I got distracted by a deadline for work and have not written recently. Our visit Saturday was a lot of fun. Nikolai was in a great mood and wanted to play. He can screech really loud when he gets excited, which should be interesting as he gets more comfortable with us. After the visit on Saturday we went to the Eurasia Market to get a few souvenirs, including a “national outfit” for Nikolai and some classic Russian fairytales. The only outfit they had is for an older boy, but he will grow into it. We would love to just take our time walking around the market, but we do not know how we can get there without our driver and do not want to be rude and tell our translator we do not want her to come. I tried to keep track of how we drove home thinking we could try to walk back there some time, but after the fourth turn and many miles I gave up.
Saturday was “subbotnik” which literally means a Saturday when everyone works. It is a day when everyone goes out into the streets to clean and do maintenance projects. We passed a group of teenagers who were obviously supposed to be cleaning their section of the road side. As Chris said, they could have been the church youth or any other group of American teenagers. Most were standing around in big groups, with one person sort of sweeping the same spot over and over. One was climbing a concrete road barrier. And a few were working hard picking up trash and sweeping the sidewalk. Our driver told us that all of the schools and colleges take part in subbotnik. Our translator asked us what they call it in America when everyone cleans the streets on a Saturday :-).
Sunday we went to the Pyramid of Peace, which is basically President Nazarbayev’s vision of a utopian society where all people and all religions live in peace. If the people in Astana did not take the idea and the building so seriously it would be quite silly. The bottom section is all in dark tones, representing the past. The middle levels are white, representing the present, and the top is blue representing the future. The stained glass at the top includes doves, each representing one of the nationalities that live peacefully within Kazakhstan. From the air, the stained glass appears as the sun on the Kazakh flag. To reach the top you walk up suspended staircases through a hanging garden. At the top is a circular table with a circular halo above it where President Nazarbayev envisions the world’s religious leaders meeting regularly in a peaceful conference. The first conference, unfortunately, was attended largely by political leaders. There is a beautiful opera house in the very bottom of the pyramid; if possible, we hope to see a concert there while we are here; it would be walkable from our apartment, although they constantly tell us not to go outside at night. We will have to see how much tickets cost. The elevators in the pyramid move diagonally up the side so as to leave the interior space unbroken.
Within the lower levels of the pyramid there are models of Astana as well as planned buildings including a huge entertainment center that will open next year and become the tallest structure in the city. The center will house a theater, golf course, sand beach and wave pool, gardens, restaurants, etc. A development is also planned with 12 apartment buildings, two office buildings, and a central building whose purpose I cannot remember. Within this development, there will be no cars, but everyone will get around in gondolas. A huge resort area is planned on a lake. It was sad, the tour guide kept saying that the lake is currently the “pearl of Kazakhstan” but soon it will have a big development.
Saturday was “subbotnik” which literally means a Saturday when everyone works. It is a day when everyone goes out into the streets to clean and do maintenance projects. We passed a group of teenagers who were obviously supposed to be cleaning their section of the road side. As Chris said, they could have been the church youth or any other group of American teenagers. Most were standing around in big groups, with one person sort of sweeping the same spot over and over. One was climbing a concrete road barrier. And a few were working hard picking up trash and sweeping the sidewalk. Our driver told us that all of the schools and colleges take part in subbotnik. Our translator asked us what they call it in America when everyone cleans the streets on a Saturday :-).
Sunday we went to the Pyramid of Peace, which is basically President Nazarbayev’s vision of a utopian society where all people and all religions live in peace. If the people in Astana did not take the idea and the building so seriously it would be quite silly. The bottom section is all in dark tones, representing the past. The middle levels are white, representing the present, and the top is blue representing the future. The stained glass at the top includes doves, each representing one of the nationalities that live peacefully within Kazakhstan. From the air, the stained glass appears as the sun on the Kazakh flag. To reach the top you walk up suspended staircases through a hanging garden. At the top is a circular table with a circular halo above it where President Nazarbayev envisions the world’s religious leaders meeting regularly in a peaceful conference. The first conference, unfortunately, was attended largely by political leaders. There is a beautiful opera house in the very bottom of the pyramid; if possible, we hope to see a concert there while we are here; it would be walkable from our apartment, although they constantly tell us not to go outside at night. We will have to see how much tickets cost. The elevators in the pyramid move diagonally up the side so as to leave the interior space unbroken.
Within the lower levels of the pyramid there are models of Astana as well as planned buildings including a huge entertainment center that will open next year and become the tallest structure in the city. The center will house a theater, golf course, sand beach and wave pool, gardens, restaurants, etc. A development is also planned with 12 apartment buildings, two office buildings, and a central building whose purpose I cannot remember. Within this development, there will be no cars, but everyone will get around in gondolas. A huge resort area is planned on a lake. It was sad, the tour guide kept saying that the lake is currently the “pearl of Kazakhstan” but soon it will have a big development.
We had a morning visit with Nikolai today so that Saule could submit all of our documents to court this afternoon. He was really excited for the first 30 minutes and then got tired and grumpy. While we were first dressing him, one of the doctors came by as asked to listen to his chest. I guess she was listening to his heart, because I am sure that his breathing did not sound too good with his bronchitis, but she listened and then let us take him to go play. Everyone in the baby house (including Saule) seemed really stressed today. When we had first arrived in Almaty the partners had said that it would be difficult to get an appointment with the Ministry of Education since we would be arriving on a Monday, which are always more busy. I guess they were right – everyone seems to move at double-time on Mondays.
1 comment:
Beautiful photos! I'm so happy that things are going so well for your family. All the best, Susan & Griffin from Austin (and Petropavlovsk)
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