Kazakhstan

On November 17th Ron and I went to the mission office where we were given instructions for our trip to Almaty Kazakhstan. We were leaving that Monday afternoon, flying to Moscow , then on to Almaty -- we were scheduled to return on Saturday. Almaty is a beautiful modern city. It is the largest city in Kazakhstan with 1,348,500 people. The word Almaty comes from the Kazakh word for apple.

This building was made of glass -- quite beautiful.

We know some of you think that our visa trips must be wonderful -- we get to visit many different parts of the world and see new cultures every three months. Their are a few advantages, like traveling with great young people and having adventures that the 'normal missionary' would never have. However, they are also filled with hours spent in travel, going without sleep, eating strange things, and some anxious moments concerning how and when

you'll return, and who will take care of your responsibilites while you are away.

Some of you asked what we did while visiting Almaty. This is what we did --

We Went Shopping:

Everyone who visits Almaty, and the 'natives', like to shop for fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, or almost anything at a place called The Green Bazar. On the way to the 'Green Bazar' Ron and I walked past the Central Mosque of Almaty. Quite an impressive building, but I am sorry to say I know nothing about it. Also, while on our walk we saw an interesting thing -- A man backed his station wagon up to the curb opened the back, and inside on the floor of the car was a dead animal. People came over with bags, they cut off pieces of meat, paid for it with Tenge (their money) and went happily home to cook a 'nice dinner'. Not your ordinary butcher shop. You can find almost anything at the Bazar - light bulbs, kitchen tools, paint supplies, all kinds of clothing apparel, and Ron even found power tools. We didn't purchase any souvenirs because our bank card was not working and we had concerns as to when it might start functioning again. But the missionaries found some Kazak slippers that reminded me of Aladdin, Russian ties, gloves, and hats.

Dried apricots, cashews, dried plums, chocolate covered peanuts - called Hedgehogs (yummy), almonds, and much, much more. The sight was beautiful and the room smelled wonderful.

We were all attracted to this vendor because he let us taste everything -- a good salesman -- we all purchased things from his booth. We Got A Little Culture: We were invited by the Moscow Mission missionaries to attend a cultural night at the opera with them.

During one of the intermissions I went to thank our hosts for the nice evening and was introduced to a man by the name of Gary Despain. I said, 'Not the Gary Despain that graduated from Granger High School?" He said 'yes', but neither of us recognized the 60+ faces, we only remembered the 17 year old faces. What a treat! He is a pilot for Air Astana and is living temporarily in Almaty. Imagine going to and opera in Kazakhstan and running into a friend from high school!!!We Did Some Sight Seeing:

We went to the mountains to visit a very famous outdoor speed skating rink called Medeo, which sits 1,691 meters above sea level. The rink was closed and in need of repair so we climbed the stairs to the top of the mountain (850 stairs). Whew!!! I was the last to arrive at the top, but I was glad I went.

Looking back down all of those stairs we had just climbed was spectacular.

Coming down was much easier. Elder Magleby found slick way to slide down the railings, although I think it must have been pretty cold. I was a little nervous -- then Elder Sorensen tried it and couldn't stop (a street lies at the bottom). I could see one of them ending up hurt on top of a mountain, with no cell phone, in a strange country -- and I said, 'Enough"! We walked down the rest of the way.

One day we took an aerial tramway from downtown Almaty to a popular recreation area on top of Kok Tobe, which means green hill. (This is the same hill where Kazakhstan was dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel)

The city television tower is up there along with a variety of amusement park type attractions. We were there in the middle of the week, on a cold day, so everything was closed. We did enjoy the tram -- everyone, except Elder Nuzman who is a little nervous about heights.

These five characters are 'our guys', the group that we will/have taken our visa trips with. They are a lot of fun -- this is the last trip for Sister Borchardt, who will go home in January. The Beetles sang us a few tunes.

We Met Members of the Almaty Branch:

While in Kazakhstan we were given strict orders not to do any missionary activity -- we couldn't even answer religious questions asked by our own church members living in Almaty. According to law, anyone who preaches within the country must have a license issued by the government. The missionaries who come to serve there from the Moscow mission cannot open their mouths and say anything of a religious nature until they obtain that license. We were allowed to sing in the choir that day -- probably the biggest choir they have had for a while.

The Almaty Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has about 60 active members. The chapel was filled to capacity while we were there.

The sisters and I were invited to attend Women's Conference at the Almaty Branch. We found the same welcoming spirit with these dear women as we would in our various home wards in the USA. Their theme was built around strengthening the family -- we ate, played games, sang songs, and participated in sharing ideas.

We Participated In Sports:
The missionaries had 'sports' activities they participated in about every other day. No this is not them -- next to the field where they were playing soccer, a school was having an American football game. We wandered over to watch and cheered on the Almaty Apples. They looked like they were winning over the Kergistan Kinnickees (I just made up those nick names- could you tell?). Watching was a lot of fun --but it was easy to tell they were very new at the sport.

We Studied and Spent Time Together:

We went to one anothers apartments for District meetings. We had three apartments with about 2-4 miles between each.

Three groups of missionaries (21 total) gathered together at the Almaty meetinghouse one afternoon to watch a session of conference. What a great group to be 'stuck' with!! The problem is - about 40% of our mission was now outside of Russia, and all these young missionaries were worried about their contacts at home, and who would take care of their work. Thanksgiving day we gathered together in the largest of the 3 apartments to enjoy a nice meal and just to be together. The food smelled wonderful and the company was great-- all these young people were kind, patient, and grateful to be spending this special time together.

Elder Gubler cooked 6 chickens, mashed patatoes, carrots, gravy and corn. We also had homemade rolls, cake, and apple pie. Yum!!! Elder Nuzman was invited to do the honors in slicing the chicken.

"No one can eat until I get a shot of this food", Elder Shreeve snaps a photo.

What do you do after feasting on Thanksgiving? I mean, when there are no football games to watch. Play games, of course -- even Ron got into the act, and had a good time.

Zenkov Cathedral is surrounded by Paniflov Park, a pleasant rectangle of greeenery. The park was named after the heroes of World War II. The Cathedral is one of the few tzarist-era buildings to survive the 1911 earthquake, despite the fact it is built entirely of wood and constructed without nails. It is beautiful and almost looks like it should be in a storybook or fairy tale. It is also one of the eight most unique wooden buildings in the world. It serves as a Russian Othodox Cathedral.

It's just as pretty from the back as from the front.

In the park behind the cathedral were some very impressive statues dedicated to war heroes. I know our grandsons would be very impressed.

After 13 days (for our group) we finally had our visas -- hurray!!!! We flew from Almaty to Moscow - then had to transfer to another airport in order to connect with the flight to Yekaterinberg. We took a train - about 15 miles; rode on a subway until it ended - possibly another 15 miles; rented a small bus - big enough for 19 of us (some of the missionaires found flights directly to their mission areas and had already departed) and all of our luggage, and traveled another 10 miles, or more. Finally we arrived at our airport and we were very happy to be on the last leg of our journey 'home'. An exciting adventure -- but not one we would like to duplicate in the near future.

Welcome to our city. We would like to take you on a tour of Yekaterinburg Russia and some of the sights we see every day. The city is situated on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains and is the 5th largest city in Russia. The city was founded in 1720 by Vasily Tatischev and George Wilhelm de Gennin. Everyday we see:

In the summertime we saw lots of skin. But the people are beautiful, and most dress very fashionably. Many of the women wear spiked heels -- now that it is winter they wear spiked boots, of all colors. Green, purple, blue, red, boots -- to match thier outer wear - coat and hat.

Garbage - enough said.

Every big city has pigeons -- Yekat has its share. Graffiti Art

Flower shops, fruit stands, and banks are plentiful. You can find them on every block, and in the center of each block. They remain open year round and are open until after 10 pm in the summertime. Hours will probably be limited this winter -- I am thinking that those little plastic houses must get very cold as the temperatures drop.

I threw this picture in for Jaren and Scott -- while in Germany, they learned to love doner kebabs. Here in the city there are many stands-- they serve sliced meat from a rotisserie on a pita/tortilla type bread, with vegetables and sauce. Yum!

Lovely parks and places to walk are all around the city. Quite beautiful, except for the garbage.

A Russian highline canal.

Many of the Babooshkas sell their produce, knitting, flowers, and bottled sauce on the

street corners. They probably don't earn much, but enough to suppliment their living.

They are in 'their spot' day in and day out, no matter what the weather.

This cute old man plays for a few rubbles. Ron and I may have to take up the accordian in order to suppliment our income when we return, like the pensioners do in Russia. Early in the mornings when we would walk out of our apartment, we would hear the bottles breaking and rattling along the bricks as the city workers swept the park clean. They did a good job of cleaning up the previous nights mess. The Russian people don't clean up after themselves because they think will put someone out of a job. Interesting thought process.

The city workers have no safety regulations -- no OSHA organization in Russia. These men were painting our building. Most wore no safety belts, and walked on wooden planks that were not secure, up 6 stories. It frightened me everytime I looked out the window.

Everyday we take some form of transportaion -- I have covered that in a previous blog, so just a couple of pictures that I thought were interesting.











The city is full of statues -- and they love their statues.

Ask any Russian and they will tell you this statue is in honor of the man who invented the radio - his name is Alexander Stepanovich Popov. However, if you are writing a term paper on the radio, you might want to do a little more research. Whatever was invented -- Russians invented it first.

Every city in Russia has a least one statue of Lenin. We see him everyday -- this statue stands directy across from the Duma building, where we catch most of our public transportation.

This statue honors the Communist Youth. Russian workers are honored in this statue.

Yekaterinburg can boast that they have one of the tallest incomplete architectural structures in the world, the Yekaterinburg TV Tower. They ran out of money before they completed it (fall of the Soviet Union), and so it just stands a mere 220 meters (about 700 feet). Originally they planned to have a restaurant on top so it would have been 400 meters.

Walking along the river we found a really interesting old building. The city is filled with many historical, old, and interesting buildings.

Ron and President Allen walk in front of a very prosperous merchant's home. Around the turn of the century the man that lived in this home, owned many businesses in the city and he was a well known trader. When we walked around the building to a park in the back we saw that the back of the building had not been restored and didn't look anything like the front. They were just 'putting on aires'.

The city has these old buildings that used to be the homes of the traders/merchants. Maybe they weren't quite as successful as the previous merchant, but they still had a very nice home. These wood homes usually have intricate wooden 'gingerbread' around the windows, doors and under the eves. They are quite beautiful because of the workman ship that went into their building. They are tearing many of them down to make room for new buildings.

This is my favorite old building situated right in the city center. It is the very impressive city Duma building, and was built by German prisoners of war. It is now a government building, but was used as KGB headquarters in the past. It has a clock tower that chimes on the hour and we can hear it from our apartment, only a short distance away.

This is where old meets new --

literally. It's interesting the way

they incorporated the very old building into the front of the new

high rise.

The population of Yekat is about 1.4 million.

Most of the people live in highrise apartment buildings. Many new apartment buildings are being constructed, but the cost to live in them is probably out of the average person's range. Looking across Gorodskoee Lake you can see the northern skyline of the city.

The skyline is filled with cranes.

Beautiful old and new churches dot the landscape.

We asked the people in English Club 'What are the

main religions in Yekaterinburg?' 'Atheism' was the

first reply; then Russian Orthadox; Catholicism; Jewish;

and Protestant.

The most famous church is The Church On The Blood. This cathedral belongs to the Russian Orthadox church and is built on the site where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Tsarevich Alexei were executed by Bolsheviks. It is very beautiful and a very touching story -- I will do a future blog on the Romanovs.

Notice the barbed wire around the walls of this monestary - this might be the solution to keeping

our teenagers in class.

A beautiful little church located in a park.

And this is our church building. Top floor of this bank. It looks nice on the outside, but is pretty plain on the inside. We call it 'Rosie' because it sits on a street called Rosie Luxenburg. It is located about 6 long blocks from our apartment. We walk to this building about 5 times a week.

We have a circus in our city that performs shows year round. We haven't been yet, but plan on taking in a show to see if it is "acceptable" for the missionaries to attend.

I caught this picture one day from our kitchen window. A man was 'mowing' our back lawn with a weed eater -- this is the way they mow the lawns. We have never seen mowers used, even in the parks --just lots of men with weedeaters. I thought Jaren might be interested in this one.

One of the hardest things I had to get used to when we arrived in Yekat was all the garbage. Most of the garbage doesn't make it into the cans -- this garbage area is behind our building and is kept realitively good, compared to other garbages. This is where Ron's friend, Scabbers The Rat lives.

We've walked all over the city and our apartment is just ahead of us -- just around these garages where people park their cars, through some trees, down a dirt path, and we are home. We hope you enjoyed the tour.