Footloose Scot (23 page)

The economy of the village changed drastically for the worse after the collapse of the USSR. Previously, a chicken factory close to the village gave employment to many villagers. When Kazakhstan became independent there was no money to subsidize the chicken factory. It closed down, and with it went dozens of jobs. The manager, through connections, got a job as chief of the National Park. The abandoned buildings of the chicken farm stood right next to the road which connected Zhabagly to the main highway - a bleak testimonial to the old way of life.

The jobs which were left were teaching, and living off the land. The teachers all dressed very correctly, but I questioned the standard of education which the students received. When we dropped in at an English class at the barracks-like three-story school, we found a very nervous teacher who seemed frightened to speak to us in English and totally apathetic students working from the dullest English language book.

The rest of the village lived off the land. This meant cultivating their gardens and keeping a cow and perhaps a horse. The cows were kept in a shed behind each home, and were let out in the morning to graze on the surrounding steppe, guarded by a small boy.

The major event of the day happened in the early evening when the cows were herded back to the village. They approached in a long line and each cow, as it recognized its owner who stood by an open gate, peeled off and went to its shed.

A few of the cottages in the village offered accommodation for tourists. This was due to a grant from a U.S. Foundation and training provided by "Wild Nature." The Kazakhs had a long tradition of hospitality, and what they received in their training was an understanding of what foreigners expected. Guests who travelled overnight by train from Almaty were met at the local rail station and driven for twenty minutes to a tourist home in Zhabagly by myself or another volunteer. They would be greeted at the door by a Kazakh woman in traditional dress saying "Welcome to my home". They would then take breakfast, sitting kazakh-style on cushions at a low table.

Then, depending on how much time they had, we would take them into the National Park, to a famous Muslim mosque 60 miles away, or to a bird banding station. Swimming and horse back riding was also available. Trips into the park had to be arranged through the corrupt and inefficient administration. Entry tickets had to be obtained from them, and payment made for overnight accommodation in the run-down huts in the park. Despite this, the tourists loved seeing prehistoric markings on rocks at 10,000 feet (which Wild Nature called the highest art gallery in the world), and hearing Vladimir, who was fluent in English, interpreting the terrain and identifying wildlife.

With a small but increasing number of tourists arriving at the village, I was kept reasonably busy with guiding duties. The other area where they needed help was with marketing, including a web page. They already had a volunteer from the British agency, Voluntary Service Overseas, which is roughly the equivalent to Peace Corps. This fellow had got a grant and supervised the production of a brochure. The potential for nature tourism was promising despite having to work with the park administration.

Since tourist to Kazakhstan require a visa and on arrival have to submit to periodic reporting of their whereabouts to the police, it made sense to tap into the expatriate market to promote tours to Zhabagly. With another VSO volunteer, I got invited to address the wives of diplomats and oil company executives in one of Almaty's best hotels. This was an easy and successful promotion, and made easier because getting to Zhabagly by train from Almaty was simple.

One of the few good legacies from Soviet days was the rail system which extended across the USSR, including the trans Siberian route to the Pacific coast. Several times I travelled by train from Zhabagly to Almaty for a weekend, perhaps to a Peace Corps meeting or else to take time off for myself. I always booked a bed in a four berth sleeping car. Sharing food with the other passengers in the compartment, and trying to talk with them, and finally climbing into a top bunk, with sheets, was always a thrill. Listening to the sounds from the huge steam engine and the passage of the wheels over the rails would send me immediately into a sound sleep.

Arriving in Almaty, my first visit was to a banya - a public sauna. This is another legacy from the days of the USSR. I opted for a Turkish bath similar to what I had experienced in Istanbul. This meant going into a large circular room, and lying on a slab which was heated from below. Smaller alcoves around the main room provided for more privacy for people who wanted to talk. Cold showers were available around the room, and after about 60 minutes of lying on the slab, alternating with a cold shower, I was cleansed, perked up and ready to go.

My next stop was a fancy restaurant serving American breakfasts. Here I would order a plate of eggs and bacon with coffee and watch CNN on a TV mounted on the wall. After three months of local food, including horse meat, and simple village life this was pure indulgence which I didn't feel at all guilty about. Now I was ready to visit the Peace Corps office.

Peace Corps Kazakhstan was a sizeable and well-run operation. They occupied two new buildings not far from the city center which included offices, meeting rooms, a doctor's office and a lounge for volunteers. Security was tight; all vehicles arriving in the compound were inspected for bombs. The English-speaking Kazakh staff, including a full-time doctor, were well able to cope with the 170 Peace Corps volunteers in Kazakhstan. The country head, Kris Besch, a conscientious and popular woman, had been a volunteer in Africa. Unlike in Russia, from where Peace Corps had been exiled the previous year, Peace Corps in Kazakhstan was welcome by the government. Besch really cared for the Kazakh people and also ran an efficient operation.

We met the American ambassador a couple of times. I surprised him by telling him I had already heard him talk in Alpine, Texas. He had given a talk about Kazakhstan at Sul Ross University, and I had attended with a handful of others. He was an unassuming man, fluent in Russian, a diplomat of the old school. Part of his job was the difficult task of trying to move Kazakhstan towards democracy. President Nazarbaev paid lip service to the need for democratic change while stifling opposition and continuing to rule the country virtually as a dictator.

After we had been in Kazakhstan for six months, a new American ambassador was appointed. He came to Shymkent, the closest major town to Zhabagly, to open a library with computer access, financed by the USA. He was of a different mould than the outgoing ambassador, younger and more direct in his style. Local Peace Corps volunteers were invited together with some other American expatriates to a meeting with the new ambassador in a Shymkent hotel. He asked us what impressions the people we came into contact with had of the USA. I told him that in my village, the USA had scarcely any image. Most people were just struggling to get by. An old man in our village, spotting me, seemed to be making disparaging remarks about President Bush, whom he pronounced "Boosh," and Iraq, but that was about the extent of the political comment. Volunteers from the city reported much more active opinions about the USA, usually favorable.

What every volunteer relished was being invited to stay in a comfortable Western-style house with some good meals. After my talk in Almaty to the wives of diplomats and businessmen, I had met a British oil executive who worked for Exxon and his wife. They decided to visit Zahabagly with their family and I accompanied them to the famous mosque. Later they invited me to stay in their house in Almaty.

To this sort of well-paid executive volunteers are a strange breed quite unlike their normal business acquaintances, and a volunteer is a novelty and a curiosity. These generous people invited me to their house in Almaty and fed me many fine meals. I later met them in England and gave them some riding tack which I had obtained for use by "Wild Nature" and which they brought to Kazakhstan as part of their baggage allowance.

The long hot days of summer passed quickly enough. My time was divided between occasional guiding trips with visiting tourists, working on a business plan for Wild Nature and participating on training programs in the village on a variety of self-help projects put on by non-governmental organizations based in Kazakhstan. When there was nothing happening I took off, sometimes with the British volunteer, and hiked into the mountains, sometimes also sleeping out overnight on the grass with a fire burning close by. I also took regular trips to Shymkent and Taraz, the neighboring towns, to visit other Peace Corps volunteers and have a meal.

One additional duty I was asked to do was to teach English to the village kids. Three times a week I would meet with my class in one of the houses which catered to tourists. I would sit on the floor at a low table with perhaps five or six ten to twelve-year olds, usually girls. The girls were much more vivacious and interested in learning than the boys. We followed a grammar book and sometimes played Scrabble. It was interesting that they would offer Scrabble letters to the others round the table so they could complete a word. There was little sense of competition. It was sad to think that these vibrant laughing youngsters would soon be caught up in marriage and housekeeping chores as likely as not with some dull fellow whose main chance of a job was digging ditches or tending livestock.

A Peace Corps volunteer in a nearby village was exclusively a teacher, not a part timer like me. He was gifted at his job, and popular. What disturbed him was that, after only a week at his school, the principal called him into his office and told him that he should, when grading his students, use a pencil. It didn't take long for the volunteer to work out that the principal would likely alter certain grades depending on the political importance of the student's family.

I took a trip with a Peace Corps staff member to a village near Astana, the new capital.

The village was on the steppe land of north Kazakhstan. The adjacent area comprised 980 square miles of lakes and marshes that were on two major bird migratory routes. It was a nesting site for Central Asian water fowl, most famously for 5,000 pink flamingoes for which this is their most northerly habitat. It sounded like a good site for an eco tourism business.

At this time, however, it was January and everywhere was icebound, and the temperature way below freezing. With the Peace Corps staff member I walked around town, visiting the house where I would probably stay if my placement materialized. When he pointed out that an icicle was growing from my nose, we decided to get indoors fast.

The other reason for starting a tourism venture there was its proximity to Astana, the new capital. It was likely to attract visitors expatriates and tourists in Astana much the same way as Zhabagly got visitors from Almaty. Astana was an amazing work in progress. Nazarbaev had personally decided that Kazakhstan's new capital should be more in the center of the country, unlike Almaty which was in the southeast corner, and had picked the site. The city was brand new.

Government departments were ordered to plan to move there, and pressure was put on foreign embassies to do the same. Later foreign airlines would revise their schedules to fly into Astana. First the city had to be built. Here is where Nazarbaev used his dictatorial power and huge reserves from oil and gas revenue to transform a stretch of flat steppe near the Russian border into a brand new city with avant garde buildings designed by the world's best known architects.

The best known and most appealing is the 318-foot Baiterek (Baiterek means tall poplar in Kazakh) tower, a structure of white painted steel surmounted by a gold-tinted sphere on the top. In addition to overstated public buildings which abound, a purple-colored shopping mall with an indoor sand beach was in the planning stage. The architectural style says "Look at me; we are wealthy and powerful in Kazakhstan!" a holdover from the Soviet days of heavy handed artistic expression.

"Wild Nature" meanwhile was slowly growing, despite having no funds. Sveta and Vladimir were good people and talented wildlife biologists. It infuriated them that the administrator of the national park should charge poachers to shoot exotic animals and pocket the money personally. They also had a problem, as products of the Soviet system, in understanding how supply and demand worked in a free market. I pointed out to them that some of their charges, for example for horseback rides, were too expensive. I suggested if they lowered the price, more tourists would come and they would end up making more money. This was a difficult concept to grasp, conditioned as they were to Communist economic way of thinking.

Of Russian origin, they had chosen to remain in their adopted country after Kazakhstan became independent. At that time, citizens of Russian ethnicity were given the chance of emigrating to Russia, or staying in Kazakhstan. They, hoping for the best, decided to stay. Towards the end of my stay, Vladimir was surprisingly appointed
akim
(administrator) of the village. This was surprising since Russians formed only five percent of the village population.

Vladimir wanted to validate his appointment by holding an election in the village, and inviting other candidates to run for the position of
akim.
"What if you lose?" I asked him.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "This is the right way." In Shymkent, the nearest city, I mentioned this urge for a democratic election to a doctor. He was skeptical that a democratic seed was about to bear fruit. "You're talking about tribes here. Everyone will vote according to family loyalty. You will need to wait 50 years for democracy to take root. We are still nomads at heart. You can't rush things." Still, I was heartened by Vladimir's decision.

Kazakstan is home to the tulip, and is a popular destination for Dutch people wanting to visit the site of their national emblem. In spring, we would walk across whole hillsides blooming with wild tulips. It is also home to the apple. Almaty, in Soviet days called Alma-Ata, comes from the Kazakh word
alma
meaning apple. We had many apple orchards in our village and nearby and, throughout the winter, in freezing cold and sometimes in the dark, local women would huddle with boxes of apples on the platform of the train station waiting for the express train from Almaty so they could sell their apples to the passengers.