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?
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?
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