The "Big Apple" of Kazakhstan

I'm preparing for our next trip to Kazakhstan, in less than a month and came across this interesting bit of information about Almaty:

History records that the current city of Almaty was built on top of an ancient Kazakh settlement which dates from the 3rd century BC. Over the years it has had many names – Vernyi, later Alma-Ata and now - Almaty. At one time a big and bustling city on the ancient Silk Road, ancient Almaty ultimately fell into decline and then that ancient city was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century AD and lay in ruins. Finally, in 1854, the Russians founded a frontier fort here and named it Zailiyskoe. A year later, it was renamed Vernoye, under which name it existed until 1921.

Today Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan with about 2 million inhabitants, is known as the commercial heart of Kazakhstan and was for many years Kazakhstan’s governmental capital. Due to its location right next to the Tien Shan Mountains, it became known as one of the most beautiful cities of central Asia. When the Turkistan-Siberian Railroad was built in the 1920s, it became a major terminal station. In 1929 Almaty was made the capital of the Kazak Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and remained the governmental capital of Kazakhstan until July 1998 when the capital was moved to Astana.

Almaty in Kazakh means "Father of Apples" or another translation is “Rich in Apples”, and there is speculation that Almaty was home to the ancestral apple trees that now grow throughout the world. So Almaty can rightfully claim the title of "The Big Apple" alongside New York City.

Cumulus Clouds, Rabbit Running & Rumi Speaks

I wish I could have written everyday in this blog, as I had originally intended. But running from one end of town to the next, from meeting to meeting and trying to get that perfect shot before it disappeared mixed with a lack of internet and lack of sleep resulted in blog neglect.

It's rather disappointing because we've experienced so much. So forgive me for not writing in chronological order, but rather in my memories order-- however they decide to appear.

Three days ago, Timur, Anne and I set-off with Sergei, our driver on a 14-hour car ride to Turkestan. We stopped once for 3 hours to see the famous petroglyphs, a huge array of stone carvings made by prehistoric men on small mountains. The car ride was difficult--sitting our our butt for so long, but I have to admit I can neer get sick o watching those huge cumulus clouds drifting through the sky. We don't have those in L.A., it doesn't have enough trees and green to produce them.

The journey was worth it, and appropriately so because we arrived late that evening in 2nd Mecca, the holy capital of Kazakhstan, TURKESTAN.
We stayed at the best hotel, of the 3 in the town, which says very little. Just to give an example, for breakfast the next morning only 3 of 12 items on the menu were available. The waitress asked Sergei if he wanted milk for his coffee, he said yes and she said, "sorry we are out of milk." Then there's the plumbing and toilet problem, but that's an issue I've learned to accept in the outskirts of Almaty.

After breakfast we headed towards the "Kozha Akhmed Yasaui Mausoleum". The mausoleum for the Sufi teacher and Turkic mystical poet was built by Timur the Lame, (who my Timur is named after,) back in the 1390s. When the workmen learned of Timur's death, they stopped working -- thus the front of the mausoleum has no tilework and still has wooden scaffolding in the masonry.
Inside we learned so much about the importance of Kozha Akhmed Yasaui. He was the teacher o many important figures like the poet Rumi, Mohammed and the leader of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Also the 1st Turkish bathouse came from there and is located right next to the Mausoleum. We got a VIP tour and experience because our wonderful guide flirted with one of the directors and got Anne and Timur a meeting with all of the board, where they told them about our project and they granted us access to shoot inside, (which is unheard of!)

One of the board members even became our guide, and would pull back the restrainers around the scupltures and antiques so we could go in and get a better close-up. He then invited us to a private Dkihr worship for the Sufis that evening.

Sufism is the mystic side of the muslim religion. It is a peaceful and beautiful side, all based on singing. The entire Dkihr was composed of chanting and sining with head movements. The music was enchanting and so powerful. They didn't try to covert us, they simply wanted to teach us about their religion. It was incrdibly inspiring.

Okay, ufortunately I can't write anymore. I am now running off to the natonal library in search of photographs and newspapers from the 1920s and 30s. (when the soviets first took over kazakhstan and the nomad period ended.)

Chimbulak Mountains

Today began with a delicious hot breakfast of fresh cream of wheat. It tastes completely different than the kind back home, probably because the wheat is so fresh and the milk is unpasteurized. Right after that Timur, his father and I drove through Almaty up to the snow-peaked Chimbulak mountains.

This is one of Almaty's treasures; these grand, snow-peaked picturesque mountains that surround the city like one of nature's fortress'.

We drove all the way up and reached a well-known ski resort, for it's ski lift, and purchased tickets for the ride. I knew the view would be worth it, but once we were sitting in it my nerves kicked in and it began to feel like a mild roller coaster. Thankfully, Timur's father used his psychiatry on me and calmed me down. I shot quite a bit of footage and think some of it might be good.

This was really my first sight-seeing trip of Almaty because for the past 2 days we've been indoors with the National Folk Orchestra conducting individual workshops and meeting each player. There are so many interesting instruments that are just not known in the West. There's even a harp-like instrument that was restored after a few hundred years and now has its first player who is in the orchestra as well.

The workshops have gone really well and Monday we're going o have our first big rehearsal with the entire orchestra and the conductor. I've been working on questions to interview a lot of the key players. Monday will be busy because right after the rehearsal is my screening.

Day #1 Kazakhstan

After 3 hours of trying to rest we had to attend our 1st meeting. It was at KIMEP, a well-known university here in Almaty, for a showcase of my films. They are going to screen over 1 hour of my films in their Great Hall this Monday, June 1st at 6:30pm.
There were several faculty and the Director of Student Affairs, etc waiting to greet us and show us their different screening halls.

Timur is going to present the event and host the Q&A with me. The Great Hall sits over 600 people, so the space is huge and still somewhat old with decor so I think it's beautiful. They use it for graduation, which explain the image of it I posted.

The school is sending out a lot of publicity for it as well as our project's producer, Yelena,

(who I met for the first time at the meeting yesterday.) She is a perfect producer and is doing so much work. Right after the meeting she had an appointment scheduled with the travel agency for our trip into the outskirts of the city planned for next week. This travel agency specializes in the most picturesque locations in the country and we will have our own driver so I can shoot as much and long as is needed. 

Anne LeBaron arrived a bit later, but we haven't seen her yet because both Timur an I couldn't stay awake for much longer. We both fell asleep until now. 

So far this experience has been an experience. Almaty is unlike any other place I've ever been too. You can definitely feel both the Soviet and Asian influence. The people here have been very kind and from what I can gather this society functions a lot on trust. 

You see all kinds of people, from students to grandma's on the side of the road hitchhiking everywhere. This is common practice, we even did it a few times yesterday and 1 time 2 young students picked us up. You agree on a price at first and then get into the car. 

Day #1 Traveling to Kazakhstan

I got a taste of what to expect, as far as the way things are run, while at the LAX airport trying to get my ticket from Russian airlines Aeroflot. Technically, any traveller can fly into Moscow and transfer to a different plane as long as they don't leave the airport. Well at the check-in desk they decided that I needed to have a transit visa, so the only way they would let me through is if the luggage was sent under Timur's name, but that would cost $335 because of the big favor. (They tried to justify it based on weight, but I couldn't follow any logic in it.) Well, this caused a huge argument with the manager and several employees. From what I gathered, none of this would have happened if I continued flying on their airline all the way to Kazakhstan or had gotten my ticket from a travel agent. Timur had no problems, since Kazakhstan (former USSR) gives his free access to Russia without any Visa. We eventually found a loophole: paying for extra overweight baggage, which ended up costing $54. One of the attendants spoke Spanish so I spoke with her honestly about the absurd situation and she helped as much as she could.

The flight was awful, but survivable. It was 13 hours long, 2 bad airplane meals, breakfast was a candy bar and plane tv's were broken, so no form of entertainment. Someone went into the bathroom and smoked, so we all had to sit when we finally landed so that some medical guy could point a tobacco detector into each of our faces. I think I was the only American on his plane. The flight attendants all spoke to me in Russian and couldn't understand any English.

Then we arrive in Moscow. The airport had some bright orange Soviet architecture with it's bold san-serifs cyrillic fonts, completely Russian Constructivist feeling- I loved seeing this. We got off and after two safety inspections go looking for a monitor that tells us where the Air Astana terminal is. We walked around for 30 minutes and only found an attendant at a desk, who only spoke Russian. She told Timur to walk to the next hallway of doors and go into the room with the gold handle. Yes-- this obscure! So we find the door, which has no sign and go into it. The room looks like a waiting room with a reception desk, still no signs, and the ladies there check us in for Air Astana. They were very kind and attempted to say "Hello" in english to me. This was the first attempt of communication I'd gotten from anyone all day, so I immediately decided Kazakhstan ppl are nice and I like them. (Yes, my mid needed to create this determination for sanity sake.)

Air Astana was a wonderful flight, with delicious food and snacks, entertainment, hot towels, eye masks, kind stewardesses, kind ppl sitting next to us-- reminded me on flying LAN in South America.

We got off the plane and went to get our luggage. The security guy took me aside because of my bolex. He couldn't understand me so Timur came in to find out what he wanted. He assumed that the camera was an antique that I was going to sell to someone in Kzakhstan, Timur explained t him that it was mine and not for sale and would be traveling back to the U.S.A. with me. We finally got out of the airport, Wednesday 5 am after leaving from L.A. on Monday at 6pm.

Silent Steppe Promo

WATCH SILENT STEPPE CANTATA PROMO

Sanatorium

So it looks like a trip to China might have to be postponed because Timur got called into a production in Bali and he needs to leave to it immediately after our trip. He suggested that we stay in Kazakhstan and go to a Sanatorium. Yes, yes my first impression was also: a psychiatric ward??? And actually, it turns out that in the former Soviet Union the term has a slightly different meaning. It is mostly a combination of a resort/recreational facility and a medical facility intended to provide short-term complex rest and medical services, thus it is common to a spa resort.

Here is 1 I found:http://www.birkolik.kz/eng/
It's called “Birkolik” Sanatorium-preventorium and it's in South Kazakhstan. Their medical treatment includes mud therapy, balneotherapy (baths w/ different kinds of salts and minerals), hydrotherapy and remedial gymnastics, massage, etc.