Oppan Kazakhstan!

Dear Reader;

Good morning.


Ahhh there's nothing like an international move to get the biles moving again, eh, what-what?

Where to begin. Although it's only just over a week since I've left the land of my birth, it feels as if I've been here for much, much longer.

I'm currently in the fine country of Kazakhstan, which is deep in the heart of central Asia:


Many people asked "Why?" and although my default answer to such asinine questions is usually a curt sneer and a "Why NOT?", this time, I had to answer that, for what other reason does a sane (within tolerance) individual leave their comfy home, community, family, friends, routine, job and move to a developing country that almost no American has ever been to more or less heard about?

Love, obviously.

I had the greatest opportunity to meet the one woman who so wow'ed me and bowled me over with her sweetness, vivacious spirit and immense capability when it comes to this thing-called-life, that I knew I'd be an utter fool NOT to put a ring on her finger.

And so I asked, and she accepted. Actually she refused once, saying "Let's think about it," (which in Womanese is a loud and clear, "NO.") but as time passed and keeping my mouth shut, the conversation eventually opened up again and I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the words, "Why haven't you asked me again?" And that was that. Papers signed, courthouse visited, family not informed until after the fact... the only thing that made it not eloping was that we didn't run away.

And now I'm in Kazakhstan, where she was born and raised. This is an unusual scenario; where do a newlywed couple USUALLY end up living after a man from a developed country and a woman from a developing country shack up? You got it; some boring old "First World" country! Where's the challenge and fun in that?

But in all seriousness, I felt immensely uncomfortable with the idea of "stealing" her away form her family, culture, friends, everything she knew and grew up with. We met in the United States, under my roof so to speak. I showed her my culture, introduced her to my friends, my family, everything I knew and loved... and it only seemed fair and right that she could have the same opportunity to do the same, and she invited me to come stay under her "roof" for a while. And besides, if you've had any experience with this blog before, you know I'm always up for an international adventure. In fact, before marrying, that was one of my only reasons for making money was to put it towards travel.

Departure -2:
I hadn't slept for about 20 hours. I hadn't eaten since lunchtime the day before. I was shaking, irritable, nervous, excited, probably immensely unpleasant to be around, and I was on a total roll, dominating the packing process, selling my Earthly possessions like it was my job and I had an intensely good commission to make.

Selling things is no problem, but saying goodbye to people you love is such a harder task. Although I know I'll see them all again another day, the pangs felt served as a constant reminder of the ever-changing nature of of life, that movement forward and progression will always be urging me on no matter how deeply my heels are dug in.

Regardless, I had reduced all my worldly possessions down to 9 heavy duty storage bins that now were living in a sturdy little shed at my fathers house and the rest was now evenly distributed in the six pieces of luggage that were currently sitting at the door, travel locks in place, glass items wrapped in triplicate, and everything not exceeding the maximum weight limits.



Never before had I felt fear before a travel experience, never. For me, travel, especially international travel was and continues to be the one activity in life I can turn to that will reward me more generously then anything else I can think of; the challenge of learning new languages, the things one can see that most people on Earth will never get to see, the new tastes, smells, all serve to expand and enhance the experience of life on Earth.

But on the day of this particular departure, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back, at least, not as the same person, not in the same capacity as my previous experiences. It was like I walking to the edge of a cliff and forcing myself to jump off. I had heard so many negative things about this place I was going and so few positives; from my wife as well (who is from Kazakhstan!), from other people who’d traveled there, from PeaceCorps volunteers, from the basic assumptions from Americans whose opinions were generally narrow, and whose opinions were the ones I aimed to debunk.

“You will be attacked sometime,”
“Americans are always targeted,”
“A drunk guy tried punched me in the face,”
“You will get mugged,”
“Women are kidnapped frequently,”
“Women are raped frequently,”
“Taxi drivers will drive you into the wilderness and extort money out of you or leave you on the steppe,”
“You’ll be pick-pocketed at least once,”
“It’s a very hard life there,”
“Death threats were issued to PeaceCorps members,” [Granted, under some extraordinary circumstances which I aim to completely avoid]
“The Police will stop you in the street and demand to see your passport. They might not be actual police. Ask them to take you to the nearest police station,”
“The migration police might kick you out of the country at any time,”
“Your bags will be looted in the airport,”
“Anything valuable could go missing at anytime,”
“Carry a weapon on you, learn to use it and don’t be afraid to defend yourself with it,”
“Your apartment will probably be broken into once they realize a foreigner is living there,”
“Don’t walk around after dusk,”

And so on. The list literally went on, and for once in my life, I started to feel myself being swayed by the opinions of others, many of whom had never been to this country or experienced it firsthand.

Yet these warnings kept appearing in such frequency (and not just on the US State Department website who’d prefer Americans never travel internationally at all) that I started to develop a genuine fear on this destination. The fact that I knew I wouldn’t be coming back to the States didn’t help, and the constant haranguing regarding personal safety, the idiocy of bringing ANYTHING of value, the constant worry that my wife was there alone, the frequent warnings from the Peacecorps members I’d met via my wife; it all started to make me wonder if I was not about to start a journey of an interesting, fun, eye-opening cultural exchange, but rather, embarking on some kind of suicidal, masochistic self-exile that would in fact only end badly with someone getting hurt in one way or another, and with us returning to the States, broken and limping with my tail between my legs. No fun cultural exchange. No positive, colorful vivid stories to regale.

And so I let the fear creep in. I figured fear could only serve me; fear could only tense my muscles at the right moment; fear could only make me look a meaner, more formidable opponent and less likely to be messed with; fear could only be the entity that would instate martial law over my nervous system; fear would be the one sweeping my eyes around at all times beneath my sunglasses, sizing up everyone and every situation, watching the shadows grow behind me to see if anyone was following and not have to look behind me; at this point, fear could only be my guide that would protect me; fear could only prepare me... So I figured let it creep it, because if anything, this fear could only save me and my wife should the worst happen.

A teacher of mine once said “Fear is excitement without breathing,” and generally I agreed with that assumption, but it was the fear in my mind that said “Not this time.” And I didn’t want to let go of it lest I let go of my control. It’s a loss of control that I was truly afraid of; not a knife wielding drunk on the street, not a group of men in the dark shadows of an unlit Soviet apartment complex.

I’m not so arrogant to think I’m invincible, but I’m also not so meek to think that I wouldn't inflict violence for the purpose of defense. Never once have I been in a fight, never once have I inflicted a malicious act of violence on another person, in offense of defense, but I was not and am still not afraid of delivering massive damage in order to save myself or someone I love; if anything, my Krav Maga training taught me “Don’t worry about overpowering an attacker; be explosive, be fast, be unusually destructive with the least amount of effort on your part, and most of all, escape.”

Speaking in the present tense, I hope I never have to heed this advice.

Departure: -1

This day was at least a fun one. If you decide to move overseas, I highly recommend you throw your going away party the night before you leave because this will force you to be absolutely ready by the time you need to get on the plane.

Over the years in Seattle, I accumulated various liquors and spirits that all served to feed my unhealthy obsession with cocktails. Because I am a charitable person (and equally not charitable) I decided to hold a simple raffle for my friends and family. $1 bought you a raffle ticket and the opportunity to win any number of boozes that might kill or thrill, such as a full bottle of Creme du Noyaux (an abomination) or an nearly empty bottle of Eau du Douglas Fir (a bartenders novelty delight).




Departure: 0

So, as days do, the day came for me to leave. My folks accompanied me to the airport and I did the ceremonial cell phone turn-off and hand over that travelers are ought to do.

The flight to Kazakhstan is difficult, not because of the subsequent jet lag but simply because of the duration and physical requirements it demands. Not only that, there is a significant amount of weight that I’d be keeping track of (and worrying about; damn you, physical possessions).

Nine hours to London, seven hours in London, eight hours to Almaty. I was lucky though; each flight blessed me with an empty row of three seats all to myself and full drink and meal service, all for the price of an economy ticket. Take that, first class! Sometimes it works out okay.

On the flight to Almaty, about 75% of the way there I woke to see the sun piercing through the windows and was able to look upon the vast expanse of the Kazakh steppe. Even from 30,000 ft. it seems to have no end and looked as old and weathered as it is.





Almaty is bordered from the South by a stunning row of Mountains called the Tian Shan range. Seattle has mountains around, but none like this, none so close and that rise up and disappear into the clouds. They’re truly a sight to behold.

Since I had a somewhat unique situation regarding the heavy bags that accompanied me, I had arranged with the local airport to give me their best VIP treatment, which consisted of a staff member holding a sign with my name and “Jason Sutherland”’s name, (a man who I don’t think even boarded the plane...)




It was within a matter of an hour or so that my wife came to collect me, and saw her waving through the small security checkpoint. Four months seemed to have passed at an utterly glacial pace, and simultaneously, in the blink in an eye, and within moments, she was in my embrace and I in hers, cultural modesty thrown to the wind.

We took a taxi to the train station and proceeded to wait for several hours for the next train. Almost there. In Kazakhstan, but not yet releived of the burden of moving a life to a new country; a nine hour train ride awaited us.

Although the train ride from Almaty to Taraz is long, it offered us some respite from the heat and burden of carrying such large, heavy pieces of luggage around. Asela had arranged a lux cabin; a private, two person room, just big enough for the eight of us.



It was said in a guide book that the long-haul train rides are the best way to see Kazakhstan, or at the very least, the best way to experience how vast the country is; the steppe extends on as far as the eye can see, and I was treated to sweeping vistas of grassland, herds of animals, and the sound of an old Soviet train, clacking down the the tracks as it had, no doubt, a thousand times before.

A kindly lady who worked in our car (one of two folks working 14+ hour days going from Almaty to Aktau and back) saw my tiredness and took it upon herself to escort me to the toilet whenever I needed on the journey and helped arrange the luggage in our cabin.

Jet-lag is one of the most bizarre feelings in the world; I was awake and asleep at the same time. My body wanted nothing more then to sleep for days on end but since I had had some resemblance of sleep on my flights, my mind wanted to talk to my wife, wanted to ask questions, wanted to use my eyes to see all these new sights, this new and this ocean-less (but oddly ocean-like) land that I’d be calling home for the foreseeable future.

Asela hopped off the train at each stop, buying a little something here, a little something there and we snacked on the way to Taraz.

Here is an excerpt of an email I sent to the close family and friends once I had a chance to sit down and email:

“Central Asia and the former soviet republics are probably some of the most difficult stable countries to travel to (stable meaning no war, strife, socially debilitating poverty/disease, etc). Luckily, there doesn't really seem to be anything too crazy in terms of face-melting diseases. Unluckily, there's also not much of anything else! But that's okay. The novelty is in the not having certain things makes it a particularly memorable experience.

And I'm sure you're all wondering about the food too! I now truly understand the term "acquired taste". Kumiss is fermented mares milk apparently is very healthy. And as my theory goes, the weirder something tastes, the more healthy it must be. On that same line of logic, kumiss is probably the El Dorado of elixirs of youth, although not quite as invigorating as the Icelandic last resort, hákarl.

Okay maybe not that bad, but you should have seem my face when I tried it. Kordt is a hard, dried cheese that flakes off in your mouth then rehydrates as you mull on it. It's sort of as if NASA was asked to make some kind if freeze dried nugget for astronauts to take into space, and this was the first attempt. It's like a very salty chalk with a hint of cheese flavor, and apparently, also very healthy...

These foods were a huge part of the nomadic diet and its cool that they are still as popular as they were to their ancestors.”

[Bear in mind, this was before I was treated to some of the other Kazakh delicacies I’d be trying in the weeks ahead. I also learned from my mother in-law that the kumiss we had was in fact synthetic and not the real deal. However, upon trying the real deal, my brutish palate could not tell the difference...]

The luxury of relaxing on the train finally came to and end and my last challenge in getting to my new home was upon me; get the luggage off the train as quickly as possible, get it into a taxi then get to our apartment. We swiftly loaded everything out to the train platform, sweating myself into an oblivion with my heavy leather jacket (which I didn’t put in the checked luggage because of the weight issue) and Asela deftly negociated with a taxi driver our fare for the car ride home.



It was around 11PM when we finally arrived and I was more tired then I’d ever been. Awaiting us was the warm welcome from Aselas mother, Zaoreyesh, and her two old school friends who had helped make our apartment feel a little more homey; a big poster with the words “Welcome, Eric!” in Russian, Kazakh and English greeted me, as did 10 colored balloons and a hot meal. Snacks are very big in Kazakhstan and every kitchen in every home has a lovely spread of confectionary, baked sweets, sausage, cheese, and whatever else you want. But the point is that it’s always there, either covered up with a light towel or paper towel.



I produced a letter my mother had written to Zaoreyesh and Asela translated it for them. It was a very sweet moment, and although I just wanted to die from lack of sleep, we drank tea, laughed and ate a delicious meal with them.



Soon enough, this odyssey of moving from the USA to Kazakhstan had come to an end, but with the full realization, as my heavy head hit the pillow, that a new one was about to begin...