Nur-Sultan (Astana) vs. Almaty vs. Shymkent

This is mostly focused on Nur-Sultan and Almaty. I was only in Shymkent long enough to leave Shymkent and have a few initial impressions.

Now that I have visited both, I declare myself qualified to pass judgement. Almaty. Hands Down. Now for the whys:

Neither city is particularly old. Almaty likely had a settlement during the Silk Road times, but really wasn’t a city until the late 1800s. The Kazakhs were historically nomadic and really didn’t have a need for cities. However, apples are indigenous to this region and apples had made it to the middle east prior to Baby Jesus, so it seems likely that the region was not completely unknown. Also, there are some petroglyphs nearby, so something more is probably known. This also reminds that that I forgot to go back the history museum.

Nur-Sultan is the third name for this city over its history. It started as some sort of nondescript Soviet city, it became Astana (Kazakh for capital) in 1997, and became Nur-Sultan in 2019 when the longtime leader stepped down and the new guy named it after him. We are so lucky in the US that we don’t have a leader who likes name things after himself. The older city had a population of 275,000 prior to becoming capital and some of that architecture remains. However, since becoming capital, construction has been booming. The national mall features a shopping center in the world’s largest tent (more interesting that it sounds) at one end and the Presidential Palace at the other. It also has some other modern buildings to look at — mostly office, hotels, and government buildings.

In Nur-Sultan, there are construction cranes everywhere. Driving to the airport, we passed towers and corporate campuses and more going up. There were cars on the street, but few people walking around for the scale of the city. The city just didn’t seem full except at the giant tent shopping mall.

Almaty, on the other hand had more beautiful green space than anywhere that I have been. And it was green space that people used — park benches were full, children were playing, dogs were walking…. Almaty was vibrant and alive while Nur-Sultan had more of a zombie feel. I can’t think of a city that I have been in that seemed to have a higher quality of life than Almaty (setting aside things like healthcare, languages, etc.) I would add about both places that language is not a huge problem. Kazakh is the most spoken, followed by Russian, followed by English. Particularly in Almaty, you will see signage in all three, though rarely a menu in English.

Nur-Sultan reminded me of nowhere I have ever been. Almaty reminded my a bit of Denver (mainly for its setting on a fairly flat spot at the base of the mountains.) Almaty definitely had a more American feel that European or Asia. Public Display of Affection were common. There seemed to be a disproportionate number of pregnant women. There were several universities. Culturally, it seemed egalitarian.

I think both cities are worth a visit if you are in central Asia, though it is hard to justify a special trip. Almaty is a city that I could see living in. If you’re into hiking and skiing, Almaty does have that going for it too.

Now for Shymkent. The hostel was beautiful, the people were incredibly friendly; I was stopped several times to be welcomed by people who probably only knew a few words of English. It is also noticeably dirtier and more chaotic. There are multiple bus routes and public transit seemed good, but no two buses matched. This might be an interesting place to explore someday, but not today.

Arasan Baths Part II -- I Bought a Hat

I returned to the baths on Sunday after taking in some of the Sunday morning Russian Orthodox service at Accenion Cathedral a block away. The bathing is more expensive on weekends (2400 Tenge/hr vs. 1200 Tenge/hr). At current exchange rates this works out to $3.50 vs. $7/hr. All the other services remain the same.

I spent about three hours there taking in all three bathing styles, lounging by the pool and getting a massage and scrub. The scene is considerably different on weekends. Fathers bring sons, groups of friends gather, and all in all there are just a lot more people there.

This time I inquired about a hat so that I would not look like a newbie and boil my brain in the Finnish bath. With my new hat, I started in the Finnish bath. It was crowded with men and seemed hotter than it did last time. I took a seat on the upper level and, as I did not bring any shrubs, sat and watched other beat themselves and each other with these parts of trees. The sound of a dozen men thrashing their naked skin with dried leaves is rhythmic and out of sync. It’s easy to key in on one nearby thrasher and hear his branches in rhythm while the others, the background singers are a bit behind the note. James Brown would have a fit.

After a bit of thrashing, a large man gets up and stands in front of me, hanging on to the railing. A friend of his gets up and starts thrashing the man’s back. He then returns the favor. All the thrashers kind of partner up and beat each other. Fathers beat sons, in the one time its accepted. Leaves break off and land on every available surface. I had some on my leg, the man had some stuck to his ass.

Being alone and not having sufficient language skills to carry on a conversation, I was left to observe and contemplate. I was struck by how some many people in the same place, at the same time, doing the same thing were having such different experiences. For some, it was a hang out with friends, like the weekly coffee shop. For others, it was a father-son bonding time. For me, it was more meditative. It was a time I could have been trying to decide where I wanted to go with the rest of my life, but instead I thought about where I wanted to go in the afternoon and what kind of massage I wanted.

So, today I decided to go all in — I did the oil massage and a scrub. The oil massage, I would recommend over the general massage just because of the oil. Let’s talk about the scrub. Get the scrub. A guy wearing what amounts to loofas on each hand scrubs your whole body. It is heaven. America needs to ditch its puritanism and embrace these baths.

Arasan Baths

Today was my first trip to a Russian bath. This was a monumental occasion because love basically all kind of spa treatments. I had read some about what to expect, but that only gets you so far. The baths are located in this brutalist, concrete building near Panilov Park in Almaty.

The way the place works is that you pay an entrance fee when you arrive and pay for all the extra stuff when you leave. They take credit cards. You will most likely need to rent slippers and a sheet or towel. Everything comes sealed in large, clear plastic envelopes, using the type of plastic that is rigid enough to be creased and seamed. They will scan your bracelet to track your purchases.

The bracelet also unlocks a locker where you can store things. On the inside, they have three types of baths — Russian, Turkish and Finnish. They also have contrast showers, dunk tanks and a swimming pool. I recommend doing it all. The bath part charges hourly, but if you spend over 5000 tenge (~$14) and you will if you get a massage. And without a massage, why live?

You should also get a dorky felt hat to wear. I did Russian, contrast, Finnish, contrast, Turkish, contrast, swimming pool. Then I noticed there was a second floor, so I went up to see if it was the same it was. As I was wandering around, someone spoke to me and I said that I didn’t understand and spoke English. He said Welcome (about the only English he knew) and motioned me to follow him. He led me to the Russian bath, where a group of men were entering. One said to me, “where’s your hat?”, I shrugged. The man who had led me this far took off his hat and slapped it on my head and I entered with the other men. After a short period, many of the men started beating themselves with shrubs that you can purchase on site (I hadn’t bought any, since a few years ago a paid a shaman in Ecuador to rub some herbs on me and thought I was going to end up with poison ivy). The sound these dried branches made against skin was rattly and rhythm, like the sound of the can of rocks Willie Nelson’s other plays in his band, only it consumes all of the audible range.

There are two types of contrast showers: the first is a wood bucket attached to a pivot overhead with a rope attached to the front. The bucket fills with cold water, you pull the rope and the bucket empties on your head — like on Tom the Sadist, the cartoon that was never made. The other is a large wooden tank (5-feet tall and in diameter). It is full of cold water. You climb in it and dunk yourself. I probably preferred the dunk tanks, but did both between baths each time through. And don’t forget the pool. Skinny dip, lounge poolside, naked with the guys (or girls).

When you’re done bathing, get a massage. There are several options available. General, Oil (my recommendation) and soap (intriguing). Thay are all be in the same room, out in the open on marble slabs. On the plus side, the marble is heated. On the minus side, marble is a rock. I recently read, “Ali and Nino”. In that Ali went to a bath and it said that the masseuses were naked. I thought this was unnecessary and strange and assumed this was no longer the practice after decades of homophobia. When I went in the massage room, all of the masseuses were in various states of being naked. The one who would be working on me was wearing only a towel. I thought, “OK?” He changed into a pair of shorts and massaged me. The soap massage looked interesting, but I will save it for next time.

All tolled, I was there for about 2.5 hours and it cost under $40.

First Post of the Trip 8/21/19

To summarize the first three days (two days travel and one day in Astana (Nursultan)), I have done a lot of walking. A three hour delay in Kansas City and a tenish hour layover in New York, let me log 5.6 miles. The second day included a forced march through the world’s largest airport (Istanbul) — 6.6 miles. And today — my one full day in Astana, let’s do it all — boom, boom, bang it out! 13.5 miles and I still need to run out and get dinner.

Astana is about what I expected. I only devoted about one and a half days to it. As a city, it did exist prior to it being named the capital about 20 years ago. It had a different name (can’t remember) and about 275,000. When it was decided that it would be Kazakhstan’s new capital, a ton of money was spent, and is stilling being spent on infrastructure and buildings —everything from government buildings to arenas to a circus to the largest mosque in central Asia. Driving in from the airport, it was fairly indistinguishable from Overland Park, Kansas with convenience stores and a Hampton Inn.

The national mall was arranged with the Presidential palace at one end and Khan Shatyr (a shopping mall in the world’s largest tent) at the other. The mall is enclosed by buildings on either side. This strikes me as a throwback to Soviet planning as I have seen it in other Soviet cities.

Before I came, I had heard that in the past few years Astana had gone from nothing to do to being a town with great food. And great food should be interpreted as a wide selection of ethnic — everything but Kazakh. One of the main things that I travel for is food, so when I broke down and went to a gastropub for lunch, I was disappointed when the ‘Beef prepared in the Mongolian Style’ was strikingly similar to generic Mongolian Beef in any Chinese restaurant in the US. One restaurant does not indict an entire city — and when you get further away from the ‘new center’, the city does become more Kazakh.

Having said that, I would like to come back to Astana in about ten years and see how it’s changed. In every direction is a construction crane. New concrete and steel structures are going up constantly. Trees are growing and filling in. On the way back to the airport, corporate campuses were springing up at every intersection. Astana is also building light rail. It remains to be seen whether Astana is the city of the future or just another indulgence of unchecked power.

Sabbaticals

If I had it to do all over again, I would have planned on taking sabbaticals. If you think about it, the American model is to get out of school (high school or college) and work until age 65 and retire. In the intervening 40+ years, you take very little time off and seldom more than a week at a time.

My proposal is to plan to work to age 70ish and plan in full year breaks at severn year intervals along the way. This requires a forced savings plan (like retirement) or an employer willing to pay you during the sabbatical time. The latter seems unlikely.

The idea of sabbatical only really exists on any large scale in academia. In universities and colleges it if common for faculty members to take sabbaticals, which they are eligible for every seven years. Most universities expect the faculty members to propose and carry out research during the leave period. This has evolved from the original concept which began with Jewish farmers letting their land go fallow every seventh year. By allowing the land to rest, it regenerated its nutrients, though it’s not clear what they knew about plant biology at the time.

The idea of regeneration and renewal is central to why we should be taking sabbaticals. Work for seven years take a year to reflect, travel, putz around, you may return with a renewed energy or you may decide not to return — to start afresh at something else.

Prior to now, I have had one full year off in my work life: 2010. I was laid off after 20 years as an engineer and was out of work for about one year. What did I do? I scrounged for work where it could be found and did a few side projects. I also went to Ghana with my wife for a month. She was planning to go on a grant and wanted me to come. I was laid off in May and she was leaving in July. The timing was perfect. After I returned, I took 12 hours of college credit at KU. I took several classes I didn’t get around to the first time (statistics and macroeconomics) and a couple of newer interests (African Studies and Creative Nonfiction). Overall, I had a good year.

So, looking back what would my life have looked like had I taken sabbaticals? Well, I graduated from college at 22. At 29, my son was born, so I likely would have spent my first sabbatical caring for him.

At 36, I was getting divorced and buying real estate. On the divorce front, I would have had more time to think and reflect. On the real estate front, I would have had time during the day to work on properties and not have had to kill myself nights and weekends.

At, 43, I married my second wife. This would have been 2009, so I was about to get layed off. This probably would have been a stressful time.

At 50, I would have traveled, like I am about to do.

But we never know what life is going to throw at us or how long it’s going to last. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to put everything off until the end.

More Shootings

I go to bed to one mass shooting and wake up to another. I hope the gun lovers don’t object to my characterization of the El Paso and Dayton shootings as mass shootings, 20 and 9 dead, respectively. This follows one day after a young woman was killed by a random bullet in Kansas City at first Friday. With the Kansas City shooting being only a few blocks from a friend’s business and knowing many people who go to First Friday, we held our breaths, hoping it was no one we knew. It wasn’t, not that it matters. A young and innocent lost her life, who was on her friends list was irrelevant.

It’s little like a few years ago, I woke up and walked the dog only to find out that part of my regular route was shut off because three were shot within two blocks of my house (the last perpetrator was sentenced a few days ago). It had a pretty abbreviated time to shine as the Las Vegas shooting was the next day. It is a national travesty of our own making. It points to many other societal ills, including race, money in politics, an economy in long-term decline.

So, now is the time to mourn and to offer thoughts and prayers. The NRA still slipped in a piece of legislature that prevents the CDC from studying gun violence. Let’s not talk about the causes that’s disrespectful to the victims. Let’s just all go buy another gun, so that next time a good guy with a gun will be there.

For now, it was just a really bad day for good guys with guns.

Universal Basic Income

The Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a concept that has been around since the 1970s at least. Without fleshing it out, Milton Friedman proposed the idea as a means to make his free market capitalist ideas (Chicago School) work. The problem he was having was that, if his ideas worked, the people at the bottom would continue to get poorer and eventually either (a) starve to death, or (b) get out the pitchforks and go all French Revolution on the upper class. As time goes on, the upper class shrinks and wealth becomes more concentrated and the lower classes grow. Sound familiar? Friedman offered up the UBI as a free market way of keeping the lower classes fed.

Andrew Yang has proposed the UBI as a counterbalance to job losses from automation. The same solution to a different problem. This solution has the potential to solve the economic problems of job loss. As many economists and social thinkers have pointed out (Joe Stiglitz to name one), humans define much of their self worth in their jobs and UBI does nothing for that. I don’t know what to do about that except to propose a paradigm shift away from work.

Closely related to Friedman’s original theory is wealth inequality. So, let’s talk for a minute about slavery — the granddaddy of all inequality. It ended here in 1865 and ushered in the ear of sharecroppers, carpetbaggers (yes, democrats), the Klan, and Jim Crow. Not because of what ended 150 years ago, but because of what has been going on for the past 150 years, income inequality has been a major and growing problem. Because of the past 150 years, there is absolutely no doubt that African-Americans have been blocked out of opportunities to participate fully in the largest economy in the world. With the facts of this case, in African-Americans vs. United States of America, African-Americans would surely prevail.

So, the UBI potentially solves the problems of wealth inequality, job loss due to automation and reparations. As a libertarian solution, it has to do more that provide a paltry $1000/mo that some rich guy pulled out of his ass. For the idea to work and meet all of these goals, it effectively becomes the libertarian social safety net. Meaning, it must be an amount large enough to provide basic sustenance: food, housing and healthcare purchased on the free market at a minimum. You simply must provide these basics in order for the free market to truly function. You should also through in something to compensate the inactivity of those job losses — perhaps free college (think of it as wintering in Iceland) or gym memberships. Once you’ve covered these things, the free market can go crazy. People can still work, if they can find jobs (and they will, UBI is an enormous economic stimulant), they will just have their basic needs met. Whatever they earn above the UBI is gravy. There will still be CEOs earning millions and people showing up for work everyday to do whatever it is that they do, but maybe the work week will be shorter, maybe people will take longer vacations, maybe people will live longer, less stressful lives.

So, how much should a UBI pay and how will it be paid for? Well, some of the pay fors come from elimination of other social programs including unemployment insurance, medicare, medicaid, the VA, social security, Section 8, SNAP, TANF, S-CHIPS to name a few. Once that’s done, levy taxes. You can choose — I am always partial to a graduated income tax, but wealth tax and value added also work.

So, how much? A lot. Add up the cost of these things and adjust for geographic variation and tie it to inflation. My guess is 2 to 4 times what Yang suggested. Afterall, Yang’s proposal is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing — a small payment to everyone in exchange for taking away assistance to the needy. If you read the fine print, that’s what he’s proposing.

I'm Out of Work

Today was my last day of working. A small amount of existential angst early. It is gone. Yes, we will miss the income. Yes, it is an upheaval, but we must trust ourselves and follow the plan.

Less Than A Month

With my last day at work fast approaching and less than one month before I leave for Kazakhstan, what am I thinking? Mostly just obsessing…about itineraries, about packing, about leaving. I am not too worried about the trip itself. I have done all I could reasonably do there.

I am not thinking too much about work at this point (other than to have a momentary freak out about money periodically). I have to remind myself that this is part of the plan.

I am also trying to get some things done around here. We have some repairs that we are doing to the house. I want those done and it looks like they are finally coming together.

I think I will get bored waiting.

Quitting My Job

I quit my job today.

I have a few months to go until I leave — my last day will be July 31, 2019.

If you want the details, I have been toiling away in the Capitalist Oligarchy for nearly 30 years since college. It’s time to step away and take a gap year. Barring anything unforeseen, like winning the lottery or death, I can’t afford to retire just yet, so I will be back.

I have been fortunate enough to have had a career that has afforded me enough income that I can have a first world solution to the problem of malaise that many are not entitled. I am also fortunate to have a supportive wife. This process began more than a year ago. Tanya and I have tried to reconstruct the timeline of how we got here. We agree that it was her idea.

It definitely started with her applying for a sabbatical and a Fulbright to go to southeast Asia. She got the sabbatical and not the Fulbright. So, we agreed, before she even started on the sabbatical proposal that (1) she would make a proposal that would take her abroad for the semester and, (2) that I would leave my job and join her.

After that, I think I started playing around on Rome2Rio to see what our options for side trips were. Tanya, who had an actual reason for being there would not be able to meet the aggressive schedule that I had planned and didn’t want me to go off and experience these places without her, suggested that I take a full year and travel solo for the other part of the year.

So, that is how we got to today: A sabbatical and a plan to live abroad. A plan that grew to double (for me). And a spreadsheet.

I can’t imagine very many wives giving their husbands the gift (and trust) to venture off on their own for four months, but Tanya has given me that. And just like that, I started planning a trip (and figuring out how to pay for it.) For reasons of podcasts, I became interested in the silk road — specifically Uzbekistan. From there, it seemed like a long way to go for one country and I started researching the region. Kazakhstan, I had read about in Michael Pollan’s book, “The Botany of Desire.” They had also built a new capital from the ground up in 1997. So, I started planning a trip in a spreadsheet that started in Kazakhstan and went through the Caucuses to Turkey.

In Turkey, I wanted Tanya to join me. I thought that she had given me so much, that a trip to Istanbul was the least I could do. Did I mention that I went down the rabbit hole of credit card miles and points programs? That has saved us a fortune on this trip. Check out the 10x Travel group on Facebook — lots of information (though I figured most of it prior to finding them and they can be a bit culty).

After Turkey, I would travel across southern Europe and leave from Lisbon to be home in time for Christmas. To date, the only things that I have booked are:

1. One way MCI to EWR 8/19

2. One way JFK to TSE 8/20

3. 2 nights hostel in Astana

4. Tanya R/T MCI to IST 10/10 - 18

5. 8 night hotel in Istanbul

6. One way LIS to BOS 12/17

7. 2 nights hotel in Boston

8. One way BOS to MCI 12/19

I have spent $21.68 plus a bunch of points so far. There’s another blog post that details this part of it, if you’re interested.

By March of this year (2019), we knew that Tanya had been awarded the sabbatical but not the Fulbright. This was both good and bad. Good, in that it gave her more flexibility to do her project. Bad, in that less money would be available for her to do it. We needed to make a decision on how we would proceed with the sabbatical. We decided that we would go to southeast Asia. We also decided that we would put off until Istanbul exactly how we would carry out her project.

In May, the Department Chair position opened in her department. She has been conflicted about her art career and her work for a while now and has had trouble getting deeply involved in her work. She was encouraged to apply for the Chair position and she did. She was named Chair in late May 2019. This meant that she would have to put off her sabbatical. She decided to go for it. This is not a position that we expected to find ourselves in, but I think we are both get some growth and change that we desperately need. So, we have started reworking our plans. I will travel for a year or until I am tired and ready to come home, whichever comes first (it’s important to be home by November to vote the Orange motherfucker out of office). She will run the department and we will plan some trips where she can come whenever possible.

At this point, we are exploring changes that work for both of us. We are looking more at South America rather than Asia for the Winter/Spring travel. It’s closer for her to pop down and mostly in the same time zone. We are a long way from having it figured out. Again, we will make a plan in Istanbul.

It’s also nice in that it partially solves the problem of someone (Tanya) being nearby to help with my aging mother. I owe her for that. It also means that we don’t have to get a house/dog sitter to watch over the young puppy. We also don’t have to spend time on that least favorite task of cleaning house.

So, I think where I am going is: (1) embrace change; (2) live a little — I’m old enough that friends around my age are having heart attacks and dropping dead. See something before then. I also know how lucky I am to have a wife that has encouraged my irresponsible behavior.

By taking a year now, I have probably added two to the end of career. If this goes well, I may do it again when Tanya has a sabbatical and can join me — and a few more years to the end of my career. Youth is often wasted on the young. While it is debatable whether I am young, I am still upright and have all my original parts. If it means enjoying life a little now by trading in a couple of my wheelchair bound, Depends wearing years being chained to a desk, I see a certain poetic justice in that.