Almaty, Kazakhstan July 17th - August 2nd 2008

Martin spent just over 2 weeks in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, only 300km from the chinese border, working with Ericsson and KCell. It was an interesting experience and the first time in a CIS (former USSR) country.

Click the thumbnails for a larger image. Click headings for Wikipedia info.

18th July

Having arrived at the hotel at about 5am, Martin just worked in the hotel room for most of the day and only headed out for a walk of the nearby streets once.

	Note the yummy horse meat on the hotel menu. Kazakhstan is not the best place in the world for a vegetarian!		Wrestling. Reminds me of a certain, less than popular film!				Oh dear, Martin trying to be arty again :-)
	The roof of St Nicholas' Cathedral.... properly visited later in the trip		Cool car!

19th July

On a dark, overcast Saturday which was threatening to pour down (but never quite did), Martin explored Almaty on foot and public bus. For 50 Tenge you can go a long way in this city. It kind of helps if you can speak Russian though as pretty much no-one speaks English. So Martin made do with pointing, grunting and of course....speaking English loudly to get by until he got the hang of where everything was in the city. This turned out to be not too hard actually since the city is relatively new and built around the grid design. And of course you can see the Alatau Mountains from everywhere so you always know your orientation. On the first bus of the day the driver was playing really loud electronic dance music, which was brilliant.

	Almaty has quite a few soviet style monuments and statues, which add real character to the place and act as a reminder of recent history.		Kok Tobe is a small mountain (really a hill) to one side of the centre of Almaty and you can reach the top by cable car. So that was the first thing Martin did.
			At the top		Shame visibility was so poor		The Beatles? Really?!
	They're on the map! They must be here! Even John Lennon and George Harisson!!		In case you don't recognise the word "Pizza", here's one we prepared earlier :-)		It's them! The Beatles really are here!		Time to head back down again.
	The Hotel Kazakhstan is one of only a few "tall" buildings and a landmark for finding your way around the city.		The Republic Palace		There are many fountains and similar things in Almaty		The awesome Soviet monument to WW2 heroes in in Panfilov Park. Note the small child for scale!
	Eternal flame		More wonderful soviet art.		There seemed to be a wedding party at every city park or monument that day.		Martin was here!
	Zenkov Cathedral, a 19th-century Russian Orthodox cathedral located in Panfilov Park, is the second tallest wooden building in the world. Very colourful and photogenic.
	I love the contrasts in this image.		and in this one. From the park, headed to the Green Bazaar. This was a bit of a disappointment. Not that interesting (compared to being in a market in India for example) and there were no pick-pockets to fight off as far as I could tell ;-) No photos of the Green Bazaar. Continued on foot west and a little south, intending to work my way to the Independence Monument.		The route took me via the Oblast Administration building. In the park across the road there was... another wedding party.		More wonderful statues.
	"Kazpost". Now I wonder what that is? If only I spoke Russian!		The streets are generally wide and lined with mature trees, which provide much needed shade. It was in the mid to high thirties most days and more than fourty on one day.		Apparently we're now in Vegas!		Independence square and the Independence Monument
	...with more cool statues etc....

20th July

Caught 2 buses to Medeu which is up in the mountains and has the world's highest (in terms of altitude) speed skating rink. Now there's a world record to aspire to! Wandered around the speed skating stadium taking photos. Walked up the millions of steps to the top of the "dam" (really a huge wall protecting Almaty from the thread of catastrophic mud slides). Saw an Eagle or large vulture. Caught the bus back into Almaty and walked back to hotel.

In and around the speed skating stadium:

							From part the road on the way up to the bottom of the hundreds of steps to the top of the dam.
	Back in Almaty. King Burger?! DcMonalds anyone?		Martin's hotel. The Hyatt that is, not the Circus :-)

26th July

Didn't do much this weekend... paid a proper visit to St Nicholas' Cathedral though, which was worth the walk.

Officials in Kazakhstan have the coolest hats.

Ericsson

Martin had fun working with the guys from Ericsson for 2 weeks. Here are a few photos to remember everyone by! :-)

	An engineering quality solution to the problem of getting Martin's laptop to plug in properly :-)		Lunch, cooked fresh before your eyes in a local market near the office. The chef even picked all the bits of meat out for Martin!		Bread is cooked in that thing		We had a big thunderstorm... the streets were soon flooded as water streamed down from the mountains.
	In the Ericsson office		Meat cleaver in the kitchen! Apparently there just in case any meat should happen to need....cleaving :-)
	At the end of the trip, we had what can only be described as a "big night out". Here's Martin teaching his buddy Dmitry how to drink vodka ;-)		Oh and there appears to be more vodka in this picture too!
	Ericsson moved to a posh new office the day before Martin left. Here's the view from one side.