Day 1: Arrival in Almaty

 After an overnight flight from Istanbul, I arrived in Almaty around 8AM. My host lives in the city, so I assembled my bike in the airport, attracting many stares and some inquiries.

Ready to head out from the Almaty airport

 I didn’t have any issues - there was no visible damage or any issues after transporting the bike box through four countries and as many airports. I loaded up and rode off.

I forgot to load the maps for my turn into my GPS - this is a mistake that I will try to remedy at my host’s later. They don’t use Google maps here, they use an app called 2Gis, which was pulled from the US app stores due to Russian sanctions, so I used the recommended backup Yandex maps, instead. It worked, and for the most part tried to get me onto bike friendly routes. The route into the city ranged from beautiful, newly constructed bike paths to roads that were utterly destroyed, full of giant holes and some railroad crossings without pavement, requiring me to hoist my bike over the tracks. As one of my host’s friends later explained it, they call the holes “pockets” because they represent the corruption of the government that is unable to properly maintain the roads - “holes as deep as a politician’s pocket,” everyone nodded in solemn approval. I tried to avoid busy streets for the most part, but that wasn’t always feasible. 

I was treated to some incredible views of the giant mountain range that looms over the city. They rise up instantly out of the plains right after the city and are very large and imposing.

Soviet-block style apartments giving way to the mountains.

I’m sorry if I can’t recall everyone’s name in my stories, they all sound just as foreign to me as mine does to them. When I say “Andrew,” they spend a minute trying to figure out if it’s like the Russian Andrei, Endre, Anre, or some modification. So it appears the feeling is mutual.

My host here is Murat. He just moved back to Almaty from South Korea a couple of months ago after living abroad for about 5 years. He is 34 and runs a construction company for finishing apartments - electrical, plumbing, drywall, painting, etc. He lives with his parents in their apartment in the Tastak-1 district. His father is a bus driver in the city. He, nor his parents, speak any English, so I have been making heavy use of Google translate and pantomiming. I was welcomed with a lunch of tea, fruit, cucumber and tomato salad, beignets (баурсақ) and бишпармак - a dish consisting of wide rice noodles and horse meat. For the most part, everything was shared, the dishes were passed around and people ate off of them with their own forks. This was an amazing welcome after the flight and the ride into the city, the food was delicious and I enjoyed meeting everyone.

Lunch consisting of баурсақ (baursak) and бишпармак (bishparmak)

Murat had some work to do in the building after lunch, installing some windows. So I went for a walk around the neighborhood, admired the mountains, took out some Tenge (₸) from an ATM and had some lemonade at a cafe - it was pretty hot. The exchange rate is about 450 ₸ to the dollar - and the ATM gave me my cash in 10,000₸ increments, which feels more intimidating to break than a $20 😬.

I got back after a couple of hours and Murat drove us to see a friend of his that lives a little bit outside the city. The traffic was terrible so it took us over an hour to get there. He lives down one of those pothole-ridden dirt roads on a small plot of land. He showed me that his water is pumped from an underground river that flows 40m below his property, so he does not need any city water. Everyone has electricity, in Almaty it comes from hydroelectric power (граз locally) from on top of the mountain. As far as I can tell, this guy sells weed, bakes bread and takes care of his mother. He had a workout area in his yard so we did some dips and pull-ups. Then he kicked my ass at backgammon from an old wooden board that he brought from his house. We hung out in front of his house for the most part, under a shade erected from some tin siding. He gave me a tour of his property and the house - a substantial 3-bedroom with a nice living area and large kitchen. 

Playing backgammon (нарды)

The ride back into town took much less time, as the traffic had died down, but we had one more stop before going back home. We went to a high rise apartment complex. Him and his friends mentioned something about this being where they work when I asked if they lived there. They said “work home” or something. And when we got there, it was just a construction zone on the 11th floor where they are installing all of the plumbing electrical and drywall for this luxury apartment complex. They had a table set up and one of the guys had prepared a lamb/potato/onion dish on a hot pot and had it out on a table. 

It was another communal meal, just like at lunch. You just pass around plates full of food and eat off of them. Or there’s a big plate in the middle. So we all got spoons and ate a lamb and potato dish. One of the guys in attendance had slaughtered the lamb earlier in the day. After eating, they moved some stuff around and 4 or 5 of them prepared beds to sleep at the construction site. Murat is the foreman or something similar. I think all of these guys are his employees.

Dinner at the construction site

It was a very eventful first day, to say the least. Tomorrow we will go out to the mountains for a hike and I will prepare my panniers and organize my things in order to head out on Thursday!