9 ms·

My own experience in Kazakhstan a few years ago was amazing — kind, generous people. I had the most surreal (but standard) Russian Bath experience: sitting with

by cmod 5y ago

My own experience in Kazakhstan a few years ago was amazing — kind, generous people. I had the most surreal (but standard) Russian Bath experience: sitting with a bunch of naked folks as they self-flog with branches in rooms so hot you needed wool caps to keep the top of your head from singeing. When I was getting dressed a huge guy next to me said something in Russian, I was certain I had committed some bath faux pas, but then he repeated in heavily accented English: "Those boots, suitable in winter?" Almaty was surprisingly cosmopolitan, walkable, felt eminently livable. Took the train to Baikonur. Walked on the launch pad, visited the old control rooms. [0] The whole way: Kindness and gentleness were the two words that kept bouncing around my head. In the middle of nowhere folks were driving sensibly (as opposed to, say, in Morocco where I felt like every car ride was a dice roll). I saw two cars have an accident in Almaty — the drivers calmly stepped out, shook hands, and discussed the situation. Nur-Sultan was, however, miserable — built for cars, human antagonistic, artificial layout, depressing architecture. I'd love to get back to Almaty. Hoping for swift and peaceful resolution on all this. [0]: https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/036/ https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/036/

thejackgoode 5y ago
Being Eastern European, I can attest to the fact that this kindness and generosity (poorly abstracted as being passionate about things) has a flip side, and you don’t want to be on the opposite side of this treatment.
- nmfisher 5y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - thejackgoode 5y ago
    For example, ex-nomadic and Caucasian “honor culture” is linked to necessity of trust in regions with predominant animal husbandry. If your cattle gets stolen before winter, you die of hunger. That’s why honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin — you can’t afford losing trust. Robert Sapolsky gave a lecture about it.
    - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
      While i can't make absolute statements of what he may or may not have said in every lecture he ever gave, i doubt Sapolsky would claim that honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin. In "Behave The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" Sapolsky differentiates "honor killings" as inwards violence, whose victims are usually young women, from "retribution" against animal thieves, and links it to social power structures in families and to religious laws, not ethnicity or nomadic origins.
      - thejackgoode 5y ago
        Here’s a piece that I found, I vaguely remember there was more in that lecture on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk While it’s possible to differentiate these two things like you mentioned, if you look at honor as a concept, it’s useful function is about curbing higher cost of distrust. And that Sapolsky does explain in the linked video.
        Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
        Well Sapolsky sure seems to love to make dubious absolute statements and oversimplifications in his lectures, and yet he still says that pastoral nomadic honor cultures foster strict rules of hospitality, which is not the same as hospitality in and of itself, even if it can be an amplyfiyng effect. I would be more inclined to agree that "strict rules (of hospitality)" and "violent enforcement (of subservience)" are flip sides of a coin. Note that "honor killing" is a very loaded term and quite different from domestic violence and retribution.
    - nmfisher 5y ago
      Interesting. Does that mean there's a low level of petty crimes like theft?
      - unionpivo 5y ago
        yes
- patrec 5y ago
  > you don’t want to be on the opposite side of this treatment. How high is the risk, if you make an effort to behave well?
  - thejackgoode 5y ago
    Low, but it’s quite a skill. Referenced here “bald and bankrupt” is an expert in “behaving well”, I am still amazed by his skills to be honest
    - kingofkyiv 5y ago
      That is only on camera. He has been kicked off almost every other platform except YouTube. Visa, Uber, PayPal among others all kicked him off. Off camera he has been exposed as a debased sexual predator. Anyone interested can find the whole drama exposing him by searching reddit, his name, and similar terms to what I discussed.
      - MathCodeLove 5y ago
        I'm not interested one way or another but if you're going to make claims this extreme the least you can do is provide a link to the evidence yourself. Let's leave making unsubstantiated, outrageous statements to the other social media platforms that do it best.
        solarhoma 5y ago
        These are just a few posts digging into his past. There are plenty more to research as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/internetdrama/comments/d4zo17/1_million_subscriber_youtuber_bald_bankrupt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/internetdrama/comments/d4zo17/1_mil... https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm/is_bald_bankrupt_really_a_sex_tourist_and_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
        kingofkyiv 5y ago
- glofish 5y ago
  This is a really good point, when an American (or other rich Westerner) shows up in remote area, they are treated like a king, basically you are treated as people treat ridiculously good looking and popular people around them that they want to be around, that generosity you feel is nothing more than being popular and center of attention start living there, all of a sudden that generosity is not so obvious, families are at each other's throats for that bushel of corn one guys grandfather stole from the other fifty years ago, random shit gets stolen, the whole garden is trampled because someone is stealing a few of your tomatoes, trash is thrown over your yard because the neighbor wants to "save" on trash collection fees, people cut ahead of you around in the queues, people have untrained dangerous dogs that are a menace to the whole community ... etc
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >start living there, all of a sudden that generosity is not so obvious, families are at each other's throats for that bushel of corn one guys grandfather stole from the other fifty years ago, random shit gets stolen, the garden is trampled, trash is thrown over your yard because the neighbor wants to "save" on trash collection fees, people cut ahead of you around in the queues, So basically all the same petty BS that you get in the urbanized inner suburbs HN raves about without the bickering being laundered through lawyers and local officials to give it a veneer of acceptability? Humans gonna human.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Yeah, my Berkeley neighbor has been on my case for that bushel of corn for the last two decades
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        I'm sure if you borrowed some power tool and half broke it he'd be more than happy to call the city on you every time you violate one of the million rules for the next few decades. Of course nobody is fighting over corn but there is no shortage of fairly obvious parallels.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
There's a really interesting video blogger called "bald and bankrupt" on YouTube who visits all sorts of weird and wonderful locations in Russia and former Soviet Union States: https://www.youtube.com/c/baldandbankrupt/featured https://www.youtube.com/c/baldandbankrupt/featured Doesn't look like he's been to Kazakhstan yet though...
- 2-718-281-828 5y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm/is_bald_bankrupt_really_a_sex_tourist_and_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    Yikes, and here I was thinking he was only interested in taking about the former USSR. :(
  - SuperNinKenDo 5y ago
    Wow, thanks for sharing. Very disturbing stuff.
CommanderData 5y ago
Reading and watching about these places on YouTube (BaldAndBankrupt) and recently numerous videos about Pakistan, Afghanistan, India. I can't help but feel modern Western society has lost and forgotten something within. It's hard to describe but easier described as nearest to changes in warmth and compassion. It's only getting worse and these old places it seems ingrained.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  It's never been that peaceful in the world. The thing that has changed is media reports from all over the world.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >It's never been that peaceful in the world. The presence of peace, or the absence of war is indeed a big plus, but doesn't mean automatic happiness for everyone.
    - deepsun 5y ago
      Happiness is an interesting concept. I currently think it's very relative to your neighbors or, to a lesser extent, to people you know about. In modern world information spreads much easier. Ignorance is really a bliss in terms of happiness.
  - nradov 5y ago
    The world is generally getting more peaceful. A smaller percentage of people are dying by violence than ever before. https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-natu...
- deepsun 5y ago
  It's getting better pretty much everywhere. We just didn't hear what was happening times ago.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
googamooga 5y ago
Most probably the OP visited the left bank of River Ishim side of Nur-Sultan which is indeed quite dull and built for cars. OTOH the right bank, the historical city, is much better IMHO, especially the central part. I was born there in 1970 and visited it quite recently in 2019, nothing much have changed there, it is still very approachable by feet and cozy, with lots of great restaurants and shops.
- cmod 5y ago
  Most likely; the thrust of the trip was Baikonur bookended by Almaty and Nur-Sultan. Typographically I found it interesting that the country was attempting to shift away from Cyrillic to a more romanized (??) written form; i.e., "Qazaqstan."
diskzero 5y ago
I spent a month in Kazakhstan in 2012. I am an American and speak and read decent Russian. I agree that the experience was amazing and agree with your opinions of Almaty and Nur-Sultan. I found the overall experience to be very similar to visiting other post-Soviet Central Asian countries. Baikonur the city, not the cosmodrome, was an entirely different experience. Baikonur is essentially a Russian military outpost that continues to exist as a place for the personnel and families of Roscosmos and the various entities that exist to operate the cosmodrome, which is several kilometers away. You must pass through a military checkpoint to enter the city and military police patrol the city. Don't stay up late drinking in the central square! You will be helpfully escorted away by the militia. If you talk to the local non-Russians living in Baikonur, they are not huge fans of the Russian presence. You can observe the youths swearing and yelling at the buses of Roscosmos personnel and tourists returning from launches. They would be glad to see the Russians leave, even though it would be a massive blow to the economy. One of the first things the native Kazakhs did after the collapse of the Soviet Union was build a mosque right outside of the entrance of the city of Baikonur. It is quite nice and I visited it with no problem. Those who wish to attend mosque that live within city must pass through a checkpoint to leave the city and another to get in. There is no mosque allowed within the city, although there is a Russian Orthodox church, which I also visited with no problem. The cosmodrome itself is an amazing place worthy of a huge essay, so I will save my observations for a topic relevant to that. I am hopeful the Kazakh people can find a future free from Russian influence and the Russian-backed strongmen that have controlled the country in post-Soviet times. Other than Russian colonial outposts like Baikonur, the culture and religion of the people there are quite different that those of Russia.
- FullStackAda 5y ago
  > I am hopeful the Kazakh people can find a future free from Russian influence and the Russian-backed strongmen that have controlled the country in post-Soviet times. There are still at least a million of ethnic Russians living in the Northern and North-Eastern Kazakhstan who settled there starting from 18th century. What do you propose them to do?
  - labawi 5y ago

by cmod 5y ago

thejackgoode 5y ago

Being Eastern European, I can attest to the fact that this kindness and generosity (poorly abstracted as being passionate about things) has a flip side, and you don’t want to be on the opposite side of this treatment.

nmfisher 5y ago
Can you elaborate?
- thejackgoode 5y ago
  For example, ex-nomadic and Caucasian “honor culture” is linked to necessity of trust in regions with predominant animal husbandry. If your cattle gets stolen before winter, you die of hunger. That’s why honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin — you can’t afford losing trust. Robert Sapolsky gave a lecture about it.
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    While i can't make absolute statements of what he may or may not have said in every lecture he ever gave, i doubt Sapolsky would claim that honor killings and hospitality are the flip sides of the same coin. In "Behave The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" Sapolsky differentiates "honor killings" as inwards violence, whose victims are usually young women, from "retribution" against animal thieves, and links it to social power structures in families and to religious laws, not ethnicity or nomadic origins.
    - thejackgoode 5y ago
      Here’s a piece that I found, I vaguely remember there was more in that lecture on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz3hBuq-Huk While it’s possible to differentiate these two things like you mentioned, if you look at honor as a concept, it’s useful function is about curbing higher cost of distrust. And that Sapolsky does explain in the linked video.
      - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
        Well Sapolsky sure seems to love to make dubious absolute statements and oversimplifications in his lectures, and yet he still says that pastoral nomadic honor cultures foster strict rules of hospitality, which is not the same as hospitality in and of itself, even if it can be an amplyfiyng effect. I would be more inclined to agree that "strict rules (of hospitality)" and "violent enforcement (of subservience)" are flip sides of a coin. Note that "honor killing" is a very loaded term and quite different from domestic violence and retribution.
  - nmfisher 5y ago
    Interesting. Does that mean there's a low level of petty crimes like theft?
    - unionpivo 5y ago
      yes
patrec 5y ago
> you don’t want to be on the opposite side of this treatment. How high is the risk, if you make an effort to behave well?
- thejackgoode 5y ago
  Low, but it’s quite a skill. Referenced here “bald and bankrupt” is an expert in “behaving well”, I am still amazed by his skills to be honest
  - kingofkyiv 5y ago
    That is only on camera. He has been kicked off almost every other platform except YouTube. Visa, Uber, PayPal among others all kicked him off. Off camera he has been exposed as a debased sexual predator. Anyone interested can find the whole drama exposing him by searching reddit, his name, and similar terms to what I discussed.
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      I'm not interested one way or another but if you're going to make claims this extreme the least you can do is provide a link to the evidence yourself. Let's leave making unsubstantiated, outrageous statements to the other social media platforms that do it best.
      - solarhoma 5y ago
        These are just a few posts digging into his past. There are plenty more to research as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/internetdrama/comments/d4zo17/1_million_subscriber_youtuber_bald_bankrupt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/internetdrama/comments/d4zo17/1_mil... https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm/is_bald_bankrupt_really_a_sex_tourist_and_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
        kingofkyiv 5y ago
glofish 5y ago
This is a really good point, when an American (or other rich Westerner) shows up in remote area, they are treated like a king, basically you are treated as people treat ridiculously good looking and popular people around them that they want to be around, that generosity you feel is nothing more than being popular and center of attention start living there, all of a sudden that generosity is not so obvious, families are at each other's throats for that bushel of corn one guys grandfather stole from the other fifty years ago, random shit gets stolen, the whole garden is trampled because someone is stealing a few of your tomatoes, trash is thrown over your yard because the neighbor wants to "save" on trash collection fees, people cut ahead of you around in the queues, people have untrained dangerous dogs that are a menace to the whole community ... etc
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >start living there, all of a sudden that generosity is not so obvious, families are at each other's throats for that bushel of corn one guys grandfather stole from the other fifty years ago, random shit gets stolen, the garden is trampled, trash is thrown over your yard because the neighbor wants to "save" on trash collection fees, people cut ahead of you around in the queues, So basically all the same petty BS that you get in the urbanized inner suburbs HN raves about without the bickering being laundered through lawyers and local officials to give it a veneer of acceptability? Humans gonna human.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Yeah, my Berkeley neighbor has been on my case for that bushel of corn for the last two decades
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      I'm sure if you borrowed some power tool and half broke it he'd be more than happy to call the city on you every time you violate one of the million rules for the next few decades. Of course nobody is fighting over corn but there is no shortage of fairly obvious parallels.

CodeGlitch 5y ago

There's a really interesting video blogger called "bald and bankrupt" on YouTube who visits all sorts of weird and wonderful locations in Russia and former Soviet Union States: https://www.youtube.com/c/baldandbankrupt/featured https://www.youtube.com/c/baldandbankrupt/featured Doesn't look like he's been to Kazakhstan yet though...

2-718-281-828 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm/is_bald_bankrupt_really_a_sex_tourist_and_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  Yikes, and here I was thinking he was only interested in taking about the former USSR. :(
- SuperNinKenDo 5y ago
  Wow, thanks for sharing. Very disturbing stuff.

CommanderData 5y ago

Reading and watching about these places on YouTube (BaldAndBankrupt) and recently numerous videos about Pakistan, Afghanistan, India. I can't help but feel modern Western society has lost and forgotten something within. It's hard to describe but easier described as nearest to changes in warmth and compassion. It's only getting worse and these old places it seems ingrained.

NicoJuicy 5y ago
It's never been that peaceful in the world. The thing that has changed is media reports from all over the world.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >It's never been that peaceful in the world. The presence of peace, or the absence of war is indeed a big plus, but doesn't mean automatic happiness for everyone.
  - deepsun 5y ago
    Happiness is an interesting concept. I currently think it's very relative to your neighbors or, to a lesser extent, to people you know about. In modern world information spreads much easier. Ignorance is really a bliss in terms of happiness.
- nradov 5y ago
  The world is generally getting more peaceful. A smaller percentage of people are dying by violence than ever before. https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-natu...
deepsun 5y ago
It's getting better pretty much everywhere. We just didn't hear what was happening times ago.
raxxorrax 5y ago

googamooga 5y ago

Most probably the OP visited the left bank of River Ishim side of Nur-Sultan which is indeed quite dull and built for cars. OTOH the right bank, the historical city, is much better IMHO, especially the central part. I was born there in 1970 and visited it quite recently in 2019, nothing much have changed there, it is still very approachable by feet and cozy, with lots of great restaurants and shops.

cmod 5y ago
Most likely; the thrust of the trip was Baikonur bookended by Almaty and Nur-Sultan. Typographically I found it interesting that the country was attempting to shift away from Cyrillic to a more romanized (??) written form; i.e., "Qazaqstan."

diskzero 5y ago

I spent a month in Kazakhstan in 2012. I am an American and speak and read decent Russian. I agree that the experience was amazing and agree with your opinions of Almaty and Nur-Sultan. I found the overall experience to be very similar to visiting other post-Soviet Central Asian countries. Baikonur the city, not the cosmodrome, was an entirely different experience. Baikonur is essentially a Russian military outpost that continues to exist as a place for the personnel and families of Roscosmos and the various entities that exist to operate the cosmodrome, which is several kilometers away. You must pass through a military checkpoint to enter the city and military police patrol the city. Don't stay up late drinking in the central square! You will be helpfully escorted away by the militia. If you talk to the local non-Russians living in Baikonur, they are not huge fans of the Russian presence. You can observe the youths swearing and yelling at the buses of Roscosmos personnel and tourists returning from launches. They would be glad to see the Russians leave, even though it would be a massive blow to the economy. One of the first things the native Kazakhs did after the collapse of the Soviet Union was build a mosque right outside of the entrance of the city of Baikonur. It is quite nice and I visited it with no problem. Those who wish to attend mosque that live within city must pass through a checkpoint to leave the city and another to get in. There is no mosque allowed within the city, although there is a Russian Orthodox church, which I also visited with no problem. The cosmodrome itself is an amazing place worthy of a huge essay, so I will save my observations for a topic relevant to that. I am hopeful the Kazakh people can find a future free from Russian influence and the Russian-backed strongmen that have controlled the country in post-Soviet times. Other than Russian colonial outposts like Baikonur, the culture and religion of the people there are quite different that those of Russia.

FullStackAda 5y ago
> I am hopeful the Kazakh people can find a future free from Russian influence and the Russian-backed strongmen that have controlled the country in post-Soviet times. There are still at least a million of ethnic Russians living in the Northern and North-Eastern Kazakhstan who settled there starting from 18th century. What do you propose them to do?
- labawi 5y ago