Kyla and I Take a Trip

As I'm typing this blog, I realize I forgot to take a picture of Kyla!

Kyla, her husband Josh and I decided to have an adventure.  We would go to the train station and buy a ticket to somewhere.  I wanted to do a little scouting for the hiking group to find a place we could snowshoe when the time came.  There is a small splat on the map called Maximovka.

Josh got sick and couldn't come, but Kyla and I took the train to Zhinak which cost about $1 for a one way ticket.  Zhinak has a small house for the train station, no platform and nothing but silos anywhere near it.  The very short, very overweight, very friendly babushka of a station master asked us many questions, none of which I understood except Gde?  Where?  I told her and she said, "Oh, this man is going to Maximovka.  He'll take you."  What luck, since I had planned on taking a taxi from the train station to Maximovka.  I didn't know there would be no taxis.  He told us he lives in Maximovka.  He drove us in his old car, which he had to drive up an incline and let it roll back down in order to get in reverse.  He drove through plowed fields on hard dirt roads at a speed of about 30km/hour.  Doesn't sound like much unless you're in the backseat.  Generously he accepted no payment for the ride. 

We walked down main street.

I was hoping to find the river.  It would make a good snowshoeing place outside of Astana, without having to drive for hours to get there.  We spotted geese, lots of geese.

 It was a lovely spot, with the air crisp and the sky so blue!  We walked along a bit, but there was no way to cross the river.  We had spotted a bridge earlier, so we turned around to look for a way to get to it.  A man herding goats shouted at us.  I suppose it was something like "Get off my land!"

We wandered into the village.  There was a cafe, but it was closed.  Then we went to a "magazine," which is a convenience store, causing something of an uproar.  The babushkas asked us if we were tourists.  We started to wander back down the main road and realized we'd been there before, so we decided to see if we could get a bus or taxi back to Astana.  Returning the train station seemed very difficult.  As we were walking toward the highway a young man stopped and offered us a ride.  So convenient!  He took us right to our front door.

And so ended our short adventure!

Welcome!  (With the hammer and sickle)

 

Not Your Mother's Farmers Market

What if you were a potato farmer or onion farmer and wanted to sell your goods to the public?  What if you owned a cattle farm and wanted to sell your beef?  You'd go to the Astana Farmers Market, where the public would buy your goods in 50 pound increments.  As for the beef, it was freshly butchered.  No need to worry about the flies, they don't weigh them.  And not a candle, earring, or homemade soap to be seen.

They also sold apples, pears, honey and cucumbers.  That was about it.  I didn't buy anything since I didn't want 50 pounds of anything.  But lots of people did.  It was pretty crowded.