Marius' adventures and thoughts in Kazakhstan

Not surprisingly, the last entry is here with a bit of delay :) Better late than never, they say, so I keep my promise - impressions about Moscow, feeling when coming back and overall summary of the whole semester is here.

The trip back was without much of adventures. I had several free hours to spend in Moscow, so I managed to check out the famous Moscow metro, which was indeed beautiful. Also, I of course went to the city center, where I saw the famous Kremlin, Saint Basil’s Cathedral and the mausoleum of Lenin. Unfortunately, all of these sites were closed, so could only observe them from outside. As I still had some 2 hours left and didn’t know where else to go, I just went to the first sight that caught my attention nearby - State History Museum. It was quite cool, just I was dissapointed a bit that the history there finished at 1905, and I was very willing to check out the Russian presentation of Soviet times. :) Below is a low-quality photo of me in front of the Saint Basil’s Cathedral, one of the symbols of Moscow.

The moment when I came back at the Vilnius airport was indeed great. That was the first time when somebody greeted me coming back from somewhere. :) There were my parents, and also several friends - Arvydas, Reda, Rugile and Ivona. Thank you all for coming! :) The next morning when i woke up at home it was a rather strange feeling - as if I had never left anywhere. Strange, but good feeling. :) Still, I started to miss Riga as well quite soon, so I went there as planned for a weekend during Christmas party. I had a looot of fun, especially with Henrijs. :D The whole Christmas season in Vilnius was really awesome, as I partied a lot with Arvydas like in the old days, and met my other closest friends and family. Just the New Year was rather shitty (we stayed with Arvydas just 2 of us in Vilnius, and a lot of things happened :D). So I was still very much looking forward to come to Riga and start the last semester.

And so I did. Moved in to the new flat, started studying finance and working heavily on bachelor thesis with Simona. Everything is great now, I am in a very good mood overall, dedicated and motivated to successfully finish my studies here at SSE Riga. Current plans for the nearest future - to come back to Vilnius and work again for “L’Oreal Baltics”, and MAYBE, just maybe, later go to study for Master of Science degree in Marketing in Oslo, Norway (BI, Norwegian School of Management). Time will show. Below is a photo of my new flatmates in our kitchen (from the left: Jurate, Sandra, Edgars, me and one more Marius). I live with Edgars in one room, and so far its very fine. :)

Aaand, the final thing. When I was waiting for my plane in Moscow airport, I wrote down on a sheet of paper a list of “benefits” that I got from the whole exchange semester in Kazakhstan. Here is that list:

Improved my russian language a lot, learned a lot of new things in marketing, developed my personality (hard to explain in more detail :D), made quite a few really great friends from various countries, got a very unique and rewarding culture experience, had the best trip of my life to Uzbekistan, saw many other interesting places in Kazakhstan, visited Moscow, got a very unique and different big university experience, understood how great it can be to live together with guys only, increased my tolerance towards slow internet, learned to play American football, substantially reduced alcohol consumption (which led to deeper understanding of myself and why I actually like to party), decided I should read more books, just got 4 months of holiday (which I didn’t have for 2 years almost) and finally, understood how I miss home, Vilnius and Riga, and how important are my family and friends to me. :) Quite a lot, huh? :) So yes, it was AWESOME and really worth it. Looking forward to new adventures in my life. :)

The End.

The last week rushed through like a wind. Exams, Research Methods course assignments, thesis, seeing some friends for the same time, finishing all the final “stuff” before leaving. And today is already the final day before leaving. My flight is 7.30 in the morning on Friday, so a KIMEP car will pick us up from the dormitory at 4.00, meaning that we won't sleep. We are going to airport together with Peteris, who's flight is 3 hours later, and a few local girls who want to say bye to us. :)

Yesterday I was a bit desperate having some trouble with getting my passport back from Russian embassy with transit Russian visa, but today everything is fine. I even managed to go to the biggest marketplace in Almaty, Baraholka, to buy a special present for one friend. :) And also wrote the final exam today. And hey, I got “A” in intermediate Russian! :D Hehe.

Right now I will run to pack my bags, and just in a few hours we will have our goodbye party in our dormitory room. He have prepared some wine for it. :) Wine, because a lot of girls will come. :D Later it might turn to vodka as girls leave and more guys from the American football team come. :D I will also spend half a day in Moscow (hope to see the Red Square and the things around, metro etc.) and arrive to Vilnius on Dec 12, Fri, 22:15 Vilnius time (flight number SU 0413).

This is not the last entry of the blog, by the way. One more will come. Cause 3 things still need to be said for the end - how was the day and impressions in Moscow, how did I feel when I came back (forecast: awesome!), and finally, the remarks and summary of the whole semester - how do I view and value it, and what good it brought to me. :) Take care and see you all very, very soon!

P.S. Just one final thing - because of my Bachelor Thesis, I will most likely be busy in the first two days after arrival to Vilnius - I have a deadline to write 9 page literature review for my Bachelor Thesis on Dec 15, Monday. As as you could guess we haven't done that much until now, because of lack of time. So I hope my friends will understand me and be patient and wait 2 days before we can really PARTY!!! :)

Last edition - leaving in 20 minutes, party is over, it was great, just uploading one fun photo of the “block crew”. I'll miss it. :) The caps were bought by Charlses. :)

1 week is left! Its Friday night, and the next Friday in the early morning I will be flying away already! First of all, if you ask why I am not out partying on Friday night, its because I did it yesterday, more than I did ever in Kazakhstan or maybe even in Riga! :D We celebrated the final end of all 4 projects that we had (singing “project hours are over, baby!”). We warmed up in our dormitory room, followed by a visit to a night club, which was reserved for KIMEP students as it was celebration of the 2nd ever issue of KIMEP PIE student magazine (we should celebrate every issue of our Insider like that as well! :D).

So, should I smile or should I cry? About the fact that I am leaving, I mean. Well, just a few days ago I was smiling. But now… I won’t cry, thats for sure, but… Well, I will really miss the place and the friends that I made here. Now I start to realize it. Honestly, don’t like the city of Almaty itself so much, I really miss the old towns of Vilnius and Riga a lot. So what I will miss is all the great friends that I made here - my great roommate Peteris (yes, I am giving a public compliment to you, you Latvian bastard :D), with whom we really became great friends (at least deep inside, on the surface it looks that we hate each other :D), our dormitory block “crew” Charlses, Simon and Ulrik (who lived not with us, but spent 95% of his time in our block :D), our great friend Nurshat from the dormitory (the smartest young girl I have probably ever met for her age, which is 18), her friend Banu, other exchange students (Kinga, Wilson, Wannesa, Rayan - you guys were fun), my great course teammates Marzhan, Danara, Natasha, Dilyara and other, of course, Aliya (pitty we spent so little time here) and Renata (karaoke was awesome! :)), KISA members who took such a good care of us - firstly, our helpful compadre Rufina, followed by Vika and Maya, all the great guys from American football team, starting from its captain Petia (the one who kicked out our door, same one that Kristina last year was partying with), my Marketing Communications lecturer Svetlana (who was not just very lovely but also a really great lecturer, probably the best women lecturer I ever had!), Julia and Albina from the international office, the “godess of niceness” Jee Young from South Korea (the girl that left earlier), and finally all the other people who are really friendly and helpful in this country! Quite a lot, huh? :)

Today, we had our goodbye party organized for exchange students by International office. We went to play bowling. And also all of us got certificates with some nominations. :) Mine is “the most responsible and sociable” exchange student. Responsible - because I was the only one who agreed to help promote KIMEP in one high school, about which I wrote earlier. Although Peteris of course disagrees and says that I am not responsible at all, which of course led to a usual big argument. :D Sociable - well, you know me :D

Me with Simona also finally got a reply from our thesis supervisor, which was, as I call it, ”a gift from heaven”, very nice and helpful email from a very nice and helpful guy. His name is Glenn C. Blomquist, he is a Proffesor of Economics, Health Economics and Public Policy at University of Kentucky, he is 60 years old and was a visiting proffesor at SSE Riga the last spring. Pitty I couldn’t take his course “Health Economics”, as it was for 3rd year students.  If you are interested, you can look at how he looks and everything about him here http://gatton.uky.edu/Faculty/blomquist/index.html 

Oh, and other important news - from the few options that I got, today I decided where I will live once I come back to Riga. It will be in a 3-room appartment on Albertas street (so just a few minutes walk from school), together with 4 lithuanian guys - Rafal, Domas and Karolis (Year 1) and Karolis Jasinskas (Year 2). Yes, my attitudes changed after Kazakhstan, I understood that living with guys can be much more fun than with girls, hehe. :) Even though before I was always prefering to live with nice girls. :D Having the fun crew here in dorms, as well as remembering our good old days in Ganu with Danielius and Saulius, I changed my attitude! And its just one of hundred benefits from this exchange, which I will maybe list later. So, I refused the great offer to live with really wonderful girls, my coursemates Vilma and Jurate. It was a bit more expensive, too. :) And I want to get to know some Year 1 people more as well, and living with some will really help with that. :) Thats it for the news this time! Wish me luck on my first exam this Sunday, because it is Intermediate Russian! :)

10 days left. Yes, I really did begin to count the days. Missed Vilnius and Riga (which more? lets skip this question), family and friends. Didn’t write for over a week again, time for a refresh. Namely, whats been going on this the previous weekend when we had the football game.

• My twisted leg got better fast (although its still a bit purple), but for Peteris its much worse - he streched the tendon of his left toe, and has to wear gyps and walk on crutches until the day that we leave - not very comfortable. I am being a good friend now - bringing food from shop etc. Although at least in the dorm he can “jump around” pretty well, just walking down and up the stairs is a bit harder.


• On Friday I went with one friend to “Mister KIMEP” event, a competition to determine the coolest guy in school, something we have in high schools only. Was pretty fun, and there were some really interesting guys with hobbies such as down-hill biking, building-climbing, music, singing etc. Just all quite short, as all the Kazakh guys are :) The guy who won actually was the shortest one, around 160 I would say, maybe a bit more. :)


• On Saturday I met with yet another girl who was on exchange a year ago in Riga - Asel from Kirgizstan. We were together with her and Renata from Kazakhstan in a team, and this weekend she came to Almaty to visit us. We had a great night - went to some karaoke bar, which was really cool. The way it is done is that there are many small rooms which you can rent (20 LTL per hour for room for 6 persons), with all the equipment inside, and you can sing till you loose your voise there! The list of songs wasn’t very fresh, but it didn’t matter - Boney M, Beatles, all went well, I even sang some russian songs, too. :) Afterwards we went to another bar where we ate some shashliks and danced for a few hours. They also visited me and Peteris in our dormitory the next day.


• On Sunday we went to some traditional craft-fair, which took place during the weekend in another part of Almaty, with boots from all Central Asia selling very cool stuff. We all bought some little presents for families and best friends. :)


• All project works are almost finished, all reports are submitted, just one presentation remains. We already got the highest grade for our report in Marketing Communications, and went to celebrate it to Guiness Pub with some drinking, dancing and listening to each other’s life thoughts and live music as background. Eagerly waiting for results of the other projects. By the way, the team-working experience that I got here in KIMEP working on the projects deserves a seperate blog, however this I will reserve for private chats. Interesting stuff. :)


• Just today I had a chance to join the KIMEP faculty, staff and some students to visit one gymnasium and promote KIMEP. I myself gave a short speech as an international student about how great it is to have a chance to go abroad, or just to meet people from other countries. Later, I had an interesting chat with a local english teacher, and a few girls from that school, who were dragged to me by that teacher in order to practice their english language. :D


• As I said, 10 days remain, and no more big plans. Exams are approaching, Research Methods course with its assignments and quizes started in SSE Riga (exchange students have to do them and upload online as well), and next Bachelor Thesis deadline is approaching - 9 page literature review on Dec 15. On Friday we will have a fairwell dinner in a restaurant with exchange students, followed by party organized by International Office, and on Dec 11, just before leaving, me and Peteris are planning to make our own goodbye party (we are the first ones to leave) with all the best friends that we made here. Oh, and I still have hope to go skiing in the upcoming weekend. Weather suddenly got much colder, its forecasted to be -16 C this night. Brrr. :)


• Miss you! :)

And I’m back! Weather is still fine (+8 to +10 degrees, no snow or rain again, no wind, and sun in the sky), I am missing home more and more and waiting for Dec 12. However, some interesting stuff is still going on. Firstly, we had our first and for me and Peteris the final American football game, about which a bit later. What is more, 4 of my course projects are finishing, about which I am quite excited. Together with my teams, I am: writing a marketing communications plan for our KIMEP university to attract more students (Marketing Communications course), analyzing what factors motivate employees in local companies in Kazakhstan (Leadership and Motivation), researching and analyzing consumers, their behaviour, habits, attitudes and personalities of mascara’s users in Almaty city (Consumer Behaviour), and finally making a marketing plan (competitive analysis, target market analysis, marketing communications plan) for “Altyn Dan” restaurant nearby KIMEP, which really lacks customers currently, but has a very good potential. So it is quite interesting. Also, I am starting to get deeper into my thesis topic about social networks, which is very exciting as well. Finally, exams are coming in just 2 weeks, after which I will finally go home! :)

So about the game. American football. KIMEP university (the team “Titans”, which includes me, Peteris and Charlses) against some university from Bishkek, Kirgizstan. Big stadium nearby KIMEP. Many fans supporting us. 4 quarters, 20 minutes each. We are blue, they are red. 11 against 11 at one time, though the players are changing very often, as soon as defence changes offense and vice versa. So there is more than 30 players in our team in total. My position in the game was lineman - offensive tackle (even though I mainly was defensive tackle during trainings). The game was VERY exciting, even though I played quite little, just in the last quarter. Peteris and Charsles played much more, but hey - Peteris is our big sporty ex Sports.com, and Charlses has played this sport for 6 years in USA. I love this game! Guess what, we won 20:0! 3 touchdowns (6 points each) and some other minor stuff. And it was awesome! However, I twisted my right foot during one play, and up until now can hardly walk. Because of that, I couldn’t go and celebrate the victory with the team! But its fine, Im getting better, and in 2-3 days should be fully fine. Below you can see a few photos from the game: starting position just before a play starts (I am the first blue guy from the left squating at the line, with my grey sport trousers), in the middle of action (I am third from the right, about to stop the 61 red guy, so my teammates behind me would have time to pass the ball), and finally our whole team just after the our victory( I am standing 3rd from the left).

November 17 is the International Students’ Day, with interesting history full of students demonstrations since 1939. On that occasion, there was an event organized here in KIMEP on Friday, Nov 15. All of the international students presented their countries and universities by making stands (booths) and also presentations.

The following countries were participating: Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, USA, Canada, South Korea, China, Hongkong, Kazakhstan, Kyrgiztan, Tadzikistan, Uzbekistan and even Zimbabwe! As you understood, me and Peteris also had the honour to represent our countries as well as SSE Riga. The whole event took around 7 hours, and it was an interesting experience, though we had some problems with projector (because of it everything was quite late) and also most of the presentations were rather boring. However, there were really great moments, too: national Uzbek dance, trying out food from a few countries, getting your name written down in Mandarine hieroglyphs, Indian dance, Tadziks singing, learning Hungarian dance, Korean traditional dances and rap (just like in Korean Day).

As for me and Peteris, we prepared a shared stand with some interesting info about our countries. Being a history fan, I couldn’t resist including the LT map of 15th century, when we were the largest country in Europe. :) Apart from maps, I included some general facts about country, Lithuanian history in 11 bullet points (quite an achievement!), pictures and descriptions of our national dishes Cepelinai and Sakotis, photos of our banknotes and finally a few photos of our typical landscape (forests, grassfields and rivers). You can see how it looks in the first photo. Now we keep it in our room as a decoration until we leave.

I used most of the same material for my presentation about LT, while the presentation about SSE Riga we did together with Peteris. To make it more interactive, we invited Renata and Aliya (our kazakh friends who were both on exchange in SSE Riga) in the end to share their experiences about our school. Check out the 2nd photo of all 4 of us. Renata (she was in Riga in Fall 2007, I was in a team with her in a few courses) is to the left, followed by Aliya (who lived with me in Ganu in Spring 2008).

Final remark about the event - what surprised me is lack of interest from local students, there were very little of them (mainly friends of participants like us). Although I remember a similar day in SSE Riga 2 years ago, when all exchange students were also making presentations, and then I was the ONLY local student who observed them. Terrible.

Oh, and for the end, two important news: First, I will be flying home on Dec 12 through Moscow, and I will fly directly to Vilnius, landing there on Dec 13. I plan to visit Riga on Christmas party on Dec 19, though. Second, my bachelor thesis story doesn’t end, plans have changed heavily again - even though my topic which I submited alone was accepted, after Milda was also not allowed to write thesis just like Peteris, I decided to team up with Simona, who was left alone just like me, by taking her topic about Social Networks (which I find more interesting than mine). Simona is my great friend with whom I lived for a while in Terbatas flat, and also had experience working together during strategy course. She is now on internship/exchange in Holland, and will be back to Riga in December.

Apart from the fact that it snowed for the first time the last night and suddenly got much colder (and I don't have winter shoes here!), there are 2 interesting things that happened over the weekend. And both of them are connected to Koreans. The first - the Korean Day Festival that took place in KIMEP on Friday. The second - the interesting drama that we had between our Koreans in the dormitories, which led to some severe consequences. I will talk about both events in a bit bigger detail.

In short, there was a Korean Day organized in our university, probably because of the facts that there are quite many Koreans studying here, both full-time and exchange, and even the rector of Business College is Korean. The day part was boring, didn't attend it (seminars about Korean-Kazakhstan relationships, like I would give a damn about them), then was the Korean dinner (free food!), and finally, the most interesting - the evening program. It consisted of various performances of traditional Korean dances, songs, and even a Taekwando (a korean martial art) performance! It was really amazing! Especially when we heard the Korean rap songs which were really cool. Below are two photos from the event, a traditional korean dance and taekwando performance. What surprised us the most is how much and how sincerely those girls smile 100% of the time while dancing! The kind of smile when you see your best friend after half a year or something, sincere one, and they don't stop smiling even for a single second! Amazing! :) Just simply makes you really happy looking at them.

The second thing. Firstly, the consequence of it - today, just one hour ago, Jee Young, our good Korean friend, whom I called “the goddess of niceness”, cause she really was one of the most nicest and sincere persons that I ever met, is LEAVING! Suddenly. She just took a taxi to the airport heading back to Korea. Why? Because she had some veery strange conflict with other Koreans, at least how we understood it. It is very hard to understand what is going on, because those Koreans are not very willing to talk about it, but the way that we (the other international students) understand what happened is this: Jee Young was hanging out a lot with us, and not that much with other Koreans. There is this other Korean, who is the oldest from the group, and because of Korean culture everyone respects and listens to him - as I understood, in Korea even if you are just 1 year older, younger ones have to listen to you and respect you very much. I don't know how much it was a personal thing or cultural thing, but the other Koreans, led by this guy, saw it as a problem that she is hanging out with us so much. She is a “bad korean” by doing it. Such incident happen quite some time ago with another korean student as well, who was also talking too much with us. Its really hard to explain what's going on, because we don't understand it ourselves, but Jee Young, after talking to her father over the phone, couldn't stand this no more and left. I REALLY don't understand them. And the problem is that its almost impossible to talk with this guy, cause he doesn't understand almost any English. Any thoughts/comments? Who was met any other Koreans in their lives? As I wrote quite some time ago, these Koreans are from South Korea, and in North Korea it is even officially forbidden to talk with foreigners. I thought its government's initiative, but maybe it comes from the culture somehow as well? Who knows or could find out anything about it? Because I really want to understand what actually happened. It is sad that Jee Young left, she was a great girl, always fun to talk to, and liked beer as well! :)

Additional comment on Monday, Nov 10: I would like to take back some words about Koreans after clarifying the issue a bit more today after talking with some people. The conflict that happened was almost 100% a personal thing, Jee Young just didn't get along with the other Korean guy I mentioned, as they were way too different. Other Koreans, being a close community, got involved too. But at least as I understood our first interpretation was wrong and it had very little to do with us, other international students. Or at least we believe so. So please do not take anything about Korean culture from this entry, cause it wasn't that much about it.

Hey hey hey,

After the entry with beautiful photos I was a bit reluctant to write a new one, in order not to push them away from the screen. :D But this can’t last for ever, as life doesn’t stop after the trip.

So what are the news? Firstly, I have negotiated that I will write my final exam of Marketing Communications course on Dec 11 instead of Dec 19, which means that I can go back home a week earlier!! I plan to be flying back already on Dec 12-13 ! However, one thing complicated this flight back quite a lot - Air Baltic cancelled the flight Almaty-Riga for the whole winter season! Thus I will probably have to fly back through Moscow, which will be almost twice as expensive. Well, what can you do, maybe I will at least have a chance to see the Moscow city. :) If finishing up with study stuff, i already know results of 2 of my mid-term exams (Advanced Marketing 20/20, Consumer Behaviour 19/20), and I was told that we will know Bachelor thesis proposal results the next week. Projects in all courses are also slowly coming to an end, so we will soon be working more on them.

What about free time? Sleeping, doing sports (gym sometimes + american football, we will have our first game on Nov 15), watching movies, hanging out with Peteris and Nurshat in the evenings. Oh, I guess I should mention that Peteris finally won once against me in Age of Empires 2. You should have seen how happy he was. :)

Yesterday, me and Renata (the kazakh girl that was for one semester in SSE Riga one year ago in fall semester) went to the event “MIS KIMEP”. There were 10 beautiful girls competing for the title of Mis Kimep. I must say it was a great event! And not just because of the beauty of the girls, but actually the whole event was organized on a very high level! There were various singing/dancing, and even comedy stand up performances in between the competition, and the girls themselves performed amazingly! Even though all of them were just dancing (seemed like Mis Dancing KIMEP event), with the help of some friends or professionals. And there were some really original and high-class performances, of nearly all possible dancing styles - ballroom, RnB, belly dance (even with real snake in her hands!), street dances and various other, even tectonic! :) Anyway, to sum up, I had a great time watching the event. The only problem with it is that it started one hour late, something that is becoming a pattern with student events here. For example, a few days ago I observed the inauguration of the new Student Government, and it was also half an hour late. Its not Spain or Italy, of course, but still terrible! :)

As promised, uploading some nice pictures from our trip to Uzbekistan. Can’t tell the exact sight names now without the Central Asia guide, but if anyone cares you can ask later. J Description of the photos:

1.      Just after arrival to Samarkand, the main Registan square.

2.      In the Avenue of Mausoleums, Samarkand (very holy place with strict rules).

3.      On the roof of some Mausoleum, with nice view of some mosque, Samarkand.

4.      Authentic local men gathering, Samarkand.

5.      Helping some cavalry archers to kill a lion, wall decoration, Samarkand.

6.      Having fun climbing up the remains of the city wall, Bukhara.

7.      Traditional tea drinking during sunset in Bukhara (notice their cups/bowls for drinking).

8.      Same place, different angle – some of the finest architecture in Bukhara.

9.      On the city walls in Khiva.

10.  Evening exercises, Khiva.

11.  Eating fresh fish from Amu-Darja river and drinking vodka for lunch with local gangsters, Urganch.

12.  Alone in the desert. On the dried out part of Amu-Darja river.

There is much more photos, of course, as well as some videos, but those I will show once I come back. Your comments are more than welcome. Especially those who always read but never comment - do it at least once, dear friends, so I know that you read! :)

Oh, and latest news from Kazakhstan – still waiting for mid-term exams and Bachelor thesis topic proposal results, wasn’t taken to the basketball team in the end, came back to American football, and almost ran out of scholarship money already (will start using my loan soon). Current weather here in Almaty - around +10 C during the day, +5 in the night (though they forecast a drop to 0 during the next few nights).

I decided that it is way too much to tell about the trip of Uzbekistan here in the blog in detail, thus I will be quite brief. You will all be able to here all the stories and see all the photos about it when I am back. :) So for now - just short impressions about each visited city, most funny adventures and some best photos.

Taskent

Capital of Uzbekistan, a 2.1 million city near the border. First impression - now I know where all the Ziguli cars dissapeared from the Baltics! As well as Moskvich and Volga. They are all here, in Uzbekistan, as well as southern Kazakhstan. And all of them in pretty good shape! :) The city itself is not very beautiful, nothing much to see, except for 375m TV tower (10m higher than Vilnius TV tower) and the Ziguli with blue neons in the bottom. :D Oh, and the metro stations are quite beautiful, too, just policemen are very eager to stop foreigners there. Yes, police is a different issue here, they are on every corner! And I hate policemen, I have a paranoya for them, police-o-phobia! Even if I haven't done anything wrong, but here its just wrong to be a foreigner it seems :D We spent the night at our friend Saya's, with whom we arived, parents flat. Experienced another local home dinner ,this time the main dish was “Manti”, sort of very big dumplings. Train to Samarkand.

Samarkand

The ancient Silk-Road city, with a very rich and dynamic history, as well as magnificent architecture. We spent 2 days here, staying one night at a very nice hostel with traditionally decorated rooms and a inner yard with a big green jungle-like garden. To sum up, there are two main things here in Samarkand - a looot of beautiful buildings, more beautiful and amazing than anything I have ever seen, and also a looot of locals who are trying to cheat you whenever you buy anything, be it a small souvenire, lunch or anything else. We had to be very careful. And to pretend to be locals, which we actually succeeded a few times. Then the prices at least to all the sights are around 8 times cheaper. Finding out that the best Uzbekistan beer “Sarbast” is actually owned by “Baltic Beverage Holding”, hehe. Playing Backgammon with a local inside a big moscque inner yard (pitty it wasn't chess). Visiting many many beautiful sights and eating many shaslyk. Night train to Bukhara.

Bukhara

Arrived just during sunrise, spent one day in this yet another amazing city. We expected it to be quite similar to Samarkand, yet it was very different and even more beautiful! You can really feel the ancient atmosphere here and imagine yourself living one or two thousand years ago and how it all was back then! All the old part of town is very old, not just a few mosques, all the houses! You can easily get lost in the narrow streets, and then suddenly appear in front of a huge wonderful mosque! There are a few very high minarets, too, one being 47m tall, which you can climb and see the whole city. And old Soviet water tower was good for that, too, which we of course climbed as well. :) Here I had one of the most beautiful sunsets ever, sipping hot tea in a cafe balcony with the best views. Price of tea? 2 LTL per pot. :D We also had a 0.5 star hotel here, for 6 dollars per person (after some negotiation) we got an empty room with some matresses, no heating, no hot water and even breakfast inlcuded (tea + “lepioshka” bread)! As well as full information about everything we need to know from a very helpful owner! Great! :)

Khiva

12 hours in a crowded cargo bus through the desert. Even here they have police posts every 100km or so. We left Bukhara before sunrise and arrived to Khiva after sunset, 520km away. The bus was quite fun though, listening to fun local music during the whole trip. When we came to Khiva we quickly found a place to stay (from our “Central Asia” guide, which was our Bible during the whole trip) and went to sleep. Woke up before sunrise to see the city during it, as everyone recommends. To our surprise apart from us and one american girl that we met there was noone to do the same. We went on the city walls, which surround the old-part of this small 50 000 people town, also once an important city of the Silk Road. A very beautiful city indeed, I liked it thats its so small and packed within the city walls. Unexpected we found out that we need to stay 2 days here instead of one as planned, because of train schedule, and because of that we understood we have too little cash with us! We had to spend half a day in a nearby city of Urgench (Urganch!) trying to find a place to take out cash from VISA card! We had to visit 5 banks for that, each sending us to another one. When we finally found one that can help us, we had to wait one hour, wait for them to load the bankomat with cash (apparantly nobody uses it here ever), and then take the cash out with 5 people standing just next to us and staring to everything we do! Scary :) Took the many to the bag and ran away. After the second night we met one local guy, who is a friend of Saya's father and whom he recommended to call in case we need some help. We wanted to visit the desert fortresses, but there wasn't enough time for it. Instead, we went to check out the dried out Amu-Darja river, as well as had yet another local-style dinner. This time it was in a cafe, with some rich middle-age locals, eating fresh fried fish from Amu-Darja river (karpis, I think) and drinking vodka in the middle of the day. :D

The End

19 hours by train back to Taskent, an hour of listening to taxi's swearing and shouting, and negotiating at the same time until the border, 7 passport checks once again there, including 2 asking for a bribe (of course we didn't pay), and another 15 hours by bus from the border back to Almaty. Tired as hell, got some stomach problems up until now, but very happy to be back! From this description it might sound as a not so special journey, but believe me, there were much more things in between, and those I reserve for live story telling! :) Internet connection is bad now, so I promise to devote another entry tomorrow morning just with a bunch of good photos from the trip! Be patient! :)
Today - just one photo of me jumping down from the Khiva defensive wall, during sunset. My hand still hurts from that landing, if you ask :D