Almaty

Zhastar.

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

So after living in Kazakhstan for seven years, I'm now doing something I always said I'd never do here: driving a car every day in Almaty.

The reasons for not doing so earlier have changed over the years. Typically, employers provided a company car with driver, and personal drivers were always available as well. In addition, Almaty has quite an extensive system of public transportation, including buses, minibuses (called marshutkas) electric trolley buses, and two electric tram lines. Besides all of that, until the past two or three years just about every private car on the road was potentially available for hire as a taxi to go anywhere in the city for a few dollars.

Things have changed since then. In 1999, there were far fewer cars on the road. Most cars were of Soviet make: Zhiguli sedans, Niva jeeps. There were also quite a few decade-old German or Japanese sedans. A late-model foreign car was something to stop and stare at.

In the past couple of years, all that has changed. The number of cars in the city has absolutely skyrocketed. Almaty now has legitimate traffic jams. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Porsche Cayenne SUV or something far more expensive, and those driving BMWs and Mercedes sedans from the 1990s are beginning to feel like they're slumming it a bit.

Everywhere you turn, there's a teenage girl driving a right-hand-drive jeep brought in from Japan via Dubai.

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The very next day after all the other photos were taken, Almaty got about an inch of heavy wet snow. Several trees in our yard were uprooted because their new leaves were laden with the wet snow, and because the previous week's rain had softened up the already defrosted earth.

Kurmangazy Street being resurfaced near the intersection with Mukanov. New drainage culverts are also being put in all along Kurmangazy between Mukanov and Furmanov. It's not at all unusual to see road work equipment such as this, much of it of German manufacture, around the city during good weather the past couple of years.

No, those aren't poppies, but tulips. These are in a bed near the Tsum department store, in the pedestrian walkway that now terminates at the "SilkWay" shopping center (http://www.silkway.kz/index.php?read=52) and later becomes Zhibek Zholy that passes south of the Green Bazaar.

The very next day after this photo was taken, Almaty was covered in about an inch of wet snow.

Closeup of a tulip near the Tsum.

A bed of tulips in the pedestrian walkway near the Tsum. In the background, you can see the dome of the three-floor "Silk Way" shopping center. Before its construction 2-3 years ago, the pedestrian zone extended to the intersection of Zhibek Zholy (E-W) and Kunaev streets (N-S) where the tram stops.

Wait.. what other car?

Here DMJ demonstrates solidarity with Bungie (makers of Halo) and Wideload Games (makers of Stubbs the Zombie) in front of a trolley bus emblazoned with the Lariba Bank logo in the parking lot of the Atakent Expo Center in Almaty.