Report from Almaty

It’s about 7:00 PM in Almaty, Kazkahstan on Tuesday. It is already completely dark outside.

After some tense moments, we left Karaganda Airport right on time at 10:10 AM and arrived here on time at 12:30. What tense moments? When we checked in, we discovered that Alexey was not registered in the computer system as being on our flight. After some discussions with the special airline ticket agents in the special office for special people, he once again existed and was granted permission to board the aircraft. We went back to the check-in counter, only to be sent to the excess baggage payment office. We were 24 kg overweight. After settling up there, we returned to the check-in counter for a third time, and got Alexey’s boarding pass and our baggage tickets.

Our flight to Almaty lasted just over two hours. We were in a Fokker 50 propeller plane. The kindly check-in agent gave us seats in the first row, so we had a bit more space and could watch the right-hand propeller go around. The left-hand propeller had to be a matter of faith.

Alexey flew like a champion. After a bit of settling-in time, but no crying at all, he provided some play-by-play commentary as the airplane made funny noises and the flight attendants moved about. After an hour he fell asleep for about 45 minutes in Mama’s arms. We actually had to wake him up when the Fasten Seat Belts sign came on as we began our descent to Almaty airport.

Even though the air pressure changed a fair bit, Alexey never uttered a sound, but watched with interest.

We believe (pray?) this is a good omen for our next flight. It’s on a Lufthansa Airbus 340 jet and takes seven hours to go from Almaty to Frankfurt, Germany.

Almaty is a big city with a population of well over a million people. The architecture here is mixed Tsarist-Soviet-European. Some houses and small apartment buildings definitely appear to be old-time Russian style. Huge blocks of apartment buildings and some office buildings are built in the Soviet box style. Some store buildings on the main streets would look at home in Paris.

We visited St. Michael’s Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church built in 1908. It has golden onion domes and is painted in white and yellow. To enter, we had to have covered arms and Monika had to cover her head. They had scarves available to put on in a room as you entered. The Cathedral is full of icons, paintings on the ceiling and walls, and triptychs. Some golden artefacts were in evidence, including crosses, candlesticks, book stands, and the like. Hundreds of tapers, slim candles, were all over, with people lighting them as they prayed.  The Cathedral itself is fairly small, with benches providing seating for no more than twenty people. You could fit in a few hundred people standing, though. The congregation is expected to stand throughout the entire liturgy.

For lunch, Monika had a cheeseburger platter and John had a hot chicken salad. We shared Monika’s French fries, the first we’ve had since we left Canada. The lettuce in our cheeseburger and salad was also a first.

In restaurants and stores, we noticed that prices are definitely in the range of those in the big cities in Europe. They appear even worse because the prices are in Kazakhstan Tenges (TT). A bowl of soup in a nice Thai restaurant would cost a startling 1,800TT were we to buy it. That’s about $14. This is a big change from Karaganda.

We are staying in an apartment until just after midnight, when we return to the airport for our 2:55 AM flight. (Zzzzzzz)

We will try to post to the blog from Frankfurt if we can.