#79 Travelogue Kazakhstan: The Kazakh Dubai?
🇰🇿Kazakhstan is a nation blessed (or cursed?) with natural resources, and nowhere is this more evident than in Aktau, the Kazakh boomtown by the Caspian Sea. I can’t help feeling reminded of Dubai:
What’s the same?
The city is surrounded by desert and has a coastline. There’s a huge construction boom going on. People drive ridiculously good cars. The roads are wide and without a car you’re nothing. The buildings are huge and without air-condition you cannot survive.
What’s different?
The city feels quite empty. Apart from a few ‘mini markets’ you can’t find anywhere to shop and there’s basically no gastronomy, not even by the rocky beach. The palm trees are made of plastic and the areas between freshly built apartment blocks are still pieces of untouched desert. There are also close to no foreign workers or tourists.
No matter the luxury dump that Aktau is now, I’m sure we will hear more about it in the years to come.
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #kazakhstan
🇰🇿Kazakhstan is a nation blessed (or cursed?) with natural resources, and nowhere is this more evident than in Aktau, the Kazakh boomtown by the Caspian Sea. I can’t help feeling reminded of Dubai:
What’s the same?
The city is surrounded by desert and has a coastline. There’s a huge construction boom going on. People drive ridiculously good cars. The roads are wide and without a car you’re nothing. The buildings are huge and without air-condition you cannot survive.
What’s different?
The city feels quite empty. Apart from a few ‘mini markets’ you can’t find anywhere to shop and there’s basically no gastronomy, not even by the rocky beach. The palm trees are made of plastic and the areas between freshly built apartment blocks are still pieces of untouched desert. There are also close to no foreign workers or tourists.
No matter the luxury dump that Aktau is now, I’m sure we will hear more about it in the years to come.
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #kazakhstan
Forwarded from Hoffmann's Old Travelogue
#1 Travelogue 🇰🇿Kazakhstan: Xormanglar!
▶️ My Kazakh friend hired a bunch of (=some, a couple of) 🇺🇿Uzbeks to build his new house. Better quality and also cheaper, he says. Too bad I couldn't really tell him what they were saying to each other as their Xorazmcha (=the dialect of Khorezm in western Uzbekistan) left me (=made me) absolutely clueless (=not knowing, having no idea).
When they talk to my friend everyone tries to adapt and they basically understand each other. Usually Russian would be the language of interethnic (=between ethnic groups) communication but my friend is a Kazakh from China, so he doesn't really do (=use) Russian. And that works just fine! 🤓
#travel #kazakhstan
▶️ My Kazakh friend hired a bunch of (=some, a couple of) 🇺🇿Uzbeks to build his new house. Better quality and also cheaper, he says. Too bad I couldn't really tell him what they were saying to each other as their Xorazmcha (=the dialect of Khorezm in western Uzbekistan) left me (=made me) absolutely clueless (=not knowing, having no idea).
When they talk to my friend everyone tries to adapt and they basically understand each other. Usually Russian would be the language of interethnic (=between ethnic groups) communication but my friend is a Kazakh from China, so he doesn't really do (=use) Russian. And that works just fine! 🤓
#travel #kazakhstan