Downtown Astana with Oma

On August 16th Babushka returned to Russia. She left on the morning train.  She and Oma had a good time overlapping with each other - it had been four years since they had seen each other - when we moved to Las Vegas in the summer of 2013.  

In the afternoon we took Oma downtown to experience the long walkway and park that connects Khan Shatyr with the president's palace.  In the summer the park is filled with flowers and usually an art exhibit.  There was a big art exhibit for the Expo along with the installation of people holding the world that were decorated to represent each country and organization that was participating in the Expo.

 Oma was very impressed with the buildings and architecture of the city and took lots of pictures of the buildings.  It was a sunny, beautiful day and we had a great time walking and looking at the interesting art installations.  Oma especially loved the expo installation with the decorated world-holding figures.  

To cap off a nice day, we took Oma to our favorite restaurant "Derijhana" which serves authentic and very delicious Georgian food.  We had a nice quiet table inside the restaurant and had a wonderful meal.

After we ate, the ladies and Oma headed home, and I made a quick stop a the store to pick up some things that Yulia needed and I met everyone at home.  It wasn't our biggest adventure day, but it was a nice time.

Babushka and Oma enjoying their visit.

Yurt exhibit.

Art installation with different pipes and oil barrels.  Many of the exhibits were built to be climbed on.

Looking East toward the Baiterek tower (and the Presidential palace is behind it in the same direction) along the central promenade that runs through town.

Oma posing on the promenade with the Baiterek in the background.

Nika and Papa looking at one of the art pieces.

Giant grasshopper!

Heads coming out of the ground!

Giant pillows.

Oil barrel art.

A giant saddle on wheels? A giant saddle on wheels!!!

Kids being kids.

Interactive chalkboard for people to write their goals on.

butterflies above the flower bed.

a swing and table in the shade.

Giant puzzle.

Stained glass effect out of plastic bottles.

Kids climbing the rainbow!

In front of the US figure.

Girls and the Russian figure.

Lexa touching the figure - clearly marked "No touching!"

Looking West through the Kazmunai Gaz building to Khan Shatyr.

Fountains are magnetic.

Delicious Georgian cuisine!!!

Random Stuff

This post includes some random pictures that don’t fit anywhere else.

One of the things we love about living here is an endless supply of yummy cheap bread at the stores. The new Mega Mall has a Turkish chain groceries store called Ramstore with one of my favorite bakeries. A loaf of yummy steaming hot bread cost about 60 cents, and they have so many kinds of it. One of our favorites is this set of big rolls called Romashka (means “daisy”). There are 7 rolls in each set that make up a flower shaped loaf. The picture below shows 8 of these sets that we bought for our church potluck lunch one day, and we paid a little over $3 for all of it!

Kids have been into playing Lego lately. This is the sight we love to see: all four of them playing together without arguing, fighting or blaming each other for every little mistake in the world. Love it!

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 This next picture is of the NU main atrium. We walk through it every day, since they connected our apartment building with the University through a tunnel. It is especially nice in the winter!

One day the twins decided to check if their friends could really tell them apart as they always stated. They usually do not dress the same but that morning they dug out all of their cloths and found exactly the same outfits, down to the hair scrunchies and clips! The report was that they were able "to trick the friends in many ways"! A side note: we don't belong to the Patriots fan club but somehow we ended up with these two shirts.

Nika got into baking lately. It does take her two hours or more to make something but it is usually very yummy and thus I am willing to wait! Here she made a coffee cake that turned out AWESOME!

Babushka is here once again! It's been a nice perk of living here. She comes twice a year for a few months, and the girls always looking forward to her visits. And not just the girls, but our dog Yuki too. They all get spoiled rotten when she is here! Babushka is here for the whole summer this time and will stay with Yuki while we travel.

 We love, love, love the sunsets in Astana. There is something different about it in the steppe. The sky will go from blue to purple to pink to bright red. Unfortunately the picture doesn't do it a justice, you just have to see it in person!

This is a view from our west window. They are drying these wetlands to build something there later.

Grandmas

 One of the good things that came out from us living in this part of the world is that our kids spend a lot of time with their babushka (grandma) who lives just over the border in Russia and who visits us a few times a year. Of course this also means that she spoils our kids and our dog mercilessly. Oh well. I guess it is part of childhood to be spoiled by your grandma (I wouldn't know as I didn't have a grandma growing up). Our kids are also lucky because every summer we get to come to America to see Spencer's family and so they spend a lot of time with their Oma (Spencer's mom) who loves reading to them and playing games with them. And so this post is about their kind, compassionate, caring, funny, story telling, game playing and fun loving grandmas.

                                                                        Babushka...

She'll teach you how to make Russian pirozhki...

She will trust an eight year old with her best sewing machine...

And when it is your turn to do the dishes, she will sneak in and do them for you...

She will cheer for you at the concert at which you are performing together with the "big kids"...

She'll play Dominoes with you...

She'll comfort you when you feel sad...

And at 76 she will start learning English just because you speak it while letting her favorite pup do whatever she wants! Babushka! She is the best babushka in the world!

Oma...

She will teach you any game that she knows...

She will let her granddaughters camp in her living room...

She will throw a birthday party for you, and will even invite some neighborhood kid that she hasn't seen before...

She loves to take you to a museum...

And she will be a good sport when you want to try a new dish from a different country....

She will entertain your moms so you can finally get into that mud pile you were eyeing for eternity....

And she will read a story after story at night, and you will never get tired of it...

Oma! She is the best Oma in the world!

Traveling to Russia

The last time we were in Russia was four years ago.  The twins were half the age that they are now and I was in the middle of writing my dissertation. We have seen Babushka a lot since we lived in Kazakhstan, but it has taken us two years to get to Krasnoyarsk to see her.

The journey started in the US when the girls and I applied for Russian visas.  The law has changed since we came last time, and we were encouraged to apply for multiple entry three-year visas, which we did.  They are the same price, so it will save us money and time from having to apply again if we want to go.  We were able to get the visas with minimal trouble.  When we got back to Kazakhstan we had to renew our visas for here, so we couldn't book our travel until we had our visas and passports back.

We flew to Novosibirsk on July 18. The flight from Astana was about 90 minutes long and pretty smooth.  We overshot the airport on our first pass, so that was exciting and we had to circle back around.  The weather was rainy and the cloud ceiling was very low, so that made it a little more dicey coming in.  Once we landed it took us a bit over two hours to get through passport control.  Two flights had arrived and no one was getting through.  One of the border agents came out and announced that the hail storm had knocked out the computers.  When we did get through it was me and the four girls.  The woman who was processing our passports called her supervisor to see if we needed extra scrutiny.  We got through, though, and that's all that mattered.

Once we were through we got in a shuttle van directly to the train station.  Unfortunately our delay meant that we hit rush hour traffic.  We were standing still for much of the drive from the airport to the train station. We did eventually make it - and got to our train with about 10 minutes to spare.  It was just enough time to board and for Yulia to buy some water and snacks before our train left. We had a twelve-hour overnight train to Krasnoyarsk.  The kids love trains and sleeping on them, and this was a pretty nice train (clean and with a modern toilet system and nice conductor[1]) so it was a nice easy trip.  Our overall travel time from Astana to Krasnoyarsk was about 18 hours and it was easy travel compared to trans-Atlantic followed by trans-Russia air travel.

We arrived at a bit after 7:00, got right on a bus that got us to Babushka's house in about 10 minutes - the fastest we've ever been.

Eating once we were there.  For some reason I don't have travel pictures.

It was good to be there.  The apartment is still small, but it is fun for the kids to all be together and for Yulia and I to sleep on the balcony. It's as close to camping as I'd like to be most days, anyways!

Our first few days it was a bit rainy and we were stuck inside, but on Saturday we took a trip to Stolbi - the National Park that is just outside of town.  That will be the next post!

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[1] Apparently you pay extra on the trains with conductors who are not rude.  Standard tickets include rude conductors.  We were happy to have paid the extra.  It was really a pleasant trip.