`And you may find yourself living in another part of the world/And you may ask yourself: `How did I get here? ` (Talking Heads `One in a Lifetime’).
Should you ever visit Kazakhstan there are three cities worth getting to know. Astana, the capital, seems still very much under construction with building works on every corner. The place does showcase some singular contemporary architecture, but the busy highways barging through it, the spaced-out topography and the absence of hustle-and bustle lend it an air of a Zamyatin type dystopia. The former capital, Almaty does still feel like the capital but with it radiates a strange kind of comatose gentrified hipsterism.
For me Kazakhstan’s Jewel-in-the-Crown is to be found in the far south near the border with Uzbekistan. The historic city of Shymkent is buoyant, full of character and even a bit eccentric.
Poor relation.
But…oh, there is one more city to mention. It is little visited by tourists and perhaps for a reason. This is Karaganda (the name is pronounced with the stress on the last syllable). People even exist who imagine Karaganda to be a fictional location owing to its close association with a well-known saying – but more of that later. I have been here for over a year now and can assure you that it is for real.
How Karaganda got its name seems something that none can agree on. Does it derive from a Turkic word meaning `dark place`? Is it a Kazakh word for `black blood` (referencing coal)? Or does the word derive from a yellow flower said to be common in the region? Whatever, Karaganda represents the prototypical medium sized Soviet city. Furthermore, it is to be found bang in the middle of Eurasia in the midst of interminable steppes.
Despite having a large Russian populattion, Karaganda is still a majority Kazakh city.
Having become an official city in 1934, Karaganda is the outcome of coal getting found in the local strata. Much of the population came here as slave labourers working in the mines. Many of these were Volga Germans (that is, a part of the ethnic German community in Russia) but a great many of them left when the Soviet Union collapsed. Now the population consists of 45.8% ethnic Kazakhs and 40% Russians with the remaining 15% per cent being evenly divided between Volga Germans, Ukrainians, Tartars, Koreans and others.
Karaganda’s main industry was put on the map a few years ago – and for all the wrong reasons. One cold day in October two years ago a blaze broke out at Kostenko coal mine. This ensured that 45 mine workers would never see the light of day again. Unions had been complaining about lax safety standards at ArcalarMittal – the global steel company overseeing the mining operations – for some time. This was not the first, just the worst mining accident in Kazakhstan. The mines have now been taken up into government hands.
City of distinction?
For those into misery-tourism, or just history, the site of the former Soviet labour camp, KarLag, is a half hour bus ride from the city and is the must-see `attraction` of the area. One Alexander Solhenitsyn spent time there and it is even said that `A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich` was based on KarLag.
In the centre of this centreless city lies a statue of a Second World War pilot. This is Nurken Abdirov and the street which the statue welcomes us to, is also named after him. This Kazakh pilot, aged 23, became a `Hero of the Soviet Union` after ending his own life by becoming a sort of bespoke kamikaze pilot. Finding his plane engulfed in flames after having been shot at, he aimed his doomed craft at a column of German tanks. This serves as a grisly reminder, if one were needed, that the Kazakhs too made sacrifices in battles on the side of the Allies in that war.
Other luminaries with a Karagandinian connection include Gennady Golovkin, the boxer and Katia Ivanova, the former `Big Brother` reality TV show contestant and girlfriend of Ronnie Woods.
Karaganda has also functioned as a rest stop for cosmonauts on their way to being fired into outer space. Baikonur Cosmo drome is the launchpad closest to the city and the Cosmonaut Hotel was constructed just to cater for cosmonauts. . For a price, you can now stay in a room once inhabited by a space explorer. As well as that, an imposing monument to Yuri Gargarin himself can be admired in the central part of the city.
Indeed, for devotees of `Soviet core` Karaganda functions as a big open -air gallery. Here you will be met by mosaics and tapestries galore alongside other paraphernalia from that era.
Monument to an idiom.
Where? Where? In Karaganda!However, the signature statue of Karaganda is more up-to-the-minute. Tucked away in a garden outside a restaurant one can find a polymer statue called Where? Where? In Karaganda!' Constructed in 2011 by Marat Mansurov and Vikenty Komkov, it has a place in the Guinness Book of Records for being the first statue erected in honour of an idiomatic phrase. The saying can be traced back to a time when Russians who had served time at KarLag, needed to account for gaps in their employment history. As well as implying that Karaganda is a place `in the middle of nowhere`, there is also (to a Russophone) a bit of untranslatable wordplay in the phrase.
Inhabited island.
This dismissive saying about Karaganda does become palpable after a year spent in the city. The total lack of any kind of `expat community’ here is something I can live with. In the right frame of mind this can even be framed as a part of the place’s charm. However, there are only two small museums here and one small art gallery and the biggest bookshop devotes but a quarter of a shelf to books in English and many of those are graded.
I have had three tickets to see Russian bands play live cancelled in advance. My guess is that a combination of an expected low turnout and the relative inaccessibility of the place encouraged bands to strike Karaganda off their list of tour destinations. Likewise, if I want to visit my home country, Britain, I have to get to Astana, stay the night there and then arrange transport to the airport there which is some way out of the city.
The climate is something most Normies would add as another reason to spurn Karaganda. The four-month long gusty deep freeze whiteout of a winter is a challenge to those of us from gentler climes, but for me the existence of recognizable seasons here is a plus and in particular, the sparkling trees and cool breezes during the slow arrival of spring.
Hidden nuggets.
The snug retreat of a beer-bar is essential to survive such an environment. If I had to pick out one of my most loved it would be Wurst Depot Grill Bar on 25 Nurken Abdirov. This faux-German beer hall is lit in a cunning way with soft amber lamps and the attentive, no-nonsense staff serve you Praga beer (a Czech style non-hop beer produced by EFES-Kazakhstan). It is the buzzing but calming townie atmosphere that is the real draw though.
The eateries consist of, for the most part, unpretentious `greasy spoon` places dealing in low priced and nutritious fare. However, Langzhou – the central Asian food chain -is also to be found here so that you can fill up on lagman – a scrumptious Uygur dish consisting of noodles, beef and lightly fried vegetables.
As for street food, samsa take-aways are ubiquitous. (Samsa being a puff pastry pasty). However, if you look around you can find Shawarma and Chibureki joints too (Shawarma being a sort of kebab and Chibureki meat or cheese within fried dough). None of this is healthy eating to be sure, but the city does boast one vegetarian restaurant.
The four cinemas here do provide a good service. Whilst none of them could be called `Art house`, they do all roll out a range of films from different countries above and beyond the routine Hollywood fare.
The cultural focal point of the city must be the Eco Museum. Set up in 1995 to gather information for study and research, this distinctive initiative is the brainchild of Dima Kalmykov, a geologist who had partaken in the clean-up operation following the Chernobyl disaster. Here, in a hall stuffed with a random load of industrial and military junk you can pick your way through displays from radar stations and mines (complete with sounds) and – their piece de resistance a used Proton rocket which, when activated, rises up from the floorboards.
When Karagandinians wish to breathe some actual air all they need to do is to climb aboard a bus which, within three hours, whisks them away to Karkaralinsk. This functions as the local beauty spot, resembling a more wooded version of the Lake District in the U.K.
Karaganda then. This is no tourist destination, but the city is anything but snooty and is peaceful in every sense of the word. In particular one of its achievements is to create an amity between so many different ethnic groups.
