Astana Days - July 6

On July 6 and 7 Astana celebrated Astana Days, and July 6 is also President Nazarbayev's birthday, so the celebrations were in full motion. There is usually a parade, concerts all over the city, dance competitions and many other things. Babushka, the girls, and I (Spencer had to do some work) decided to go look at one yurt village that they put together for display next to one of the city malls. Each region of Kazakhstan had its own yurt where they presented information about their region. It was pretty fun.

At the "village"

Babushka speaking with one of the presenters. 

I always loved the Kazakh national costumes... so festive!

Inside of one of the yurts

This one our kids loved the most because it had live animals!

Sophie with her new friend!

My girls didn't get the memo that during the picture taking it is advisable to look into the camera. Well, in their defense, there is a live snake in the spot where they are looking.

Another yurt.

This yurt from Aktobe region was pretty cool: it had different kinds of oil. Kazakhstan has a big oil industry on the Caspian Sea.

We had fun at the village!

It was a really hot day, and by the time we were done, we were really thirsty, so we decided to walk to another city mall and have some lemonade and possibly ice cream there. We ran into some interesting things along the way.

We found this exciting reptile bench.

The girls couldn't resist climbing on top of it.

This year Astana built the bike trails that go through a lot of the city. Too bad we do not  own bikes here because they are very nice! 

Enjoying the fountain mist on a very, very hot day!

Babushka

This plaza often has different art exhibits.  This time it was "Kazakhstan through pictures"

One of the pictures. It is very iconic. The two beauties Kazakhs value the most are horses and women; probably in that order :)

The twins are just unable to pass any fountain without getting wet.

We finally made it to the Keruen Mall and had some cherry lemonade and sundae ice cream.

When we got back home, Babushka and the twins were pretty tired but Nika, Lina and I thought we would go check out if anything else was going on at our own mall, and we were right... there was a a kids chess simultaneous game with one of the chess masters of Kazakhstan and a circus performance. We stayed and watch for awhile and then decided to check out the new playground. It was awesome! 

Simultaneous chess games

One of the circus performers doing a hula-hoop tricks

They must have been inspired by the circus performers.

Pretty impressive web on the playground!

As always we had a great time exploring the city and all it has to offer.

Nauryz 2016

The last three day all Kazakh people are celebration Nauryz (Kazakh new year). Last year I wrote a post about it here. We were going to Thailand then. This year we are going to Sri Lanka. I guess we are making it a tradition! :)

On Monday we got together with some friends and went to aul (ethnic village that was set up specifically for the celebration of Nauryz just down the road from Nazarbayev University). It was a sunny day, but was only 32F. The main celebration was happening the next day but we had packing to do for our trip, so we opted for the earlier time.

We met our friends and went into the village. We were surprised with all of the security around, we had to go through a check point and a body search. There were a lot of police around the perimeter of the village and inside. We didn't think much of it. We looked around the village. There were vendors selling different crafts and art. There were yurts set up as little dining places. There was a big outdoor stage with a lot of different performers. There was a wrestling rink, and also places where kids could play a tug-of-war games. There were also traditional Kazakh swings.

Lots of people dressed in the national costumes.

More costumes

Some of our crew

Lina and Lexa

Kazakh wrestling match

Weight lifting competition

Kazakh swings

Our kids really wanted to get on one of those, so we stood around waiting for our turn. Apparently there is no line, the kids just stay around the swing set and as soon as the swing stops, they rush to it trying to be the first one to jump on, cutting each other off and even wrestling. Anyway, our kids were way too polite to do that, so finally we, the parents just had to take a matter into our own hands.

Some of our kids finally managed to get on the swing.

While on the swings, Taraz (the daughter of one of our friends) was up in the air and yelled that she thinks that someone famous is coming. When she was up again the next time, she frantically screamed: “It's the President!”. 

Here is Taraz up in the air when she spoted the President!

We looked around and saw a huge crowd moving just 20 feet from us. It turns out

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of the country was visiting the village! The crowd was so big, so we couldn't see him but I managed to snap a photo of him by lifting up my camera as high as I could.

Can you spot the President? He is the white haired guy you can see right off the left shoulder of the girl dressed on the left who is dressed in white.

These girls really had a good view!

He went into the golden yurt, so we decided to stick around to see him when he will be leaving. We waited, and waited, and waited. The kids were getting restless. I just knew that as soon as we left our spot, he would come out. So we waited, and waited, and waited again. Finally we decided to go eat some food, and as soon as we left, he came out from the yurt. We missed him once again. After that the village emptied until only half as many people were there. I was wondering if the people came there just to see the president, or if half of the people in the village were the security agents, because we did spot quite a few of them running around in normal clothes but with ear pieces in their ears.

The President went into that second yurt from the right. 

Loaded on cotton candy

Overall we had a good time, but now we are ready to go to a sunny and warm Sri Lanka for a week to thaw! We love Kazakhstan but the winter is a bit too long for my liking!

Happy bunch!

Is it spring yet?

Today is 20^th of March. A lot of our family and friends in America are well on their way into spring and in some places into summer but this is how 20^th of March looks here in Astana, the second coldest capital in the world! 

NU Campus on March 20th

 Awesome! I have to say though that during the day it warms up to about -5C (23F), so it feels like spring! And tomorrow we are heading straight into summer… we are going to Thailand for the spring break! Tropical weather sounds pretty good to me right now. We all love snow, and this winter has been pretty mild (or that is what we were told) but we think we are ready for some really warm weather now.

They are ready to put on swimsuits instead of winter coats!

This morning I took the girls to Khan Shatyr  (the big shopping mall that looks like a huge tent) to get some swimming gear for our trip, and right across from Khan Shatyr they were setting up the yurts for the celebration that starts tomorrow – Nauryz – Kazakh New Year. 

Tired of winter!

Setting up the yurts for Nauryz celebration.

Because we are leaving for our awesome vacation tomorrow, we’ll miss most of the celebration but we’ll probably see some of the festivities before we leave tomorrow. However it will be another post.