KZBlog

Category archive for ‘Life in KZ’

• Love in the USSR

  Great post by a Peace Corps Volunteer about how her host grandmother and grandfather fell in love. In case you wondered about love and romance among the Soviets.

  3/23/11 • (0)

• The Haves and the Have Nots

  I wrote a bit earlier about prices of meat and food products in Kazakhstan. However, a lot of less necessary products are already more expensive in Kazakhstan than in the US, and getting more expensive. Perhaps the biggest problem is that although things have improved slightly, there are still two classes of goods in Kazakhstan, [...]

  3/22/11 • (0)

• How to Find Odd Things in Kazakhstan

  While Kazakhstan does have a ways to go in developing useful web services, there have definitely been some interesting developments. I have friends who use online grocery shopping services, I believe from Astrakhzhan. And I mentioned Pomidor.kz in an earlier post as a pretty good review site for local services. From the other side, international [...]

  3/19/11 • (2)

• Manners

  Thanks to Kazakhnomad who posted on a story by a an expat working in Almaty about bullying on the toboggan trail. Go read her story yourself, but basically she was annoyed by kids who cut in line for the tobbagan trail at Ak Bulak and, what is more, being encouraged by their mother to cut [...]

  3/17/11 • (1)

• Being an Expat in Kazakhstan

  Despite my attempts to be a serious blogger, I have noticed that some of my chattier “what is life like in Kazakhstan” posts actually get more attention than the news coverage. And I certainly get lots of emails with questions about what to bring to Kazakhstan, can you get ketchup here, what’s the food like. [...]

  3/14/11 • (4)

• Koktem Keldi

  Inshallah. Finally it’s getting a bit warmer out here on the frozen steppes. Astana is not as exciting a place to live as Almaty for outdoor fun, but over the years we’ve discovered a few places to go. I’ve posted on some of them before like the yurt camp near Astana and Eco-Village where you [...]

  3/12/11 • (2)

• Steppe Diet

  Not to suddenly harp on food, but I had an interesting conversation the other day with a group of colleagues. I mentioned in an earlier post that one stereotype here of the US is that our meat does not taste good (I put this down to differences in what constitutes properly cooked meat). Another is [...]

  3/10/11 • (6)

• Washing with Vodka

  A fun custom in Kazakhstan I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned here is “washing” a purchase or deal with alcohol. I say washing because that’s a literal translation of what it’s called in Russian, обмыть. In fact, it means to toast or drink to a purchase. Toasting a piece of good luck or a completed [...]

  2/12/11 • (0)

• Peace Corps in Kazakhstan in the late 90s

  An interesting video of a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served from 1997-1999 in Kazakhstan, as the fifth “class” of Peace Corps volunteers in Kazakhstan. The most interesting part I thought was about the views that Kazakhstani had about Americans at the time. A lot of this has changed now with time, but assuming that [...]

  2/06/11 • (0)

• 

  Asian Games Snapshots

  Jin Liu of ATP/Getty Images has gotten some great shots of the podium assistants in Kazakhstan for the Asian Games. Click on them to go to the attachment page where you can see them in larger sizes:

  2/03/11 • (0)

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