Restaurants in Karaganda

Since we have no kitchen, we've eaten out quite a bit. So here's my review of some restaurants in Karaganda, all within walking distance of our hotel, the Grand Luxe Gracia Hotel, which is located next to the City Mall and across from the circus. The main street in downtown Karaganda is Bukhar-Zhyrau Avenue.

In the City Mall (on Bukhar-Zhyrau Avenue), we like to eat at Charlotka, which is located on the 2^nd floor and has an outdoor cafe feel, since the tables are just in an open area in the mall. The food is rather good and moderately expensive (1200 Tenge  ($8) for pasta; 1400 to 2300 Tenge for a meat dish). They open at 10 am and serve omelettes and blini (like French crepes) for breakfast. They also have delicious desserts and good coffee. Food takes a while to be prepared and delivered.

On the top floor of City Mall is Assorti, an Italian and pizza restaurant that I've been to in Astana. Many people like it; I've never been too pleased. I think the quality of food is not as good as it should be, based on price. There's also Mac & Dac, a fast food restaurant similar to McDonald's.

Across from the TsUM department store (also on Bukhar-Zhyrau Avenue) is another of our favorite Karaganda restaurants, Ankara. It a blue-circular building. Inside there are some birds in bird cages by some of the tables, which of course makes this the girls' favorite restaurant. We always sit next to the birds.

I highly recommend this restaurant as it's very cheap but good quality.  On Tuesday  I paid 1150 Tenge (less than $8) and got a hamburger, tea, 3 pieces of baklava, and a mini cheese pizza. The margarita pizza says it comes only with cheese and tomatoes, but sometimes they put olives on it. To order, you wait in line and order, then you receive a small stand with a number on it, which you place at your table and your food is delivered to you. It can get quite crowded at times.

Also down the main street is the Johnny Walker pub, a moderately expensive restaurant with good steaks. I ate at it a year ago.

If you are walking down the Bukhar-Zhyrau Avenue,, and you've passed Ankara and Johnny Walker on your right, then turn on Beybitshilik Boulevard, and on your right you will find a German beer pub. We went in there today but did not eat, but I was very impressed and want to come back. You have to go down several flights of steps to get there, and it very much feels like you are going to the dungeon of a German castle. The walls are made of stone, and it really has the look and feel of a German castle. There are some private rooms as well as a long room full of tables. There are some decorations—an old typewriter, and old telephone. The menu is in English and Russian, but I didn't look at prices. I think they make their own beer.

There is one other place that makes their own beer, Traktir. I've never been there, but my friend says she once went with Englishmen, and they really liked the beer.

So, we haven't eaten at a wide variety of places, but we like where we've eaten. For dessert or coffee, go to Charlotka. For beer, go to Traktir or the German pub. For steak, go to Johnny Walkers. For a nice meal, go to Johnny Walkers or Charlotka. For a cheap yet fulfilling meal, go to Ankara. For a kid-friendly restaurant, go to Ankara, Charlotka, or Mac & Dac.

Ankara, the inexpensive and yummy Turkish restaurant

Johnny Walker pub

German pub

Karaganda - More Shopping and More Doctors, But No Baby

 Tuesday, 26 March

My friend's sister's release date from the hospital was delayed once more; we were unsure when she would finally be free to go, and we both had work to do in Astana, so we booked our return tickets for Wednesday at 12:30, after the final eye doctor appointment.  In the end, she was released Wednesday at 4 pm, so we just missed her!

We had a slow morning and after a fast food lunch at City Mall, we went to the dentist for my friend's daughter's appointment.  I went along because I was curious; Sophia went along because her other option was shopping with me.

This dentist place is different from many in Kazakshtan because it is a stand-alone dentist building, not connected to a hospital. The majority of dentist offices in Kazakhstan are in a hospital. As we were sitting in the waiting room, my friend commented on how it was different from most hospitals but it took some explaining for me to understand what was different. We had a pre-scheduled appointment, we signed in, and we waited. That was quite unusual! In most hospitals, you go to whatever room you need to go to, and wait outside with a crowd of other people waiting to get in.

The place smelled very much of a hospital, not the sanitized bleach smell, but rather the latex/plastic smell of gloves and hats.

We were called on time and went to another waiting room. My friend's daughter went into the patient's room by herself. She had been quite scared, so I popped my head in and wished her good luck. The two dental hygienists there smiled at me.

Everything looked just like a normal dentist's office, nothing new or different. I waited for a bit and then said good-bye to Sophia and my friend, and I went outside to go shopping.

It was raining a little, and the rain combined with melting snow made for quite a few muddy rivers that were quite difficult to cross. I did accidentally step in one and got my feet rather wet.

I did some shopping and found “bargains”--shoes and clothes that were similarly priced to what I would pay in the US. So many things in Kazakhstan are cheaper than in the US, but shoes and clothes aren't. In the US it is possible to spend $40 on a pair of shoes that will last you several years; in Kazakhstan it is possible to spend $100 on a pair of shoes that fall apart after one season. So the 5000 Tenge ($35) shoes I bought may not last, but one can hope! I also bought some running clothes, which are also very difficult to find at a decent price here.

After shopping, I met up with my friend and our daughters, we ate and returned to the hotel. My friend's daughter had been quite scared before, but she was in a super mood afterwards, so obviously the procedure had gone well. (She'd had a mild cavity.)

The circus is across from the hotel room and we could see that people were lining up to go to an event, so I offered to take the girls to the circus while my friend worked. Unfortunately, when we got there we learned that it was just a concert (someone singing), so I took them to the mall and they went to a movie. I found a stand that sold candy from Germany, including Advent calendars (although it's about 9 more months until Advent!) and Easter candy, so I bought some chocolate bunnies and eggs for the girls.

Not a very eventful day, but I do think I'm feeling done with shopping!

A small example of the mud and ice that make up the smaller raods

Plastic cover-ups for our shoes that we wore in the dentist's office

Karaganda - Shopping & Doctors

Monday, 25 March

Today we ate breakfast at our favorite restaurant, Charlotka in City Mall. The food took forever to be prepared, but was quite delicious (omelettes and blini—like French crepes). Then my friend took her daughter to the dentist while I dragged Sophia shopping. My friend is from Karaganda, and prefers the doctors here.  Karaganda is also known for having cheaper shopping than Astana.

We hopped on Bus 43 and it was only 3 stops to the big bazaar. Many of the stalls were closed today, because today is part of the Nauriz holiday, but it still was fun wandering the bazaar. I stopped at a shoe place and as Sophia tried on winter boots (for next year), a woman came up to us and said she came because she had heard us speaking English, and she hasn't heard English in a long time. She was quite happy to talk to us. The woman selling the boots was very friendly and also curious as to why we're here, and in the end we bought the boots for 4500 Tenge ($30), which is pretty cheap for winter boots. If they are cheaply made and don't last long, that's fine. Sophia's feet grow so fast! (I bought one size up, hoping they will fit next winter.)

We bought a few more items before heading out of the bazaar and across the street to a huge shopping center. This one is like Artyom in Astana, huge and easy to get lost in, with tiny hallways leading you through a maze with tiny shops separated from each other by glass walls. I found a fashionable autumn coat for 9000 Tenge ($60 - most were much more expensive than that) and we found the Reebok and Adidas outlet store, where I bought a pair of running shoes for myself.

Then, Sophia was tired (she hates shopping) so we headed home. My friend and her daughter arrived a few minutes after us. They had been to the dentist, the eye doctor, and the hair dresser! The dentist had pulled one baby tooth and they had scheduled an appointment for a cavity to be filled the next day.

The eye doctor had said that the girl had vision problems, but could not what. She gave my friend drops with instructions on how to adminster them and told her to return by 6 pm (when the office closed). The drops seemed similar to the kind my eye doctor gives me—they make your pupils larger so the eye doctor can see into your eye. But they were a bit different—my friend was to adminster them, not the doctor, and she had to put two drops in each eye every 10 minutes for 6 times. Then, after a half hour wait, she was to return to the eye doctor.

So we went to eat and then my friend gave her daughter the drops after we ate, while still at the restaurant. That took about an hour, and then we walked to the eye doctor. Since her pupils were large, she couldn't see very well, so she wore sunglasses and closed her eyes as my friend and Sophia helped her along. We must have been such a strange sight, helping this girl along, and also Sophia and I were just in short-sleeved shirts while everyone else was in coats! It was probably about 50º F (10º C) so it was cool but not too cool, and I was tired of getting hot every time I went indoors, so we had left our coats in the hotel.

The eye doctor was located on the second floor of another crowded shopping center, and it looked just like every eye place I've been to the in US, nice and neat with displays of eyeglasses. While waiting, my friend's daughter poked her head behind the door that led to the doctor's room, and she asked if she was ready. I would never do that in the US, but the doctor didn't seem to mind.

They let Sophia go in, but I stayed in the lobby. Within minutes she was finished, with a diagnosis of far-sightedness (she needs reading glasses). But the doctor can't give her a prescription yet. She has to examine her again, when her pupils are back to normal. Again, this is different from when I go in the US, when everything gets done in one visit.

We had planned to return to Astana on Tuesday, but now we have to wait until Wednesday afternoon. I guess I'll have more time for shopping...

In other news, my friend's sister's release date from the hospital was changed from Monday to Tuesday, which is fine, because we were so busy today we wouldn't have been able to visit her.

At the huge shopping center

Giving Birth in Karaganda

Sunday, 24 March 2013

In Kazakhstan, most your doctor and dental services are located in the hospital, which is convenient, but this surprised me my first year here, when my assistants every now and then had to miss work to go to the hospital. I finally learned that this simply meant they had to have a check-up or bloodwork, it did not mean that they were very sick.

However, one place is separate here—the birthing center.

My friend's brother-in-law picked us up and drove us, out of town and quite some ways to this birthing center. It was down quite a bumpy and pothole-filled road. (Remember, winter has just ended, so most roads in Kazakhstan are like this.)

They live near here, which is why his wife gave birth here. (I was wondering why it was so out of the way!)

When we arrived and before we went in, we waved at the windows and searched for the one she was in; she was sitting there with her newborn and waving back at us.

We went into the front lobby, which was as far as we got. They have a strict no-visitors policy. No one is allowed, not even husbands. However, husbands are allowed during labor, which is a new policy, I heard. This is all for hygenic reasons, I believe.

There was a video-phone for each floor, which cost 40 Tenge a minute to use. My friend's sister knew we were coming, so she came with her baby to the phone, and my friend talked to her for a few minutes, while she showed off her baby. Then my friend's daughter talked to her. But the baby started to cry so we let her go.

Meanwhile, her husband was filling out a form and passing along the baby presents and food we had brought.

When I expressed how stunned I was at this, and how awful it must be on the mother to be shuttered away like this, my friend said, no one felt like this. It was normal, it was what you expect.

Different cultures, different experiences, different expectations...

Karaganda - Cathedral

 Sunday, 24 March

Karaganda is like my 2^nd Kazakh home; this is my 4^th time here. It's one of the largest cities in Kazakhstan, but it doesn't feel that large. I love its downtown, which is stretched over one long road for a few kilometers. Just about everything you need is on this road—dozens of shopping centers, the drama theatre and symphony hall, the circus, a Western-style mall, restaurants, our hotel, and the entrance to the very large park which borders a lake. Further down this road is the train station and further down is the big bazaar and not too far from that is a new, huge, and beautiful mosque, which is next to the new, huge, and beautiful Catholic cathedral.

After breakfast, we walked until we neared the train station, where we realized that there really was no safe pedestrian way to cross the bridge over the train tracks, so we took a taxi. We first went to my friend's church, and then Sophia and I left her there to walk to our church, which was a pleasant 15 minute walk away.

Three years ago we visited this church as it was being built; it was completed in September, but I haven't been here since it's been finished. I was so excited to see the final product and sad to realize that I'd forgotten to bring my camera.

It is so beautiful; it looks like it belongs in Europe. It's made of stone, but somehow colored light brown to look like wood. The inside is beautiful. There are a few stained glass windows, but most the windows are bare, allowing for plenty of light. The stations of the cross are beautifully painted statues that line the wall. There are statues of saints along the colums.

I'm horrible at descriptions, so I won't describe it more.

After Mass, we took bus 43 to the City Mall, glad that our hotel is located on the main street, next to the department store TsUM, so I was easily able to ask if the bus went there. The elderly man who helped me seemed really concerned that I knew where I was going.

We met my friend and her daughter at Charlotka, where we had lunch. The waitress remembered us from yesterday.  We relaxed with coffee until 4 pm, when my friend's brother-in-law picked us up to take us to the hospital.  My friend's sister had just had a baby, which is the reason we're here in Karaganda.

Downtown Karaganda

To Karaganda via train

 Saturday, 23 March 2013

My friend needed to go to Karaganda, and it was my spring break, so I said, as usual, why not?  I've been to Karaganda three times before, and have really enjoyed it every time.

We planned on driving; however, on Saturday we learned that the roads were icy so we decided to take a train. We left at 3:30 pm, and it was a 4-hour train ride. Tickets were about 2000 Tenge each one way (children half price), so in the end it probably was cheaper than driving, considering gas prices.

It was the same kind of train as we've taken to Almaty before, not the nice new ones, but a nice layout—we had a small room with two sets of bunkbeds. We were next to the bathroom and somebody most likely had peed on the carpet in the small corridor, and it stunk like urine. Not a good smell to have to deal with for four hours.

The bathroom in the train stunk so bad I almost threw up when I used it. I promise you, I've had better experiences on trains in Kazakhstan.  (Update:  Our train ride back, on Wednesday, 27 March, was similar in layout and looks to this train, but seemed cleaner overall and smelled much nicer, bathrooms included.  There's also an electric train that goes between Astana and Karaganda that's nice and clean; however it wasn't available at the time we wanted.)

We slept most of the way and arrived at 7:30 pm. We asked around for taxis, but they said 700 Tenge, which was how much we had paid in Astana, for a much longer trip. We were walking distance to our hotel, but we had luggage and didn't want to walk.

So we went to the bus stop and asked a person waiting if the bus would take us where we were going. He said yes, so we got on. The bus was very crowded.

When the ticket-collector saw our luggage, she asked what all this luggage was doing there. She and my friend proceeded to get into an argument, where she asked my friend why she had all this luggage, this was an inter-city bus, and was she crazy? To which my friend responded, are you crazy. (Sadly, I did not understand this conversation, but my friend told me about it later.) Which had me wondering why an inter-city bus that stops at a train station should expect to not get people with luggage...

Two stops later, we got off and walked the short distance to our hotel. We checked in and then went to the next-door mall and ate in the restaurant Charlotka, which is on the 2^nd floor and very nice.

Finally, we went to bed, with plans for church and shopping the next day.

View from the train as we neared Karaganda

World Cup Qualifying Match, Germany vs Kazakhstan

Friday/Saturday 22/23 March Midnight, 2013

I'm not much of a sports fan, but when a friend asked if I wanted to go to the Fifa World Cup Qualifying Match between Germany and Kazakhstan, I said yes. It was a midnight on a Friday, so really it was on Saturday, 23 March. It was at midnight so that it would air in the evening in Germany.

My German students were going; my friend said that many high school students were going; pretty much everyone I knew who was still in town went. (It's Nauriz, the largest Kazakh holiday, the festival of spring, so a lot of people are out of town on vacation.)  However, we saw no one that we knew there because it was so crowded.

Tickets for the cheapest section were just 500 Tenge (less than $4).

We left my home at around 11:20. The game was at the football stadium that was built for the Winter Games two years ago; it's next to the Cycling Arena and the ice skating arena Alau, and it's on the road that leads to the airport. It takes less than 10 minutes to get there from my house when there's no traffic.

We walked behind my apartment complex and through some mud to get to a road and hailed a taxi on Kabanbai Batyr Street (the same street that the stadium is on). The first one stopped for us; the two guys in it were also going to the game, but they still charged us 500 Tenge.

The guy who wasn't driving asked questions about me and then asked if I'd like to marry a Kazakh guy.  My friend answered for me, "Maybe."

The traffic was bad for the majority of the ride, and I joked that we could have walked faster. We probably could have. The guys were nice and let us out when we neared the stadium; they still had to find parking.

We saw people running (we still had a huge parking lot to cross) and as we got closer, we started running too. Somebody said that Germany already had scored a goal.  (Yes, the 10-minute trip took close to one hour due to traffic.)

Inside the stadium, we could hear people cheering and we became rather excited, running to find our seats. We found our section, but could not find our seats, so I took a seat near the aisle and my friend sat on the steps next to me. (At halftime, we switched spots.)

The excitement of the crowd was infectious. Germany already had two points by the time we arrived (20 minutes late), and most of the action took place on Germany's side of the field. But every time the Kazakhs got the ball on their half, the crowd around us stood up and roared and cheered. There was just so much enthusiasm!

The score was still 2 to 0 at halftime, and as the second half continued it became obvious that Kazakhstan would not win (which, okay, was pretty obvious before the game even began.) Then Germany scored another goal, so it was 3 to 0.

Then somebody started the wave. It went around the entire stadium and then kept going... and going and going and going. After it went around several times, my friend took out her camera to video it; lots of people were videoing it. And it kept going. I stopped counting after 4 times. I think it made it about 10 times. It was quite fun.

In the end, we lost, Kazakhstan didn't even score a point. But it was fun being in the crowd, and the crowd was enthusiastic and happy, despite losing. We were happy just when we came close to scoring a goal. And we cheered the German team when they wandered around the field waving at the end.

Then there was a raffle for a brand new car—I didn't win—and then we left.

It was cold now, and we debated walking to the packed road to find a taxi, even though there were buses, because the buses were packed full. Then we found a bus that was not full, and we got on it. But it was a long wait before it became full and left (but at least we had seats, so we were not crammed.) Then it went behind the stadium, then did a u-turn and went back in front of the stadium, and then it turned right on the crowded main road—away from downtown, where we needed to go.

The road was packed and we traveled very slowly for a short ways; then we turned left and finally made a u-turn and turned back on the main road, finally heading in the correct direction.

This bus' route is not a direct route to my place, and so it took a while to get to my stop, and then it was a short walk to my apartment, and so it was nearly 4 am when we got home, even though the game had ended at 2.

I had a lot of fun, though I'm not sure I'll ever go again. I'm not a big fan of huge crowds. But the enthusiasm during the game was wonderful.

Crazy taxi ride

There are three kinds of taxis in Kazakhstan:

1 - your "normal" taxi, the kind most Westerners think of when they hear the word taxi, a car that is clearly labeled as a taxi and you can either flag down or call a service and have a taxi meet you wherever you are.  These are, of course, the most expensive, and you can't really bargain the price--there's a meter.

2 - a taxi that belongs to a service, and thus can be called like the normal taxi, but it's usually just a regular, unmarked car, usually one that's rather old.  Some of these have meters too, but you can sometimes bargain too.  (Asking for a price at the beginning of the ride and then sticking with it.)

3 - any car that sees your outstretched hand and decides to stop for you.  Anyone can be a taxi here.  Some people are what I call freelance taxi drivers, they don't have a real job, they spend their day in well-traversed areas such as airports and get customers there; they might drive around the city looking for people with outstretched hands.  A freelance taxi driver may give you his number, so you can call him.  Others, you just hail on the street.  It's best to bargain a price before you get in.  They are often male and rather fast.  It's quite similar to the Western version of hitch-hiking, except that it's so common here, and people think I'm weird when I say it worries me.

I often take the last kind when I take a taxi, and I have finally gotten comfortable with it.  This past Friday, a friend and I planned to go to a violin concert, after which I would go to a St. Patrick's Day event at the US Embassy, and since I planned on drinking, I decided to take a taxi.  We took a taxi to the Organ Hall, only to find out that the venue was not the Organ Hall (where most of the classical music concerts are) but rather at the new building called Shabyt, a building that was being built my first year here, and is large and blue and circular and I think is sometimes referred to as the "dog-bowl" building (a lot of buildings have weird nicknames).

Shabyt is quite a ways away from the Organ Hall, but we had arrived early and had almost 30 minutes.  We got in the first car that stopped for us.

My friend asked the driver if he could go quickly, and the driver gave some explanation as to the ice being slippery.  If a taxi driver has an excuse for not going fast, that's a bad sign; he was the first taxi driver I've ever encountered who preferred to go slow.

He went slow, really slow, and other cars passed him.  I could drive faster than him (and I'm an incredibly slow and cautious driver). Also, he had another passenger, who sat quietly for most of the ride.

We did not drive in what I would think is the most direct route, but I figured, it was rush hour, maybe he knew a less traffic-y route.  But he kept driving in the wrong direction, so finally I had my friend say something.  He said he was going in the most direct route, I did not know what I was talking about.  I suggested we hop out, and I wish we had.

He was going to drop off the other guy first, but after we protested so much that we were going the wrong way and that we had to be there by 6, the other guy said he could drop us off first, and helped give the guy directions.

The trip ended up taking 50 minutes.  It should have taken 20 - 30 minutes, depending on traffic.

During the trip, the guy talked to my friend most the time.  She was sitting in the front, and her Russian is better than mine.  I understood about half of what he was saying, and she translated some more for me, and well, he was rather rude and inappropriate.  At one point he asked her how much money she makes, and when she said she didn't want to say because that's personal information, he kept at it, asking again and again and insisting that she tell him.

At another point he asked if she had children and told her that she should have five children because that's best, but she argued with him, why should she have five children?  Who said that's a good number?

He asked for her name, and she said she didn't want to give it, and he said why, it's the young men you should be scared of, but he's old, like a grandfather.

In the end, we were quite glad when we made it to the Shabyt, twenty minutes late for our concert.

We were just so happy to get out of that car!

At least we got a story out of our adventure!  And the concert had started late (as they frequently do) and had not sold out of tickets (as they rarely do) so we managed to enjoy a nice concert in a new venue.

Water!

With the warmer weather comes water, of course, before it re-freezes every night.  This winter has seen so much more snow than previous winters, and my daughter asked one day what would happen if it all melted at the same time.  Astana would go underwater.

Astana is a very flat city, built on a swamp, and whenever it rains (which, luckily, is rarely), roads and parts of sidewalks start to flood.  It's just not built for water.

So every spring, the snow melts and the city starts to flood.

Which is why, of course, you see crews working all winter on snow removal.  But this year there was so much snow!  The children had so much fun playing in it at recess time, but our school did remove a lot of it.  At one point the mounds of snow reached to the tops of the tall fences that enclose our campus, and small children tried to climb to the top--quite unsafe, and the snow there was removed immediately.  There is still plenty of snow on our playground and in our tiny parking lot, and the principal told me that she's already spent $1000 on snow removal.  Wow!  Imagine how much it costs to clear an entire city of snow!

I have a car now, which is nice, because instead of trekking through water and mud, I get to drive through it.  A co-worker gave me instructions for driving through mud.  This year has seen the first time I've ever driven through snow, as well as the first time I've ever driven through a considerable amount of mud.

Luckily, a lot of the mud/water mixture has evaporated or been removed already, but there's still plenty of snow (now icky and brown and slushy) waiting to melt.  My hunch is that in another two weeks most will be gone, and the city will be beautiful once again.

This is my least favorite time of year, despite the fact that the weather is nice.  I'm not a big fan of the ickiness of ice and slush and mud and water.  But it will be gone soon.  This part of the year usually only lasts two to four weeks.

Ice!

Every winter is different, which is nice, since I've just completed my fourth winter here.  It hasn't gotten boring yet!

This winter we saw one of the coldest Decembers ever, and then proceeded to record-breaking warmth.  We even surpassed 0º at one point in January!

Today is Наурыз (Nauriz), the first day of spring, and it feels like it never really was winter (except for December).  It never even got to -30º C in the past few months.  (I know, because I promised a co-worker I'd drive her to school if it ever got below that temperature.)

Last year on this date, my mom and I were walking on a frozen lake in a winter wonderland in Borovoe.  Currently, it's above freezing, and every day this past week has been above freezing.

Another anomaly of this winter--it has snowed far more than usual.

So what happens when it snows far more than usual and then gets to above or near 0º every day for a week?

Ice!

Even when it's slightly below freezing, the sun starts to melt the snow.  The last two weeks were so bad, I drove my co-worker to school every day.  She's pregnant, and there's no way that she could safely walk the 10-minute walk to school in the mornings.

The ice was so horrible, I really thought we'd all be better off in ice-skates.  It was everywhere--road, sidewalks, everywhere.  The huge mounds of snow stayed, but they were less soft and powdery and instead crackling and icy.

The wind was fierce for a week, also, making everything incredibly dangerous.  Everyone I know fell at least one time.  I received two bruises on my knees for my fall.  A co-worker received a broken arm.

My daughter and her friend thought the ice was a lot of fun, and they enjoyed slip-sliding on it.  They, too, got bruises.

One day the weather was around freezing, well above the -20º C limit we place on outdoor recess, but we had indoor recess because the playground was so dangerous.   We have a school building being built, but currently we are in a rental place, with five separate buildings.  Just walking from one building to another (no more than a few meters apart) was dangerous.

This has definitely been the iciest spring I have seen in Astana.