Lions, Tigers and Bears… in a Very Clean City

Today began, quite literally, with a BANG! (Get your naughty minds out of the gutter, those of you residing in our blog’s peanut gallery). The bang was a massive thunderclap at 4:00am.

Was this not the time that Chris was scheduled to depart? Did she actually depart? Well, we have not heard from her, so can only assume the best on her trip home. Hopefully Chris made it out on time, but we were not necessarily convinced that this would be the case as the storm raged outside.

But back to the thunder. This morning, we experienced a massive thunderstorm in the wee hours that jolted us (well, some of us) awake. Our windows were open because it has been so warm in this part of the world (many apologies to those of you in North America in the midst of your most incredibly miserable winter for years. Well, sort of apologies – there have to be some benefits to spending two months in Kazakhstan). With our windows open, the wind was howling like a Force 10 gale through the apartment. And the temperature had dropped dramatically.

But on to the much more important topic of this blog – us. Sundays are very slow days in the adoption scheme of things, since we are unable to visit with our little bundle of joy at the Baby House. Consequently, this provides us with the ideal opportunity to explore the disparate corners of this wonderful city. On the agenda for today was a trip to the massive civic park, Gorky Park (apparently named after a Hollywood movie from a few years back). Gorky Park, on the North East edge of Almaty, provides a suitable respite from the customary hustle and bustle of the city – particularly on the weekends. It contains a major “green area”, a water park, a zoo, an amusement park, etc. etc.

And speaking of “green”. On Friday, we stumbled upon the “beyond clean city” political demonstration/outdoor concert (something which apparently contained Crosby, Stills & Nash posing as the Three Tenors singing in Russian on a stage in Kazakhstan). In Friday’s blog entry, we had expressed our initial apprehension at attending such an overtly political event; particularly when we had absolutely no idea whether the participants were “for” the government or “against” it. As Canadians, we are genetically predisposed to fall right on the middle of the fence during such instances of political conflict. It turns out that this event was, in fact, the kickoff to a veritable cleansing of the entire city of Almaty. In a holdover vestige from the former Soviet era, city residents come out on Saturdays to clean up the city. Quite literally! And we mean EVERYBODY turned out to clean up the city over the weekend. Garbage was picked up. Lawns were raked. City parks were cleaned and raked. Streets were swept and washed. Graffiti was removed. And we mean that this city now looks immaculate! Hats off to at least some of those Soviet civic tendencies! (That would be the Canadian in us speaking).

Irrespective of any possible political dichotomies, Almaty this Sunday looked incredibly renewed on our trek to Gorky Park. It did not hurt that by mid-morning the sun was shining and the temperature necessitated only the need for a shirt (no jacket required). And some sunscreen. Apparently the earlier storm had taken down a few trees and fences, but other than that, the “beyond clean city” campaign had clearly put new life into the civic environs – possibly as a lead up to the big Nauryz holiday next weekend. It was certainly a beautiful day to be walking through this city.

Along the way, we decided to walk by the Canadian Embassy, simply to see what it was like. There was absolutely no activity occurring there on this Sunday (just to be fair, this matches the level of service that they have been able to provide to us on any other day of the week).

Gorky Park was packed with people – all out for a stroll and to take advantage of the amenities that such a facility provides on such a beautiful day. We spent perhaps 6 hours on our own walking inspection of the facility. Part of this inspection necessitated a stop at one of the numerous rest facilities for a beer and shashlyk (kebab). The unfortunate part to this respite was that we were, once again, required to communicate entirely in Russian; something that regularly exposes our complete deficiency in vocabulary. When faced with the question of what sort of meat should be used in her shashlyk and not knowing the word for lamb (as translated as closely as possible by her devoted husband), Sara fell into a veritable “baa, baa” imitation that the waitress was quite capable of comprehending – much to everyone’s amusement. Such exchanges are what international experiences are truly made of – a combination of Lonely Planet phrasebooks and charades.

Perhaps the highlight of the afternoon in Gorky Park, was the subsequent amble through the zoo – an interesting combination of familiar and unfamiliar animals to North Americans. The bird and reptile collections were impressive; the large mammal collection was rather sad, particularly when noting the size and condition of the animal enclosures. Nevertheless, we saw lions, tigers and bears and more.

And after our day of exploration, we can now look forward to another week in the adoption journey with our beautiful daughter, Zoe Yerkezhan. Hopefully we will be able to keep you suitably up-to-date on the progress in the coming week’s events. If she continues to evolve at the same pace as last week, by next weekend we anticipate the composition of her first symphony, the design of her first cathedral, and perhaps even the completion of her first Ironman Triathlon. But we would obviously settle for a word or two and more steps in her quest to walk; we do not want to appear as overly “pushy” parents (not yet, anyway).

Finally, thanks to ALL of our family and blog friends who have been kind enough to leave comments and e-mail messages over the past several months. While time simply prevents us from directly responding to many of them, we want you to know that each and every one of these is read and truly appreciated during our adoption “ordeal”. It lets us know that you are with us and that we are not alone. Please, keep the comments coming! Thank you so much!

Entrance to Gorky Park, followed by a few photos of animals in the zoo.