28 Nov 06
Believe me, this part of the planet is seriously strange. Almaty, for example, is considered to be one of the most sophisticated and cosmopolitan places in Kazakhstan. Hmm. Certainly, nobody need go hungry or thirsty in Almaty. Far from it. The supermarkets (which I was forced to visit after Lufthansa lost my luggage, as well as failing to actually fly me here; KLM stepped into the breach) are as well stocked as ours. But if, for example, you need to buy a few casual shirts while waiting for the return of your missing suitcases, they're about £90 a pop. But even at that sort of daft money they can't actually be purchased by buyers who need to pay by credit card.
So many new homes are appearing in parts of Almaty that it's becoming something of a poor man's Dubai. But the old Soviet-style concrete cells still dominate, their balconies fenced off with barbed wire. For these residents at least it really does seem that little has changed since 1991 when the formal announcement was made here in Almaty that the USSR was officially dead.
Forget the wimpish Borat - Kazakh men are the toughest-looking blokes I've ever seen anywhere on Earth. The advice to visitors from those in the know is not to walk the streets at night in parts of Kazakhstan, especially when talking to the nubile sister of a Kazakh geezer who's capable of eating Hummers for breakfast. Mind you, with noxious dust storms and 'black sand rain' always likely, you wouldn't want to stroll around, would you? Bandits are on the loose in rural areas, too. Apparently there's not much separating these muggers from some of the cops, who are generally considered to be responsible for causing more trouble than they solve. Repeatedly I'm told that if stopped in the street by a police officer or any other official who demands to see my papers, under no circumstances should I hand over the originals.
It's not the sort of destination where you'd find much use for swimming trunks and lilos. Especially as Kazakhstan is notorious for its disappearing seas, plural. Soviet megalomania and, more recently, profit-obsessed exploration corporations digging for oil, gas and other valuable natural resources are largely blamed for the environmental carnage. And it gets worse still: a significant quantity of the water that does remain is grotesquely contaminated, causing serious health problems for many locals.
