Kazakhstan

OpenDemocracy has a bit on energy efficiency in Russia, and nearly all of it applies to Kazakhstan, especially the parts about citywide centralized heating for residences. Everybody's heat goes on one day in the fall and off one day in the spring, and if it's too hot-- you open the window. Newer buildings have radiators with shutoff valves. In fact, in our apartment, we keep nearly all the valves closed all the time-- heat rising from the floors below keeps the apartment more than warm enough anyway.

Of course, that has no effect on our heating bill-- everybody pays according to the size of their apartment, regardless of how much heat they actually use, because heat, unlike electricity and cold/hot water, is unmetered. So there's no incentive for anyone to use less heat, and no consequences for running it at full blast and then opening windows to regulate temperature. It's crazy.

Couple more Olympic Torch Relay posts:

• http://kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/2008/04/03/olympic-torch-in-almaty/
• http://kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/2008/04/04/friday-photo-waiting-for-the...
• http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jynWQAQgVOcTumux3r3MqyvLTgyA

I would take exception to the Press Association article that alleges security was "exceptionally tight". I've seen exceptionally tight security at events in Kazakhstan, and this was not it.

There were a large number of unarmed people in red whose job it was to keep people off the streets along the route. Most did so politely and the crowd of people, while curious, was for the most part pretty orderly. I took photos and video at three spots along the route, starting at Republic Square, and saw no significant problems, nor any sign of Uighur or Tibetan protestors.

Here are some other blogs that also have photo collections from Tuesday's Olympic torch relay in Almaty:

• http://blog.azion.kz/hot/
• http://restec.livejournal.com/44760.html

[image:1915 align=left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]If you're not a mountain lover and a voracious meat eater, it's a lot harder to fully appreciate Kazakhstan. I don't have problems on either front. [image:1907 align=right hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]

Here Saltanat and I are having May Day shashlyk (shish kebab) lunch at the Chimbulak ski resort with our friend Chris and his two daughters, Fia and Amelie.

There's no snow on the slopes, but you can still see the snow-capped peaks in the distance.

[image:1916 align=left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] It was almost oppressively warm in the city that day. While the mountaiin air was soothingly cool, the sun was fierce, and Chris and I both came away with vicious sunburns. [image:1909 align=right hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]

For the rest of the photos, see the recent additions to the Friends gallery.

[image:1584 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=preview] With the delivery of kitchen cabinets and appliances scheduled for today Monday, the end of the renovation is now nearly in sight. What began as "shell and core", little more than a concrete box with windows, a nice view and some basic plumbing and wiring is now almost ready to be lived in.

[image:1610 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] We started the earliest and spent the most time on the kitchen and bathrooms, following the maxim that these rooms are the most crucial and valuable. For the bathroom, we wanted a jacuzzi tub big enough for two and for the kitchen, since it is part of the large mail hall that incorporates the functions of a traditional living room, dining room, and the kitchen, we wanted something elegant, subtle, understated, functional and high quality. We didn't end up going as upscale as Ernestomeda or Scavolini, but the same outfit that deals with those in Almaty, Sergio Interiors, also sells kitchens from another Italian company, Record Cucine. Eventually we settled on their Venere series of cabinets.

[image:1609 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] Because the area would be open and visible, we wanted to minimize the degree to which people in the living room and dining room were exposed to the essential functions of the kitchen. So that meant as many appliances should be built-in to the cabinetry and concealed when possible. So the refrigerator, dishwasher and oven are all built-in. All the cabinet doors are just lacquered; no glass, so none of the contents are visible when the cabinets are closed. In my experience, glass doors only look great in controlled store conditions, where they arrange a nice set of dishes like a still-life. In real life, where no matter how much storage space you have, you always end up needing more, and cabinets fill to the brim, seeing inside is a much less attractive proposition.

This series of cabinets also had a feature I very much wanted: a unit that allows the corner to be accessible storage, by housing a stainless steel wire cage that is attached to the cabinet door. Normally when two kitchen cabinet floor units abut at a 90 degree angle, part of the storage area in the corner is not easily reachable from either side. In this case, when you open one unit, all the storage is on movable racks; when you open the door, the racks just inside come completely out of the cabinet, and the racks tucked deep into the corner slide into the space previously occupied by the first set, meaning everythiing is reachable without getting on your hands and knees to reach into the corner.

[image:1821 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] Since the kitchen area, at about 10 square meters, is actually a bit smaller than the separate kitchen we have now, but does not need to contain a huge seating area, we decided on an island. This would provide additional counter space and cabinet space, as well as seating for two, and create a visual barrier between the dining room/living room areas and the kitchen. Our final design shows the cabinetry on the west and north walls, as well as the island configuration.

The island has three cabinets in it, as well as an electrical outlet, so you can use an appliance like a mixer on top of it without stringing a cord across the gap to a wall. The wiring for the outlet was laid into the concrete floor before the kitchen tile was installed.

[image:1724 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] With a rather neutral beige color selected for the cabinetry, so as not to attract too much attention to itself in the main space when not in use, the color palette for the entire apartment was set. For the floors, we wanted a slightly darker tile in the kitchen, and a dark oak parquet floor for the living room and dining room. To tie them all together, we used a geometric pattern of varying shades of brown for the kitchen wall tile, and chose a shade of paint to match. This paint we used for the parts of the kitchen that are not covered by tiles or cabinets.

[image:1750 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] The design for the living room was dominated from the start by the idea of integrating a ceiling-mounted projector that would aim at the longest wall in the apartment, the north wall, with enough distance between the mounting and the wall to have a two meter wide image cast on that wall. In the case of our projector, that means a distance of a little more than 4 meters. To conceal the wiring necessary to connect the projector on the ceiling to the audio-video equipment, to be stored in a low piece of furniture on the north wall, below the image, a sheet rock beam and column structure was constructed, forming a horseshoe with the north wall at its opening. We also had built into this structure wiring for flourescent "luminescent" lighting, aimed at the ceiling, that would provide indirect light to keep the room from being too dark, but without disturbing the image too much. This sheet rock horseshoe was built to echo the shape and size of the concrete beam and structural column near the windows on the south wall; and so like those elements, we kept the sheet rock white, while painting the concrete walls the same color we used in the kitchen, again to tie the elements together.

[image:1770 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] In the end, the ceiling was covered with a textured wallpaper and then painted white, as was the ceiling molding. The structural elements are also white, with the intervening wall spaces our kitchen color. Here you can see the near-final results, with track lighting on a remote dimmer control installed on the ceiling in the living room area, the notch for the projector mount with the wiring installed, and the dining room area behind, between the living room and the south facing wall.

[image:1729 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] We wanted the bathroom tiles to diverge from this theme, but not too far, so we went with blue tile for the floor and the backsplash area, and above the backsplash, a beige tile; we felt having the walls and floors all entirely blue would make the room seem too small. Between the two tiles we used a mosaic border piece that mixed shades of blue and brown, similar to what we did in the kitchen, also in a border area.

[image:1730 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] To keep all the bathroom plumbing hidden, we needed to build a structure around the perimeter, to reach from the pipes in the southwest corner, to the tub in the northwest corner, and the sink in the northeast corner. This also required building a podium with a step to raise the tub up off the floor.

Here you can see the tub and toilet installed in the fully-tiled master bathroom.

[image:1772 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] In the small guest bath, which also doubles as a laundry room and has only a sink and a toilet, rather than a shower cube or tub, we felt that floor-to-ceiling tile was not necessary, but we wanted to keep the same color scheme. Above the backsplash tile, we finally settled on an Egyptian-themed wallpaper from A S Creations that has beige and blue elements. While this design was a little "out there" compared to most of our other choices, it's a relatively small area, so we felt it was safe to do.

[image:1782 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] The lighting in this room is a Massive flourescent fixture especially designed for bathroom areas. The master bathroom has a larger version of the same fixture. Both bathrooms also have ventilator fans connected to the building's air shafts and controlled from independent switches. The fans also have a louvres in the back that close when the fan is off, to prevent backdrafts from the air shafts.

Sinks and cabinets for the master bath area also now waiting to be installed.

[image:1804 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] The second bedroom in our apartment will be used as a home office, so it was designed to be functional rather than pretty. The walls were kept white and painted with washable paint, and the floor covered with commercial grade linoleum. To avoid being too bland, we went with a bold, dark blue. Where we opted for the bticino switches and switch covers in yellow pearl for most of the apartment, and white in the bathroom, we kept the outlets in this room (six on the east wall and two on the west) standard white outlets of Russian manufacture, to economize.

[image:1802 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=left size=thumbnail] For the bedroom, we wanted a thick, wall to wall carpet. The first design item we'd settled on was another A S Creations wallpaper pattern. However, by the time we were ready to purchase, none was left. We toyed with getting the same pattern in a different color (purple or gold, rather than the orange we'd selected) and even bought a much darker brown wallpaper from another manufacturer, but were eventually displeased not just with the quality of the paper (the workers complained it wouldn't lay flat, cut straight, the color would come off, etc) but also the pattern, and so replaced it-- with the gold variation of our initial choice.

[image:1801 hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0 align=right size=thumbnail] Although not yet glued down, both the wallpaper and carpet are now in place, and so with the exception of furniture, the master bathroom is fairly complete.

For more images, check the Apartment gallery.

Merry Christmas 2006 from David and Saltanat in Almaty!

Many people living in Kazakhstan spend a lot of their time on line. Shopping, banking, voting, even medical procedures, all require going on line, sometimes for extended periods.

In case you hadn't guessed, I don't mean by using the Internet. I mean by getting in a line-- or at least what passes for a line in the former Soviet Union.

Back in kindegarten one of the first things I recall being taught was how to line up single file. We lined up when the bell rang so we could file into the school. We lined up single file to go in to lunch. We lined up single file to leave school at the end of the day. We lined up single file to get on the bus to go home. Thankfully it was not quite the military. No one ever requested that we line up alphabetically by height.

Of course, even the most sedate and orderly of children (if those words may even be applied) know the difference between being at the front of the line as opposed to the back of the line. Sometimes being in the front granted no advantage whatsoever-- with each student assigned their own permanent desk, there was little incentive to be at the front of the line to file inside in the morning, unless the weather was cold. Lining up to leave was usually done alphabetically to avoid competetion for the first spots heading home.

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