Sunday, 6 September 2026

 

Start: Astana (KZ) 11:00

Arrival: Karagandy (KZ) 15:30

 

Total: 226 km

 

 

Where are we today? Where? In Karagandy, of course. More about this strange introductory sentence below. When we looked through our photographs for today, Sonia and I got a severe case of the giggles. A day in 10 pictures.

 

Picture 0: Multilingual Kazakhs. No pic taken, but worth an honorable mention: Just south of Astana, we pulled into a gas station to get petrol. While Sonia went in to pay and get a Red Bull for me, an elderly station employee arrived to handle the pump for me. "Which one?" he asked in Russian. "Dyevyanosta-pyat", was my answer. He looked back at our licence plate. "Lyuksemburg?" he asked. That guy knew what the L stood for! We chatted, and he was kind enough to use easy sentences. Kazakh people, having to learn two languages by default, generally can relate much better to the plight of foreign language learners than monolingual Russians. Many more Kazakhs than Russians are also happy to say at least a few words to us in English or German. When we drove off, we waved good-bye to each other. I love Kazakh pump attendants!

 

 

Picture 1: Greening the steppe. At first, the landscape was endless dry bristles to all sides. But slowly, small trees appeared at the wayside, evidently planted there to anchor the topsoil and keep the wind from blowing sand onto the fields. Because further on, the trees were larger and in two rows: trees, then wooden fences with gauze nets, then a second row of trees. Behind, we spotted sunflower fields or other plantations. "Quick, take a pic", I urged Sonia. We were driving by at 100 km/h, so by the time she had the phone ready, the best shots were gone. She frantically clicked away, trying to catch a good shot. Lying on the bed in Karagandy, we sifted through a dozen nondescript blurry snapshots. Giggle number one. But we love the sky in the photo that finally made into onto the blog!

 

 

 

 

 

Picture 2: Abay, the father of Kazakh literature. We arrived early in Karagandy, so before going to our hotel, we drove to a little park and took a stroll. There we found a statue of Abay Qunanbaiuly. We'd seen similar statues and streets named after him in Petropavlovsk and Astana. Who was he? A highly interesting man, it turns out. He composed traditional Kazakh songs, translated Pushkin into Kazakh and wrote essays in which he urged his fellow countrymen to educate and better themselves. Deeply influenced by Rumi's allegorical writings, Abay's Book of Words has now made it officially onto my to-read list. I absolutely wanted a picture with the man. "Do you know that your belly is showing?" Sonia asked me after she'd taken a picture. I looked down. Oops, not good. I resolutely pulled my pants up. One more pic. For good measure, I pulled my T-shirt down too. Third pic. This one looked like I was wearing some strange sort of tent. Giggle number two. Wisely and philosophically, as befits a lover of Rumi, I chose the middle pic. Nothing wrong with showing a bit of belly.

 

 

Picture 3: The Conquerors of Space. Why had we come to this little park, and Karagandy, in the first place? Well, Karagandy is known for being a coal mining town (its football club is the Shakhter - the Coalminer) and for housing one of the largest prison camps of the Soviet Union in the 1930s to 1950s. But none of this is of particular interest to me. Its third claim to fame however, is highly interesting: when cosmonauts returned from space, they spent their first hours back on Earth in this town. Meaning Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, Valentina Tereshkova as well as all the astronauts from the International Space Station had graced the ground I was treading on now. If that isn't something! A city of spacefarers! To commemorate the 50 years of humans in space, a really cool monument was erected in this park in 2011. I was over the moon (see what I did there?) to integrate myself into the heavenward motion of the monument. "Looks like you're part of the package", Sonia laughed. Po-ekhali!

 

 

Picture 4: A cosmic mural ... or not. Our next destination on this "in the footsteps of the space explorers"-day was three kilometers away, so on we went by car. Along the way, we saw the city. Many houses were painted yellow and white with beautiful stucco-like decorations. "Take a pic, now", I ordered, rolling down my window. We were standing at a red light. Sonia fumbled with the phone. "Your head is in the way", she said. The light turned orange. "Take that pic", I said, pushing my head as far back into the headrest as I could. Click. The light turned green. I accelerated. Click. Sonia leaned over. Click. What you see here is, I think, the first click.

 

We were looking for a "beautifully preserved mural celebrating cosmic exploration" from 1966 (says AI). According to both Yandex and Google Maps, this mural is hidden away in a backyard full of seen-better-days Soviet apartments and potholes. We saw kids on a playground, a car honking for us to get going, mothers pushing prams and a young man on a bicycle. What we did not see was the mural. "It can't be that small, can it?" Sonia asked, craning her neck. Maybe it was not so "well preserved" after all? As in: plastered over? Or the whole thing was just an AI hallucination? Where, where was it?

 

 

Picture 5: Where? We never found the mural, but our futile search serves as the perfect transition to the next highlight in Karagandy: the world's first monument dedicated to a catchphrase. "Where? Where? In Karagandy!" is a Russian saying. Something people would say if they're annoyed about too many questions. Maybe a bit like "Where do you think?" or: "Take a wild guess!" in English. This catchphrase has a monument, and we found it hiding behind the Georgian restaurant "My Tbilisi". With the mouthwatering smell of charcoal in our nostrils, we waited for two Russian ladies to finish their antics, and then Sonia took her place among the three mimes. Gde?Gde? V Karagande! My sister, right out of a Karl May or J.F. Cooper novel!

 

 

Picture 6: Geometric puzzles. Walking back to the car, I noticed... yes, the shashlyk smell, of course, but also the Necker-like pavement cubes. I love these optical illusions, I can immerse myself for minutes making my eyes see first one part in the foreground, then the other. Makes you wonder what else we take for granted that is actually just the opposite of what we think. I made my poor sister squat down and took a pic. Stupid angle. I had to squat down as well. My knee did not take kindly to that. Ow. Up again. Somehow. Sonia wanted to come to my rescue. No, you stay put. Click. The cubes right under her feet look like rhombuses. Which of course they are. My sister, a constant even for a geometrical puzzle.

 

 

Picture 7: The arteries are screaming. Our hotel for the night was smart enough to put the menu (complete with very appealing pics) into our room. My Tbilisi had given me an appetite, so we decided to have an early dinner. I went for cheburek, deep fried pastry filled with juicy meat. Sonia tried to preserve this memorable moment for posterity, and I had a point of biting with extra gusto into my food. The result looked like I was trying to swallow a whole whale. "You always open your mouth that wide when you eat", Sonia giggled. I don't! Do I? (Addendum: the whale-swallowing picture of course remains private.)

 

 

Picture 8: Strassenschäden! A German saying tells you to walk a thousand steps after eating. Luckily, the third and last highlight on our spacefarer-day was exactly 900 metres from our hotel. A bit more than 1000 steps but, ey, it had been a big meal. "Do drive around that tomorrow morning", Sonia said, when we walked past a large pothole. Don't I always? (Actually, no). Just how do these holes in the tarmac happen? The small side street to our hotel, barely 50 metres long, sported four such monstrosities. Maybe it's a "keep drivers from falling asleep behind the wheel" device? "Take a pic of me standing in the pothole." Sonia obliged and the result were half a dozen pictures of me trying to look concerned, but actually pulling faces like I'm mentally challenged. This one was the least humiliating. Also the least funny, but the pee-your-panties hilarious ones are private.

 

 

Picture 9: Seagull. We strolled past a sypermarketi, through a park where the locals enjoyed the evening sun, towards gated hotel grounds. The gate was open, so we entered. A Mercedes came straight at us in reverse gear. A Kazakh Vin Diesel. Moments before hitting us, he stopped and drove forward, again at full speed. His friend filmed the whole thing. We walked past. The Mercedes backed up once more. Footage not cool enough the first time?

 

 

Picture 10: Warm feelings. We reached the hotel. The facade had seen better days. "You could not pay me to step onto that balcony", Sonia said. Well, Valentina Tereshkova had had no such qualms. But then, once you've been to space, crumbling paint on a second-floor balcony will hardly shock you. We had tried to get a room here yesterday, but unfortunately they had been fully booked out. The Chaika (seagull, in English) was named after Valentina Tereshkova's radio call name on her flight aboard the Vostok 6 in 1963. She had stayed at this hotel afterward. In the lobby, we found pictures of her with Gagarin and other cosmonauts. As we were not staying at the hotel, we tried to keep the photo op short. I leaned against the wall and endeavored to look suitably solemn. Instead I look like I'm shivering, trying to melt into the wall get warmth. Why oh why is this shot so silly? Maybe simply so as to give us a good laugh.