The Best and Worst of the Soviets in Karaganda

The spring thaw comes later to Astana (now Nur-Sultan) than Almaty but it finally came just in time for Nauryz.

For my part, I wanted to celebrate the rise of the mercury (above freezing!) by getting out of town over the long weekend. I chose an overnight to Karaganda, a town built by coal and forced labor.

The two go hand in hand. When you’ve got coal deposits on the mostly deserted Kazakh steppe, and you need cheap labor to mine that coal, and you’re a paranoid dictator looking to imprison large chunks of your population,the plan writes itself, no?

Karaganda was once the second largest town in Kazakhstan and in the 1940s its population was as much as 70% ethnic German. This was a combination of German POWs and also the Volga Germans who were deported to Karaganda for the crime of [checks notes] being ethnically German. Many stayed in Kazakhstan until the end of the cold war, when a reunified Germany allowed them to “return” to Germany. People did just that and Karaganda saw a significant population drain.

Reason #1 for going to Karaganda was to visit the nearby village of Dolinka, where the administrative headquarters for the KarLag gulag were housed. The building is actually quite attractive, belying its dark history.

KarLag was one of the largest and most important of the gulag systems, reporting directly to Moscow and not subject to any local oversight.

From this building they managed an entire chain of labor camps, expanding from coal mining into agriculture, railroad engineering, and scientific research. Our tour guide said that several of the old rail lines in Kazakhstan are still laid with track made by the KarLag prisoners. Airplane designer Andrei Tupolev was one of the more famous prisoners here.

This museum and ALZhIR are Kazakhstan’s primary sites honoring victims of the gulag. Part of the inhumanity of the system was that prisoners were nearly always sent into far off lands, separating them completely from their families and their communities. Consequently, few Kazakhs were imprisoned in this particular gulag. Germans, Chechens and ethnic Poles from Ukraine were some of the larger groups imprisoned here.

Most of the records of the camp were deliberately destroyed after the gulags were closed. Fortunately, a local university has a program that works on piecing together history from remaining documents and interviews with survivors. They even have a big registry book at the museum where you can jot down something like, “I think my great uncle Ivan Denisovich was sent here in 1942. If you find out any information about him, contact me at…” It’s full of entries.

The broken yurt top symbolizes the attempt by the soviets to break Kakakh culture

The rough translation is that the system is not for punishment, but for improvement

Just some of the many prisoners who made their way through

There’s no evidence that the basement of this building was used to house people, but the museum uses that space to show what confinement cells, barracks, interrogation rooms, and medical units would have looked like.

Ms. Barkvoa (upper left) is not here for your bullshit gulag system

Some prisoners were allowed to create art, although their choice of subjects was severely limited.

Toy blocks spell out “Stalin” in a room dedicated to the children impacted by the camps (many were born here and many died).

Apparently they had a “night at the museum” event one year in which all of the mannequins were replaced by real people.

Reason #2 for going was more pleasant: I heard Karaganda was a fantastic place to view soviet art in situ. To be clear, I am not a fan of all soviet art. For instance, I don’t understand why people who would never put up a poster of Hitler feel comfortable sticking up a poster of Stalin for “kitsch” value. But soviet art celebrating the worker or the space program or victory in The Great Patriotic War (WWII to the rest of us), is something I do enjoy.

I walked myself around Karaganda to seek it out. In the process, I discovered that this is also a lovely town. Late winter isn’t maybe the best time to appreciate it but as a born and bred Minneapolitan I have the uncanny ability to stand looking at long boulevards covered in snow and lined by skeletal trees and easily envision how, come May, they turn into long leafy promenades lined with sidewalk cafes. Karaganda had many of those spaces and is already known by locals for its quality restaurants and good shopping. (A colleague said his wife bought a wolf-fur coat here. I did not, but I did buy a cool handmade traditional necklace)*

While I would love to go back in the summer to enjoy the atmosphere, you can get a museum-full of art and interesting architecture by walking around in any season.

Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) and Valery Bykovsky, “Merry cosmonauts of the Soviet Union”

Battleship Aurora leads the working class

The Coal Miners’ Palace of Culture

Stanislavsky Theatre

COAL!

Yuri Gagarin Monument

CCCP Cosmonaut

If I get the chance to visit again I will definitely take it. But I’ll spend less time at the gulag and more time enjoying the pleasanter side of Karaganda.

If you want to go…

Astana to Karaganda by train is only a a few hours but I had a colleague with a car who wanted to do this trip so my inaugural Kazakh train ride will have to wait. Once in Karaganda you should hire a local taxi to take you out to Dolinka, wait, and return you to town. You might want to do this even if you have your own car as the road can be pretty rough, partially muddied and flooded. Although the museum signs are in English, a guide really helps you appreciate the history.  

 

*Too modest and understated?

I’m in Astana…or am I?

In mid-February US Mission Kazakhstan welcomed our new ambassador. He arrived sans Office Manager so a plan was hatched to “borrow” me from Almaty to temp for him in the Astana embassy.

I am always up to travel to a new place and was excited to see more of Kazakhstan but winter is…not the ideal time to visit?

Still, you take what you can get. I’m here for six weeks courtesy of #yourtaxpayerdollarsatwork and want to make the most of it, provided I can avoid a slip trip and fall that ends my Foreign Service career early.

Astana’s sidewalk snow removal work often ends abruptly, forcing pedestrians to navigate very carefully

 

Astana is not exactly a historied city. Most of it dates only as far back as what historians call the age of Britney+Justin.

Okay, I admit that archaeologists have found cool artifacts from Nomadic groups that go way back. But it wasn’t until a Russian military fortification was built in 1830 that people tried to live here year round.

They named the first settlement Akmoly, from a Kazakh word meaning “white grave.” Comforting!

In Soviet times Akmoly saw a mini-building boom when it became an administrative center for Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Campaign. It was still a backwater but it was a backwater renamed Tselinograd, “city of the virgin lands.”

Then came 1997, when the first (and until this week, only) president of independent Kazakhstan moved the seat of government here and changed the city’s name of to Astana, which means “capital city” in Kazakh.

But hang on! On Wednesday President Nursultan Nazarbayev resigned after 30 years in power, handing the reigns to an interim president whose first act was to declare that Astana be renamed Nursultan. I am unclear when this goes into effect. Am I in Astana now or Nursultan City?

The resignation is major news for Kazakhstan and we’ve only begun to digest it. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later. For now I am still trying to learn about where I am, whatever it’s called.

Why did Almaty lose out on capital city status? Reported reasons vary. Unlike Almaty, Astana is on an expansive flat plan with little to no seismic activity. Also, Astana is a lot closer to Russia and maybe there have been times Kazakhstan wanted to plant a flag to show their neighbor how serious they are about maintaining current borders. Times likes when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about “Rebuilding Russia” using parts of Kazakhstan as post-Soviet Lincoln Logs.

 

The capital of city of the Kazakh SSR was Almaty. These days the former Government House of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic has been re-purposed into a university.

 

Whatever the reason(s), this northern city has gone from provincial capital to real capital in just 20 years. It’s full of wild and wacky buildings designed by world-renowned architects, funded with oil and gas money. Hence the nickname, Dubai of the steppe.

In addition to being built on a pancake-flat plain, the city spans two sides of a river, has lots of parks, and is so forking cold and snowy and icy that it is barely habitable for humans. Maybe it could also be called Minneapolis of the steppe?

 

What to do with all that snow? Build a sledding hill in the parking lot of your high rise apartment building.

 

One bummer about being here in the winter, besides the cold, is that it is often gray. On sunny days the city literally sparkles, due to Astana’s unwavering commitment to the color gold. I caught glimpses of the shine but sadly have had to be mostly satisfied with muted bling.

Ak Orda Presidential Palace Presidential Palace seen from across the river

Ak Orda Presidential Palace: Astana Presidential Palace

Golden tower reflected in another golden tower

The golden towers sit next to the Ak Orda Presidential Palace

Baiterek Tower: architectural storytelling of a myth involving a bird laying a golden egg

Inside the golden egg of Baiterek Tower

Gilded hand print of President Nursultan Nazarbayev

The observation tower is 97 meters high, commemorating Astana as the new capital city in 1997

 

While I have to imagine what a different city this is between summer and winter, I have seen firsthand what a different city comes out at night. Quite a contrast.

Hazrat Sultan Mosque

Palace of Peace and Harmony

 

Shabyt Palace of Arts, aka “the dog bowl”

 

Khan Shatyr Shopping Mall

 

National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan

All of Astana’s focus on new, shiny and bright might make you think there’s no historic sightseeing to be done. There is, but it’s not shiny and bright.

Just outside the city limits is the ALZhIR memorial and museum, on the site of the the Akmola Labor Camp for the Wives of the Betrayers of the Homeland, the USSR’s largest gulag for women. Generally the women’s only crime was to be related to men (usually husbands but sometimes sons) who had themselves been arrested on what might well be trumped up charges.

From the 1930s-50s women were shipped into Kazakhstan from all over the USSR–Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc. They lived in wood and adobe brick barracks and raised their children until those children were deemed old enough to be sent away, often for adoption by new families.

Today the site of the camp is a memorial to all victims of political repression, with special emphasis on the struggles of Kazakhs, including the famine of 1930-33 and the uprising of 1986, and extra special emphasis on the women who once lived right here.

ALZhIR (АЛЖИР) Museum and Memorial

Barracks. The camp operated between 1938 and 1953, and saw some 18,000 prisoners

Doesn’t the Russian word for Gulag look like it reads RyanAir? Is that because I just flew them?

Some of the many women imprisoned

Letters from children

Prisoners’ personal possessions

“Papers Please”

The door to the original interrogation room

Interrogations involved seating women on high chairs, their feet unable to touch the ground, for hours at a time. Apparently when the women were finally allowed to stand, their capillaries would burst.

A 1980s reunion of former prisoners

 

The Kazakhs have done an excellent job creating an informative and respectful memorial and museum.

And to avoid ending on a completely depressing note, here’s a nod to Nursultan City/Astana’s current identity. The identity of a people who have never seen a light show they didn’t embrace.

 

NO ONE IS CRYING (ok I am crying…)

My first time leaving the city limits since arriving in Almaty. Where to go? Should I explore central Asia (the whole reason I requested this post)? See relatives in London? Check back in with the USA? Take advantage of an invitation to visit a colleague in Moscow?

I hemmed and hawed but ultimately decided that the massive digital and language divides separating me from some of my best loved Moroccans meant I needed to touch base there or risk losing touch completely.

As a bonus, I could invite my friend Heidi, who suggested visiting me for Christmas back when I lived there and received a delicate response along the lines off, “F that–I need to drink some decent wine.” And we had a very satisfying trip to Italy. But I didn’t want to permanently deprive her of Morocco.

Only a couple of problems with my Morocco idea: I don’t have much vacation built up and Kazakhstan is not close to Morocco. Hence an itinerary no one should emulate.

I started by flying into Fes to see my host family from my time in training. Or flying Almaty-Istanbul-Marseilles-Fes, with an eight hour layover in Marseilles. Fortunately, I got advice on how easy it is to head into Marseilles from the airport. So my layover, on a simply glorious sunny day, was quite pleasant

 

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When I rolled into Fes around midnight I had many thoughts about being back Morocco. Why are driving lanes so fluid but gender roles so rigid? Did we almost run those children over? Wait, why are those children playing by the side of the road at midnight? What is that smell?

But it was the next morning at breakfast, when a staff member asked “Nesti muzyn?” (did I sleep well, a common polite morning question in Morocco) that I really knew I was back.

And the staff loved my bad Arabic more than I remember anyone ever loving it when I lived in Morocco. The delighted reaction to my report of a problem with the bathroom light was certainly unexpected.

Leaving Heidi to explore the nooks and crannies of the medina, I headed to the suburbs. Having lost my host family’s contact info, I just showed up and hoped they’d be home. They were and I was fed generously on delicious food and family gossip.

And that was about all for Fes. The next day we rented a car and drove from Fes to Zagora. DO NOT DO THIS.

It’s a beautiful drive but too long for one day, especially when the car rental place doesn’t open when it says it opens. And yet when Expedia asked about my experience, did I give a bad review? How could I when the man who eventually helped us was so friendly and (again!) so delighted with my bad Arabic? We had a lovely conversation about his mother who is Berber and then he gave us his personal phone # to call in case of any problems. 

Originally my plans involved heading straight from Fes to my village, letting Heidi do something more touristy and fun. But when she hatched a plan to check out the remote sand dunes of Erg Chigaga, which I’d never been to and aren’t even that far from my village…dammit! Suddenly I was interested in sand dunes too!

Could I sacrifice a night in the dunes for a night in N’Kob? Compromise idea! I talked the current volunteer in my site and my host sister into joining us. Which meant a little more time with them and also, camels. Win-win!

 

But all this fun was prelude to the highlight: returning to N’Kob after all this time. It was emotional.

Seeing everyone was bittersweet. The current volunteer is awesome and fully appreciates the amazing host family we share. I couldn’t be happier that she is with them. But it was sad because I am no longer with them and I’ve missed so much in my time away. If only I could live in multiple places at once.

I warned Heidi we’d eat and eat and eat AND that she would experience Berber dress up time and sure enough…

But it’s not cultural appropriation if your host sister makes you do it!

 

Heidi gets wrapped in a malhafa, popular in Zagora and Sidi Ifni among other southern towns

Couscous!!!!

The one-shoulder lace piece I’m wearing is very specific to N’Kob, worn even as an accessory for everyday dress

On our final night, walking to my host family’s for dinner, I heard my name called and was beckoned into a sewing shop that didn’t used to be there. It was several women I sort of recognized plus Tuda, one of the women who went on an epic bike journey with me. We chatted about how red I got on that bike ride (exertion and sunburn) and how far we went and how no, I’m still not married, and how my mom died as did Tuda’s and now we are both orphans. I finally left the shop with many blessings and kisses and walked into the street where I again heard my name–there was one of my neighbor boys who was tiny when I left and is now a preteen. Suddenly I wished I had planned a much longer visit. Why didn’t I give myself days and days to catch up with everyone?

 

Looking out over town

street scenes

The view from our Kasbah Hotel

N’Kob translates as cave. This is the N’kob n’kob

But all too soon it was time to leave N’Kob and head over the Atlas Mountains to our final stop.

Trek Tichka, over the Atlas Mountains

Oh, Marrakech. I know it’s the #1 destination in Morocco. I know many people love it. I…feel mixed. Can it ever compare to the beauty of the Drâa Valley in the south? As if. But once I got over the fact that every taxi driver was totally going to overcharge us and the vendors would be relentless, I mostly relaxed. I drank my favorite tea (no, not mint–a spicy ginger and cardamom blend that I’ve never found outside of Jemaa el Fna) and bought some cool prints at La Maison de la Photographie. I didn’t feel like I needed to spend a lot more time there, but I wasn’t as desperate to leave as I have been on past visits.

 

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Verdict? When I left Morocco in 2015, I was so ready to go. This time around, I was so not. Especially not N’Kob. Future goals: longer visit, shorter time between visits.

Morocco and Moroccans, twachkum bzaf! (I miss you so much!)