We are enjoying the nice weather here, and have had fun exploring the city. Karaganda is a great place to spend a month - small enough that we can find our way around and feel safe, but big enough to be interesting and have a “city” feel to it. One day this week, we took a long walk through the main city park and enjoyed a picnic lunch by the small lake there. Apparently that is not a common thing for the locals to do, as we drew a few stares! Parts of the park are run-down, but it still had a festive atmosphere and provided some great people-watching. We plan to come back in the evening for some beer and shish kebabs at one of the outdoor patio places.
We also spent an afternoon visiting the Karaganda Regional History Museum. We planned to be underwhelmed (the WW1 Museum in Kansas City has raised the bar pretty high for us!). But, we enjoyed both the museum and learning about Kazakh history, including the Soviet era (Kazakhstan's role as a place of exile for dissidents, the GuLag forced labor camps, atom bomb testing and the Soviet space program). We were also interested to learn more about President Nazarbaev and his wife, and the dramatic changes here since Kazakhstan proclaimed independence from the USSR in 1992. Fascinating. Even the English translations on some of the displays were entertaining; for some reason, the requisite stuffed animal exhibit had ducks labeled as "woofs."
Here are a few shots from our walk in the park: 
We really enjoyed the museum as well - glad you guys got to visit! You're really getting a great flavor of Karaganda!
ReplyDeleteI like the pic of Russ falling into the sink-hole...
ReplyDeleteRuss, are you gaining weight that the sidewalk falls beneath you? : ) Too much Russian beer, maybe? : )
ReplyDelete