When a bear woke me up too early

Barry with his bear skin and the Dean of the Corps from Belarus

By Laurette Moolman

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry occasionally arranged trips to other parts of the country to introduce those areas to the foreign diplomats. This time it was Eastern Kazakhstan and we were invited to the city of Ust-Kamenagorsk. During the soviet era this city didn’t appear on any map and no foreigners were ever allowed there. Would we discover why?

Our early morning arrival at the airport showed our flight delayed by three and half hours, so the small group of slightly bleary eyed diplomats quickly went home again. We could hardly make a cup of coffee though before we received urgent calls to come back to the airport immediately. They had chartered a tiny Russian jet to take us to our destination, not to upset the programme so carefully planned by our hosts on the other side.

The flight was a good introduction of what was to come. The air hostess was not your typical wispy Kazakh beauty and could only just pass through the very narrow aisle, but she was charming and spunky. She brought us trays of food twice the size of the tiny flip-down tables in front of us and we had to use newspapers to prop them up, not to end up with all the food on our laps. Smoked salmon, poached salmon and all the usual Kz food. The cheerful lady also wanted to know whether we wanted vodka, cognac, gin & tonic, beer, wine ... tea or coffee. It was only 10 o’clock in the morning!

In Ust-Kamenagorsk we were met on the tarmac by a few dignataries and as always girls in traditional costume, bearing sheaves of flowers for the women. Our first meeting was with the regional mayor, hosting a news conference and we met the young woman who was to be the translator for the two days. When she was confronted by terms like “presentation of credentials” she paled and said in desperation “I’m only a teacher!” However, she gained confidence as time wore on and endeared herself to everyone.

Our late and very big breakfast was still fresh in our minds when we were taken to a very flashy restaurant with a shiny red ceiling setting off the crystal chandeliers quite gaudily. Kazakh cuisine is always the same, and sometimes even more so. We started off with plates of cold cuts (which always include horsemeat), salads, smoked salmon, pickles, etc. After this massive bowls of soup were brought on. The soup is always very tasty but rich with blobs of sour cream floating on top. Next arrived the biggest plates I had ever seen with a massive heap of Plov and a very generous piece of rib hacked from a sheep’s carcass. After this the dessert was such a contrast we weren’t sure whether it should really be eaten: a small plate with a tiny blob of mousse on it. Delicate leafy flowery decorations surrounded it and a filigree piece of chocolate sat on top. You see this kind of dessert on fancy cooking programmes but in Kazakhstan? As much as they eat, they don’t go in for desserts. But they do go in for drinking!

All the many meals we had during those two days in the east, were basically the same. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, because the drinking really seems to be the main reason for getting together. Every representative in our group had to propose a toast and make a short speech every time we got together and every toast is supposed to be followed downing your glass of vodka. You must choose right at the beginning of the meal what you want to drink and once you have decided they take away the other glasses. No changing of horses mid-stream, which is maybe not such a bad thing. Once after a few sips of the fairly sweet red wine I thought I might as well have one true Russian evening and drink the vodka. Maybe they thought since I was breaking the rules of sticking to one kind of drink I wanted to go on a binge, because the waiter promptly brought me a big glass of beer too. I shooed it away before he could bring on the cognac, etc too. Even though I never emptied my vodka glass and tried to take the tiniest sip possible with every toast, I still knew I had had too much vodka by the end of the evening. At least they served only high quality vodka, so there was no headache the next morning! It only made me forget that it was Barry’s birthday …

 I often tried to drink at least some of the many toasts with water only, but our hosts kept on circulating to check that no cheating would take place. I really do not know how they cope. Their livers must have mutated over the years to accomodate all this alcohol! Maybe there is an antidote though. Amongst the gifts we received there were two small bottles with a picture of a reindeer on. I had to wait to ask my cleaning lady Tonya, back in Almaty, about this and she confirmed that it was medicine. She read on the cover that it was good for virtually all organs, but she patted her liver with exta vigour and I was very happy to hear that. I hoped everyone in Kazakhstan had a number of those little bottles in their medicine cabinet! Now, since Tonya and I had to communicate with my limited Russian she used many gestures and mimic. After she had patted her liver she gave a wicked giggle to indicate that the drops also had another purpose. She looked cross-eyed, her tongue lolled out of her mouth and her legs wobbled wearily to show how I would feel if I gave the drops to Barry! Once more the antlers of an animal is used for the same purpose men all over the world kill animals for ...

On looking back it is hard not to get stuck on all the eating and drinking that took place, though I shouldn’t. Ust-Kamenagorsk is a truly beautiful city. It reminded me a bit of St Petersburg. There are many trees lining the streets and on the banks of the many rivers criss-crossing through the city and surrounding areas. It is colder up there than in Almaty (in winter MUCH colder – it goes down to -40° C) and the trees had already started changing into their autumn colours. We visited the eternal flame monument which is built where two rivers join and the sun was setting in all its glory behind the water. If I can experience sunset in peace and quiet, looking out over water (or the frozen sea as was the case in St Petersburg) that city will always have a special place in my heart and memories.

We visited some of the sites which make Ust-K such a properous city. A spotless assembly plant for Skoda and Lada with shafts of sunlight falling in through the windows, giving an airy feeling to the plant. The floors were light green. A very strong contrast to this plant was the metal smelting plants for zinc and lead, which we next visited. Massive dark structures with an eerie atmosphere. Dark gloomy caverns with fires burning inside the massive smelters. A scene from Dante’s Inferno!

We visited the metallurgical museum which gave us a glimpse into why this city wasn’t mentioned during the soviet era. Here was their main uranium enrichment plant and it is also where they work with Berillium and Tantal, manufacturing components for the mobile phone industry, nuclear reactors, etc. When I asked our translator whether it was dangerous what they were doing there, she lowered her voice and said “it is very secret!” On the walls were photographs of scientists who had worked there since 1940. Walls full of serious unsmiling faces. A photograph of Stalin still had its place of honour on the wall. The hammer and sicle featured prominently too. The guide was an elderly woman in a very severe uniform. They showed us a short film about the metallurgical plant which was heavily interspersed with patriotic songs, praising the factory with the refrain of taming uranium coming back every time. Situated on the edge of Siberia, much nearer to Russia, one could still breathe the soviet air! It was hard to believe we were in the same country where soon artists in the colourful Kazakh national dress would be singing and dancing again to jolly tunes.

The Kazakhs really are very fond of their music and we were told that in every family someone will play a musical instrument and everyone can sing. Even when we visited a resort set in the mountains, far away from any town or city, together with the inevitable tables laden with food came numerous performers to entertain us. And as they happily sang away I was once more very aware of the Russian heritage of using only gold in their dental work. When some of the singers opened their mouths they flashed a smile of solid gold!

We also experienced a few trips in a very basic Aeroflot helicopter. It looked a bit like a submarine to me, as though it could drop into the water at any time and just carry on in there. Fortunately it didn’t! It took us over beautiful landscape to a lake where our hosts had arranged a leisurely cruise for us. 

We were not quite sure whether the purpose of the cruise might not also have been only another excuse to eat and mostly drink. The front deck had a few comfortable deck chairs which seemed to me the ideal place to sit and enjoy the lovely scenery, but we were whisked away to the tables laden with food and the waiters moving about with the omnipresent bottles of vodka! I managed to sneak back to the deck and one of the also ever present kind ladies presiding over the catering, brought me a rug against the chilly breeze. I suppose it was either a rug or numerous shots of vodka to keep the breeze out. Maybe there were fewer rugs than bottles of vodka ... Where I sat comfortably wrapped up in my rug, I noticed though that the vodka’s side effects were actually not so bad. The female ambassador of Belarus started singing melancholy songs in a beautiful voice. Someone else started dancing. Some of the diplomats became very courageous and tried out Russian cossack dances. A man whispered an endearment against a female cheek. The atmosphere became quietly relaxed. The light on the surrounding hills and the water was beautiful and there was an air of tranquillity all around.

As mentioned the last day of our trip was Barry’s birthday, which fortunately by then I had remembered, feeling totally ashamed of myself! At the resort which was our last stop before going back to the airport, someone whispered the fact into our hosts’ ears. As we sat down to the heavily laden tables once more with the inevitable toasts being made, special toasts were made for Barry with the promise of a gift soon arriving.

No photograph could do justice to Barry’s face when the gift arrived ... A massive bear’s skin complete with fluffy ears, sharp claws and vicious teeth! Barry was totally overwhelmed and could hardly find words to express his feelings. Many hugs and more glases of vodka had to suffice. Our translator solemnly explained the story of the bear, feeling honour bound to do so with the brown bear being on the Cites red list. He came out too early and had to be shot. He ended his winter hibernation in February when there was no other food around than maybe the odd human and they had to kill him.

Barry just stood there with his arms full of bear, wondering how he would get this exceptionally generous gift home. At the airport, while we had yet another table with food and again the vodka, wine, beer, cognac, etc. to enable the mayor of the city this time, to say some kind words, someone whisked away the bear skin. At least this time we flew back with a bigger aircraft. When we arrived in Almaty at the conveyor belt, there was an oddly shaped brown paper parcel kept together with masses of sellotape.  I made a little tear in the paper to find out whether this was THE gift and it happened to be in the exact spot where the big nose, the red gums and the vicious teeth were. Imagine the face of the policeman who checked the outgoing baggage… Imagine our driver’s face!

We will never forget those two days of incredible hospitality, culminating in this fantastic gift which Barry put on the floor of his study. Every time I walked past the door the snarling teeth still gave me a fright. After our two daughters visited us in Almaty they wanted to draw lots as to who would inherit the bear skin, but Barry was too law abiding to take the skin of an animal on the Cites red list out of the country. (I was ready to hide it in a duvet cover!) And so we gave this magnificent skin to our landlord, Sergei Petrovitch, who had been such a wonderful landlord and friend to us.