Living in Kazakhstan

We live in an apartment on the fourth storey of a five-storey building. That building forms one side of a square of apartment buildings with a courtyard that includes a playground. We have a few stores on the street side of the square. The architecture is typical of Karaganda and isn't what you see in Canada. There are many entrances to each building. Each entrance has its own staircase leading to two apartments on each floor. There are no hallways that allow you to get to other apartments in another staircase. Instead, you have to go downstairs, walk to the appropriate entrance, and walk back upstairs. There are no elevators and no other exits, except for the windows.

Our apartment has a main entrance foyer, a kitchen/dining/living room, a toilet room (but no sink), a bathroom with a sink and bathtub (but no toilet), and two bedrooms. It has windows in the front and the back, with views into the courtyard and into the construction site behind us respectively. It has two balconies that have been modified by the owner through the addition of wooden enclosures with windows in order to enlarge the living space. That is typical of apartments here. The builder of a new apartment building just up the street recognized that everybody does this, so glassed in the balconies from the beginning.

The water situation is... intriguing. On good days, we have hot and cold water. Some days, only hot. Other days, only cold. On one memorable day, no water at all for twelve hours. Then it came back on. Bright red. Then brown, with sediment. For four hours or so. It looked like a scene from CSI. That day, we washed the dishes and our faces with boiled water from our drinking water supply, a 20 Litre water bottle. Nobody drinks the tap water here: everybody uses bottled water. When it's available, the hot water has the same pressure as, say, Old Faithful. The cold water has the same pressure as, well, a vinegar bottle. You know, the glass kind with the metal top. This makes it interesting when you want to take a shower. The choices are either "boiled lobster" or "none". Our washing machine takes in cold water and heats it up to the temperature that you select. It doesn't move to the next function (wash, rinse, spin) until the correct amount of water has been added. We did a load of washing last night, starting at 8:00 PM to take advantage of the increased water pressure after the suppertime rush. It didn't finish until after Midnight.

Soon we'll blog about some of the Kazakh and Russian food we've had. Our cooks have all been very good.