Mr. Proper.

'Effect magnita', promises the bottle.

This guy, he's incredible. He does everything properly. You name it, he does it properly! He's so impressive that I'll forgive his earing. He adorns a bottle of *something* that came free with some washing powder and I'm a bit scared to find out what the bottle contains; but it sits proudly attached to the bag of washing powder and I see it every morning as I get into the shower. It inspires me for the day and helps me aspire to do more things properly.

Let's all do more things properly.

Climate: extreme continental

Blues

Congratulations to John Terry on his recent acquittal. Let's paint the town blue. Or maybe you don't like him too much? In which case you'd probably want him on the subs bench. As a promoter of peace, I bring you a tailor made solution to this dichotomy. From Kazakhstan, the self-appointed land of peace and harmony (more on that some time soon): a blue bench and bin combo, sitting comfortably, confidently and, may I say, handsomely, on Astana's right bank nestled in some trees. Good show.

Kazakhstan knows there's no substitute for a good bench.

Strike!

It's usually fairly dry here - low humidity and low rainful; but last week the humidity built up until the heavens lost their patience ...

I took these shots from my apartment building. The city experienced flash floods as the drains got choked and people got soaked.

Irrationality at its worst.

I'm indebted to Andy for capturing this shot of men watering the plants during terrential rain (above). Presumably they're expected to return to the depot with an empty tank and would get into trouble if they didn't. It reminds me of an anecdote that a colleague told me:

    In Kazakhstan it takes three men to plant a tree:
    one to dig the hole, one to put the tree in, and one to fill the hole.
    If the second guy misses work one day,
    the other two do their job anyway.

Karaganda and Temirtau

A steppe in the right direction.

Welcome ...

We went to Karanganda which, like any journey in Kazakhstan, involves at least a few hours on on the steppe, pictured above to refresh your memory of what nothing looks like. On our way to Karaganda we passed Temirtau, with its optimistic welcome sign (left). I say optimistic because the town looks like Mordor (below). It is home to a large steel production complex, a source of employment for its residents. The president is among its alumni. Presumbly this is where he forged his reputation as an iron man. Rofl.

... to Mordor.

Onwards to Karaganda then, much of which looks a bit like this ...

A classic soviet car in Karaganda

Actually I waited long and hard to get that shot (woe is me) because the vast majority of cars were Japanese or German (see also the modern bus hiding in the background). Karaganda is, like most of Kazakhstan, changing. Not at the rate of Astana, but there are new shiney complexes - condos, an ice-rink; shopping malls. It looks sort of like Essex, or the outskirts of a city in the midlands with PC world and Comet opposite some chain like Ben and Jerrys; but with big Soviet blocks overshading it all, and everything a lot more spaced out. Well, it doesn't look like Essex, but I did see some similarities. Did I? I think I'm losing my frame of reference.

The centre of town has a posh column with the Kazakh sun and eagle, as per the flag but in full 3D and of course, as pictured, the sky was happy to oblige with a bright blue to match the flag, as it so often does.

Thanks to Yelzhas for a great night out too. Nightclubs in Karaganda are not particularly distinct from anywhere else in the world, so I'll save you the pics.

KarLag

HQ

Where is this building? The climate is evident because the trees look a bit short of water, and the building is whiter than you'd expect to find in Europe; I think it looks too imperial and permenant to be in Africa but I've never been to Africa. But the real give away is, of course, the red star. This is the administration building of a vast network of Soviet labour camps covering an area supposedly the size of France and named 'Karlag' to reflect its location near the city of Karaganda.

There is a depressingly short article about Karlag on the English Wikipedia (a mighty 2 lines long!), though there is more on the Russian version. The administrative building, pictured here, has been converted into a museum and we visited there at the weekend.

The museum is really well done: carefully composed rooms with appropriate art, props and general atmosphere; and lots and lots of carefully referenced statistics (for example, the remarkable reduction in camel population in Kazakhstan from over a million to just 416. Frightening statistics lose their impact if you hear too many of them; but these statistics were so frightening that it took a while for them to lose their impact.

In Kazakhstan (among other places) millions of people were starved by man-made disasters, millions of people were detained as enemies of the state often with the most shockingly tenuous of reasons, and were kept in terrible, terrible conditions. The list of forms of terror continues which explains why the majority of the Kazakh population emigrated over the middle of the 20th century.

Just as it wouldn't be possible to visit 'France' in a day, so it isn't possible to visit the Karlag in a day, but a few hours at the museum gives a lot of insight.

The lack of humanity, the frightening statistics, the winter barrels for children's bodies - due to the ground being too hard and the bodies not burning well - and the stories of personal terror and indiscriminate shooting, are representative of the early and middle Soviet era, and perhaps of many other regimes in the world at various times. It's difficult to comprehend and, perhaps because of our desire for optimism, difficult to accept as being real.