The triumphant return of the Little Knyaz!

After a long interlude, I have finally decided that it was about time to re-create my blog and tell you how it's going down here on the mean streets of Karaganda. For reasons I won't go into my Google Account was suspended by a bunch of fascists, but I am sure this time everything will be ok. I am not exactly sure how I left things, and a lot has happened since my last blog post. Where exactly to start? I am not entirely sure.

Well Facebook is giving me no clues as to what the last blog post contained, so let's start with my birthday. Looking back on it, it wasn't exactly the best idea to have such a large party in such a small flat, but at the time it was the perfect idea. I invited some of my friends, and they brought some of their friends, and everything got a little out of hand. There was a mix of beer, vodka, cognac and champagne floating around, and all I can say is that Kazakhs are pretty lightweight when it comes to alcohol unlike their Russian compatriots. I don't remember much of what happened, but I do remember meeting a really crazy girl who chased me around with the shower head (если ты читаете это, ты знаете, кто ты), some kind of dancing and my neighbours forcibly evicting my guests. I don't think they liked the noise much.

Much to my surprise, after a day cleaning the flat was still intact! Only one glass was broken, which my landlady eventually forgave me for. It did cause quite a stir however, someone told the police and they turned up the next week, asking if I was an alcoholic and what I was doing in Kazakhstan. This was probably the scariest thing I have encountered in our glorious republic. Seriously, you have no idea.

After these crazy events, I decided to keep a low profile, at least as far as socialising was concerned. I had a colleague over for dinner, I went for a quiet shashlyk every now and again, and also I went for shisha with my Natige kids for the last time as they were going back to college in Almaty. I also saw real life Cossacks in the Central Park, which has to be one of the greatest experiences of my life! They were singing and dancing and swishing swords around; it was super awesome! Anybody who knows me will know that I never, ever, ever, ever use the phrase "super awesome", ever.

Alikhanova is looking nice after its rejuvenation, although I don't live there anymore. Because the school is too cheap to pay for the rent, I have been moved to a cheaper, smaller flat on Lobody. I can't say I enjoy it much, there's no water, it's cold and the bed is made of different cushions stuck together, but there is an oven so cooking should be much easier. With regards to food, I also tried for the first time the legendary Kazakh national dish of Beshbarmak, boiled horsemeat on a potato and pasta-type-thing platter. You wouldn't believe how amazingly delicious it is. One of my students was kind enough to invite me to his family home for this honour; they are all wonderful people and treat their guests amazingly. They took me to the Nazarbayev Steel Museum in Temirtau and also promised to take me to Astana, the capital, sometime in the near future.

Well that's about all I guess. My Russian is getting slightly better, and I will be starting lessons for the first time on Saturday, hoorah! Maybe I'll be able to do more than just buy shashlyk in the near future.

That reminds me, I haven't actually shown you a picture of my beloved shashlyk. I must do this.

And now, as always, time for some pictures:

 It's a communicative learning exercise, honest!

 Perhaps the biggest melon in the world

 Sometimes, you've just got to go to a place where everybody knows your name....

 Beshbarmak!

 The Steel Museum in Temirtau

 This one is pretty self-explanatory

 Our glorious leader

The "new and improved" Alikhanova

 The last summer camp with the children

 Smoking shisha in the Turkish Cafe

 The coolest bottle of honey ever!

Cossacks in the park!

Stay tuned for more fun and excitement.

Checking In

I am still alive! It's been pretty chaotic here at the moment, being at work almost 12 hours a day and then having to spend what little remains of my evenings shopping and cleaning. It's not even much better at the weekends; the kids always seem to want to drag me somewhere or show me something.

While you wait for a more complete list of my shennaigans since the last post, please enjoy a list of things that I miss about my homeland:

• Organisation
• Being able to read food packets without standing around for ages transliterating from cyrillic to latin script
• Being able to buy things without mime or a dictionary
• Having friends
• People who aren't afraid of their own shadow

That's about it.

Oh, and it's my birthday on Sunday!

A Weekday Adventure: A Trip to the Natige Factory

Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of visiting the Natige milk factory on the outskirts of Karaganda. Natige is the dominant brand of milk in Karaganda, and does well in Astana, the capital, but has yet to expand into the rest of Kazakhstan; I have no doubt that it will do however in time. Why am I so confident that it will?

It has a lot to do with the business as well as the product; Natige is a family run business that was started 15 years ago with the simple idea of providing chemical-free fresh milk and is the only brand of milk to do so in Kazakhstan. I personally think it's the best brand of milk-products available in the shops, and it really stands out from the other more Soviet-looking products on the shelves. I have sneaking suspicions that most of the directors of the companies that produce these products made their money from dodgy dealings in the wild 90s as opposed to Natige, whose success comes primarily from hard-work.

And the cow on the packaging is just so cute! Look at it!

The factory was something of wonder; how such a small and intimate place can produce so much milk is amazing. All of the processes are sterile and automated, the packaging is provided by Tetra-Pak. It's nice to see exactly just where the milk you buy comes from and how it's made. At the end the various managers had me weighed down with so much stuff that I now have a fridge full of milk and other Natige products. These are some seriously generous people.

Unfortunately there are no pictures for you of the factory or the industrial-strength kefir that I was lucky enough to try. I am going back on the 4th of August however; this time I will take my camera for my adoring audience.

In other news, the heat briefly lowered earlier today when a small pocket of rain dumped itself over Karaganda; a soaked Tom was mightily relieved and thankful. The accompanying thunder was like nothing I have never experienced. Even half a mile away it sounded like the sky had torn open and all of hell had followed it in.

Until next time.

Вечно молодой, вечно пьяный

I can just feel this place turning me into an alcoholic. The combination of stress at work and the availablity/cheapness of alcohol is a very dangerous combination.


Forever young; forever drunk.

The Kazakh viking

So yesterday I tried horse for the first time.

It wasn't bad actually; like a more muscular beef.




What have I done?!

Every day is a different adventure

I must first apologise for my tardiness in not posting a blog post in quite a long time; two weeks is far too long for my adoring fans. What exactly have I been doing that is more important than you, you might ask? Well, apart from devoting my week to work and my weekends to fun adventures, nothing much. Teaching has a way of consuming every single hour you have no matter how much you might want to spend your day doing absolutely nothing.

Let's start at the beginning, nearly two weeks ago. The last time I posted a blog, we were busy worshipping the demi-god Navarbayev. The saturday after I devoted primarily to learning about IELTS, the most evil testing system in the world. It wasn't all bad as I could enjoy this while getting slowly merry (as Mike would say) and eating the worlds second-best beer snacks. In the evening I had my first taste of just how expensive beer can be in Kazakhstan. Up until this point I was used to paying around £1.20 for 500ml at my local shashlyk cafe. £15 for 4 beers might not seem like a lot for some of you, but in Karaganda it's extortion, pure and simple.

I did however meet some nice people that night, including Valeera, whose phone number I have now lost for reasons that will become obvious later in the blog.

Last week continued on much the same as the first two in Kz; I had my dairy dynasty, the great-granddaughter of Nurken Abdirova (a local hero) and some random groups of students, all of who are characters in their own way. Welcome to Kazakhstan, the land of supreme character traits.

Of course, it wouldn't be a good blog post without some hi-jinx. At the beginning of last week I was told I would be going to the mountain resort of Karkarlinsk by my milk kids (there was no discussion; I WAS going) and that we would enjoy a varied mixture of Kazakh food, Russian girls and alcohol. Natürlich, I relented, and spent most of the week feeling great anticipation for what I was hoping would be an amazing adventure. And it was, for all the right and wrong reasons.

There's something about Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs have a great progressive spirit and it feels like the Russian minority here, who still dominate pretty much everything, really hold the country back. The Kazakhs want to move forward and make their country the best in the world and all the Russians want is for everything to be how it used to be. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have found a new respect for the Kazakhs that I wasn't even aware I had.

Anyway, back to the weekend. After a hard week of teaching I joined my Kazakh compatriots (or partners in crime, if you will) on a two hour journey to the mountains in the east of Karagandinskaya Oblast. We rode in a convey of two Toyota Land Cruisers that looked like they probably cost more than I will earn in 5 years of teaching out here. We climbed a mountain, we had kumiss in a Yurt. Then we headed out.

I should point out at this point that kumiss is fermented horse milk.

We rode on to the town of Karkarlinsk, surrounded by mountains. I was given a history lesson in Kazakhstan's national heroes by the director of Natige milk (the best milk in the world!). Mr Natige is the boys' father, a self-made businessman who prides himself on the fact his company is the only one in Kazakhstan that doesn't use chemicals in their milk. I get the distinct feeling his company is a success through hard-work and not by dodgy dealings in the wild 90s, after the collapse of communist central authority.

Anyway, we rode on to the hotel somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. There was a lake, banya, bar, restaurant and a tree-climbing thing. Maybe one day I will show the video of me climbing the trees, but I doubt it.

After a day of fun activities that mostly involved death-defying heights and beautiful women, we sat down to relax with a few beers and shashlyk by the lake. I spent that evening in the company of Mr Natige, his friend, and the German driver who, in true Kazakhstan style, doesn't speak a word of German. The kids ran off to try and chat up girls, although they sometimes came back one at a time to attempt to translate. After this things get a little hazy: the local Russian folk started to catch on to the fact I was clearly a foreigner. This naturally meant everyone wanted to drink with me. Much vodka was consumed (the Russian saying goes that vodka without beer is a waste of money), and me being incredibly foolish and naive I drank with pretty much everyone.

Mr Natige rescued me and took me to a banya, my first experience of such. He whipped the hell out of me with a birch branch, as you do, and then taught me some Kazakh in the break room. Then i'm not too sure what happened. I remember waking up in my bed the next morning fully clothed with a terrible hangover. My phone, watch and mp3 player were gone, nowhere to be found and never to be seen again.

A reconstruction of the events after the banya is not really possible; needless to say there was probably more drink involved. I have no idea how I lost most of my prized possessions, but my wallet and passport seem to still be in my position. Also, there is a priceless video of Mr Natige carrying me to bed. I will never live that down.

The sunday I spent relaxing and avoiding all forms of alcohol. Everyone at the hotel, guests and staff alike, all knew who I was and how I had lost all my stuff, so I had turned into something of a local celebrity. The Kazakhs would all come up to shake my hand, the Russians would all offer me vodka. It felt a little good, but it still didn't help me find my stuff much.

The drive back to Karaganda took another 2 hours. The steppe is truely an incredible place: a vast and totally infinite void. When you are out there, it feels like an endless sea of grass, totally desolate.

When we got back, we went to a Turkish cafe and I tried Kalyan (Russian for hookah) for the first time. Though it was relaxing at first, it ended up just making me feel sick. I was totally exhausted by this point, and walked back to the doma.

Pictures of my adventure:

 A yurt, where we had breakfast

Inside the Yurt with the guys

 Climbing a mountain with the dairy dynasty

View from the mountain

Kazakh tea

Our Land Cruiser convoy in the centre of Karkaralinsk

 Medi: Kazakhstan's Robin Hood. A friend of Abay, Kazakhstan's most famous writer

 A 200 year old house

The mosque of Karkaralinsk. Built by Abay's father

The Nature Museum

 Our hotel by the lake

 Banya!

 Koshka

Since my return, I have mostly tried to live down the shame of losing pretty much everything I took with me. This has not been easy, seeing how I have to teach these kids every day. Also I went on a date with a girl who didn't speak any English. It was even more hilarious than it sounds.

Until next time,

The Little Knyaz

Dear Karaganda....

.....coal is not the solution to all of your problems.

Seriously, it's not.



Kind Regards,


The Little Knyaz

Nazarbayev Day

So it's not really called Nazarbayev Day but Astana Day, but it might as well have been. The fact that the holiday is conducted on his birthday and the TV is full of programmes about him probably tells that more people consider it a day about him than the capital. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Nazarbayev; quite the opposite in fact. He seems to run Kazakhstan in a strong way and has led his country to regional power status. But the whole pretense of modesty annoys me; why not name things after yourself if you can? Alexander the Great did it.

For those of you who don't know who Nursultan Nazarbayev is, that's a real shame. I'm not going to waste this blog post with some detailed analysis of the leader of our Glorious Republic. What I will say is that he is the President, and everyone in the country seems to consider him a decent enough leader. I personally think that my kitchen wall needs a picture of him, but I really don't want to spend 2000 tenge on one. I will take someone along with me next time i'm in Tsum to help me haggle.

As far as teaching goes, it's been an interesting sort of week. I have taught yet even more of the Milk Dynasty, as the school keeps dumping work onto me without any sort of meek approval from myself. I also seem to have taken on an individual who wants me to teach her Financial English. Ok, great! Let me learn something about finance first and I'm sure it'll be great. What a joke.

Kazakhstan is a strange sort of place. Nothing works as it's intended to but everything works somehow. I can't even begin to explain this. It's not so much a problem for me as a source of curious fascination. There is a definite Russian spirit in Karaganda, even if the whole place has a distinctly Asian feel about that I would guess has come about in the last twenty years.

Apart from teaching I haven't done much in the past week. Working from 10 in the morning until 9 in the evening tends to take all of the fun out of the day. Despite my busy schedule I went out last night with some new friends and drank a copious amount of vodka. You really can drink a lot of vodka when you eat shit loads of pickled stuff.

No pictures today. With any luck there'll be more next time.

I do have an open question for the inhaibtants of Kazakhstan though. Why do the Korean people all have Russian names?

Акклиматизирование

....is the Russian word for acclimatisation. In case you hadn't guessed, that is what today's blog entry is going to be about.

I have seen some strange things since my arrival slightly over a week ago in Kazakhstan. I have seen people who live in old tin-shacks with their mothers drive new BMWs. I have seen street repair using tires and old wire meshes (see later pictures). I have seen families out in the park listening to Fifty Cent over the public radio, totally oblivious to the lyrics. I have seen how every corner shop (or магазин to you Russian folk) seems to have beer taps. But the hardest thing in Kazakhstan I have had to deal with is the heat. Yesterday this manifested itself in a severe sickness when I woke up.

I'm not too sure how this all came about. Wednesday evening after work me and Alf went out for shashlyk and a few beers at our local shashlyk cafe. I had quite a few beers but certainly nothing excessive, and I partook in some raw eggs and water for the purposes of sobering up. I awoke on thursday morning with a high fever, diarrhea and painful stomach cramps. Go on. Blame it on the fact I'm a raging alcoholic. You know you want to.

Two days before, I had been paid a visit at the school by a local Kazakh milk-magnate; an important man in the world of Karaganda's dairy production, one might say. He some kind of director at a milk factory, and naturally he and his English speaking, baby-factory of a wife want me to teach his offspring. Naturally I accepted once they mentioned me going for a holiday with them in the Kazakh mountains. I am easily swayed.

They are good kids, but being in their late teens means that they lack the motivation I sort of need to work with. They don't rebel either, so it's impossible for me to even ascertain whether they have understood what I am talking about. When I try and concept-check the strongest one of the group just shouts out the answers, to the bemusement of everyone else.

Anyway, this random tangent had a point. Wednesday, the day after, was my first experience with them. I had some sort of hopes for them given that their understanding at this point wasn't too bad. Later on I had an FCE class, which is always fun. Quite often you can use your cynical, sarcastic sense-of-humour to great effect on these students as their level is really good.

Flash forward again to waking up on Thursday morning. So there I was, in more pain than I thought was stomachly possible. Being British I naturally soldiered on for as long as I could, teaching a horrible lesson with the milk-baron's progeny which I am certain they didn't learn a thing. One of my colleagues noticed I looked like death and said I should rest. So I did. For 15 hours.

I awoke sometime today and spent the day locked up in the flat with 6 kilos of watermelon and the Russian TV series Brigada for company. Alf made dinner as he often does. I hope I am well enough tomorrow to actually get past my front door, as I had planned on visiting the central park for the first time. Oh and it's now raining a little outside. I cannot tell you how much of a relief that is.

And now, time for some pictures.

 This cat screamed at us for ages, then went and sat down next to a pigeon. Only in Kazakhstan...

A bottle on a tree. It's not a birch tree

This is how public repairs go in Kz. Hole in the road? Put a metal mesh over it with a tire. If you're really lucky, there might be a tree growing through it!

This is where I work! When I'm not battling intestinal juices

Home of shashlyk and short-shorted waitresses.

As usual, more are featured on Facebook.

A new day, a new adventure

The new flat is pretty typical of this part of the world; there are persian rugs on the sofas, an old 70s dressing cabinet and a mix of old and new decor. It's in a grey, aging Soviet apartment block (otherwise known as Khrushchevka) in the middle of the city. Still, I like it and will probably one day grow to love it. It feels very homely and is still, at the end of the day, a little piece of privacy and personal space. At the moment I am living with another native-English speaker named Alfred, but when he moves out in a months time I will have this wonderful little doma to myself.

The front door was actually installed in the wild-90s, when nobody had a pot to piss in and everyone pretty much turned to crime to fuel their various addictions.

In the five days that I have been here, it has so far yet to drop below 30 degrees in the day-time. At it's worst yesterday it was actually 40, which is far more than I am used to in England. I can't really stand this heat very well, but I think at some point I will go into town and buy a fan.

So, let's take you through what happened since I arrived at the flat. I was orientated into the ways of everyday living in the former communist-bloc by my colleague, flat-mate and fellow British Isles inhabitant Alf, and I was taken to get a new Kazakhstan phone by the other native-English speaker at the school, Patrick. I must say that Karaganda seems to have its fair share of beautiful women, on both sides of the Russian/Kazakh aisle.

The first day was pretty much a non-event apart from that and meeting the other teachers at the school. Friday proved to be a little more eventful, as I went out with the children in the morning to the museum of local history, and to some sort of origami museum. Karaganda seems to revolve around mining, so there was a lot of mining history thrown in amongst old banners of Lenin and Gulag barbedwire. Why there is an origami museum, or why they had groups of dancing children there, I simply do not know.

Complete with unruly children of Kazakhstan. Serious business.

You can't dance, so don't even try.

When we returned to the office, I partook in observations of the classes I was going to be teaching. Then straight afterwards I was told I'd be teaching them from Monday. Bummer. Still, I tried not to let it bother me and on Friday night we went out for our first Shashlyk at our local cafe. I have a feeling I am going to get to know this place intimately over the next year. I will take some pictures of the place the next time I am there.

Four beers, shashlyk, and some strange conversations with two drunk local women later about "little boy" later, I wandered the streets of Karaganda late at night with Pat. I walked into a tree, bought some more beer and headed home.

On Saturday I got lost for the second time, had to be rescued by Alf, and then pretended to prepare for my Monday lessons at the school. Mostly I went to the school despite the fact no-one was there because it has air-conditioning; staying in a stuffy flat in 36 degree heat is just not fun. In the evening I triumphantly returned to the Shashlyk Cafe with my new friend Sergei, a half-Russian, half-Korean teacher from the school. The local waitress is getting to know me quite well, although the waiter there looks like he probably couldn't give two shits whether I paid his wages or not.

On a totally unrelated note, the staff are beginning to notice my addiction to the Russian drink Kvass, a refreshing elixir made from fermented rye-bread.

On Sunday I went to the downtown shopping area, bought nothing, and then returned to the flat where I cut my thumb trying to open a jar of gherkins with a knife. A bazaar awaited me later in the day, where many dubious "bargains" could be had. It had more of a sort of Hong Kong shipping yard look to it than your average Arabic bazaar, and the absolutely appaling state of the public walkways could only ever happen in a post-Soviet country or in Africa. I would have taken some pictures, but I left my camera at home.

I ate more shashlyk and drank more Karagandskoye (the local beer), and thus forfeited myself from doing lesson planning as I had intended. Nevermind though.

Today I had my first true lessons. They were not like on my TESOL, where I had to create the entire lesson from scratch, but basically use the book to teach, with my own brand of wonderful humour. I believe they like my sense of humour but I could be totally wrong. We shall find out another time.

There are more pictures on my Facebook, for anyone who wants to see more of my whacky adventures.

First impressions

The old cliché goes that the first impression is the lasting one. So it's hard to describe the way I feel about Kazakhstan right now. In most ways I like it, but the city's flaws are so glaringly obvious that it makes it hard to avoid them. The streets are poorly maintained, there are building materials lying around pretty much everywhere, people seem to spend more on their cars than they do on their houses. I could go on and on, but I don't see this as anything essentially bad. It's just one of those totally incomprehensible places that while lacking in order more than makes up for it in soul.

The only part of the plane journey from Gatwick to Kiev that can be remarked upon is its total unremarkableness. Equipped with baggage and linen suit, I started my journey with a sense of complete apprehension. So many questions filled my head, so many worries. As soon as I arrived in Kiev, however, the apprehension started to subside. Even if I was only in the airport, the ancient Slavic city somehow got into my head and calmed my nerves with her soothing song. That and the three beers helped somewhat, too.

The flight to Karaganda was certainly more eventful. Sitting in front of me was a friendly if somewhat drunken Russian who showered me with duty-free cherry brandy. After failing to get any sleep, I arrived at Karaganda Airport at 6:15 in the morning (an hour behind schedule) and was greeted by Kazakh immigration officials. Naturally they had about a thousand questions for me which given my Russian was not an ideal situation. Thanks to the help of my new drinking buddy and an English-speaking customs official, I was let into the Glorious Republic of Kazakhstan! Hail Nazarbayev.

From there on it was a taxi-ride into the centre of the city and my new home.

What's in a Name? Karaganda, Kazakhstan

I had honestly never heard of Karaganda before I applied for the job here. I knew of Kazakhstan of course, and not just because I had seen Borat. But my view of Kazakhstan was still not exactly the most glittering: a forgotten, post-Soviet state that had some kind of history that no-one really cared much about. What possessed me to apply for a job in a country that I couldn't even name the capital of? Anyone who knows me will tell you that my knowledge of Europe is excellent, but Kazakhstan is somewhere in a vast amount of space "over there somewhere".

It was a mixture of things that made me apply for the job, the most prominent being that I wanted some kind of natural introduction to all things Russian before I actually go and live in Russia herself. Karaganda thus offered an interesting proposition; the school is overwhelmingly Russian in it's ethnic population and Kazakhstan is a country where pretty everyone speaks Russian in their daily lives apart from the most staunch Kazakhi nationalists. I also think the romanticised view I hold in my head of the Kazakh steppe being a land of horse-riding nomads had something to do with my desire to see Kazakhstan before inevitably travel out to Russia; as an adventurous sort of person I sometimes like to picture myself as Genghis Khan, riding out with the tribe.

Ultimately my picture of Kazakhstan so far has been shaded by what little information I have found on the internet and speaking with my Russian friends. In spite of their scepticism, I have come to see it as a beautiful land in its own way. I know that pictures are very rarely ever indicative of the reality of a situation, but I still like to marvel over the look of a post-Soviet city caught between it's Russian and Asian identities. Probably only such a thing could ever appeal to me. I don't really care. I have come to appreciate Kazakhstan as more than just a precursor to Russia, and I can't wait to go and discover a culture steeped in thousands of years of history. So far people have either thought I was crazy or have gently encouraged my ambitions. As for the whole teaching aspect, I haven't even given it any serious thought yet.

It's only two days now until I begin the greatest series of travels that I will likely ever embark on in my lifetime. I have most things sorted now, and the apprehension has given way to a feeling of excitement. I am unsure how the internet situation will be out there, but I promise I will update everyone as soon as I possibly can.

And now, a list of the things I am mostly looking forward to:

• Shashlyk
• Going to a banya
• Conversing with strangers in broken Russian
• Horse-riding on the steppe
• Hitting the beaches on the Caspian Sea
• Soviet-era beer
• My own sense of freedom again
• German bakeries
• That insane sense of confidence that comes with being a teacher

Until next time, compatriates.

A new beginning; a new life

Some of you may be wondering why this blog exists, some of you may know perfectly why without even reading this post. But the vast majority of you probably won’t care enough to scroll down this far. For those of you who have taken the time, your reward is a story and a little enlightenment into the world and mentality of the Little Knyaz.

My name is Tom Phillips, for those who don’t know already, and my whole life I have wanted nothing more than to see the world. Not as some bumbling, ignorant tourist, but to really see places; to live there and experience them the way those who reside there do. To meet wonderful new people and quite possibly to eat them out of house and home. Travel broadens the mind and speaks to the soul. That’s probably a quote, although I care not.

By this point, you probably have one of two opinions of me: either 1) that I’m either some kind of airy-fairy, naive middle-class boy who enjoys backpacking around South-east Asia, or 2) you may actually understand perfectly what it feels like to possess a certain kind of wanderlust. I would have to say though, the idea of spending my days bumming around Hanoi or Bangkok, or spending time in squat-houses somewhere in the jungles of South America or Africa never really appealled to me. Like a good Teutonic Knight I always thought of my future in the near-East; a place peculiar and beautiful but still distinctly European.

When I had finished my Military History degree at University I pondered a recommendation given to me by one of my tutors. He told me that in order to open my mind and learn more languages (which would help with my career plan at the time) I should go to foreign parts to teach English. At the time, I had decided on Spain but, as the ordinaryness of post-University life took its toll, my dreams of travel gradually faded away.

But deep-down, my nomadic soul had not died. Freshly envigorated after a series of life-misfortunes, I endeavoured to live the dream I had wanted since I was a nerdy, reclusive thirteen year old. I set my sights on the land of the bear, the land of the cold. Of Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Alexander Nevsky: the land of ancient Russia.

Fresh-faced and enthusiastic, I started out on my TESOL course in the beautiful city of Cheltenham. I however soon found out that life was not as easy here as I had hoped: the natives were rude and arrogant, and the course was a nightmare of never-ending phonemics and coffee fueled grammar lessons. Despite the difficulty I did enjoy myself a little bit, and I met some great people who I will never forget (and will probably play host to me next summer in warm mediterranean climates). On a side-note, the risotto balls in Cheltenham's Caffe Italia are absolutely to die for!

Skip to now. I am sitting here writing the first entry as I am about to embark on an adventure that will either consume me or mark me for life. I had originally intended to go to Russia, and I infact still do, but I am taking a slight detour. My first teaching position is in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. A place we shall explore more in my next post.