Kazakhstan
by Gordon Howe
B&F April 2005
When we consider the great Scots inventors and pioneers of industry and business of the past we might mistakenly be led to believe that Scots no longer fulfill that role. Not true! Whilst we do not have a monopoly on the situation, Scots still seem to be at the forefront of developing business and industry around the globe hence the popularity of Scottish culture and dancing abroad ; if you add Robert burns you have the recipe for a party with, of course, the need for speakers and musicians. Hence the reason Nicol, Shauna Flockhart and I set off from home at around 3.30am to catch the 6.15 flight from Edinburgh to Frankfurt and onward to Kazakhstan on Friday, 28th January 2005.
Kazakhstan – maybe I had heard of this place, or was it Afghanistan? Anyway, any country name ending in ‘stan’ usually conjures up instability, and inhospitality with extremes of climate. Well at least the latter was true. Kazakhstan, when we arrived just after their midnight (6 hours ahead of UK) was some 20 degrees below freezing and, unknown to us then, was to remain around that temperature for all our visit.
Our venue was at Almaty (the old capital) where our host met us for the visit – Andrew Paterson, son of Iain, the well-known composer and fiddle player from Dollar. Andrew is General Manager of Procter and Gamble for Central Asia, the Caucasus and Mongolia and I put him in the category as one of the Scots business pioneers aforementioned. (His vast sales area makes Nicol’s patch seem microscopic). Travelling from the airport in Andrew’s Land Cruiser on snowbound and un-gritted roads, we soon realised that Levenwick, where we had stayed the previous week during the Shetland Up-Helly-Aa celebrations, was decidedly warm! On arrival at Andrew’s house (or should I say mansion) in the Kokyube district of Almaty, I was surprised to find a gateman on duty, even at that time in the morning. The cold soon began to disappear however with generous measures of the ‘Old Cratur’ and we eventually hit the pillow around 4am feeling no pain.
Waking up next morning (always a good start) and looking out of the window I wished I had packed my drawers with the high sides and brought my Russian fur hat bought in Moscow two years earlier. The snow was deep and the view was stunning with mountains all around, covered in snow, in glorious sunshine.
In conversation with Andrew during breakfast, we were able to get some perspective of the vastness of the country. It is the 9th largest in the world extending to 2,724 square kilometers with a population of 14,951. A trip around Almaty gives you an awareness of the diversity of different ethnic groups. This is not surprising, considering that pre-Revolution, 1500 people arrived from Russia and Ukraine and between the years 1883 to 1886, 32,000 settled from Turkistan, Semirechye and Dungans. During the Stalin Repression 800,000 Germans, 19,000 Koreans, 102,000 Poles and in excess of half a million from other northern Caucasus were deported to Kazakhstan.
During the Second World War Kazakhstan was the main place for the evacuation of Russians, so now Kazakhs make up 57% of the total population with Russians at 27% and Uzbecks, Germans and Tatusand Uigurs making up 9%. The main languages are Kazakh and Russian, both of which Andrew spike fluently, thank goodness!
Kazakhstan has borders with Russia, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan. The climate is extreme with January temperatures varying from -4 degrees to -20 and July from +19 degrees to +26. Temperatures can dip as low as -45 degrees in winter.
Following our morning lesson and briefing, we prepared for the evening’s festivities including searching for a replacement piano with five octaves, which we hired from a local music shop for 8,000 tenge (£40 equivalent)
The Ankara Hotel provided the venue for the evening’s supper and ball where we had our usual sound check with a sound system ‘borrowed’ from the local concert hall with a 70 watt output, capable of coping with up to 2,500 people. Given that we were playing for 250 guests it seemed adequate and a big improvement on the Cults A&F Club system that we used the previous week – no offence! The system was manned by four or five people who provided invaluable support and seemed to cope and deal with all modifications in their own dangerous way! During the sound check we were joined by two local musicians – Sergei, a Russian violinist, and a Romanian Gypsy musician who played the bass. They asked if they could join in and, to our surprise, played a melody taken from a Da Fustra CD composed by Sandy Legget! Considering we had Shauna on piano, this was a surprise and coincidence. They had learned the music verbatim as a result of listening to a Da Fustra CD loaned by Andrew.
The evening kicked off with a cocktail reception and, needless to say, we spoke with ex=pats who knew some of our own friends back at home – it’s a small world!
Nicol delivered The Immortal Memory to an international audience including Brits, French, Americans and Germans. He obeyed the golden rule by keeping it short, (decision made on the hoof because of the din from the French who carried on their own conversation through most of it). The meal was excellent, albeit the cock-a-leekie soup bore little resemblance to the real thing. I took the liberty of introducing our table to the custom of adding gravy (whisky) to the haggis, which seemed to appeal to the non-Scots!
Following on from the meal, those guests who had been practicing their Scottish dancing were keen to display their expertise and the floor was full. Once their repertoire had been exhausted however, Nicol strutted his stuff as dance master and kept the evening going. Our final playing session was complimented with our two musical friends joining the band to their, and the guests’, delight. Given that Nicol has given Sergei and his friend some Scottish music to take away, we might find our invitation cancelled for 2006, considering their expertise in reading and playing!
Our host, Andrew Peterson (whose wife was back in her hometown in Ireland with their youngest child Gilleasbuig awaiting the birth of their fourth child), unselfishly parked the other two children, Lachlan and Iona, with friends and took the three of us on a trip up the mountains to visit a hunting lodge. This consisted of a hill training station housing special dogs, Central Asian Shepherds and Borzois, to flush out pheasants, which would then be hunted by birds of prey. These birds included their national bird, the berkut, large vultures, owls including the eagle owl, the Step Eagle and other eagles, falcons of all descriptions tethered or housed in large cages. The idea being once the pheasant had been flushed out into the open by the dogs, the bird would be released by its handler to hunt and kill. Guests would pay a fee to take a day’s hunting including the dogs, birds of prey and their handlers. A good day’s sport might yield one pheasant, quite a difference to what I am used to where we regularly shoot 170 pheasants per day albeit I would love to take part in a day’s hunt. The station also reared rats to feed the birds. The rats were kept in specially constructed heated buildings, each housing around 3000, looked after by two or three staff. The weekly demand was somewhere around 3,000 rats!
This trip was certainly one of my highlights, being able to see round this station and handle the birds without impediments such as signs saying ‘please keep a safe distance from the birds’ and the usual Health and Safety notices posted all around!
On Sunday we visited the Chimbaluk Ski Centre at Kas, which had four lifts operating to a height of 3,163 metres. Whilst I ventured up in the gondola to the top of the run to admire the view (fabulous), Nicol and Shauna, along with our host, spent a pleasant three hours skiing in conditions which would be the envy of anywhere in the world. The trip by Land Cruiser up and down to the ski centre proved to be an adventure in itself with steep icy roads and the usual head bangers of drivers involved in a spate of minor road accidents.
That evening we were entertained at a first class authentic Kazakh restaurant in Almaty serving local food including horsemeat, popular in Kazakhstan. Not only was the food delicious, but also the cabaret was out of this world with music, juggling acts and dancing of the highest order. Costumes to match added to the spectacle of the evening.
Our final day, Monday, (which Andrew kindly took as a holiday in spite of the news that Procter and Gamble had just taken over the Gillette empire) was spent in Almaty where we visited a school for the blind, to give them a tune. This invitation stemmed from fund raising for the school by one of Andrew’s friends, Frances Galloway. Well, when we arrived the children were waiting for us in their concert hall ready to entertain us. We listened first to a group playing the dombra, the national instrument of the country, followed by singing and finally an accordion band all playing an early version of the instrument called the bajan. This was another highlight and whilst we played a few reels and jigs our trump card was Andrew playing his bagpipes, which generated the most interest amongst the pupils all wanting to have a try.
Following on from our humbling at the school, which boasted 167 musicians from a school roll of 215, we visited Zenkov cathedral in Panifilov Park and also the museum of musical instruments where we were able to view the forerunner of the dombra, violin and even bagpipes. The park also displayed monuments to heroes of the past including the 28 soldiers of the Almaty Regiment who died defending Moscow in 1941.
Our final visit was to the Green Bazaar, the ancient market place in Almaty, which sold all kinds of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, spices, nuts, etc. This was a hub of activity without the restraints of our own sanitised supermarkets.
Our last evening was spent at home with Andrew entertained by his gateman, Baurzhan Alimbekov, playing the dombra. This rounded off a very special trip. Thank you very much Andrew and trust all is well with your new family member.
Kazakhstan – maybe I had heard of this place, or was it Afghanistan? Anyway, any country name ending in ‘stan’ usually conjures up instability, and inhospitality with extremes of climate. Well at least the latter was true. Kazakhstan, when we arrived just after their midnight (6 hours ahead of UK) was some 20 degrees below freezing and, unknown to us then, was to remain around that temperature for all our visit.
Our venue was at Almaty (the old capital) where our host met us for the visit – Andrew Paterson, son of Iain, the well-known composer and fiddle player from Dollar. Andrew is General Manager of Procter and Gamble for Central Asia, the Caucasus and Mongolia and I put him in the category as one of the Scots business pioneers aforementioned. (His vast sales area makes Nicol’s patch seem microscopic). Travelling from the airport in Andrew’s Land Cruiser on snowbound and un-gritted roads, we soon realised that Levenwick, where we had stayed the previous week during the Shetland Up-Helly-Aa celebrations, was decidedly warm! On arrival at Andrew’s house (or should I say mansion) in the Kokyube district of Almaty, I was surprised to find a gateman on duty, even at that time in the morning. The cold soon began to disappear however with generous measures of the ‘Old Cratur’ and we eventually hit the pillow around 4am feeling no pain.
Waking up next morning (always a good start) and looking out of the window I wished I had packed my drawers with the high sides and brought my Russian fur hat bought in Moscow two years earlier. The snow was deep and the view was stunning with mountains all around, covered in snow, in glorious sunshine.
In conversation with Andrew during breakfast, we were able to get some perspective of the vastness of the country. It is the 9th largest in the world extending to 2,724 square kilometers with a population of 14,951. A trip around Almaty gives you an awareness of the diversity of different ethnic groups. This is not surprising, considering that pre-Revolution, 1500 people arrived from Russia and Ukraine and between the years 1883 to 1886, 32,000 settled from Turkistan, Semirechye and Dungans. During the Stalin Repression 800,000 Germans, 19,000 Koreans, 102,000 Poles and in excess of half a million from other northern Caucasus were deported to Kazakhstan.
During the Second World War Kazakhstan was the main place for the evacuation of Russians, so now Kazakhs make up 57% of the total population with Russians at 27% and Uzbecks, Germans and Tatusand Uigurs making up 9%. The main languages are Kazakh and Russian, both of which Andrew spike fluently, thank goodness!
Kazakhstan has borders with Russia, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan. The climate is extreme with January temperatures varying from -4 degrees to -20 and July from +19 degrees to +26. Temperatures can dip as low as -45 degrees in winter.
Following our morning lesson and briefing, we prepared for the evening’s festivities including searching for a replacement piano with five octaves, which we hired from a local music shop for 8,000 tenge (£40 equivalent)
The Ankara Hotel provided the venue for the evening’s supper and ball where we had our usual sound check with a sound system ‘borrowed’ from the local concert hall with a 70 watt output, capable of coping with up to 2,500 people. Given that we were playing for 250 guests it seemed adequate and a big improvement on the Cults A&F Club system that we used the previous week – no offence! The system was manned by four or five people who provided invaluable support and seemed to cope and deal with all modifications in their own dangerous way! During the sound check we were joined by two local musicians – Sergei, a Russian violinist, and a Romanian Gypsy musician who played the bass. They asked if they could join in and, to our surprise, played a melody taken from a Da Fustra CD composed by Sandy Legget! Considering we had Shauna on piano, this was a surprise and coincidence. They had learned the music verbatim as a result of listening to a Da Fustra CD loaned by Andrew.
The evening kicked off with a cocktail reception and, needless to say, we spoke with ex=pats who knew some of our own friends back at home – it’s a small world!
Nicol delivered The Immortal Memory to an international audience including Brits, French, Americans and Germans. He obeyed the golden rule by keeping it short, (decision made on the hoof because of the din from the French who carried on their own conversation through most of it). The meal was excellent, albeit the cock-a-leekie soup bore little resemblance to the real thing. I took the liberty of introducing our table to the custom of adding gravy (whisky) to the haggis, which seemed to appeal to the non-Scots!
Following on from the meal, those guests who had been practicing their Scottish dancing were keen to display their expertise and the floor was full. Once their repertoire had been exhausted however, Nicol strutted his stuff as dance master and kept the evening going. Our final playing session was complimented with our two musical friends joining the band to their, and the guests’, delight. Given that Nicol has given Sergei and his friend some Scottish music to take away, we might find our invitation cancelled for 2006, considering their expertise in reading and playing!
Our host, Andrew Peterson (whose wife was back in her hometown in Ireland with their youngest child Gilleasbuig awaiting the birth of their fourth child), unselfishly parked the other two children, Lachlan and Iona, with friends and took the three of us on a trip up the mountains to visit a hunting lodge. This consisted of a hill training station housing special dogs, Central Asian Shepherds and Borzois, to flush out pheasants, which would then be hunted by birds of prey. These birds included their national bird, the berkut, large vultures, owls including the eagle owl, the Step Eagle and other eagles, falcons of all descriptions tethered or housed in large cages. The idea being once the pheasant had been flushed out into the open by the dogs, the bird would be released by its handler to hunt and kill. Guests would pay a fee to take a day’s hunting including the dogs, birds of prey and their handlers. A good day’s sport might yield one pheasant, quite a difference to what I am used to where we regularly shoot 170 pheasants per day albeit I would love to take part in a day’s hunt. The station also reared rats to feed the birds. The rats were kept in specially constructed heated buildings, each housing around 3000, looked after by two or three staff. The weekly demand was somewhere around 3,000 rats!
This trip was certainly one of my highlights, being able to see round this station and handle the birds without impediments such as signs saying ‘please keep a safe distance from the birds’ and the usual Health and Safety notices posted all around!
On Sunday we visited the Chimbaluk Ski Centre at Kas, which had four lifts operating to a height of 3,163 metres. Whilst I ventured up in the gondola to the top of the run to admire the view (fabulous), Nicol and Shauna, along with our host, spent a pleasant three hours skiing in conditions which would be the envy of anywhere in the world. The trip by Land Cruiser up and down to the ski centre proved to be an adventure in itself with steep icy roads and the usual head bangers of drivers involved in a spate of minor road accidents.
That evening we were entertained at a first class authentic Kazakh restaurant in Almaty serving local food including horsemeat, popular in Kazakhstan. Not only was the food delicious, but also the cabaret was out of this world with music, juggling acts and dancing of the highest order. Costumes to match added to the spectacle of the evening.
Our final day, Monday, (which Andrew kindly took as a holiday in spite of the news that Procter and Gamble had just taken over the Gillette empire) was spent in Almaty where we visited a school for the blind, to give them a tune. This invitation stemmed from fund raising for the school by one of Andrew’s friends, Frances Galloway. Well, when we arrived the children were waiting for us in their concert hall ready to entertain us. We listened first to a group playing the dombra, the national instrument of the country, followed by singing and finally an accordion band all playing an early version of the instrument called the bajan. This was another highlight and whilst we played a few reels and jigs our trump card was Andrew playing his bagpipes, which generated the most interest amongst the pupils all wanting to have a try.
Following on from our humbling at the school, which boasted 167 musicians from a school roll of 215, we visited Zenkov cathedral in Panifilov Park and also the museum of musical instruments where we were able to view the forerunner of the dombra, violin and even bagpipes. The park also displayed monuments to heroes of the past including the 28 soldiers of the Almaty Regiment who died defending Moscow in 1941.
Our final visit was to the Green Bazaar, the ancient market place in Almaty, which sold all kinds of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, spices, nuts, etc. This was a hub of activity without the restraints of our own sanitised supermarkets.
Our last evening was spent at home with Andrew entertained by his gateman, Baurzhan Alimbekov, playing the dombra. This rounded off a very special trip. Thank you very much Andrew and trust all is well with your new family member.