A Monument WWII USSR
Brendan downs a doner
Central Mosque entrance
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| Nowruz decor |
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Doner assembly line- made FRESH!!!
Nowruz light festival
Turkic Ice Cream "delivery"
CULTURE DAY
We started our day today playing Ms. Bocquin's board game Nomad's On the Steppe in order to bond as a team. We then went to local doner restaurants. A doner is a wrap that is filled with a type of meat, fries, sauce, and vegetables. We took the metro to a memorial park dedicated to Kazakh war heroes that fought and died at Moscow, for the Soviets, in WWII.
In Panfilov Park, we explored a museum of traditional Kazakh musical instruments and other international instruments as well. After, we visited an extravagant Zenkov Orthodox Cathedral that was decorated with bright colors, stained glass, glimmering golden onion domes, and gold plated ornaments. The interior was breathtakingly elegant and every inch was so beautifully detailed that we were all astonished. Next we walked to a large mosque with golden domes. Interestingly, only men were allowed in the main room whereas women, including our Poly females, had a smaller side room and were not even permitted to look at the main room at all. The males had to take off our shoes as we entered the mosque and walked along the carpet towards the open area with a large crystal chandelier and we had the opportunity to observe a prayer. There were hundreds of men of various ethnicities praying before the word Allah in Arabic on an ornate wall. The mosque was much more simplistic than the cathedral yet still exuded a similar beauty.
Later in the day, we met up with some current university students in Almaty, who served as our guides through the Green Bazaar. The bazaar claims to be on the same road as the ancient Silk Road. Inside the bazaar was a large marketplace with everything one could imagine. In the food section, there was a range of fruits, spices, and meat that were butchered in front of us. We had the opportunity to buy some souvenirs and clothes at the bazaar. In particular we were trying to purchase sunglasses, but the prices of the obviously fake Prada sunglasses were outrageously high. Initially we left the stubborn vendor; however, we returned with a newfound conviction to bargain for a lower price and we "succeeded" in obtaining a significantly reduction in the cost of the item; we were all content (though the quality of the item is quite dubious).
Because the university students were Muslim and currently fasting during Ramadan, we waited until sundown to head to dinner. While waiting, we heard live music, observed a snake on a woman, and various art pieces on a designated walking street. We even saw a performer using one of the traditional instruments we saw in the museum earlier in the day. We ate dinner at a Georgian restaurant and got to know the university students better. I (Justin) had the opportunity to have one on one conversation during dinner because we sat right across from each other at dinner. We talked mainly about the value of opportunity. I asked him about his current studies and what he was hoping his future was like. Our guest from Kabul, Afghanistan spoke about hoping to be able to come to the Untied States and be a trader; however he said it was more realistic that he would end up going to Canada because it is so difficult to find a job and be sustainable in the US. He also mentioned how difficult it was for him to travel back home to Afghanistan where most of his family was because of the cost, and the simple logistics of traveling through certain countries. I (Pierre) talked with a friend of our Aghani guests. He talked about the rapid development in Kazakhstan following their separation from the Soviet Union.
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