkent.” He worked as a guard in a villa belonging to…