Kazakhstan is equal parts amusement and confusion. Amusement at the perpetual recognition that everything here is still the same - as I, along with a bunch of other foreigners, get scammed at the consular office in the airport in the process of getting a visa... The Kazakh visa has a shifting price - officially $60, it swiftly turns into $80 and then just as swiftly into eur 70 when it turns out some of us do not have the greenery. At 5am it is difficult to argue and all I can do is laugh and try to help a hapless german that doesn't quite understand why the woman behind the counter is shoving his money back in his face. They have a predilection here for banknotes that are new and unsullied with no regard for notions of 'legal tender'. It's illogical and the scams are obvious when instead of $80 the same german is told to pay eur 70, but all of us, there in that terminally slow line, do not argue - the power lies with the consular office and they can run their small time scam as long as they let us have the visa and enter the country. So we watch with a tinge of amusement, as the consular office workers leaf through binders with papers that may indicate our permission to enter the country and then fill out the stickers that go into our passports, painstakingly by hand.
Having gotten scammed even before I technically step onto the motherland soil, I feel that I have been properly greeted already, nostalgia swiftly giving way to recognition of the odd way of living here that I have little desire to experience fully... pretty much ever. Yet there is so much going on here.. deep under the skin of the city and its inhabitants that span the gamut of types, races and social classes. I stare at the little social moments that happen around me at a wifi cafe that is frequented by young socially advanced and mobile adults as well as the handful of foreigners that visit this place... and I feel utterly overwhelmed... How am I to really get to an understanding of what is gonig on here... technologically, socially, culturally... in a way that is useful for understanding that bigger picture of human relating I so want to build up?
This time, in comparison to a year ago, there seem to be somewhat more foreigners about, certainly far more iphones in the hands of teens and business people. The pace of life is still the same relaxed "at some point within the next hour or two we might meet" kind of attitude. In the center of town, there are many impeccably dressed people, a lot of labels and many women on impossibly tall spiky heels strutting along somewhat unkempt pavement. The frenetic pace of change that was evident between 08 and 09 has slowed, with the same cafe's and bars still in evidence, the same internet businesses persevering and little movement in competition-challenged areas of telecommunication. I am told, offhand, that the governing party has established a company that is taking over large sectors of the building and real estate development industry through the use of legalisms and force which might indicate a particular logic and vision of the future of the current governing body. I need to figure out what that might mean for technology, telecoms, surveillance and the development of public access even as I realize how quickly these conditions are likely to shift.
What I notice more then anything though is that it is gorgeous and sunny, warm and quiet. This is Denmark talking though... I am thoroughly enjoying the sun as I wait for my first contact to arrive at the cafe... in a very Kazakh way sometime in the next hour.
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