Month: October 2015

After a 24 hour train ride from Tashkent, we were back in Almaty, Kazakhstan. This train was the least pleasant that we experienced so far on this trip, mostly due to the conductor, who did not care to keep his carriage tidy but was busy smuggling stuff. All of a sudden he came into our compartment, closed the door and climbed up to the ceiling, opened a hatch and collected about fifteen small guitar-looking instruments. He then blushed, gave us a grin and was out. Considering the smuggling objects, we thought it was funny and were relieved it wasn’t heroine since the border was packed with dogs, working very hard to find drugs.

Next to our hotel there was a closed amusement park. “Nothing ever looks emptier than an empty swimming pool” Raymond Chandler says (one of Joen’s favourite authors). I think the same goes for amusement parks.

It brought back memories from when we visited Pripyat (Chernobyl), a couple of hours outside Kiev, where we celebrated Joen’s 31^st birthday.

You could say the same about an abandoned nightclub.

The many concrete blocks are, however, not empty at all. My mother said eons ago that they would be considered beautiful one day. I couldn’t imagine that would be the case, but as always, she was ahead of her time, and right.

Although Almaty is full of concrete, it is also full of trees; I have never seen this many trees in a city before. I don’t think these photos fully represent Almaty’s spirit, but our camera seemed drawn to the concrete for some reason.

There are so many lovely little peculiarities, these details of wood and ornamental iron gives the blocks such a homely feel, a bit like a dacha. By the way, there is a fantastic and very niched blog about Almaty’s little details.

Artsy (propaganda?) concrete.

Almaty is proud of its subway, with about six or seven stops, highly influenced by its Moscovian neighbour, but in Kazakh translation.

One of the very best things about Almaty is that it is surrounded by a magnificent mountain range, just a short bus ride away. We desperately wanted to go hiking, but this is what welcomed us. Twin Peaks rather than Sound of Music.

I have a confession to make, I am not a great admirer of Twin Peaks. The first eight or so episodes were fantastic and quirky in the right kind of way, but then I was lost, it just became too much for my very logical brain to handle. I think the same goes for Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita”. Please forgive me.

We hopped on the train and went to Bukhara, a dusty desert oasis, wonderfully vibrant but sleepy at the same time. It is not as modern and grand as Samarkand and is thought of as the cultural and religious capital of Uzbekistan, home to many poets and artists for centuries.

We stayed in a beautiful 19^th century building, still owned by the same family, the Komil Boutique Hotel. This is where we had our breakfast every day; unfortunately the photo is pretty crappy and does not do the room justice. The building also had several courtyards where we spent hours sipping tea.

It is a fairly small town, full of medressas, mosques and mausoleums, all within easy walking distance.

Colourful wooden pillars adorning the Bolo-Hauz Mosque, built in 1718. I don’t think I have ever seen so much wood on a mosque before. Speaking of mosques, the only thing that disappointed me is that we were never woken up by the morning prayer calls. I’m not being ironic; it is the most exotic thing, waking up at five in the morning being reminded of your faraway whereabouts.

This was my favourite medressa, the Char Minar. Petite, compared to the other ones, tucked away in an alley surrounded by a flower filled garden. It was so quiet with no other people in sight. In Bukhara, we saw Western tourists for the first time since leaving home; there are hordes of sweet senior citizens in tour groups fulfilling their dream of the Silk Road. There were some backpackers as well. Luckily of the more civilized kind, mostly our age, being more interested in culture than cheap Singha (as many backpackers in Thailand) by the load. Does this imply that Joen and I are civilized? I am not so sure myself.

Speaking of beer, I must admit that we not only sipped tea, but also had a few cold ones at this rooftop restaurant. We were a bit wary at first, drinking alcohol, since this is a very religious place, but much more secular than we thought, as explained by some non-debauched looking locals, who didn’t mind drinking alcohol themselves.

Lunch break. Bukhara is also filled with bazars, for some reason I didn’t end up buying any silk at all. I’m kicking myself now, how could I not buy silk (I’m nuts about silk) in one of the most important towns of the freaking Silk Road? And it was bloody cheap.

The Uzbeks love football. As soon as we mentioned that we were from Sweden, they instantly shone up and said Zlatan! English is not the lingua franca of the world, football is.

BFF

 

We left the little slice of Eden behind and continued by train after entering Uzbekistan, a slightly more comfortable mode of transportation compared to the author of the book I’m reading. We were on our way to Samarkand. That name send shivers down my spine, it just epitomises that Silk Road myth, mystery and romance.

The Registan, I don’t know how long I’ve dreamt of seeing this! I always find it such a strange feeling when finally facing a place that I’ve dreamt of, a slight disappointment of not being able to dream about it anymore, and at the same time as being in awe of the grandeur and greatness of it all. The Ulugbek medressa (left one) is the oldest, built in 1420 and the other two were built in the 17^th century.

This is obviously a popular spot for wedding photos. In my opinion, a building can only enchant you that long, until you turn to admiring the street life around it. Joen and me can sit and stare for hours and hours, and that goes for any city, village or hamlet that we have ever visited.

The men usually chill out in various places.

Whereas the women enjoy tea parties and a bit of conversation. I have never been to a place where tea takes such a central part, being an obsessive tea aficionado myself, I cannot think of a better way to spend my days. Sipping tea and people watching, it doesn’t get much better than that.

There are many local tourists in Samarkand and they are usually very dressed up for the occasion, like this little girl who has put on her favourite frock.

Some kind of prophet, with his followers, admiring one of the many beautiful mosques.

Others admire the women, I am not so sure of his flirting technique though…

 

After a couple of days in Almaty we left for Kyrgyzstan, unfortunately we had to succumb to traveling by car since the Kyrgyz railway system is virtually non existent. We stayed briefly in Bishkek and then headed for a lovely little village called Arslanbob.

In Arslanbob there are no hotels so we stayed with a family. This is the lovely matriarch that cooked us incredible vegetarian food (being vegetarian is something they find outrageous in Central Asia). Community based tourism (CBT) arranges homestays and guides, ensuring that most of the money goes directly into the local’s pockets. Wish there were more of these initiatives around.

This is the patriarch, who didn’t do much of the cooking, but he was very chatty and friendly. Unfortunately, we hardly understood a word that he said, but it didn’t seem to bother him much.

Arslanbob is surrounded by the worlds biggest walnut forest at 600 000 hectares. Here are two little helpers, rivaling the squirrels. Don’t worry about these little boys though; school is compulsory for eleven years and child labor is not an issue in Arslanbob according to our guide.

The whole village is out in the forest, picking walnuts during the harvest season.

Another happy walnut picker. Most people over thirty have several golden teeth but it’s not actually gold but some kind of metal.

Perfect autumn lunch in the walnut forest. This is a good example of what Joen calls a “Harrison Ford autumn” (referring to the multitude of movies where he saves the world in a perfect New England autumn setting), as opposed to the “Jodie Foster autumn” (referring to Silence of the Lambs).

Arslanbob is also surrounded by majestic mountains. We hiked up to “Holy Rock”, and although being rather experienced hikers, this was quite a challenge. There are no proper paths, so the rock ended up feeling less holy in the end, due to our excessive swearing on the way up.

I completely forgot about our endeavours on the way down when I found the cutest little miniature donkey! Most of the boys seem to have their own donkey in Arslanbob. Our guide explained that since old Russian jeeps have become affordable, the donkeys are out of work and given to the boys to trot about. I would be infuriated as a girl, not being allowed my own donkey.

Joen on the other hand, found a miniature lady, chatting away in Russian and Kyrgyz. He did not understand much of either language.

One of the many children shouting: photo, photo! And then becoming very shy once captured. And then breaking out in all smiles again, when showed the photo. What I liked the most about this village is that all people seemed to make a pretty good living; they were not rich but not poor either. Most of them were self sufficient, growing vegetables and keeping livestock. The animals were well fed, and roamed freely on the pasture and in the forest. I wish all animals could live like that. At least this is what we experienced and what our local guide explained to us.

 

After four days in Moscow we boarded the train, where we were to spend the next 78 hours, to Almaty, Kazakhstan. There are not many things we love more than traveling by train.

The first thing we noticed was that the luggage space was filled with vodka bottles. This made us a bit cautious since we remembered how insistent everyone was on the vodka shotting during our Transsiberian train journey (back in 2011), which ended badly for Joen. Luckily, this did not prove to be a problem on this trip.

Ruslan, the conductor and man in charge in our carriage, held a tight ship and did thankfully not care much for vodka fuelled nights. Here he is, pictured with our youngest passenger. Ruslan’s whole family work on the trains, so did his wife but she retired a couple of years ago. Women retire at 58 and men at 63 in Kazakhstan, Ruslan had two years left.

This was probably one of the nicest train journey we’ve ever experienced (and we have done many), mostly due to the wonderful people that we met. Above, you can see Kostya, he works at the oil platforms in northern Kazakhstan and was on his way home to his wife in the south. He works 15 days and then stays at home for 15 days, if we understood him correctly. Kostya was such a friendly gentleman and bought me a melon. When he got off the train, he’d put on a nice shirt and water combed his hair to look good for his wife, he was so handsome and our hearts just melted.

This is Lila and Sergeev. Lila knitted beautiful goat wool scarfs, which she sold on the train. After a couple of days pretty much all the women in our carriage was wearing one, including me.

We were very lucky to meet the lovely Inga (yes, everyone thought she was Swedish), who spoke perfect English, and could translate what people said. This meant that we could have more complex conversations and share more than our names and where we came from. She was originally from Almaty but now lived in France.

Our youngest passenger was thrilled to see her sisters when she arrived at her destination.

The train environment becomes like a traveling micro-society and we became very patriotic towards our specific carriage, preferring not to socialise too much with people from the other carriages… The only negative thing I can think about when traveling by train is the state of the toilets (not the worst I’ve seen but certainly not the best either) and we were deliberately dehydrated, so that we did not have to visit it so often.

 

Moscow is of course not only a kaleidoscopic heaven of colours, it is also filled with several shades of grey, which I find equally beautiful.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union many of the statues associated with USSR were collected and dumped in the Fallen Monument Park. It is an eerie feeling walking around surrounded by the likes of Stalin.

The city is also filled with beautiful Soviet mosaics; industrial and national achievements (astronauts, fighter planes, olympics etc) are mostly depicted.

Stalin isn’t exactly remembered for many good deeds, but I do love the seven Gothamesque skyscrapers that he erected, you can see them from all over the city. This is a good article about them. I am not romanticising what they stand for in any way, but I think while they’re there (very much in your face), one might as well admire them.

A close up of one of the skyscrapers, the Hotel Ukraine.

I forgot which one this is, but I think it’s The Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Further concrete loveliness. I think this picture embodies the USSR pretty well.

Moscow is famous for its underground, which is regal looking with chandeliers, stuccoes and mosaics, but I think the lamps in the escalators are equally pretty. It gives me that Gotham City, doomsday feeling. Probably art deco?

Russians might not have a reputation of being the friendliest of nationalities, which I think is unfair. Initially, they might not be exceedingly extrovert, but give them some time and you realize they’re the most friendly, helpful and loyal people. Very similar to the Swedes actually.

 

My first encounter with Moscow was my very first time abroad in 1986, during the jolly Soviet days. I remember it as very serious, gloomy and grey. My strongest memory is, however, feeling very ashamed of wearing jeans since all the Moscovian girls wore such nice identical skirts and gigantic bows in their hair, I felt like such a trashy little outsider.

This is my third time in Moscow (fourth in Russia) and I absolutely love it, there is nothing gloomy about it but rather colourful. This Filipp Malyavin painting in the Tretyakov gallery illustrates it very well, the photo is terrible and obviously does not do the painting justice, but have a look at my pinterest board “Rossiya Matushka” for a Russian colour explosion. Ok, there is some gloominess, but of the artsy kind.

Opposite the Tretyakov gallery there is one of the few vegetarian restaurants in Moscow, so here you can enjoy a guilt free (and colourful!) borscht. As you can see in the picture, and which you already know, food is serious matter to me.

Speaking of food, I love the Eliseevskiy food store, very pompous with chandeliers and lots of gold.

One of our favourite places in Moscow is Tolstoy’s house, it is such an oasis with an adjoining smaller park. The last time we were here they even played classical music in the park (unfortunately not this time) which was full of scilla, this time it had that wonderfully crispy but at the same time musty smell of autumn. We also went to the Bulgakov museum but that was boring as hell.

Riga is famous for, and packed with, art noveau buildings. It is like an astonishing open air museum and we spent most of our days gawping up the sky.

Eternally winding staircase in the art noveau museum.

Some building are festooned with happy kings (happy in the Joen way, that is).

Others are of a more shy athletic kind.

There are also less organic forms represented , like these sharp, expressionless art deco looking soldiers.

And we found a beautiful art deco cafe, V. Kuze. Just look at that wonderfully dynamic comet in the ceiling! The cafe originates from 1910 but the interior had been the same since the 30’s. It reminds me of Café Valand in Stockholm, although from a different era.

After two days of cultural adventures we boarded the night train and left the EU.

We waved Kaknästornet good bye in the distance and set our sails to Riga, Latvia. Joen, as always, looks thrilled to be going on a seven month adventure.

Admiring the shipping containers on our way out of Frihamnen’s harbour, aren’t containers the most romantic thing? One day we plan to travel on a container ship, we wanted to travel back home by one but they were booked out for the the next two years. Anyway, just on our way out to the open sea, we ran into….

…Martin! Martin is an old school mate of Joen’s and he even had the cabin opposite ours, creepy or coincidental? I kid, I kid, we had a lovely time with Martin, drinking beer and sharing our cultural obsession with Russia. Martin was on his way to Lithuania after reaching Riga but was planning a future trip to Russia.