Another music video from KazaKhstan. Very nice video and nice images.
Again i say that the language is very nice to hear. A mixture of turkish sound with chinese sound. this is just what i think so for a more precise information about this language here it is:
KAZAKH LANGUAGE
Kazakh, also Kazak, Qazaq, Khazakh, Kosach, and Kaisak (Қазақ тілі in Cyrillic, Qazaq tili in the Latin alphabet, and قازاق تءىلءي in the Arabic alphabet) is a Western Turkic language closely related to Kyrgyz, Nogai and Karakalpak.
Kazakh is an agglutinative language, and it employs vowel harmony.
Geographic distribution
Kazakh is the official state language of Kazakhstan, along with Russian, the official language of commerce. In Kazakhstan, nearly 10 million speakers are reported (based on CIA World Factbook’s estimates for population and percentage of Kazakh speakers). Another million or more speakers reside in China. Other sizable populations of Kazakh speakers live in Mongolia (fewer than 200,000). Smaller numbers exist elsewhere in Central Asia and the former Soviet Union, and in Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and other countries. There are also some Kazakh speakers in Germany. They immigrated from Turkey in the 1970s. Writing system
Related predecessors to Kazakh were written in the Orkhon script, containing 24 letters. Modern Kazakh can be written using modified versions of the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic scripts. The names of the Kazakh letters are derived mostly from their corresponding names in the Arabic alphabet.
Barakholka’s district is a wild, fun and full of crazy people place. you have to see this magic place full of action. Chinese people meet Kazakh, Russian along with Uighur, Uzbek, all in one can get messy and usually there is a lot of people fighting and shooting each-other. open your eyes and don’t go to places you thin should be dangerous. again i went everywhere i wanted and didn’t feel in danger but still this is just a warning for you to be careful and open your eyes and all will be ok. the problem everywhere in the world is that people when travel just relax their instincts and let them go to places they never would go while at home! Barakholka’s market consists on kms ans kms of labyrinths full of shops of all kinds….
Barakholka’s district is a wild, fun and full of crazy people place. you have to see this magic place full of action. Chinese people meet Kazakh, Russian along with Uighur, Uzbek, all in one can get messy and usually there is a lot of people fighting and shooting each-other. open your eyes and don’t go to places you thin should be dangerous. again i went everywhere i wanted and didn’t feel in danger but still this is just a warning for you to be careful and open your eyes and all will be ok. the problem everywhere in the world is that people when travel just relax their instincts and let them go to places they never would go while at home! Barakholka’s market consists on kms ans kms of labyrinths full of shops of all kinds….
Marijuana plantations around the city are often seen. I had to go off the road and find hidden paths to be able to go to the top of the TV tower hill as the cable car going up was broken, and also beacause the national road going up had a road block by police that prevent people from falling on the broken buildings damaged by the last earthquake. i found huge plantations of marijuana, so i guess some people should be guarding that right? i don’t think they would be very happy to see me there on their marijuana field!! check out the picture that only shows a little area of the plantation… WILD WILD!! ah and’a….. don’t pick it up!!
The way Up to TV tower hill can be tricky and full of bad places. you have to pass a lot of garbage dumps and smelly rivers, dead animals and marijuana plantations. also the neighborhood on the way up is to be avoided and anyway, I ended being stopped by the police is who after a while I had been up went to pick me up and took me down on their patrol car.
Marijuana plantations around the city is often seen. i had to go off road and find hidden paths to be able to go to the top of the TV tower hill as the cable car going up was broken and also as that from the national road going up had a road block by police that prevent people going up and fall on the broken buildings damaged by the last earthquake
This whole place of the TV tower hill was closes due to the previous earth quack that shook the region a few months ago. All the structure of the upper cable car / sightseeing terrace was destroyed and presented at the moment a threat to visitors. As I went up through the hill, I somehow passed the police stop check point by the road a few kms away. As someone saw me they went to pick me up, check passport, questions, etc, patrol car cruising down the hill again, this time inside the police car. It was fun…
Koktyube Cable Car not working can ruin your plans on enjoying a splendid way up the hill to see Almaty from above. While i was there and due to the last earthquake that destroyed all the cable car structure this very nice hot spot in town was not working.
when working this cable car costs around 100T and runs from 11am to 7pm. you can enjoy sun set in town.
this cable car is located right after the palace of the republic on dostyk up to koktyube which means green peak, where the huge TV tower and TV transmitter centre is located. this TV tower surrounding is of limits.from the top of this hill which is the foothill of the zailiysky alatau mountains you can appreciate an amazing bird view of Almaty city.
At Least Do This: well.. do like i did, just go up the hill, walk in this small paths passing local poor neighborhoods and hills, rivers, dirty holes and rivers, piles of garbage and marijuana fields. or just go on the road up. in this case if it is still closed due to the precarious situation of the structure the police will not let you go up so you better just go up the hill in the bushes and enjoy until the police comes and pick you up.
this is a great opportunity to get some aloe juice drink for a very cheap price. if you drink a litre of this juice i guess it will be too strong for you but buy a bottle and drink it for a week. after a few zips you are not hungry anymore and you can skip a meal with this, just to clean your body, not as a substitute of course.
Theme: Health Food / Aloe Vera Juice
Address: Zalyony Bazaar
Directions: Zalyony Bazaar or green bazar in pushkin street
This was the best restaurant i found in Kazakhstan and in all central Asia. this very nice and relaxed Krishna restaurant with very beautiful girls for waiters, serves very tasty food. the dishes come in this fancy look with the enough quantity of food you need to feel alright with yourself not to feel full nor empty. this vegetarian Indian restaurant is run by very interesting people that will invite you for their mountain refuge to make yoga and eat well along with meditation.
I like their yogurt juices very much. pastries are also very tasty along with some lentils dishes.
you can have a full meal for about $3, $4 or $5 if you eat more than one dish. if you are hungry you’ll probably eat more than one dish.
Type: Vegan/Vegetarian Comparison: least expensive Prices: less than US$10 Phone: 710836 Address: Abylay Khan 39 Directions: this is on the way down the abylay khan ul., 3 blocks before the Almaty II train station. on the left side of the street going on the station direction.
This consisted on some bread, butter, oil and some type of berry jam. this berry jam was so delicious they laughed very much cos i couldn’t stop eating it. some cookies and fresh tea made in wooden oven!
This is the best way to experience Kazakh nomad way of life. they life inside this yurt (tent) in the middle of the mountains. they have 3 horses and about 30 sheeps, a riffle and lots of rice and flour to bake bread for the Winter months. they eat lots of sheep meat, that should be one of the reasons they have so many. they can take the skin to make warm clothes for the winter, meat to eat and milk to drink.
5 o’clock tea inside YURT:
This Kazakh nomad people offered me tea, cookies and bread with jam for this afternoon snack. after i arrived and met them i end up going inside their yurt and they offered me this amazing tea made in the oven. in the summer they have this oven outside the tend but during the winter the oven goes inside the tend to make warm temperature inside as the temperature outside goes below -30 in winter.
I knew i was coming camping so i brought a few things to cook during the weekend. for breakfast i just bought a very easy think to do while in this type of situation. i got 2 litre packs of kefir/ayran and some muesli i already brought from portugal. hehe LIDL muesli in the middle of the Kazakh mountains border with china and Kyrgyzstan haha, how far LIDL goes!? ;o)
my russian (russian from kazakhstan) friends started their day with bloody mary. some vodka and tomoto juice to start the day. they said this is the best way to kick the body after many drinks from the night before. hangover->>> morning remedy is more VODKA! with tomato juice!
When you come from Samarkand in a small bus you will get off just across the road from this subway station. This station is one of the edges of the Chilonzor Line of Tashkent's Subway system. From here you can get the subway to the central part of the city.
This is a cheap and fast way of getting yourself around the country. From Samarkand,s Nortwest way out you can easily get a small van to Tashkent. The price will depend of the quality of the van. This one, an old Ford Transit costed me 5000SUM for a 6 hours journey. There were other kind of vand, cheaper, and other more expensive with AC .
This train takes 12 hours and connects the Capital Tashkent to Islam Holy City of Bukhara. The cost of the ticket is 6500SUM for a coach seat and bed. The system of this palce is like this: you have compartiments which sits transform into beds. 6 beds per compartiment. Watch out for your bags. The price includes the sheets, pillow and some breakfast. People on the train pass selling water, juice, bread, ice creams, etc…
This is a very easy way to get around the city. You’ll problably never wait more than 5 minutes for a train and the stations are quite clean and quite safe. To go in you have to pass a metal detector. For backpackers like me, a huge backpack will be very confusion. They need to check your bag to see if you have some bomb. The Subway in Tashkent was design to be a bomb shelter and nuclear shelter so no pictures are alowed inside. There are 3 main lines for subway in the city: red line, blue line and green line. The Uzbekistan and the Chilanzar, and the third under construction (the green one).
The cost of a ticket is 15SUM and system runs until 5am to 12pm.
Tashkent’s subway is the one and only in Central Asia so people seem quite proud of it. Actually Its quite nice and fast. I’ve never took such a fast metro before, nor NYC, Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, no, the fastest so far was in Central Asia?!
For a map on Tashkent subway map please click on the following link:
I got a one way ticket from Iran Airline for 266800SUM about $260us. Contact Abda Travel Company for nice deals. They know the man in Iran Air office so maybe you can get a nice deal. 132-22-56 ask for Sanjar, manager of inbound. fax 132-22-56 abdatravel@albatros.uz
Shared taxis are a easy, fast and cheap way of gettnig around cities in Uzbekistan. ALso its a good opportunity to cut in half, hours buses need to make some journeys. This for long journeys can be dangerous if you decide to pay yourself a only person taxi, please, be smart and go with people, better not to go alone or with just 1 or 2 men. I knew some people rober my driver and another man.
In Tashkent you can get a shared taxi to Fergana Valley for about $6us, also to Samarkand.
In Uzbekistan people dont need taxis drivers license to bring people with them. So basicaly everyone that as a car will ry to make some extra money and take you any where. You just need to negociate the price. A normal trip inside a city shouldnt cost more then 2000SUM maybe a bit less if you can make a good deal.
Trains in Uzbekistan run slowly but safe I think. Although trains are a bit old, they seem to be in pretty good shape to me. You have international train lines going from Almaty to Tashkent ($40us), From Tashkent to Moscow (55 to 65 hours, 2 days a week, $89us+Russian visa), Tashkent to Turkmenabat->Ashgatat.
There are 2 train stations in Tashkent, one mainly for northern lines: Fergana Valley, Moscow, Almaty and Bishkek, and another station for southern lines going to Dushambe, Samarkand, Bukhara, Urgench and Ashgabat.
Arrival of the night train Tashkent to Bukhara. 12 hours on the train.
There are several historical buildings and sites in Samarkand which are quite far way from everything. For instance, if you need to go from the Registan square to Central Gorky Park you can get a mini bus on the Registan Avenue also named Registanskaya. From the Main Bazaar, you can get a mini bus to Samarkand War Memorial.
Taxis are also a good choice for moving in the city. If you are coming from Bukhara on a Mini Bus, 5000UM, 6hours, you'll get off near the Long distance Bus-Station. You'll have to get a taxi to the city. Deal the price for going there and don't pay more than 2000SUM or 1000SUm. If they complain about the price of oil etc, its not your problem, maybe they have to change job?
In Tashkent there is a very fast way of getting to different places. This little mini vans can get everywhere just in a matter of seconds. There are several main points or squares where you can get them and leave to other destinations. If you’re coming from the border with Kazakhstan for instance you’ll get a taxi or mini van or normal bus to the Chorsu Bazaar. From here you can get transportation to all the main places in the city. 3 major streets head into Chorsu bazaar; they are Forob, Sagban and Zarqaynar Street. Near Chorsu you also have the Metro station which is also a good alternative to rush hours and heavy traffic.
Mini bus costs 500SUM
You should go out of the normal streets of Bukhara and enjoy the old part of it, far from big monuments close to streets often used by tourists. This sould be a different aproach of the city's architecture and youl have a whole different view of the building and how do local people live.
This is just a very nice place run by a very nice family. Rustam is Zukhra’s husband, he’s a bit shy but his wife on the contrary is very happy and full of energy. They will be very nice to you.
Breakfast is included on the price. Usualy the price is for $15 us but you should ask if she can lower the price. If you’re lucky you can have it for $10.
Rooms are big with TV private Bathroom, very clean, Air conditioner and heater for the winter.
Address: Bukhautdin Naqshband or Lenina street
Directions:
This guesthouse is located aside the canal conected to the Nadir Divanbegi Medressa. Right on the side of the madrassa.
This hotel is located near Shota Rostaveli which is a main street here in the city. This is a nice oportunity to have a place in european standards for also the normal european price. clean, small yard with flowers on the back part ofhotel. restaurant.
I ate a quite good tomato sauce spagetti in the hotel’s restaurant. Prices in the restaurant get double the price you would pay outside the hotel, in street supermarkets.
The price for a single room is $30us.
Address: Hotel Rovshan, 118 Mirabad St., Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Directions:
This hotel is near the Turkmenistan and Russian embassies.
This is a very family type bed and breakfast that exist all around Uzbekistan. For an affordable price ou can stay in a clean place good consitions and stay with a local family that will take care of you as their own.
Nice price, from $15us, maybe you can get it for less than that, its a matter of deeling the price.
The rooms are small rooms all with private bathroom and fan for cooling system.
If you need food ask in advance and suggest you'll pay for it after as if they think you want to eat for free, they will say they have no more food.
Address: 83, Mubarakskaya street. Samarkand
Directions:
From the Registan Square go in direction of the Museum. From here take the Bukharskaya street until you find Mubarakskaya street where you'll have to turn left, the hotel is the 1st door on your right.
Charvak is located in the Chirchik Valley on the surroundings of Tashkent. This is exactly located where the 2 rivers Ugam and Chirchik get together. This is a very relaxing place although I have to say the surounding landscape isnt that inspiring due to the nearest moribund chemical factory… either the way it makes a perfect day out escapnig the great turbulence and agitation of the capital Tashkent.
Chirchik River comes all the way down the Chirchik Valley passing the Charvak Water Reservoir until reaches Tashkent and keeps down southeast.
Irrigation canals on the Chirchik River supply power for several hydroelectric plants.
A big part of the scenery of the Valley is full of power plants and chemical facilities which give a porr image to this amazing site just a couple of hours from the capital. Right now, almost all the factories are closed to danger is no longer there and you can take bath but just aside a big factory or something. The water from the river runs from the mountains and its colour can tell its from pure spring.
This is a huge construction which already lacks its main part: the roof. Its hard to imagine how could men ever build such a bulding and such a top could ever be built there.
This is a very nice building and ispires you to go back some centuries and imagine yourself right on the middle of the Silk Road thrilling city of Samarkand.
This mosque is located north-east of the Registan Square and was finished a bit before timur actually died.
This building was once one of the biggest mosques for Islam and only the main gate was 35m high. It just ruined and collapsed in 1897 earthquake.
Bibi-Khanym was Timur Chinise wife and got this mosuqe built while Timur was away just to suprised him. It uis said that the architect after already started to build the building told Bibi-khanym that he would not proceed with the mosque construction until she would give him a kiss. When Timur knew about this story, he order the execution of the architect and forced all women to use face veils in order not to provocate and tempt other men.
You have to pay to enter. Or as I did, enter on the side door, see it and just go away on the main gate.
Guri Amir mean in Tajik, the Tomb of the Emir.
This is the mausoleum of Timur, his 2 sons and his 2 grandsons, inclukding the well known Ulughbek.
This fine monument with its blue azure tiles was built by Timur order back in 1404 for some of his sons and future grandsons. Timur had order to build his simple crypty in Shakhrisabz, but stories tell that he got some kind of flue while traveling to China and before he even got to Shakhrisabz he died and was burried here instead.
this amazing building seems to have been built to be a Caravanserai, but the khan tought it was a medressa, so after a while (1630) it just became one.
Its entrance blue tiled gate is impressive and got my attention for a few minutes as this was my first monument to see in town, just across the street of my guesthouse.
This amazing small monument is called “Char Minar” because it has 4 minarets is located in Bukhara city. This little monument taken in 1998 by UNESCO to be recovered was in fact a gate of a ancient madrassa long time gone. It was built in 1809 and has more contact with Indian Art styles than t o local art itself.
Its name comes from Tajik although the towers you can see are not actually minarets but simply decorative towers.
Directions
Intersection of Pushkin st. and Lenina go to the street Pushkin until you have to rurn left to see the monument. In the area ask locals for Char Minar. Everyone knows the monument.
