Kazakhstan: caught between two worlds and associations

Why Kazakhstan I hear you ask. Well it's a question that, unsurprisingly, I have been asked many, many times. To be honest I still don't have a real answer but it was an adventure that I'm glad I took, even though it ended it what were far from ideal circumstances.

I think that I was running away when I decided to take a job there. The only impression I had of Kazakhstan I am ashamed to say (and too scared to say to any Kazakhs) was from Borat and a fifteen minute segment from a BBC documentary from around 2005. It’s fair to say this didn’t prepare me for what was to come.

I remember telling people before I went that I was going and I think they were all very polite and just nodded along like it was a good idea whilst thinking ‘What on Earth is this guy thinking?’. Like many decisions in my life, I didn't really think it through and it didn't really feel real until I arrived there.

It was very early in the morning when I arrived. It was mid-august and very, very cold. I remember waiting outside the airport for the driver from the school to pick me up and feeling like I was in a Second World War film with all the Cyrillic alphabet and Ladas. Men wearing flatcaps and leather jackets trying angrily to usher me into the car and take what little money I had off me.

After what felt like hours, my driver arrived. As he approached I could see and smell that he had been awake most of the night like myself, but he had smoked a hell of a lot of Marijauna … unlike me unfortunately.

The drive that followed was tense to say the least (for me anyway). The driver was on the point of falling asleep most of the time, and, at the same time, trying to give what I think was a history of Almaty in broken and rambling English. I eventually arrived at my flat in one piece, but rather than being given any useful information … or any information at all for that matter, he threw the keys at me and shut the car door.

So there I was, sat in my new flat. Again something out of a cliché Second World War film. Alone and trying to decide what to do next. Should I sleep? Should I do a food run? ‘No, I need Wifi’. So what was the first thing I Googled, when I finally got onto the Wifi? Supermarkets near me? Best sites to see? Not at all. It was ‘Football team Almaty’. Naturally. Oh, and ‘Season ticket FC Kairat’.

I was delighted to discover that F.C Kairat were one of the most decorated teams in Kazakhstan's history and they play in the National Stadium. So, I’d decided what I would be doing with most of my weekends.

When I met people for the first time, I would often ask if they were interested in football, as you do at any party or social event when it can be quite awkward and there is little else to talk about. If they were, their team was almost invariably either Real Madrid or Barcelona. So often in fact that I just stopped asking. When I told them that I had chosen to support Kairat while I was here, their response was inevitably bemusement … and ‘Why? They are awful!’.

Now I know that the Kazakh league and national team are hardly setting the world alight and that the bright lights of The Premier League, La Liga and The Bundesliga are hard to resist, but it still amazes me that, in many countries, people would rather watch a game on TV from the other side of the world, than go to their local stadium and watch a live game, regardless of the quality.

Maybe it’s because I grew up as a Crewe fan and have become rather used to watching technically less-than-gifted players kicking lumps out of each other for ninety minutes [Comment: There were good years in the ‘90s], but it seems to me what initially draws people into football is the atmosphere of a live game and everything that goes with it.

So. When the time came for my first visit to Central Stadium, which is in a fairly run down part of the city and which you can easily miss if you don’t keep an eye out for it (it is sunken below ground level), my expectations were rock bottom. I was expecting me, a man and his dog in all honesty. What I saw was a passionate following in a 23,000 seater stadium that was damn near full.

I dropped lucky with my first game. It was ‘The Derby of Kazakhstan’, Granted, it’s not one that the world would have its eyes on, but it’s the one game that the whole of Kazakhstan would be watching. Astana, from the capital, funded by petro-dollars and conquering all before them since being taken over, were the visitors. They are better known in Europe now after recent appearances in the Champions League – notably against Celtic where, by all accounts, they gave a good account of themselves and made the Kazakhs proud of their football once again.

I was excited by the prospect of the game and that excitement grew when I saw a familiar name on the team-sheet (after I managed to work it out with my basic grasp of the Cyrillic alphabet) – it was Andrey Arshavin! A player I had really liked while he was at Arsenal, not only for his four goals at Anfield but for his obvious fallibility.

I, like many others I'm sure, find it far easier to love a player when you can see they are human. He struggled with weight and consistency. He seemed to prefer partying to training, but was still capable of moments of magic and could regularly get you off your seat.

I also love seeing where players end up after their glory years. That’s is why many people watch The MLS and Chinese Super League I think. It allows you to go back in time and pretend that you are watching these players in their pomp. You can reminisce while watching them and maybe feel a bit younger yourself.

Watching the game, I was truly surprised by the quality of the football. I was expecting something like League Two standard or, even worse, Polish Second Division (I’ll tell you about that another time), but actually I would say it was comparable to the Championship or League One. It was obvious that the best players were the foreign imports, but there were a few Kazakh players that I thought would most likely make their way to the Russian Leagues if they developed fully, as so many of them do.

FC Kairat dominated the game and never looked like losing. They got themselves 2-0 ahead. The first goal was a tap in from Arzo (a Spanish centre-back) after a Kairat corner was poorly cleared by the Astana defence, allowing a midfielder to take a nice spin and volley. The ‘keeper got down well but unfortunately parried straight into the path of Arzo. That goal brought the crowd, and the game, to life.

The second was really something very special. Islambek, received the ball on the edge of the box and, with his first touch stroked it into the top left corner with his left foot. The ‘keeper was left with no chance. This goal really got the crowd going, not only because it obviously made the game more comfortable, but also because a local boy was stealing the show.

Islambek is a player who impressed me more each time I saw him. He often was the spark in midfield for Kairat, able to pass the ball efficiently and keep play moving, as well as breaking up play the play of opposition. At 25 he still has potential and I think Kairat fans would be very happy if he stayed.

Kairat then gave away a penalty. An opportunity for Astana to level the game. The player stepped up, struck it toward the bottom left corner, but the ‘keeper made a fantastic dive and managed to parry it straight back at the striker. He chipped it over the ‘keeper, but fortunately there was a defender on hand to flick it off the line and the ‘keeper caught it. This was really the closest Astana ever came to scoring.

The final bit of drama was an incredibly clumsy penalty given away by Astana which allowed Kairat to put the game beyond doubt and really rub it in the faces of their rivals. Who steps up to take it? Their top goal-scorer and leading man Gerard Gohou. Another exotic import (this time from the Ivory Coast). Now, what limited conversation I had had with the locals about FC Kairat was about this man. I had great expectations of this guy, and Jesus was I disappointed. Not only because of his terrible, terrible penalty that the keeper simply had to fall over to stop, but also because I have never seen a more clumsy striker than him. He was always in the right position and always looked dangerous, but, if there was an awkward angle for him to strike the ball from, he would find it.

There were at least two or three occasions when he got his angle all wrong in a one-on-one and simply squared the ball across the penalty box. I have watched some frustrating strikers in my time, from the much heralded Juan Ugarte who turned out to be a busted flush, to Pavol Suhaj, a striker from Slovenia who, despite some promise in his one appearance for Crewe, just turned out to be an alcoholic. None, however, were as infuriating as Gohou. He had awareness, knowledge and pace, but could not finish a bag of chips.

One thing that struck me throughout the game was the mixture of chants, and not the variety of chants but the mix of languages. You often heard one chant in Kazakh, followed by a chant in Russian and another one in Uyghur. I remember at the time wondering how many stadiums can you go to and hear different languages from the same set of fans.

As the season went on I would return to the stadium a lot, against teams I couldn't pronounce and can't spell. When I began to get to the stadium earlier and earlier, I noticed that they had a pre-match ritual, which is by no way unique, but still very entertaining. They would have a man in traditional Kazakh dress come out and fly an eagle around the stadium whilst the crowd stood for the National Anthem.

I always find it slightly awkward standing for a national anthem, especially when you stick out in the crowd as definitely not from that country. Now of course it is much much better than not standing at all, but I still find it odd. It shouldn't have really surprised me with Kazakhstan being a dictatorship and all, still though it feels forced and inauthentic.

The other thing that struck me was that at every game there was an away support, for a country as huge as Kazakhstan I found this incredibly surprising. It was often a couple hundred people, but they always sounded like much more. Chances are they were people living in Almaty who were from these various cities, but if even one of them travelled all that way for a football game I have to tip my hat to them, that really is commitment.

As the season went on I found myself dreaming of seeing an open-top bus around Almaty with Arshavin holding the trophy aloft. Unfortunately it was not to be. Despite them being head and shoulders above their fierce rivals when playing them, they could not keep their form consistent enough to really push for the title, missing out narrowly in second position and a place in the Europa League qualifiers. They would also go on to lose the cup final to Astana, the only time they lost to them that season. Typical.

It's a shame as I think Kairat need that boost to get the crowds back up to where they used to be. I think as you do with most Post-Soviet country's leagues, it felt that the glory days were far far behind them. Stories I heard from locals were of sold out stadiums with rowsing atmospheres, a team of local players and victories over the “big Russian” teams that would visit. I always wished I could experience a glimpse of this era, it was something I had also noticed and been told about while I was in Poland (more on that in another post).

I find it fascinating that the collapse of the USSR, a good thing I'm sure most would agree, killed off any competition in many of the countries that gained independence. Now of course a country's independence is infinitely more important than the competitiveness of a league, even I don't take football that seriously, but it does mean that certain people in these countries look back at the Soviet Era with almost a nostalgic view. They regale the stories of CSKA and Spartak Moscow visting, and when Kairat would win it was as if the country had defeated Russia, this obviously fostered a much more fervent support.

I think this gave me a glimpse into the uniqueness of Kazakhstan. I met people who were fiercely proud to be Kazakh and others who were equally proud to be Russian. By looking at the history of the country it is easy to see where this has come from.

The Kazakhs are proud of their nomadic history of the fact that they survived the toughest of terrains and neighbouring countries to be an independent country that could probably thrive if it wasn't for one neighbour in particular. There is still a nomadic population in the country, although their numbers are dwindling. Nevertheless, the idea of settlements and cities appears to be a relatively new one.

I loved how the traditions were still so important to people, whether it be that family is all that matters, and everyone is family, or that the traditional food and drink still lives on, particularly at parties and on special occasions. One of the traditional drinks is Kumis. It’s a drink made from horse milk and, with all due respect, is one of the worst things I've ever tasted. It is traditionally served warm, which doesn’t do it any favours.

Kumis did come in very handy though when I had the boys visit for a week. We were bored waiting to go out to sample the Kazakh nightlife and decided to play a card game. The card game was called ‘Bum Slave’. If you aren't familiar with the rules I apologise, but the most important thing is, you are ranked depending on where you finish and once you lose once, it is incredibly hard not to lose again. So, we decided that whoever lost had to drink Kumis from the bottle (a great idea I'm sure you'll agree). My friend Dutton lost, drank, lost again, drank, lost again, drank etc., etc. By the end of the evening I think he had drunk the majority of the bottle. The look of disgust on his face, the bloatedness and the regret is a sight I won't forget and something that still makes me laugh to this day.

I am delighted to be able to say though that some of the local delicacies, the horse steaks and shashlik, were incredible.

Now onto the Russians that I met. I call them Russians even though they were born in Kazakhstan as they would often react unkindly to you calling them Kazakh. Being a mongrel myself I can sympathise with them – I was born in England to an Irish mother and a father who is English but is very, very proud of his Italian ancestry. These were both big influences on me and because of this I feel I belong to none of them. To the Irish family I am (rightly so) not Irish, to the Italian family who are still in Italy I am not Italian, and to my friends in England I'm not quite English. So I think I feel this alienation a little myself.

Anyway, in the Russians I met I sensed a feeling of anger because they weren't either born in Russia or living in Russia. My view on the reason for this would probably cause offence so where better to share it than on the internet? What could possibly go wrong? Well here it is, people from the USSR who were sent to Kazakhstan were sent there as a punishment by Stalin, among others. It is a huge, barren, unforgiving country where nothing grows and the steppe almost feels like another planet.

You didn’t really have to have done anything horribly wrong to be sent there to live out your days and I suspect that this is where the anger comes from. They all have ancestors who pissed off the Party Chairman and, even now, they still feel like exiles. If the above is totally wrong and hugely offensive, you can tweet me abuse @itsruairi to let me know how wrong I am but this is just the impression I got from speaking to people and doing some research into the history of The USSR and Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan has many different ethnic groups within it, not just Russian and Kazakh and I think this is what makes the country great and how it shows other countries that this is possible and, not only that, but it can work harmoniously. Kazakhstan doesn't have a large nationalist party or nationalist feeling around it and the people are some of the most welcoming I have ever met. I think this is a country where anyone can come and, given long enough, can call it home.

For me unfortunately it didn't quite work out that well I initially found it very hard to get past the acquaintance stage with people and was often left feeling quite lonely. This was down to many different things such as not spending particularly long in the country, no help from my employers to make me feel welcome or to integrate and maybe most importantly me going through a tough time in my personal life. I had just come out of a long term relationship (which I wasn't dealing well with) and my mother was, and still is, going through some health problems. The more I think about it, the more I feel that she didn't need me to sod off to the middle of nowhere.

Now why I didn't spend a particularly long time in the country, this is a long story and one that has only been slightly embellished.

I am not very good at life admin and being organised. Combine this with a company that hasn't exactly told you the truth about the VISA situation and it adds up to a very stressful and infuriating mix. Basically, I ended up breaking my VISA rules three times. I can hear you shouting ‘THREE TIMES!! Are you an idiot?!’. Well yes and no.

The first time I broke it I was flying home for Christmas and I was four hours over my VISA. My flight left at four in the morning and it had expired at midnight. I was taken into an office where a huge guard spent a long time typing very slowly and asking me arbitrary questions about myself. It didn't take me long to realise he was basically waiting for me to offer him money. So I did. Probably the equivalent of £20. He let me on the flight and told me this discrepancy would not be entered on the official records. I would later learn he was a liar and a scoundrel.

The second time I broke it I was called by a lady in my office to ask if I had left the country the previous day so as to not be in trouble, I told her that I had, in fact, been in the office, and without hesitation she gave me a court date and told me that I would most likely have to pay a fine. This struck me as suspicious as the VISA laws had recently been changed and the instructions I was given were less than clear … which is why I had remained in the country.

Anyway, I tried to argue, but to no avail. Off I went to court, well what I actually did was spend days waiting in government buildings and police stations for someone to be bothered to take my case and deal with it. Once the police officer finally got into gear he asked me a few questions – ‘Where are you from?’, ‘What are you doing here?’, ‘Are you working here?’. Most of these I answered honestly. I had been told by the school to not mention them or the fact that I worked for them. So what possible reason did I have to be in Kazakhstan? … God Knows. He then asked me ‘Is this the first time you have broken your VISA?’ to which I of course answered yes thinking I had bribed the previous guy so I'm sweet! But no, Officer Bullshitter had taken my money and reported me!! What's the point in bribing someone if they’re not going to hold up their end of the deal?

So now the Officer was really pissed off, I had lied to him and suddenly he didn't believe anything I was saying (not that I can blame him). So now, all of a sudden, my court case was urgent and we were in court the next day.

So, the day of my court date arrives and I ask my lawyer/translator what to wear – did I need to wear a suit? Did I need to bring anything in particular with me? Nope just chinos and a collar are fine. Errmmmm ok?! After further waiting we get into court and all of a sudden it feels very real, no longer am I in a cliché comedy film. I am in a crime drama and I'm hoping they go easy on me.

The judge starts his questioning, and they're not the sort of question that I had anticipated. ‘So you are from The Republic of Ireland. What's the difference between The North and The Republic?’, I laughed and said to my lawyer ‘He's joking right?! It's a fairly long story.’ My lawyer simply replied ‘Answer the question’, so I did; or at least attempted to and for the next twenty minutes or so I gave a fairly biased run-down (you can probably guess which way) of ‘the troubles’ and the Good Friday Agreement. The Judge nodded and followed with what I think is an even stranger question – ‘Ah, Conor McGregor is from Ireland, you look like him, tell me about him’. Now first I would like to address the fact that I simply have a ginger beard and a top-knot, I look nothing else like Conor McGregor, and given my lawyer's previous answer to my question I simply tried to answer him, I talked for around five/ten minutes then he stopped me.

Now until this point I thought it was going alarmingly well, just casually chatting and not a mention of my indiscretions, but this changed suddenly. He starts screaming at me in Kazakh and pointing to two people in the court room I had previously not noticed. One who was apparently on my side and one who apparently was not. After a long conversation/argument in both Russian and Kazakh and me trying to not look too awkward or terrified the judge stopped talking and it fell silent. My Lawyer simply looked at me and said ‘You need to pay £1,000 fine.’ Done, and we left. Onto the third occasion. This came from an inability to figure out whether day one of a VISA was the day you came back into the country or the day after. The idea was that I had to cross the border into Kyrgyzstan every thirty days and, having already done this trip a few times and seen the sights of Bishkek, my routine had become to take a four-hour bus ride to the border, cross the border, turn round, cross back over the border again into Kazakhstan and make the same four-hour journey back, usually in a gypsy taxi, because it was quicker and easier.

I arrived at the border, passport in hand, waiting to go through, when the guard looked up at me and said something in Kazakh to his colleague. Next thing I know I am being escorted into an office and four guards who can't speak English are pestering me for money. Now in a rare financially responsible decision I had left all my cash at home as I was trying to save for a trip to India I had been planning. This meant that I was unable to bribe my way out of the situation. After several calls to a woman in my office they were convinced to let me return to Almaty, rather than keep me in a cell at the border overnight.

So, feeling very relieved I returned to Almaty. I was told to await further instructions, that I was under house-arrest and that my trial would be some time in the next week. You will have noticee a trend in my decision making. I'm not very good at it!

I decided to ignore the house arrest order and go to a European Futsal Championsip Final instead. A decision I still think was a wise one. For Almaty and Kazakhstan this was a huge deal and it was a complete sell out. The atmosphere was amazing and the sense of fun around a Futsal tournament compared to football was something I really enjoyed.

I'm not saying that going to football isn't fun, but it always feels very serious and like people's weeks hinge on it – I definitely include myself in that bracket by the way. But the feeling that none of it really mattered too much was quite nice.

Anyway after several days of waiting in the same police stations and government offices as the last time and waiting for the same officers to pull their fingers out or finish their lunches we finally made progress … or so I thought.

‘We're ready to process you’ the officer said to my lawyer in Russian, when all of a sudden around fifty Tajikis were herded into the station. They had been found in the back of a truck and without being rude you could tell.

I stepped back as they all trudged in and what I saw disgusted me. With me the police officers had been fairly polite and civil, but these people, who were obviously in a much worse situation than me, were treated like cattle, They were each called into the room with the shout ‘Tajik!’ They would give their name and date of birth and then be put in a room that I think was only meant for around 10 people. This made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I had no right to be treated any differently to them. I was guilty of the same crime as them. I was in the country illegally.

This was the first time in my life that I realised what a big thing ‘white privilege’ actually is. At no point through any of this fairly serious ordeal had I felt in anyway unsafe, mistreated or at risk. In the back of my mind the whole time was ‘I was born in England, they'll let me off.’, and basically I was right.

After the police station, my lawyer told me that I had three possibilities – an even bigger fine than last time, deportation or thirty days in prison. Jesus!!! Now it all felt very, very real.

I went back to my flat and then to my friend's across the way and we decided that a joint or two would be a good idea. It was. Until some Kazakh guys we knew came over to join us, now these guys were legends and we had hung out a fair bit, which is what I think led them to decide to tell me horror stories of Kazakh prison as I slowly got more and more baked.

Some, well, all of the stories were terrifying; about the grandfather system or the ‘facilities’ or lack thereof. Let's just say that night I had an uncomfortable night’s sleep. Oh, and also my court date was the next morning at 9am. Yep there's that great decision making back again.

The next morning I went to court and this time without too much waiting around. In a quick conversation with my lawyer, we had got to know each other quite well by this point and he was a really nice and very patient guy. I asked him if I could just ask the judge for deportation – this whole process had been ridiculous and the school I was working for had made it pretty clear that they wanted shot of me. He replied if you say this it will be deemed disresepectful to Kazakhstan and the judge would be more likely to be heavy-handed in his punishment. Fuck!

At this point I was imagining myself spending thirty days stuck a cell and desperately trying to learn Kazakh or Russian from a prison library … and those were just the thoughts I wanted to entertain.

My lawyer nudges me, ‘It's us’. We walk in, I take my place at the stand and who walks in, but the same judge as the previous hearing. Oh for fuck’s sake! This time there are no pleasantries, no history lessons or trivia tests on my knowledge of random sporting figures. It's just straight into it.

Again a long time passes with me not understanding what is going on, answering questions: yes, no, yes, no, I'm sorry, yes I know what you said last time, I'm sorry. Oh and of course being forced to commit perjury by the school I was working for who told me ‘You do not mention that you are associated with us or that you know us.’. They paid for my flat and bills, I had very little ability to lie about an address or what the hell I was there.

Surprisingly quickly the hearing comes to an end and we leave. I have no idea what the verdict was or where I was going next. We were lead into a courtyard where there were several other people waiting, looking rather tired, and no apparent sign of an exit. I was starting to panic when my lawyer casually turned to me and simply said ‘deportation’, I've never been so relieved in my life! I had been packed for the past week and had been ready to leave for even longer. I had apparently fifteen days to leave the country but I didn't even take fifteen hours.

Now this story left me with the over-whelming feeling that Kazakhstan had been a complete disaster. A mistake. I didn't really want to talk to anyone about it. I had spent a long time away from my mother who was still going through a very tough time and I had lost my girlfriend, and frankly I blamed Kazakhstan for all of this rather than blaming myself.

As I am writing now I am realising that actually I had some amazing experiences, met some awesome people and went to places I never thought a boy from Crewe could get to.

More about these things now, I met some awesome people and, as I've mentioned before, they were some of the most welcoming I've ever met. There was one person who really got me through my time in Kazakhstan and that was a colleague of mine. At first I thought we had very little in common. He wasn't interested in football in the slightest, but his hobbies and interests made me do things that, left to my own devices, I wouldn't have done.

One of these things was his love for the outdoors, hiking and camping. We made countless trips up into the mountains and camped. My initial reaction to the suggestion was that I’d rather sit at home, watch Netflix and play Football Manager, but once we got there, it was always totally worth it.

We spent one night with a group of people who we both sort of knew. They were celebrating a birthday. It was a great night with lots of food, alcohol and weed. This was the first time I saw hospitable, welcoming and generous the people are.

My favourite trip to the mountains was with James and two other colleagues (above Andy, James and Zhanziya they really got me through the year or so). We’d arranged to stay overnight in an observatory at the top of the mountain. It was the middle of winter and temperatures were around -20 C at the top.

We got a taxi to the foot of the mountain and a man who worked in the observatory picked us up from there. The drive was long and we saw how treacherous it could be in the winter. The snow was piling up around us.

We were in an old Land Rover that was more than capable of getting us up there, but what amazed me was seeing people attempting to drive up in city cars like the Toyota Yaris. Needless to say we left them in our trail. When we finally reached the entrance of the Observatory we were greeted by a soldier who had fallen asleep with an AK47 and a bottle of vodka. Not quite what I expected but I can sympathise with his need for the vodka.

Once we arrived at the observatory it felt like a level from James Bond Goldeneye on the N64. Buildings that you see in War Films and so much snow you were unable to tell the difference between the ground and the sky.

We cooked a meal together and drank Kazakh brandy and had a great night talking and playing drinking games. Once enough brandy had been consumed we decided to take a midnight walk around the observatory ... not a good idea. It was as if we had walked out into the abyss. Pitch black to the point you could barely see an inch in front of you and snow up to your knees. After ten minutes we decided to return to the warmth of our rooms and our beds.

In the morning we set out to walk to the nearest peak. This proved difficult as it was a complete white-out. Nevertheless, we decided to press on. The sights were incredible once we got high enough and the snow cleared a little.

I also manged to sneak a few pictures of the observatory, despite soldiers trying to tell us not to. What we hadn't realised was that it was a still active military base. I felt incredibly sorry for the people who have to work there long term.

This is an experience that sticks with me. It was one of those moments when I thought ‘how did a boy from Crewe end up here?’.

Before I end this rambling post, I want to return to the football briefly again for an analogy,

Kazakhstan are in UEFA and compete in their competitions despite being in Asia. I feel that this serves as a good description for the country. It is saddled between Europe and Asia and that is the impression you get from spending time there. It feels like Russia with all the signs being in Cyrillic, the architecture and the love of vodka. But it also feels like Asia with the people, the culture, the food and the attitude to life.

I would recommend to anyone that they visit this amazing country. At the risk of stating the flaming obvious, it’s not Борат. If you do find yourself thinking it's like Борат, definitely don't say that to the locals.

My last night in Almaty, thank you!