Springish Moods In Astana

I am surprised by the number of people, locals in particular, who have been shocked by the extra 8” of snow we received the first week of March. I assumed winter would run through June, honestly. I can’t complain, the freshest batch nicely covers up the shades of gray, brown, and yellow crusty snow, but we are running out of space in the yard to shovel it. The piles are so high the dog could easily jump over the neighbor’s walls and I fear she might, given an opportunity. On one side is a school, the other a Kazakh family with a guard dog, and the house behind us, we think, is a private banya. So, not great options for Ginsburg to explore.

At any rate, spring is near. I didn’t see any effigies of Maslenitsa get burned to bid winter farewell, a common Slavic pagan tradition, but we did eat many pancakes/blinchiki - another custom that decrees  "spring-is-nigh!" Ramadan began, a time honored tradition too. Once the pancake binge has finished, fasting begins… and blood sugars plummet. The pre-spring vibe is full of renewal, devotion, declaration, hangry people, and dumb amounts of traffic as people distract themselves from their empty tummies by running errands, planning meals, and driving aggressively into a sea of cars and road blocks. 

In the spirit of our own renewal and distraction, we’ve been trying a few new things. Small things, like horse meat flavored peanut snacks (salty), camel milk (salty), dried fish crisps (salty), shelf stable yogurt (not salty). Fairy dish soap now comes in watermelon scent, so now the dog smells like a Starburst when we wash her. Mark and his buddy dug out a snow bar in the backyard, while smoking pork loin and enjoying a sunny day that got above 30F. Then there's big things, like Margo and Deets joining volleyball teams at school, which I am to understand is the sport for which the school is known. It’s a short season, lasting less than 12 weeks, but it’s a fierce period of practice and tournaments. We went to our first KZ Premier League match with the FC Zhenis club and bought team scarves, so I guess we are Zhenis fans now. The capital has two teams, them and FC Astana, an oligarch owned team. Naturally, we picked the underdogs.  

As for my personal attempts at springtime renewal, I’ve been focusing on trying to be an overall softer human being, and less of the jaw gnashing shrew I feel I have become these past months (I completely disagree with this characterization, the author is now and always has been awesome.-ed). A while ago, when I was struggling with an uncomplicated, simple yoga pose- the seated forward fold, my teacher pointed out that I’d get more benefit if I relaxed more into it than muscle my way through it. I later heard this same suggestion from a work colleague about a problematic, bullish person whom I had no control over (why can’t people just do what I want them to, when I want them to do it?? Ha ha). And the same advice to soften and chill out came a third time when I felt my anxiety bubble over when I was leading a triage review and emergency preparedness. 

I don’t know if I need more reminders to CTFO (chill the eff out) than the average person, but I have literally forced myself to set alarms and calendar invites to do just that: Breathe. Meditate. Read a Pema Chodron or Anne Lamott quote. Doodle. Sing karaoke, make beaded bracelets with affirmations saying “Let Them” or whispering “very demure, very mindful” to myself every morning or before a staff meeting. I’m doing the work, but is it working? I’ll let you know come spring, or at the end of winter, whichever comes first.

horse meat peanuts:
neither thumbs up, nor down. 
fantastic crunch, not good for mindless snacking

I get shelf stable milk,
 but shelf stable yogurt?
I can't wrap my head around it.

soapy fruit

fishy snack bites - they all taste the same. fishy.

ginsburg and her two toys: winter and margo

deets and ginsburg CTFO better than anyone

bar babes

office amulets

FC Jenis Logo. I think it's a leopard. 
Mark thinks it's a polar bear.
Margo reckons it its monkey-cat.
None of us know what the 2nd tail is for.

 

Winterizing: Outside

Two observations: I’ve hit an age where I can’t remember if my weather app has been set to Celsius or Fahrenheit, and Astana’s temperatures are now low enough that I can’t tell what the temperature is without double checking if I set it for C or F. Sure, it’s cold but make no mistake winter this year isn’t nearly as bad as the last one, or the one before that, they all say. Plus, I still “don’t know what real cold is” according to my wizened, embassy colleagues.

Either way, the Ishim River has frozen over allowing for additional meandering and winter sports. Ice skating, tubing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and cold water dunks. In fact, winter wonderland popups are all around the city and they are too cute to pass up with all the holiday cheer, music, and neon lights. The happiness distracts us from the worn gray sky, or the cloudless blue sky that robs of us short wave radiation.

With the snowfall, plows, bull dozers, diggers, dump trucks, and roll onto the streets with their gangs of orange clad workers armed with iron rods, shovels, and sleds. This spectacle, depending on your affinity for construction vehicles, is also too cute to pass up and watch. The snow moving feat is impressive. Piles of snow sometimes 20-30 feet tall and 50 feet wide, are removed within hours. Thick gravel-ice-snow layers that have been left behind are painstakingly chipped and hauled away.

During the 2023-2024 season, the Mayor of Astana reported they removed 4.5 million cubic meters of snow, enough to fill 2,500 Olympic sized pools. Last month (12/19/24) during a hearty snow fall, the city removed 16,000 cubic meters of snow in a single night the equivalent of nearly 6.5 Olympic sized pools. I feel like that is a lot. I also feel the “a lot-ness” when I spend three hours shoveling our own driveway and sidewalks but I feel it most when our path is finally cleared and a drive-by plow blocks us back in. It’s good exercise, I keep telling myself.

For the dog walks, a long coat, Boggs boots, mittens, fleece hat, and a balaclava over long underwear and sweater fill the not-cold (but not totally warm either) requirement. My kids do just fine with a hat, gloves, snow pants, winter jacket, and boots over shorts and t-shirts for school, where they inevitably roast inside. And Mark-the-Furnace-Schlink wears little beyond a coat and hat. He’s practically naked as far as I am concerned. And I am okay with that too.

Fun fact, this bridge was designed to look like a sturgeon.
Now I can’t ever not see it. Credit: mark

New Year’s Day walk. So many regrets for not wearing my long coat.
But I looked cool. Credit: Mark

Tubing sans tubes. Credit: Mark

Central Park X-Country Ski Practice

Tubing on the Ishim.
1,000 Tenge (2 USD) for 30 min to rent a tube.

Hoarfrost 

Dog-frost.

Early season snowman building. View from orthodontist office.

New Year’s Day on the Ishim River
Credit: Mark

Little guy helping the big guy out

The pile vanished overnight. Margo was mad that she couldn’t hike to the top.

Dump trucks and dumpers make a good match

Honey badgers of Siberia in formation - you get stuck behind them, they don’t give a f***

Table Tennis Pim Pam Whiff Waff in Astana

Trying to mitigate my Sunday nothing-to-do grumps, I came across an announcement for the 27th Asian Table Tennis Championship in the city's indoor national tennis arena. Free entry and a complete schedule that actually ran on time, I couldn't believe it! It was unique way to spend my Sunday.

I never developed a taste for ping pong, but my late brother-in-law did. He opened a bar dedicated to bar and board games, including space for two federation grade tables to host tournaments. He named the competitions "Paddle Royale" with a 5 dollar entry fee- winner took all. His last tournament was December 14, 2022. Unfortunately, his heart gave out a few days later, when we expected to see him on a family holiday trip to Spain.

Danny would have enjoyed watching the matches. I was surprised to see the players toss the 729 brand ping pong ball super high like a tennis player might do, but then serve the ball so close to their face and table to obscure their plan of attack. Opponents would rally, some grunting, others quietly returning the ball. The rituals continued. Some players danced on their toes and some stomped their front foot with alacrity while honing in. Some kissed their paddles, while others flattened their palms on the table and always near the net between serves. The crowd behaved somewhat like tennis fans do, cheering and chanting only between sets - though several bored children in front of us scrolled TikTok videos at full volume.

21-year-old Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan took gold in the men's singles, and his 16-year-old sister Miwa took silver in women's, losing to a 23-year old North Korean player named Kim Kum Yong. A Google search revealed little about the DPRK athlete except that she might have gotten into trouble after participating in a selfie with South Korean players at the Olympics in Paris. Chillingly, according to the Guardian, North Korean players undergo a month-long “ideological scrubbing” procedure for players who have been exposed to life outside the communist state. I wonder if she and the rest of the DPRK crew would have to deal with that again after a week in Astana? That is a colder reality than Kazakh winter.

Ping Pong Tourney at Prime Tie Springfield MO, Dec 2022

A careful serve.

Another careful serve.

She knew the moment she won - credit Mark

Watching his teammate - credit Mark.

Shirtless strut - credit Mark

Always serving near the face - credit Mark

Translating Japanese using a camera long lens and Google. 

Life in September, Weathery Chitchat, and Goat Polo

I get it. People loooooove to talk about the weather. It's the lowest hanging fruit of conversation. It's safe and has the power to connect through shared pleasure, surprise, or misery. Weather chat dominates even my own confabs (next to asking them where they're from, and if they might happen to play an instrument and want to jam with a flute player), but if one more person tells me "you only think you know what cold is" in reference to Astana climate, I will throw up. I've been over it well before we got to Astana - two years in fact. When we found out we'd be coming, truth-sayers of all shapes and sizes immediately leaned into their cold, hard Astana weather advice.

Yes. Astana winters are cold. Windy. Brutal. Dangerous. I'm a grade A weenie and don't like the cold, nor do I do well in it. I guarantee I will suffer from cold-weather hives, probably get seasonal affective disorder, and whine about walking the dog every morning. I'll complain about dead batteries, chapped skin, and worry endlessly that my kids are staying warm enough. What I won't do is give people useless comments about their future selves and whether or not they will winter successfully.

With that out of the way, let me talk about other things that Astana is also famous for. The name Astana is Kazakh for 'Capital City' and is famous for its Guinness worthy number of name changes. In 1997 the capital was relocated from Almaty in record time, just under two years. The BBC wrote an in-depth article about it here. Flat, grassy Kazakh steppe extends 1,400 miles outside of the city, while inside, there's eye-catching, futuristic bridges and buildings, some of which were designed by the famous architect Kisho Kurokawa. There are crazy statues all over the city. My current favorite is one of a curly haired bull, two leopards, a sword, and a Queen, called Mother Earth ("Zher Ana"). The bull reminds me of Toro the Looney Tunes bull.

Here, people have an affection for mall life, good restaurants, spas, and convenient grocery delivery services. Taxis are cheap with easy to use apps, and so is the bus system. Dental care is pretty good and the pharmacies are better regulated than you'd think. Medical care has... potential. Nearly all transactions can be done electronically, you can even pay your neighbor back the twenty bucks you borrowed using an app. Procuring a local sim card is a pain, as is finding large quantities of cooking vinegar, but you can still find anything you might need if you look hard enough.

Kazakh culture is fabulous. Yurt life and designs are everywhere. Local textiles are thick and vibrant featuring plant and animal life, and strong geometric patterns. Modern musicians embrace the traditional Central Asian sounds of dombras, 2-stringed instruments, bayans, animal hide drums. Kazakhstan's popstar singer, Dimash, attracts fans from all over the world not only because he slays 6 octaves of vocal range but also because he seamlessly integrates Kazakh culture into his music without making it sound dated. He's also reportedly a very nice guy and has type A blood, according to multiple fan sites.

We got to experience this man perform opening night of the World Nomad Games- yet another cultural sparkle for Kazakhstan. He was lovely and charming and definitely had a great voice.

Grand Finale of Opening Ceremony.

Dimash hunk.

View of the presidential and VIP box.

As for the Nomad Games, it's held every two years and athletes compete in events such as archery, archery on horse, horse racing, horseback goat-polo, strong man, wrestling, tug-of-war, falconing, strategy games, and more. This year more than 2,500 participants from 89 countries competed. Some of our Tashkent friends flew up for the week to attend an impressive number of events and based on my level of envy for how much fun they had, we hope to do the same when the Games return to Kyrgyzstan in 2026.

For the Schlinks, we only made it to kokpar, a game akin to goat polo. Essentially, two teams riding horses vie for the most points by dropping a 40kg goat dummy (historically they used a carcass) into a circle at the opposite end of the field. The game is fast, aggressive, and exhausting. Athletes can only use one hand to pick up the goat and clutch it between their thigh and the horse. Sometimes riders fall off, sometimes horses escape or fall. The final was nuts, down to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, with military police on horseback standing guard. KZ won and Kyrgyzstan refused their 2nd place medals on grounds of cheating. In fact, KZ dominated the entire week winning 112 medals to Kyrgyzstan's 65. Russia placed 3rd overall with 49 whereas the bottom 55 countries tied with no medals, including the US.

Weather on kokpar day was cool, cloudy, and windy. It made the sun all the more lovely when it did come out. Did I talk about that with other people in our section? You bet I did. Because I too, loooooove to talk about the weather.

Lining up for the National Anthem.

Pre-show parade

Zebra Coffee to keep spectators warm.

Carrying the goat dummy under his leg.
Credit: Mark

Final kokpar match. Credit: Mark

Kyrgyz and Kazakh fans.

Screaming crowd after KZ win.

Nomad Games Billboard

Mark's New Pet DVT

Our first two months in Astana have mostly been wonderfully mundane and reassuringly predictable with work, school, seeking new friends and setting up house. Mark and I drive to work early to avoid traffic and the kids walk to school. Ginsburg stays home and destroys books or whatever she deems worthy. We come home, walk the dog, workout, cook dinner, repeat. It's a wonderful combination of homeyness and repetition, especially given the launch pad we hit upon arrival to post. Four days after getting to KZ from Colorado, Mark flew to Tashkent to pick up his driving buddy (Mamed), Ginsburg, and our car for a 2,000 km, 48-hour road trip that involved uncertain border conditions, last minute surprise paperwork, and hefty fees (bribes) to get everyone here. Long hours in the car meant good company, storytelling, music and silence, and breaks in several Kazakh towns along the way. They drove past mountains and lakes, and endless steppe. It also meant eating too much beef jerky, roasted almonds, dried fruit, and coffee, and probably not enough water. Ominous circumstances (and hopefully lessons learned) because not long after, Mark's Astana re-welcome was interrupted with a hospital stay for a deep vein thrombosis.

Turns out, even in fit individuals, blood clots can happen to anyone and especially when circulation is diminished over periods of time. We suspect the clot started several weeks prior while in DC due to an upper respiratory infection that he caught in a classroom containing about 400 students. A day or two of feeling under the weather was followed by exercise intolerance at the gym. In Colorado, bike riding at 8,700 feet required Herculean stamina, but a cycling fanatic was gonna do what a cycling fanatic does - ride. Finally, after thousands of kilometers of flying, and bonus time in the driver's seat led to calf pain that he simply couldn't be stretched out or fixed with a dose of ibuprofen. It was the kind of pain he probably would have ignored had I not been insistent on bringing him in.

The doctor's visit led to a leg ultrasound, which led to a hospital admission, initiation of blood thinning medication, thigh high compression stockings, multiple lab draws, a couple of echocardiograms, and a CT, followed by more labs. No, I wouldn't be allowed to see him because doctors here follow The Protocol and do not allow deviation from The Protocol. They don't communicate nor collaborate with patients, insisting that visitors would stress him too much. He and I spent a lonely anxious night apart from each other with no answers and drained cell phones. By the time I was allowed to visit and ask his doctors some questions, I was met with resistance to knowing their plan beyond "more tests" and bedrest. In the US, once a clot is determined stable, the rest of the care is handled on an outpatient basis and bedrest in the meantime, medically unsupported. Doctors scanned his heart twice and found no signs of dysfunction, weakening, or pooling of blood. Labs and fluids were ordered to monitor a high normal creatinine level and eventually they performed a CT. The results showed clear lungs with exception to an old, chronic clot lodged at the end of a pulmonary vessel, suggestive of previous lung infection. In between the scant nursing care, he played video games, read, drank water, and took naps. We exchanged countless texts and memes. He doom scrolled and bought sweaters on sale.

After the fourth day, Mark's labs still looked great with nothing indicating that he'd inherited a clotting disorder. He was doing well on the medicine. Still, the doctors wanted to observe him for another week. Because, The Protocol. My request (demand) for open communication and allowing for US based standards of care, wasn't going to fly. It was at this time that I lost my mind, cried, and stomped around like a toddler - which finally caught their attention that we would not be ignored. Mark was as calm, of course, as he explained to them that American patients expect to have a say in their care, that we should be part of their decision making process. The doctors didn't agree. They knew best and anyone who defies The Protocol is risking death itself. That's exactly what they told us. In the end, as a compromise, Mark agreed to the initial 5 day stay instead of the 10 day one they'd hoped. On the way out, I apologized for losing my cool and they accepted it, hopeful they'd be spared further theatrics. I don't care if they thought I was hysterical - I will never stop advocating for him, or any other patient for that matter.

Recovery from DVT is fairly easy but it's also cheeky: exercise but not too much, stretch but not too much, drink water but not too much, wear compression socks but not too much... take medicine as prescribed, don't keep your legs crossed, and also... hopes and prayers because sometimes blood just clots. Mark feels great, though his leg does swell with abandon after exercise and is wary of tingling toes, a predictable and annoying side effect of having reduced blood flow to his lower leg. Recovery, annoyingly, is measured in months to years, if ever. Knowing Mark though, he will find a way to do it and in half the time because he's predictable in that way.

Lake Balkash, about 1/4 of the way through KZ.

The Balkash Town.

Getting to know each other's musical tastes.

Touring Astana with Mamed.

A male model and his dog.

After a fresh shower which scared the nurses to death
despite my being there. Or maybe it was because I was there...

Soviet IV. Kazakhstan is modern in so many ways, but not in others.
Medicine is still 30-40 years behind.

Sonographer making stern remarks to her colleagues who may or may not
have forgotten to restock the ultrasound gel. Fixing that error took over an hour.

Home.

Sad dinner of mashed potatoes and nothing else for the kids
because I just couldn't while Mark was out.

Hospital meal of buckwheat, cabbage, tea, white bread.
They were offended that I kept bringing in snacks and sparkling water.

Lonely walk with Ginsburg.