Category Archives: Kazakhstan

Lake Burabay to Almaty 27 to 31 August 2012

Posted on 3 September, 2012 by threewheeling | 7 comments

We’d been beginning to feel left out….we’d heard so many stories of other travellers having to pay ‘fines’ or ‘supplements’ to ensure their paperwork was correct and yet there we were travelling along relatively smoothly and beginning to wonder if it was all an exaggeration of some outdated stereotype.

But we can now report that we have officially been fleeced by the migration police. You may recall from the last blog entry the difficulty we’d had in getting our visa registered in Petropavlovsk, where they initially refused to register us and said we’d have to pedal a further 200km to Kokshetau, and how grateful we were when they agreed to grant us a 10 day registration that would see us through to Astana or perhaps even Almaty.

Imagine our surprise then, when we went to register in Astana and the official, who spoke perfect English, told us that registration was FREE, that we should not have paid any money to the police in Petropavlovsk, and that they should have automatically registered us for the full 30 days of our visa and not the 10 days they graciously allowed us. So, at least we now have a genuine travellers’ tale to tell and can report that corruption is indeed alive and well in the rank and file of Kazakhstan officialdom, and we can no longer complain of being cheated of the complete Central Asia experience.

After posting our last blog entry (through cunning and sneaky methods to get round the block on WordPress that seems to be in place here) we realised that we’d have to make haste to Astana as although our registration lasted until 31 August, there was a bank holiday on the 30th and the registration office was likely to be shut on 30th AND 31st. So we decided to take the shortest route, along the boring, but beautifully smooth-surfaced main road. And luck was on our side with a strong tailwind. We sailed along at 30+kph and got to Astana early on 29th August. Our first stop was at the train station to see if we could get a train to Almaty that evening, but they were fully booked so we booked ourselves on the 10am train on the 30th, to arrive in Almaty at 6am on the 31st. So that meant we’d a) need accommodation that evening in Astana, and b) definitely need to register our visas in Astana and not wait until Almaty.

Astana!

The guest rooms at the train station were expensive and could not accommodate the Pino, so we approached one of the several people outside the station who were advertising rooms. The lady we approached was one who had previously handed us her card when we’d been locking the bike before buying the tickets and had seemed friendly enough albeit perhaps a little eccentric.

Oh deary, dear though. We really must get better at judging people. Alma turned out to be as mad as a box of frogs! At first we put the confusing communication down to the fact that our Russian is really not very good, but after a while it dawned on us that our landlady was excessively garrulous and incoherent even to other Kazakhs, but by that time we felt we’d wasted so much time with her we needed to stick with the decision to just get the room sorted so we could go and get registered, which we absolutely HAD to do that day as it would be too late by the time we got to Almaty.

NOT our apartment block in case you were wondering.

So, after much confusion and debate about where the bike would be stored (eventually in our 5th-floor apartment and not in the outdoor public car-park that Alma initially had sold to us as a secure police-guarded park) and many spurious side-trackings on topics that we did not understand and, indeed, suspected had scant relevance to the business in hand, we agreed to take the apartment and asked Alma for the address which we would need to give to the migration police. Matters got even more frustrating at that point when Alma insisted she would need to come and register us as our landlady. We suspected this was not the case, but our knowledge of the intricacies of Kazakh visa registration were insufficient to be positive on this point, and in any case it would have taken more than our feeble protests to deter Alma from her mission to be as helpful as possible to us. So, instead of hopping on the Pino to nip into town we had to take a taxi with Alma to her apartment to pick up her passport and paperwork (and also to allow her to change her top and hat to another combination as mismatched and odd as her original attire) from there we proceeded to the migration police where Alma, after dawdling and digressing all morning, suddenly became a whirlwind of anxiety and barged through the crowds to pick up the forms she insisted she needed to fill in for us. Six attempts later we were surrounded by torn up paper, Alma was muttering and mumbling and seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Keith and I were wondering how on earth we could take the situation back into our own control. Finally, forms completed to Alma’s satisfaction, she whirled off through to another room to hand everything over to the officials. A few minutes later she returned in high dudgeon, ranting something about us having tourist visas, and then disappeared again back to the officals whilst we stood dumbly waiting. Eventually she called us through to speak to the official, who spoke perfect English and enquired how we knew Alma who was making no sense at all. We explained we had just met her and were renting an apartment from her for our stay in Astana. The official took our passports and told us to return in 15 minutes. Alma threw a complete hissy-fit at this and stormed off to get herself something to eat and drink, trying also to drag us along with her. We refused to go and instead waited for our passports, which were returned to us as promised along with a printed out form completed with all our information, which we simply had to sign and that was it, job done. We went to pay the official and at that point discovered we’d been fleeced in Petropavlovsk.

Norman Foster designed Khan Shatyr

In a blissfully Alma-free state and with all our paperwork complete, we were tempted to make our own way back to the apartment then and there, but decided we’d better wait to see if Alma re-appeared as we weren’t entirely sure if she’d understood we needed her to check us out of the apartment at 8.30 the following morning. She returned within a few minutes and we got another taxi back to the apartment where we tried to arrange for the morning’s key return then get rid of her as quickly as possible so we could go sight-seeing in what little remained of the day. No such luck. We first of all had a big argument about passports – she wanted to hold on to ours as security until we returned the key and we were under no circumstances prepared to relinquish them to her insane care – matters were eventually resolved when we wrote down our names and passport numbers and a mobile phone number (my UK PAYG one that doesn’t work here). She then tried to convince us that we must go to the train station together as she was sure we needed a separate ticket for our baggage and Keith had to be very firm in telling her that if there was a problem it was our problem. She then insisted on coming up to show us the workings of the flat (windows open and close, taps turn on and off, TV has a remote control…..nothing unusual or idiosyncratic in any of these items), and then, despite our increasingly impatient responses to her babbling, tried to drag us to the nearest shop so she could help us buy food. Despite our insistence that we’d been managing to buy food for ourselves in strange countries perfectly well for the last four months it was incomprehensible to her that we might be able to manage to do it by ourselves. We had by this time been in her mad and maddening company* for about 5 hours and despite our continued pleas that we wanted to go sight-seeing and thank you but we were quite sure we’d be able to manage on our own, in the end Keith had to be rude to her to by opening the door, cutting her off mid-sentence and saying firmly “Goodbye” in Russian. Eventually she left but it took us both quite a long time to feel calm again.

View from Khan Shatyr of the HQ of state energy company KazMunayGaz

Anyhow, craziness over and done with, there was still sufficient light in the day to go and see the sights of Astana. And what sights they were!

Bayterek Monument

Gleaming bronze, gold and green skyscrapers glittered and shimmered in the evening sun. The imposing block-shapes of fortress-like, Soviet-inspired buildings sat in sharp contrast with the futuristic curves of the Norman Foster designed shopping centre. Skyscrapers leaned quirkily like books on a shelf. Golden minarets nestled in a strange harmony amongst the mish-mash of classic colonnades, sleekly curved glass expanses and pagoda-style roofs. The city is barely twenty years old, and the newness lends it an energy, a feeling that anything is possible, and this energy and the diverse cultural heritage of its inhabitants are reflected in the extraordinary mix of architectural influences exhibited by its buildings.

The next morning we were dreading meeting Alma, but she seemed to have calmed down a bit and apparently bore no grudge against our rudeness the night before (if indeed she’d even registered it as such). We escaped her presence with relative ease and made our way to the train station to start the now familiar process of working out which platform we’d be on and how best to get the bike to it. As in Yekaterinburg there was no fixed platform, but luckily Astana only has three platforms, and platform one was occupied by a stationary train, and platform two and three were actually just different sides of the same platform, so we found the crossing point and wheeled across to await the train there (having already removed the chain linking the front and rear cranks, the front seat handles, both sets of pedals, and reversed one of the front cranks). It was still a mad scramble to complete the separation and wrap everything up when the train arrived and we could see where our carriage was, and once again we were reliant on the kindness of our fellow-passengers to accommodate all our belongings, but we’re getting the hang of it now and because we know what to expect the process doesn’t feel quite as stressful.

The journey itself was fairly uneventful, aside that is from my clumsiness whilst trying to clamber into the confines of the top bunk (we’d been allocated two top bunks). I was poised half-way up trying to work out how best to complete the manoeuvre in the absence of any grab rails that might assist one as vertiginously challenged as myself, when either the train swayed or my lack of co-ordination and balance overwhelmed me – the truth will never be known and isn’t really important as the outcome remained the same. One minute I was lightly remarking to Keith that it wasn’t as easy as it looked and contemplating my next move, and the next I was slipping through the air, thrashing madly and searching in vain for a foot-hold to step down to. Luckily the girl sitting in the adjacent seat kindly broke my fall a little (I hope her head is not too bruised) and I was uninjured but mortally embarrassed when my ass hit the floor. For subsequent ascents I misused the table as a step and ascended securely using adjacent bunks as hand supports rather than trying to clamber up the short end of the bunk using the step provided. Of course, instead of politely pretending it hadn’t happened, all the other passengers had to rush up the train to make sure I was all right, pat me on the head, and thus complete my mortification. Oh joy! Really, cycling is so much safer than setting foot on any form of public transport.

Crossing the steppe en route from Astana to Almaty

We are now staying in Almaty with Tas, an all-action, mountain-biking, adventure-racing airline pilot who is insisting that Keith enters a mountain bike race later this week (not on the Pino!) and threatening to take us mountaineering. I am drawn by the beautiful snowy peaks surrounding Almaty…..but can’t help but wonder if it mightn’t be safer for me to stay indoors with a good book.

*(the ‘mad and maddening’ phrase has been lifted directly from Keith’s diary – it just sums up Alma perfectly but I can’t take credit for it myself)

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Posted in Kazakhstan, Tandem Bike Touring

Tagged Kazakh visa registration, tandem on train

Omsk to Lake Burabay 18 – 26 August 2012

Posted on 27 August, 2012 by threewheeling | 14 comments

Da Svedanya Russia! After seven wonderful weeks it was time to say goodbye to Russia. We left Tanya’s house laden with fruit and veg from her garden, and our trailer was so packed with tins of meat and condensed milk we could hardly close it. Although we were vaguely familiar with condensed milk in the UK, it was never a product we used at home. Russia, however, has totally changed our attitude to this little tin of sticky, sweet, milky joy. Spread on bread, dunked with biscuits or slices of apple, drizzled onto cake, stirred into coffee or tea, or licked greedily from a spoon; it’s the ultimate panacea to a long day on the bike. Initially introduced to it by Ilya, our couchsurfing host in Perm, we at first vetoed it as a pannier addition as we didn’t think we could use a whole tin in one sitting and the messy transportation of a half-eaten open tin didn’t bear consideration….but happily we’ve found we can gobble a whole tin quite easily for our dessert of an evening so it’s now a trailer staple.

From this….

Another Russian favourite introduced to us by Marina is knotted cheese. Smoked and salted it comes packaged in a tidy knot, which you unravel into strings and eat accompanied by cold beer. Mmm, we’re going to miss it!

Keith was particularly sad about leaving Russia as he’s worked really hard at the language, expanding his vocabulary every day, and has enjoyed being able to hold something approximating a short conversation with people we meet (provided they want to hear about our journey, don’t speak too quickly, and phrase their questions in ways we’re familiar with). Thankfully though, we’ve found that although Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan, Russian is still widely spoken so Keith can continue his linguistic adventure.

….to this.

Entering Kazakhstan

Keith’s language skills came in handy at the border. Our research on visa registration in Kazakhstan suggested that at some border points they will register your visa automatically so you don’t need to worry about doing it whilst in the country, but at other crossings they don’t and you then have just five calendar days in which to register – usually in Astana or Almaty. Our crossing point was one which doesn’t register you, so Keith asked the border guard where we could go, as to get to Astana in five days was going to be tough going. We were told we could register in Petropavlovsk, 150km west of the border crossing, so off we went. Two windy days later we rolled into Petropavlovsk and started asking policemen where the visa registration office was. We ended up outside an official looking building and saw two uniformed men coming across the street towards the building, so we waylaid them and asked if we were at the right place. They confirmed that they were migration police (written on their shiny badges) and asked to see our passports. We were feeling quite pleased as we’d only been in Petropavlovsk for about 20 minutes and I’d had visions of it taking hours simply to find the right building, but our good mood was soon spoiled when they announced that we couldn’t register in Petropavlovsk after all and would have to go to Kokshetau, 200km (two days ride) to the south. They helpfully pointed us to the road out of town and watched us pedal off glumly.

Out of sight we stopped for a re-think, and decided to find a supermarket, have some lunch, and then try again (hoping not to meet the two we spoke to earlier). We lunched on a bench near the migration police building and noticed there was a side door that a lot of people were going in and out of, so Keith tried there. Inside was a dark corridor full of numbered doors and a queue of people outside one of the doors at the far end. At first there were no officials in sight, but in due course a uniformed man appeared and sat at a desk part way along the corridor. Keith explained our situation, but the man couldn’t help, and eventually a more senior man appeared, talked to the first guy for a bit, and then told Keith to wait whilst he went off upstairs. The first guy started asking about the bike, so Keith brought him outside to where I was waiting with the Pino so that he could admire it. Another policeman was coming into the building at that point and also stopped to look at the bike. He spoke a little English (about the same as Keith’s Russian) so Keith asked him if we could register our visas. “Yes, no problem” he said. So we locked the bike and followed him indoors. He took us to a counter with a window and his colleague inside took our passports and migration cards, and after some scrutiny told us we couldn’t register after all, and would have to go to Astana (nearly 500km away!) or maybe Kokshetau. As the guy who spoke English had seemed friendly we prevailed upon him to explain to us why this was as we had already spent two days detouring to Petropavlovsk and to now travel somewhere else was going to make it very tight to register in the five days allowed. He ended up phoning a friend of his who spoke English and Keith then spent several minutes explaining why we didn’t have an address in Petropavlovsk, (we were planning on leaving as soon as we’d sorted out registration and would then be camping on our way to Astana) and just how difficult it would be for us to get to Astana in three days. Eventually they decided they could register us for five days in Petropavlovsk, thus giving us a little extra time to get to Astana. This was looking a bit better for us, but was still not ideal as we’d wanted to detour to the picturesque Lake Burabay on our way to Astana. And then after a little more probing, they asked if it would be helpful to us is they registered us for ten days. Excellent! We said thank you very much, paid 500 Tenge (about two quid) to a lady in one of the rooms along the corridor to fill out the correct forms for us, and another 10,000 Tenge (£45ish) back at the first counter for our actual visa registration. We’ll need to register again before the ten days are up, but should easily be in Astana or Almaty by then, where we hopefully won’t get sent on wild goose-chases to other cities. Whilst waiting for all the form-filling to occur, the official who’d been friendly had waited with us and we’d asked him as best we could about whether people prefer to speak Russian or Kazakh, and before we left Keith asked him to write down a few Kazakh phrases for us. But to be honest, we’re hoping we’ll keep on meeting Russian speakers.

Registration complete we headed south out of Petropavlovsk and within a couple of kilometres saw some traffic police in their roadside kiosk. Last year in Russia, the DPS (traffic cops) stopped us three times in the three weeks we were there. This year we’ve done seven whole weeks without being stopped once (although one policeman did come over to say hello and take a photo of us whilst we were at a supermarket) and to be honest we were a little disappointed. But the Kazakh police haven’t let us down. We had to show our passports and freshly stamped migration cards and answer a load of questions about where we were from, where we were going, where we slept at night, what we ate, and then asked us if they could take a photo of the bike.

The roads in Kazakhstan aren’t as busy as in Russia, but it’s still nicest to avoid main roads with fewer large lorries, as the roads really aren’t wide enough for us and them, and the tarmac usually suffers under the wheels of HGVs and is not a pleasant experience for our poor Pino. As soon as we could, we detoured off the main Petropavlovsk to Astana road and enjoyed some surprisingly good tarmac with hardly any traffic. In fact the only dampener on a really nice day was the wind. Kazakhstan is predominantly flat, arid and grassy. Our days are dominated by vast skies, distant horizons and an ever-present wind. If the wind is on your back it’s an absolute pleasure and we’ve had some great days rolling along at an easy 25+kph. But sometimes the wind turns to greet you in its dusty embrace and things are not so easy. If the wind is not too strong it is simply a minor irritation, like trying to escape the persistent caress of an elderly auntie and your speed drops to 17kph. At other times it becomes the playground bully, pushing and shoving and hissing loudly in your ear and you drop to 14-15kph. And sometimes it hurls itself unfettered across the grassy expanse of steppe and body-slams you like an unruly but affectionate Great Dane. The days feel very long when you’re struggling to maintain 12kph. All we need to do to cheer ourselves though is to remember we’re pedalling through Central Asia: how cool is that?

You’ll have to imagine the headwind for yourselves

The sense of isolation in this huge and sparsely populated country has made us feel like we’re being properly adventurous. We camped one night sheltered in the middle of an unusual ring of raised ground in the otherwise flat terrain, and at least 20km from tarmac in any direction.

At least 15km from the nearest tarmac in any direction.

Unsurprisingly, the tarmac has been of varying quality on the minor roads. In happy contrast to Ukrainian and Russian roads though, in Kazakhstan there has invariably been a choice of dirt roads immediately beside the knackered tarmac, and we’ve found the compacted dirt far smoother to pedal on than the rubble and broken tarmac that’s passed for the road in places. We’ve so far spent around 60km on the dirt trails that criss-cross the steppe alongside the designated roads.

Navigationally it can be a bit worrying and you have to keep a constant check on any divergence from your intended course in the flat and often featureless surroundings, but we’ve been lucky in that the two main dirt stretches that we’ve done to date have been firstly alongside a railway line, with the overhead cables clearly visible to indicate our direction of travel, and secondly, heading towards what appear to be the only mountains in Northern Kazakhstan.

Head for the hills

Rising incongruously from the steppe about 200km north of Astana is a series of jagged peaks that are a popular holiday resort and tourist attraction. Lake Burabay is the most spectacular of the several lakes contained within the rocky walls and is famous for its gnarled stone pillars and outcrops. The bulbous, weather- worn formations look a bit like the gritstone towers of Derbyshire’s Peak District, but the scale, location and surrounding foliage are a world away.

Lake Burabay

There’s a camping area on a rocky isthmus extending into Lake Bolshoe Chebachye (adjacent to Lake Burabay) and we’ve spent a couple of nights here to rest our legs, address some creaks and groans from the Pino, do some laundry and improve our personal hygiene as, to be quite frank, we didn’t smell too pleasant upon arrival. The only facilities at the campsite are two pit toilets, but the lake is clean and despite the chill breeze blowing when we arrived it was a relief to slip into the cool water and scrub away the stench of six days.