“Let’s fly back to Kazakhstan on January 2nd from Turkey. School starts on the 10th and I want a week to just relax and enjoy Almaty.”
You all know by now, if you have been reading the news, that the last two weeks in Almaty have been anything but relaxing. As I type this, we are just now coming out of a state of emergency that lifted today.
It’s complicated, confusing, and hard to pin down all the answers. It was a tense week of social unrest and protests, and 48 hours of that was truly scary- I had a night I won’t forget anytime soon, if ever. The last week has felt surreal, almost too calm, and has an uncanny valley of back to normal but not quite. That small gap in between is glaring. Yesterday another protest was scheduled for noon, and we were told to prepare for internet blackouts- thankfully, these didn’t come. The protests didn’t come either. It was nothing but empty streets, save the police and military patrolling.
The week of the protests was a bizarre accordion of time, the starting and ending dates crumpling together around a void of information in between, magnified by the isolation of sheltering in place and not going outside. You, Reader, will have had more real time videos, news articles, updates, and information, with your outsider’s perspective, of what was happening to all of us in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, I was experiencing it without knowing what ‘it’ fully was. There was a solid 5 day internet blackout, and the only news available was on state tv, which only a few people I knew had, and only those who spoke Russian fluently could understand.
Even now, a week and more past the events, I have avoided reading too much news, or watching too many videos, because what I did see, and hear, had and has me shaken up. I have my own videos, taken from my balcony, from the first night I woke up disoriented and stumbled to my window and gasped at what I saw. I have other videos from later days, pointless and terrifying ones, nothing but a block of impenetrable fog and endless popcorn bursts of gunshots, an eerie white expanse with stereo sound violence echoing from nowhere and everywhere.
It seems more than a bit unfair, and honestly heartbreaking to me, that only the second time I am writing about living in Kazakhstan is happening three years after I moved here, and right after the entire world was reading so much shocking news about Kazakhstan with the Almaty protests. I have so many posts scheduled and notes written for this site: about Almaty, about living here, about all the wonderful experiences I have had here, even in spite of corona. I want to write about those things, because they are real, but I also don’t want to seem disconnected from the current reality. But the current reality lives in the context of everything else, and that’s real, too.
I’ve been living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, teaching English literature, for three years now. As a young girl living in a small town in Texas the previous sentence wasn’t one I thought would ever describe my life- but then again I didn’t predict Japan, Albania, Laos, or Sweden either, so here we are. Due to coronavirus, I spent almost half of my time here watching Almaty from my apartment windows, a wall of them, facing towards the Tien Shan mountains.
For an entire year of social isolation, I watched four seasons change from these windows. Rainbows and snow, spring flowers and autumn leaves, celebratory fireworks for weddings, the lights of Shymbaluk ski resort laddering up the crook of a mountain top, photoshoots in front of the opera house, sanitation trucks spraying the streets as sirens rang out to stay home during quarantine, seemingly endless treetops and shivering, color changing leaves in the parks that radiate from my home in all directions. I’ve watched scenes that can only be described as idyllic, even in the worst of times.
Almaty was, and is, to me, a true gem of a city. I often marvel that I get to live here, and find it amusing that so many people labor under so many patently false delusions about what it is like living here.
Because of the pandemic I didn’t leave the city of Almaty for 22 months, and didn’t leave the country of Almaty Kazakhstan for two years. During that time, in spite of the pandemic, and a year of social isolation, it was peaceful. There were no food shortages or runs on stores, mask mandates weren’t raged against, and the country invested in a vaccine early- Sputnik V- and built a facility to produce it. Then they gave it out free to anyone who wanted it months before many other countries had such resources. The pandemic for me was a vacuum of time in a strange world that I sailed through relatively unscathed. I felt relieved, and reassured, to be in Kazakhstan during the pandemic. I would not have wanted to be in the US during the first year of it especially, having to deal with the viscerally divided perspective on the science of reality. I can’t stress enough how lucky, peaceful, and removed it all felt. I am someone who has lived and traveled overseas for the past decade, and staying in one place for two years was unheard of. But I did it, and I did it well, and I felt safe in Kazakhstan. I feel a strong need to state that, clearly, in light of how much Kazakhstan has been in your newsfeed for such awful reasons recently.
This is why it’s so painful to me to know that most people are getting most of their lifetime’s supply of knowledge about Kazakhstan up to this point right now, in the current news about the protests, the government interventions and criticism, and the tense situation after. On January 2nd, when my flight landed in Almaty after that winter trip to Turkey, the very last thing I would ever have been thinking of would have been what just happened here. It wasn’t a fear, a back of the mind what if, it wasn’t a possibility I ever entertained- it never entered my mind, and is wholly opposite to anything I have ever experienced here. Which made it more shocking when it dropped into the world, and unfolded all around me, in my neighborhood, down my local streets.
The week of the protests, military intervention, and anti-terrorist operations after, I watched Almaty from my windows again, once more confined to my apartment for my safety, this time for very different reasons, but the gamut of emotions? That felt familiar. It was confusing at first, then unbelieveable, then terrifying, then surreal. The worst night, the night after the airport was taken, there was no watching from the windows, because that wasn’t safe. It was just listening from the floor, in the dark, to the staccato-skittering sound of gunfire punctuating the tense silence of the apartment over and over and over again for hours. Hours. Hearing that chorus of gunshots, picturing what happened when they landed- it was a cacophony of question mark endings, each one representing someone out there in the fog cloaked darkness who might not exist anymore. All of this was wrapped up in the void of information, the isolation both physically in the apartment and emotionally. I sat thinking about the worry my family must be holding, and how I wished I could reassure them that it was fine. But then, even I wasn’t sure it was fine. I had no idea what was happening to any of us.
I wanted to share the diary I kept during those days, as a firsthand account, as a way to remember, as a way to share a perspective, and mostly as a way to do what I always do- deal with things by writing about them. But what I want to be clear on is this- I am a foreigner here. I do not speak for Kazakh people, and to assume I could summarise this situation with authority would be the height of arrogance. I am no expert on Kazakh government, and do not claim to be. There are as many perspectives on the government here as there are on the US government amongst my friends and family back home.
What I do know is that the Almaty you are seeing in the news right now is not the full story of the Almaty I have been living in for three years. The Kazakhstan you think you know from Borat, or assumptions about ‘stan countries, is not Kazakhstan. I regret how many drafts and notes and essays I have in my files, waiting to be completed, or written, or edited, how many photo essays I wanted to post sharing all my favorite spots. Kazakhstan is more than the protests and military conflicts you have been watching unfold in the media. It has long been unfairly categorised, stereotyped, or suffered from ignorant mischaracterization of what life is like here. I am sharing what I experienced in one week here- one week out of three years, in a country that is as complex and nuanced as any other. I am just one person out of 18 million living here now, but this is how I experienced the protests and unrest, living in the center of Almaty about a 20 minute’s walk from Republic Square.
Tuesday, January 4th night/January 5th morning (1 a.m.) protests woke me up
I couldn’t sleep and had fallen asleep on the couch to avoid waking up my partner- I was awoken by what I thought was fireworks, and at first I ignored it. It continued on for more than ten minutes, though, and when I was more awake I could hear that they didn’t sound like fireworks- they sounded like explosions. I tried to look-up what was being celebrated, but the internet was off. I went to the window and saw massive flashes, over and over, flashbangs which I assumed were being used to try to disperse the crowds. We had read about protests in other areas of the country, so I guess they are here in Almaty now. The booming was incredibly loud, and combined with the flash bangs and the smoke, the horizon looked like a scene from a war. I watched for almost 20 more minutes before I woke up Mike, and we watched from the window for at least an hour. Fires started during that time, and we heard chanting/whistling- it sounded like a massive crowd but we have no idea how many. Mike went to bed and I was up for another hour. I woke up a few times more and it was still going on- I think it ended at 5 a.m.?
Wednesday, January 5th
Today was normal-ish, but there were protesters in the streets marching on the street right past our building. We had internet sporadically once or twice for very short moments in the early morning, and I remember reading a quote from the president saying ‘The government would not fall’ and turning to Mike and saying ‘Wait, why does he feel the need to assert that? Is the government falling a potential?’ Later that morning, the internet dribbled on for a few minutes and we read that the government had resigned-no time for more research as the internet was gone again. For a few hours the protestors were moving through the streets- they were moving slowly, brandishing nothing, not even signs, and not even chanting- just walking, steadily, back towards the square. It was a mass of people, mostly dressed in black, just moving as a wave. After about an hour or two of the we heard more chanting/whistling, and this was the loudest/largest it had ever been, and seemed more coordinated. There was no internet the rest of today, and we stayed in due to reports of shooting (I had received a message on whatsapp from my employer about this that had come through in one of the internet windows this morning). It seems like there will be more protests tonight. Update- there were more protests tonight, but they sounded further away than before.
Thursday, January 6th:
I woke up this morning to a few whatsapp messages that had come through around 1 a.m. from my employer- the airport has been taken over and is completely closed for all flights. A video was shared, and they reminded us that there are shootings going on all over the city and we have to continue to stay inside. I have no idea what else is going on. No internet, home all day, explosions off and on in the distance, terrible, weird fog, the messages we received in the night while we slept a few scant hours were the only updates we had, we spent the morning reviewing our stockpile, making a batch of lentils, and filling up water supplies that might be needed just in case. I am SO relieved that we had pantry preparations! Now we have buckets of water all over the house, along with our emergency supply of 5 liter bottles in the closet. Starting in the early evening the explosions were more frequent. The scariest moment- around 6:45 I heard a bunch of explosions back to back, or so I thought, and opened the window to see through the mist. It took my mind a second to register that it was not flashbangs, but gunshots, and right as I was processing that I thought ‘I need to get away from this window’. We shut the window, turned off all the lights, and sat on our floor in the dark on the interior wall of our apartment. Water, kindles, our charged but useless phones (local calls work, but without internet we can’t top up our minutes, so everyone is saving them in case they are needed), rosemary crackers from a forgotten bag in the pantry because dinner had been interrupted and our kitchen is a wall of windows. There were sirens and announcements on the loud speakers in Russian that we couldn’t understand, but we assumed they echoed the text message we got to stay inside. We received a call from one friend that vandalism was rampant, that people were storming residences, and that the night before the police had been overwhelmed, which is why the airport had been taken. This was the most recent update we had, other than the videos of the airport being taken that arrived the night before during that blip of internet while we were asleep. She told us that the Russian military was on the way. As we listened to the gunshots that night, going on almost constantly for three hours every 5-10 minutes, I imagined the worst. We finally got a call around 10:00, after three hours of stress, from another friend. Her mother had access to state TV, and it was confirmed that both Armenian and Russian military (possibly also Kyrgyz?) were here. The Armenians had shown up that afternoon, and the Russians had been there for about an hour. It was only once we knew that the city was under control that we felt some relief. Tonight continued to be horrible (military clashes, gunshots) well after midnight. It’s still going on as I write this. I am laying on the couch pushed against the interior wall, still spooked. I don’t want to be anywhere near a window. I feel most awful for my family and friends, as I have no way of telling them I am safe. I also have no idea what is actually happening. It’s almost 2 a.m. – I haven’t really slept since the night of the 3rd- and I cannot imagine sleeping tonight.
Friday January 7th
I fell into fitful sleep around 2:30 a.m., woke up around 4:45, fell back asleep at 7:00, woke up again at 10:30. So that’s when my day started, feeling terrible. Dead silent streets, a few cars, a burned out building suddenly visible thanks to the fog lifting a bit. There are sirens going off periodically, small bursts of gunshots or flash bangs in the distance, and still no internet. Spent the day working out, cooking, sewing clothes, reading, making plans. Feeling very grateful for our apartment and how well set up it is with everything we need (thanks, corona!). I found out today that school is cancelled for all of next week, so I unexpectedly will have an extra week of vacation, and we are most likely online after that. Who knows how long this will last. Fog came back, very eerie- I’ve seen nothing like it here in Almaty, and the fog along with the consistent sound of gunshots is too much at times and creeps me out, like being in a horror movie. We saw a few people outside, walking dogs, but very few. We were advised again to stay inside, as random shooting was happening around the city due to anti-terrorist operations. Surprisingly our landlord showed up to receive rent, and cheerily told us not to worry as we have 11 armed guards in the building. He is such a kind man and we have had a wonderful time renting from him so it was nice to see him and feel reassured that all would be fine in our building. Tonight as I am typing this the loud speakers are announcing to stay inside, and we got another text message from our friend saying that the anti-terrorist operations are continuing and no one should be outside as it’s not safe. It’s been over three days since I’ve left the house. I have no idea when I will.
Saturday, January 8th:
I was up all night last night reading and slept maybe 2-3 hours. Woke up to more thick fog, still no internet, and the now familiar sound of intermittent gunshots and sirens. We ate breakfast and marveled at how comfortable we were in spite of everything, and talked about how thankful we are for our apartment. I am feeling strangely grateful/relieved that we don’t have internet, and it’s given me a focus in my brain I haven’t had in a very long time even with all of the uncertainty. We can’t even play music or watch movies/videos, since we don’t have anything downloaded, so the house is also dead silent. This is a weird juxtaposition to the soundtrack of the gunshots and explosions and sirens outside. Last night, going to bed without ‘just checking x,y,z one more time…’ was bizarre. I was thinking, wait, this is what people used to do in the evenings before bed… just… go to bed. I’ve read more in the last four days than in the last four months, and I am thankful for that distraction of the Kindle but not having access to the news- I remember how it amped me up in the early days of corona to obsessively read articles, and at this point we are stuck in the house for a while longer and I don’t see how news would help me feel better- acceptance is helping me feel better. We haven’t even been checking the internet to see if it’s on like we did the first few days- we figure it will come on when it does. I think we are both in shock. No, I know we are. Received some text messages early evening from colleagues who said thousands of people had been arrested. It’s absolutely unreal to me to be sitting in my apartment I haven’t left in days, without internet, typing this up in dead silence inside while this awful noise goes on outside and sometimes I think about night before last and get freezing cold shivers in my entire body. I pray to god I can sleep tonight. It’s excruciating how tired I am. I am putting this away and laying down in the dark.
Update- We unexpectedly had a phone call tonight from our friends living in Tbilisi, Georgia- another friend rerouted there when his plane from Australia couldn’t land here since the airport isn’t functioning. We got all the international news updates from them and it was pretty shocking- apparently it was reported as a full on attempt to overthrow the government? Thousands, even tens of thousands of people, were said to be involved. The gunshots we heard all night on the sixth were being reported as a fire fight in the square between the military and a terrorist group, but I don’t have all the details and neither did they as there are conflicting reports and details emerging. They were described as ‘armed and organised’. For now we are told no internet until the 12th, and a state of emergency is in place until the 19th. Flights are meant to resume tomorrow, on the 9th, but I have no idea how that is possible. Thankfully our friends were able to contact our families via text message and let them know we are safe, which was a relief. It’s also creepy to realise how close we were to danger, retroactively. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know in the short term there will be a lot of time spent in this apartment (good thing we have practice with that exact thing). It’s staggering to think of how much time we have spent in this apartment, looking out at empty streets, feeling a tense situation out, foreigners camped out in a host country in unexpected circumstances. I have to keep reminding myself (literally right now) that I am not uniquely persecuted, not doomed or cursed, that random misfortunes befall us all. But when I consider all that has happened here in Kazakhstan, it’s pretty ridiculous when you add it all up (personally and globally, nothing to do specifically with Kazakhstan, just bad timing). Mike and I agreed that if things didn’t dramatically and quickly improve we would be leaving. I had a massive shivering panic attack tonight, like a spontaneous explosion. I think it’s all the stress. I still can’t sleep (it’s well after midnight I am writing this).
Sunday, January 9th
Woke up far too early for how late I went to bed, crawled to the couch, tried to look out the windows but it was just a wall of white fog. Soft sirens, a handful of gunshots once or twice in the first few hours, but between 6 a.m. and 10 or so it was generally peaceful. The fog lifted a bit and we could see people out walking, the street cleaners, families with groceries. We heard from our friend, who said the grocery stores were open and her husband had gone. Today is the fifth day I haven’t gone out, and we have food, but Mike felt comfortable going and said it was calm- no one rushing, pushing, freaking out, just long lines. The shelves were still stocked except for meat, but everything else was like a normal day. He was also able to withdraw money. I am, once again, impressed with the peaceful culture of Kazakhstan, just like during the pandemic. There were no runs on the grocery store, no panic buying, even after people had been in their houses unexpectedly for three or four straight days. The government had sent out a text message to everyone that the stores were open, that the trade facilities had security, and that no one needed to worry about rushing because there were sufficient food reserves for everyone. We cooked together, Mike made bread, we worked out, it would have been a relaxing day except for the chaos. Today the lack of sleep has really caught up with me and I am absolutely exhausted beyond belief, beyond reason. I don’t know how I am typing this, or when I will talk to my family. I was also struck with unbearable sadness this morning that I had not been documenting my time here in Kazakhstan on my website because I had become so busy, and now all everyone is seeing about Kazakhstan is awful news. I wrote a bit more on the essay I am working on talking about how this isn’t the whole story of Kazakhstan, and edited photos all the way back to August of this year, thinking of how I wished I had posted more about living here the last three years, especially about how the pandemic was handled from my perspective. I am sadly looking forward to another adrenaline fueled sleepless night.
Monday, January 10th
Today the internet came on for the first time since the 5th. We were told to expect four hours of it between 10 a.m.- 1 p.m. I spent all four hours of internet time catching up with people, sending messages, checking in- I felt like an old fashioned switchboard, but manning a laptop and a cell phone, copy pasting ‘I’m safe, here’s what happened’ messages over and over. It was overwhelming and surreal (I feel like I’ve used that word more in this week than in my lifetime up to now). Watching the videos was also overwhelming, so I set a 30 minute news timer and avoided the videos and then just stopped before the timer was up- it’s tragic and confusing and overwhelming, and I was here when it happened, so that’s all I need to know for now (that and sheer exhaustion). Today has been designated as an official day of mourning, and they are sharing the names of officers who were killed. The exact total death toll is still uncertain. Once the internet was off I talked with two colleagues for an hour or so each, because we all felt like we had the luxury of a long phone call because we had internet to top up our phones. A thread of the day was talking with random colleagues and sussing out who felt safe, who wanted to leave. Mike and I talked again about what to do. It’s harder at night, when everything feels so uncertain. The reports are confusing, it’s hard to know what to believe. The day felt like a blur, and then our friends from Georgia called again. We talked with them and now here I am, typing away, looking into the barrel of the night and wondering if my body even remembers how to sleep.
Tuesday, January 11th
I think I slept about three disjointed hours last night. We had internet again today, so there was another round of catching up, calling, messaging, checking in. These calls home were longer, as I had the luxury of knowing yesterday’s first round assured everyone I was safe. Mike made breakfast as I caught up with people, and then he went out for a walk while I continued messaging, calling, checking in. Today I left the house for the first time since the 4th- honestly I’ve spent six weeks inside this apartment before, during the first summer of quarantine, so six days is nothing. The international news was an interesting contrast to local news, and this further complicated the discussions about whether to stay or go. I had several calls and messages with colleagues- everyone is uncertain, a bit up and down, when I talk to them. I feel the same. Mike and I went out together walking around the neighborhood, and it was altogether peaceful. No too many broken windows near us, not too much damage, and in general it felt normal other than the fact that only grocery stores and a few coffeeshops were open. The grocery store was calm, lines were short, our debit cards worked. Altogether it was simple and straightforward. I went to a coffeeshop that had just opened before the protests, and we were the only people there. The baristas were asking about how we were feeling, and vice versa. One said with a smirk ‘We were all believing in God these last nights, hey??’ But then I read news of the Russian troops withdrawing in the next two days, to be gone in 10, and I feel nervous about what will happen. Lots of flux in the government, and new reforms are posted. My employer is posting updates but between what happened and the lack of sleep my brain is too scrambled to comprehend work concerns. I had an absolutely delicious catchup with one of my best friends in Sweden (I think we talked for four hours). I posted a blog post, which is a commitment I made to myself for the new year, but I also didn’t workout as I was so busy with catching up with people. It’s incredibly hard to know what the right decision is right now. We don’t feel like we need to flee with only one bag and get on a train for Astana and fly out, but we also don’t necessarily think staying here is the best choice. I had a frank talk about how burned out I was and how little I felt like I could give right now. I am so glad I got to end the night talking with my friend, above all else, because I feel so much better. (edited to add- I ended up staying up until 3:30 a.m., unable to sleep, in a bit of a daze from binging the news, breaking my own self-care rule, watching in retrospect the videos and reading the details of the experience I had just had while divorced from the internet or outside calls- the sheer amount of the looting and damage is overwhelming).
I read this on the government website and I thought it was an interesting response. There was a consistent reference to reforms, and another mention of the difference between the protesters and those identified as involved in the coup. Everything is still so uncertain as the information continues to come out.
Wednesday, January 12th
Waking up and being able to trust we can check messages is a novel experience. Internet is fully functioning and seems to be here for the foreseeable future (unless, God forbid, something similar happens again). Although I had been up until 3:30 a.m. this morning I made myself set a 9:30 alarm to try and get back on schedule today. I was exhausted for most of today as a result, to no surprise. My gym app pinged me saying it would be open today, and Mike and I decided we had to go- if we are going to stay here, we have to stay here all in. I thought it might be empty, but I thought wrong- it was busier than usual, and no one seemed to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had happened. It was just business as usual. When we were walking out on the streets today, however, we noticed a markedly increased police presence- officers in pairs or trios on every street corner, armed officers guarding the entrance to the police station, and police cars on each block. An armed guard stood on the sidewalk outside of our apartment. We went by the coffeeshop we went to yesterday, and today the same barista was talking about how he hoped the reforms would work, and how hopefully peace would last. I had a long talk with a colleague and we shared our similar concerns and worries. We received an update that omicron had pushed Almaty back into the red zone, so we were back online until the 31st on top of school having already been cancelled until January 17th due to the coup (it’s now officially categorised as a coup attempt by the President, which I learned from too obsessively reading the news yesterday). Something like 8,000 people have been arrested- it’s hard to comprehend the scope of everything. All in all today felt like a bit of a reset. Mike cooked, I cleaned, we had an early dinner, I did yoga before bed. Now it’s before bed and I am not tired at all, after being exhausted all day. How can this be possible? I didn’t think I could sleep this little if I tried.
Thursday, January 13th
Woke up way too early for how late I was up again, made it to the gym again, walked home alone, felt fine but jumpy. Went to brunch with a friend- it was nice but I went home exhausted from no sleep and edgy at the calm, not trusting it, feeling paranoid, like something dreadful is about to happen, just overwhelming doom feelings. I was happy to see that one of my favorite coffeeshops hadn’t lost its stained glass window to looting, but the more I walk around the neighborhood the more I see just how much damage has been done. Lots of chats with people on the phone wondering how they were doing, checking in. Tonight was the worst, with an out of nowhere, shivering, full body terror panic attack. Just existential dread about being ‘stuck here’ and terrible intrusive thoughts about the worst possible ‘what ifs’ you could imagine. Difficulty falling asleep, didn’t stay asleep, ended up waking up at 4:15 in the morning on the 14th (or at least that’s what time it was when I finally checked the clock). Got up and didn’t go back to bed. I am writing this part, technically, already into January 14th, but the days are all running together in one long string, uninterrupted waking days and nights, no sleep punctuations and no rest. I don’t know how I am able to not sleep for so long- it defies logic.
Friday, January 14th
Exhausted isn’t the word. Something beyond it, and heavier, worse. Edgy, teary, emotional, out of order, while getting ready for our work zoom meeting. Holding back tears the entire time, dreading having to get myself together for Monday. Had a good long sobbing session after the first meeting with all school, better in the second meeting with only secondary. Not doing work, thinking about work, or considering that work exists all weekend. I will deal with it on Monday when I get there. It’s all online until the 31st, so hopefully that gives everything/everyone time to calm down. The plan is to be in bed by 7:30, hopefully asleep by 8:30. The alarm is set for 7:30 tomorrow morning- if I can sleep 11 hours straight tonight I might cry. I am nauseous and dizzy, disoriented and foggy. I feel like trash. I haven’t slept through the night in 11 days at this point. I don’t know how I am standing up. I feel like my face is inside out, my eyes are burning, my head is pounding. I am just praying that I have finally crossed some critical threshold of sleep deprivation where my body will supersede my frantic subconscious brain and pull rank for the good of the system.
Saturday, January 15th
I fell asleep last night somewhere around 8:30, woke up to that 7:30 alarm, and promptly rolled back over and slept for another hour. I am just now just a normal amount of horrifically exhausted instead of catastrophic exhausted, and I have a long way to go to chip away at this sleep debt. Homecooked brunch on made from scratch biscuits reminded me of early days in quarantine, making our own small pleasures from recipes that reminded us of Sweden. The gym was fantastic today, followed by a 7K round trip walk to the mall to run errands. Speaking of all of this feels strange and normal and a bit too soon after how upside down everything was. On the way to the mall we walked past the epicentre of the protests and the property damage- burned out buildings, what looked like bullet holes in multiple windows, random things broken, glass shattered across the sidewalks. They have covered the government building in a shroud, most likely to prevent gawking at the sight of that massive, white building burned into another shade altogether of a swirl of black, grey, and rusted red. We leaned into some traditions and ordered in from one of our favourite places (delivery is back up), and I was able to catch up with another friend for a few hours. We are oddly in the same career path/life change mode and it was comforting to talk about normal things like plans and creative endeavours instead of internet outages and coups and shooting in the streets.
Sunday, January 16th
Another night of sleep- real sleep. I went to the gym alone today, and it was deserted. Had a fantastic return to some weight ranges for lifts on squat and deadlift I haven’t seen in a few years thanks to the pandemic. And then, out of nowhere, I see the bag- a huge gym bag, with no one near it. I assume someone was taking a rest between reps. I glance over at it for the next 10 minutes- no one walks past, looks at it, checks it. It’s dumped randomly in the standing space of the pull up rack. Another five minutes goes by and I feel jumpy- what’s in that bag? This is when I have to rein in my brain and stop giving myself imagined troubles. I force myself to finish my last sets and leave- obviously the bag was just a bag. My gym has not one but two coffeeshops in the bottom floor, so I avail myself of one and enjoy being one of only two or three other customers while I read my Kindle. A walk home in the sun, a shower, a nap, cooking dinner- all very normal. Tomorrow it’s back in the classroom, back online, teaching via zoom. We’ve been online so many times in the last three years it makes my head spin, but the delayed start date is something very different. It feels right to stop the Almaty protest diary here, because starting tomorrow things will be moving on, back into a school rhythm, and for better or worse what happened has happened and now has to be integrated somehow.
Author’s note- as mentioned, this is my diary from the days without internet during and right after the protests and unrest. I have not gone back and edited any information, but new information has of course been coming out each day. This is my personal experience, and is a first hand account as I was trying to sort out what was happening and deal with the stress the best way I know how- by writing. This isn’t intended to be a final source or documentation of ‘the truth’ of what happened. I only have my own perspective from my own apartment, and I am an American who doesn’t speak Russian and has only been living here for three years. Please read the news for yourself, and be sure to read a variety of sources and accounts when you do so. Investigations are ongoing, and the state of emergency just ended- it’s early days yet for sorting out all the final details.
This is beautiful. Our experience this month has been surreal and you captured it, all of it. It was a lot to take in. It will take time. I’m glad things are “back to normal” – but even that is surreal.