Recap Part I: Crime and Punishment
Sorry about my lack of blogging... I've been busy... but that means I have a lot to talk about. This is only part I of 3 blog entries that will explain what I have been up to. Stay tuned for Tales of a Falcon Prison, and Drunk Driving (Offroading) Across the Snow Covered Kazakh Steppe.
Part I. Crime and Punishment
"Only in societies such as that of Russia and Kazakhstan could a novel such as Crime and Punishment been written" ~ Nazigul, my Russian teacher.
Let me put this simply. I have reached my limit with the land ladies of this country and I now fully understand why Raskolnikov felt compelled to drive an axe through his land lady's head.
So I guess this story starts when I arrive in Kazakhstan. I was desparate to find an apartment so I pretty much took the first one I found. The land lady was this 52 year old lady named Rosa. At first, she was really nice to me... she called me often and was like KORBY (Kazakh cannot pronounce my name correctly) HOW IS YOUR RUSSIAN? I BRING YOU SOME APPLES! CAN YOU HELP FIND ME JOB? She was practically an angel.
The troubles began when she started coming over more and more often. She would sit and have tea and talk forever about how horrible Kazakhstan is and how dependent she is on my rent money. In other words, she is overcharging me and treating me like I'm a cash cow.
The thing with land ladies here is that they have no respect for the fact that once you rent an apartment, it is in fact your apartment and not hers. One time, she brought her 3 year old daughter (she had the baby at 49??). Gulya, the 3 year old, is cute and well behaved. However, after about 40 minutes of talking to me about how her mom is plagued with some kind of disease, Gulya tells her mom she needs to potty. Fully expecting them to go to the bathroom, I was very surprised when Rosa pulls out a plastic tupperwear bowl from her backpack. At this point, I realize that my bedroom/living room has become the potty and I excuse myself to the kitchen out of embarassment. Ok, its really not that serious. The weird part comes when Rosa takes the bowl of pee pee and goes into the bathroom. I thought she would dump it in the toilet seeing as how that is the logical place to dump pee pee. Instead, Rosa dumps it in my bathroom sink where it splashes on my TOOTHBRUSH.
I am starting to feel very uncomfortable with this land lady. Anyway, that wasn't really a big deal... just an example of how this lady is a little bit off her rocker. The real conflict starts when I decided I was feeling a little lonely living in a one bedroom apartment without roommates and thought it would be better for my Russian if I started living with roommates. So I start my apartment hunt and find one. I tell the land lady about 12 days in advance that I am moving out of the apartment. Keep in mind, that we have absolutely no contract... that I never promised her how long I would live in the apartment.
On day 12, I have swept, vaccuumed and polished everything in the apartment. Rosa is supposed to come to collect they key and return the security deposit. When she arrives, she makes no mention of the security deposit. Instead she goes straight to the mirrors and goes "KORBY, I AM SO DISAPPOINTED!! YOU HAVE RUINED THE MIRRORS!! WHAT ARE THESE BAD MARKS!?" in a very high pitched heavily accented English. I was really confused what she meant by bad marks. Turns out, that the bad marks she was talking about were the minor streak marks left by the Windex I used to clean the mirrors. She then proceeds to tell me that OMG Windex is for WINDOWS YOU CANT USE THEM FOR MIRRORS!! She is hysterical at this point and calls her sister... but then her sister assures her that it is ok to use Windex on mirrors too. At this point, she makes me polish the mirrors with a cloth for 30 minutes. I tell her that if we spray a little windex on the window again and make sure to dry it well it would be faster, but she was freaking out about the mirrors and was huffing on them to polish them.
Ok, whatever. She is crazy about the most minor issues for apartment maintenance but I can deal... I just want my deposit back. After we finish polishing the mirrors, we sit down and I fully expect her to refund all 500 dollars of my security deposit. Instead, she tells me that since I didn't tell her a full month in advance and that I lied to her about staying a long time in the apartment, she is going to take all of my money. I was like are you kidding?? I have a written agreement from you that says that this deposit was for a security deposit and key deposit. We have no contract that establishes that I need to be here for my entire time in Almaty. We have no contract that establishes I need to tell you 30 days in advance that I want to move to a different apartment.
Then she pulls this bullshit like "KORBY, I AM SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU. AT FIRST I LIKE YOU AND I THOUGHT I COULD SEE KINDNESS IN YOUR FACE! BUT NOW YOU ARE EVIL AND SO BAD TO ME!!!"
Sometimes emoticons are the only way to express something. Here is mine
>_< !!
I tell her that we have no contract and that I never said I would never move out of the apartment, just that I will be here in Almaty until June of 2010. I also told her that since we have no contract except for a written agreement from her saying that she would return my deposit upon returning the apartment in a satisfactory condition, she should return my money. She then starts wailing about her mother. This is the best part. She says:
"IT IS ABSOLUTELY INHUMAN FOR YOU NOT TO TELL ME 30 DAYS BEFORE YOU WANT TO LEAVE!"
My response: "OH PLEASE DONT BE RIDICULOUS!!"
I then tell her that if she thinks I have broken some kind of agreement, we can settle this in a civil court and since I have a written agreement that she will return the deposit, I would undoubtedly win. Then she starts crying. Fat balls of salty tears are rolling off her face as she screams that she wants me to call James. James is this other American that she has met. So I call Jimmy and explain the situation to him. And then she starts talking to Jimmy and was like OMG KORBY IS SO EVIL! "IF I KNEW HE WAS GOING TO TALK ABOUT COURT, I WOULD NOT EVEN RENT TO HIM THIS APARTMENT FOR ONE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!" The extra exclamation points are absolutely necessary.
Another thing to note. Jimmy betrays me. Instead of telling her that she has no right to keep 500 USD of my money, he tells her that she should split the money with me. Jimmy, if you are reading this, I want to remind you that we had NO agreement ORAL OR WRITTEN that I had to give her 30 days notice.
Rosa then tries to get me to accept only 50 dollars back because she says she is going to pretend like I paid her 1 additional month of rent. I don't know how her accounting works. At this point, I have no more patience for this shit and I was like fucking keep the money I am out of here. I throw the key on the ground and storm out of the apartment.
End of Part I.
Part II of Land Lady Nightmares.
In Kazakhstan, it is very difficult to find apartments without real estate agents. It is also very difficult to rent apartments if you don't have a wife and are starting a family. So... while I am apartment hunting, I meet this trio of old ladies. Let me say that if you are ever going to live in Russia or the CIS, never rent an apartment from people over the age of 55. These ladies, like Rosa, started out like angels, telling me how fortunate they were to find a nice orderly Chinese person to rent their apartment. I'm like whatever and pretend I don't speak Russian just because I want to keep the chit chat to a minimum.
The day we go and sign the contract at the real estate agent's however, they start insisting that I need a wife in order to rent the apartment. The real estate agents were like OH YEAH KORBY HAS A WIFE. And then they wink at me. At this point, I am tired of dealing with land ladies and searching for apartments so I basically agree and tell them yes I do indeed have a wife. Her name is Jennifer, and she works for the American Chamber of Commerce. No she is not American, but in fact British. You might wonder if Jennifer is based in fact or fiction. Actually both -- I basically amalgamated all the expat chicks I know in Kazakhstan and turned them into one typical expat wife.
The land ladies are like ooohhh how wonderful blah blah blah. Fast forward 3 weeks later. I have now found some roommates who are living with me. However, I was really stupid and forgot to tell them never to pick up the phone. Turns out... this land lady also loves to call me all the time and she calls when I am at work and gets Askhat and Katya on the phone. She finds out that I am in fact unmarried and then I had found roommates to live with.
She comes to the apartment and another battle with a land lady begins. "OHHH YOU ARE SUCH A TRICKSTER," they tell me. You lied!! Meanwhile, she fails to notice that the apartment is in perfect condition and that it makes no difference if I am living with roommates or not.
After 40 minutes, she calms down. Little did I know, it was because she herself was preparing her own tricks. Around 3 to 4 days before it was time to pay the second month's rent, the land lady starts calling the apartment everyday around 4 pm and asking Katya where I am. Katya tells her that I am at work and that I am ALWAYS at work at 4pm... like normal people.
I guess I should have known the repeated calls were a bad sign. On the day I am supposed to pay the 2nd month's rent, at 6:30 in the morning to be precise, I hear our lock jingling. So I get up and open the door thinking my roommate had gotten locked out. Having just climbed out of bed, I am in my underwear with no shirt on. Turns out, its the land lady and she has brought company -- her, her younger sister, and her 80 year old mother. For some reason, the land lady believes I have subletted out the apartment and they wanted to see if I actually lived there. Well, they sure saw more than an eyeful (morning wood?) and right when I open the door they start giggling like school girls. At this point, I feel like punching them in the face so I tell them to come back later and slam the door.
8:00 at night that day. The land ladies come again as a full army. Again, she starts with the tirade about how I am a trickster and all of them start talking high pitched rapid fire Russian. Oh, he is the Chinese trickster they say thinking I don't understand Russian. Meanwhile, they keep talking rapid fire to Katya telling her to trick me and not tell me what they were saying. Turns out the old hags decided to jack up the price because of my bachelor status. When I point out that the price is established in the contract, they start going OOOOHH YOU TRICKED US again!!! Whatever... so finally I can't take this crap anymore... I just don't have that much tolerance for this so I just try to pay them off to make them go away. I pay them a sum of 150,000 Tenge, which is about 994.00$, which is my rent and I agree to pay my utilities separately even though originally the rent was supposed to include the utilities (100$).
Finally they leave. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Thank god they are gone!
1 hour later, the phone rings again. "Ohhhh!! You have tricked us again!" Apparently, I actually owe them 151,000 Tenge and not just 150,000 Tenge. In other words, I owed them a sum of a little more than 6 dollars. I was trying to "trick" them by only giving them 994.00 dollars.
Greedy old bitches. I hope you rot in a Dostoevskyan inferno.
Here ends the land lady scenarios of the past month. Stay tuned for Tales of a Falcon Prison, and Drunk Driving (Offroading) Across the Snow Covered Kazakh Steppe.
Satisfaction
Sometimes I go into things expecting the worst. My experience with Beshbarmak confirmed my worst misgivings about the status of the Kazakh culinary arts. Othertimes, however, I am very pleasantly surprised.
Today, I had to get my haircut. For those of you who have lived in a country where you speak the language poorly, getting a haircut is one of the most annoying but necessary things you have to do. I lack the vocabulary to describe what I want my hair to look like even in English, not to mention Russian or Chinese. I felt surely that I would end up with something hideous, especially given the fact that I have seen a few questionable styles here.
As you can see, various versions of the mullet are popular here. And yes, it is indeed Kazakh Fashion Week this week. It's obvious isn't it?
I'll have you know, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of my haircut. Truly not bad!
I also often get questions about what I eat here. As noted earlier, I am not exactly sure what Kazakh food is... the only thing I would say is definitely Kazakh is Beshbarmak, which I am definitely not a fan of. It tastes like leather sauteed with onions and dumped on soft noodles. The noodles are quite nice actually and the horse meat broth that comes with it is not bad either. The meat itself is tasteless and tough.
Most of the time I just cook for myself or eat doner kebabs. When I am feeling creative, I make various vegetable curries like this one:
This is really pretty delicious. I made it by first buying some fresh mushrooms from Zeleniy Bazaar (Green Bazaar). These mushrooms are huge and cheap... only 1 USD for a whole kilo of mushrooms. I prepare the base by putting tomatoes, dill, garlic, and ginger in a blender. The blender is the single most genious thing you can bring with you abroad for it makes everything in your life so much better and easier. You cannot imagine how nice it is to have a real milkshake in Kazakhstan.
The Magic Bullet (blender company) is the shit. It really is an amazing blender. I highly recommend going to Target and getting yourself one. After I blend the incredients together, I fry the tomato dill paste mixture with onions and the mushrooms. Sometimes I have issues with the stove because its one of those old fashioned ones where you have to turn on gas and then use a manual lighter.
Well, after I get the fire going, I fry all the crap together and add curry powder, soy sauce, and lemon juice to taste. Pretty damn good if you ask me.
In Kazakhstan, most foods lack flavor. Hence, I rely on what I call the Holy Trinity of Flavor in Kazakhstan. These items are soy sauce, ketchup, and adjika. Adjika is basically a sweet red pepper paste.
I basically use these three sauces on everything. For those of you who know me well, I am very very lazy. When I don't want to cook or mess with the manual stove, I just heat up some instant oatmeal and dumb this crap all over it. I have made many a meal eating oatmeal, raw eggs, and a bunch of processed sauce on top. Some may consider this disgusting, but I swear its not even that bad. When I am too lazy to even operate the microwave, I pull a smeagol. And by smeagol, I mean I eat these raw fishies preserved in oil that taste really really fishy. Russians tend to eat this stuff with potatoes when drinking vodka. I prefer eating it with a huge scoop of adjika to kill the flavor!
It looks scary because it is.
And I would like to close this post with an even scarier picture. 
Jimmy Jimmy HACHA!
1 month later
The Great Nation of the Republic of Kazakhstan is not at all like Borat but sometimes you have to wonder if Sascha Cohen could have made a funnier film if his wildly popular comedy were instead a documentary. Ask anyone on the street here how they feel about Borat and they will reply with a mixture of embarassment, indignation and more than a pinch of nationalism that the film is an absolute misrepresentation of their country. There are not only multiple facebook groups protesting Cohen's ridicule, but virulently nationalistic comments on news sites covering his film. Despite the gross inaccuracy of Cohen's film, I have nonetheless had my fair share of comedic experiences.
This past week, my friend Dave visited me en route from his return from China to Australia. Having lived in Shanghai for the past two years, Dave commented that he was a little bored of Almaty already because of its "lack of stimulation." Compared to China's largest and most cosmopolitan city, Almaty does seem a little quiet. By day three of his visit here, Dave had already exhausted all of the major tourist destinations in Almaty. Last Saturday, we tried to catch an Aussie football match at Almaty's most famous expat bar -- Murphy's. On every door of the Irish themed establishment was posted an ad -- "You don't want to miss our trip this Sunday!" On a whim, Dave and I decided to buy tickets for this outing to Kapchagay Lake about 2 hours outside of Almaty.
The Sunday morning of the planned excursion, we arrive at Murphy's only to find that there was not a single expat who had signed up for this outing to Kapchagay Lake. Of the 14 people on our trip, all but 4 were middle-aged women. The waitress at the bar, Zarina, offered us some really good tea and we gladly accepted. I almost spat out the tea in surprise when the group of women who were sitting next to us immediately pulled out a half empty bottle of Hennesy X.O. and dumped in their respective tea cups. After downing their tea in a matter of seconds, one of the ladies -- who I shall call Lyudmila for the purposes of the blog -- washed down her cognac and tea mixture with a healthy swig of vodka from her hip flask. The ladies then proceeded to pull out their respective Kazakh sized shot glasses (BIG SHOT GLASSES) and fill them with cognac. Without so much as a grimace, these ladies pounded back another shot of cognac.
This incredible sport of rapidly getting wasted continued for another hour until Dave, the ladies and I boarded the bus. Despite being at least a decade old, the bus was decked out in blankets and cushions which made our ride very comfortable. Although they had downed probably 5 or 6 Kazakh sized shots of hard alcohol thus far, the women seemed entirely sober. That was when the reality hit me -- Yes, I am in Kazakhstan and yes, I will be here for another year. Actually more than a year, but I try not to think about it like that.
- Lyudmila and a friend
The 2 hour bus ride helped break the ice. We all went through our respective introductions and I was pleasantly surprised to find that these ladies had an amazing command of English. I had only sat down for 10 minutes before Lyudmila invited me and Dave to down a shot of cognac with her. I decided against hard liquor at 10:45 in the morning, but Dave being an Aussie of Irish heritage couldn't resist. One of the Murphy's managers then opened a gigantic chest full of beer and offered Dave and I a Russian brew. Although I really did not want to drink, I reluctantly agreed to nurse a Derbes while Dave chose a Beliy Medved'.
If you did not know where Kapchagay Lake was, you would never be able to find it. Kapchagay Lake is in the middle of what seemed like an abandoned and dessicated industrial wasteland. For miles around the Lake resort complex, all you can see are dried weeds, dirt, and abandoned half finished buildings. Dave and I joked that we felt like we were being kidnapped. The lake itself, which is artificial, is absolutely gorgeous... some kind of oasis surrounded by gaudy condos in the middle of nowhere.
Immediately after arriving at the lake, the ladies enlisted our help to haul the massive chest of beers to the gazebo overlooking the lake where we had decided to set up camp. I kid you not, but the chest probably easily contained 200 beers for 14 people... Thats a lot of alcohol not even taking into account the "Roberto Cavalli" handles of vodka and the 8 bottles of brandy that we bought. Predictably, the ladies seemed unphased.
Despite warnings from the ladies that the water would be too cold to swim in, Dave and I found the water brisk and refreshing. After swimming around a bit, we were called over to have lunch. The lunch was a ensemble of pickles, ripe tomatoes, boiled eggs, sliced onions, boiled potatoes and herbs like fresh dill, parsley and cilantro. Feeling a little more confident with some food in my stomach, I finally agreed to a few shots of brandy with Lyudmila.
- Our beautiful lunch was obscured by the numerous bottles of beer and brandy
After lunch, we enjoyed some time taking pictures by the lake. I think our group was a bit jealous that Dave and I swam in the lake so they asked us for "swimming lessons." I am not sure what they were up to so I politely declined their requests. Dave is always up for anything, and as a trained lifeguard, I don't think he could refuse their requests... All I can say is the whole swimming lesson interaction was more than a little flirtatious.
After the swimming lessons, we all sort of hang around the shore for a bit longer. Lyudmila continues to share generously her bottle of brandy with Dave. Dave by this point is out of his mind drunk and starts acting very strangely... Soon, the leader of our trip tells us that we need to go sailing. We were all in a drunken haze at this point and wobbled toward the sail boat. We were welcomed aboard by a man who Dave affectionately nicknamed "Ol'mate" -- an Aussie term for a cool older dude.
- The Crew
According to the Kazakhs, the movie Titanic is a huge part of American culture. As a result, we all did our own impression of the movie. This helped set the romantic mood for the rest of our sailboat trip.
- I'm the ... Queen of the World!
All this Titanic talk gave the ladies the idea of playing a kissing game. Ol'Mate, the captain of our ship, was an eager participant in our grown up version of spin the bottle. Before its his turn to kiss the girls, he decides to pretty himself up and pulls out a comb to do his hair! When he kisses Maria, I think she is visibly wincing.
Needless to say, there was a lot of debauchery on the boat and I don't think I need to go into detail about what happened. What happens on Kapchagay Lake, stays on Kapchagay Lake. When we returned back to shore, we were drunker than ever since the ladies did not forget to bring lots of beer and brandy on board. However, it was about time to go as the sun had set. Dave and I, as the token foreigners, were asked to play a game with them. They tied on our limbs elastic nylon straps and asked us to take them off in a sexy manner. It was a strip tease dance off... Dave being the much more outgoing of the two us obviously won the strip tease competition. At the end, the ladies kept shouting "SHOW US! POKAZHI! SHOW US!" Soon afterwards, Dave lost his swimtrunks.
SHOW US SHOW US
On the way home, I asked if it was normal to have strip teases on these trips. They replied almost in unison, "Of Course! Why do you think we have handle bars in the bus?" And thus commenced the sexy dancing all the way back to the wonderful city of Almaty Kazakhstan.
I am looking very Kazakh