Visiting the visa police

Every year I have to reapply for a visa. Dave has permanent residency  now and so I get a "spouse visa". Because we live in the Oblast (region or county) we have to renew our visas at the Oblast Ovir (Ovir are the visa issuing officals) who have their office in the centre of Almaty city. Anyone who is trying to apply for permanent residency or visas must come to the building and see the boss of Ovir at 9am.

In order to get in at 9am there are certain nuances that we have been working on. Kazakhs from Mongolia, China  and Russians, Australians all come to the building but we can't actually get in till 9am. There is an entrance area, over the side stairs covered  those chinese plastic windows. Up to 20 people squeeze onto the front top stair area. That's not so bad in summer, a little up close and personal, sweaty with cigarette smells, body odour and some garlic thrown in for extra flavour. But winter is another story - cold and not heated, although the other warm bodies help a bit. The queueing system is a piece of A4 paper and whoever arrives in the anteroom first writes their name on the top of the list with a number. From 7 am till 9 am people arrive and add their names to the list. 

At 9 am one of the police pokes his head out of the warm (0r cool) building depending on the seaason. He asks who is first and sometimes if he is in the know, he asks for the list. He takes the list and dissappears for a minute inside then comes back and starts calling out names from the list. You walk in to the bottom of the stair well and take a little piece of paper from another policeman who writes your name and time on the paper and in his log book. 

You then go up to the 4th floor and at the top of the stair well you enter a corridor through a metal door. A policeman roams the corridor directing first timers to the write door and speaking into his walkie-talkie. You sit in some chairs (soft seats now but wooden a year or so ago) outside the bosses door and wait for him to arrive. You wait till the boss, a suave looking, clean cut tall Kazakh man arrives. If the police downstairs are still sensitive to Kazakh mores regarding age, they may ignore the order on the list and allow any old people who are waiting to jump the queue. 

When the old man or woman come out, you enter the room. It is set up in the usual soviet style boss office. His/her desk (because soviet bosses can be women too) sits parallel to back wall, usually with window behind them. Perpendicular to this desk is another desk. Depending on how big of a boss you are, your desk varies in size and the length of second desk also depends on how many people need to come and see you at one time. 

This room and these desks are not big but this man holds the power to decide our future - can we live in our house, can the kids and me actually live in Kazakhstan. 

He sits at his chair and rises to shakes Dave's hand  but I just bow a little bit. Men don't shake hands with women here. We both sit on either side of the second desk and Dave tells him that we need to renew my visa. He takes the passport and checks us over and tells us when we need to come back. We walk out past the remaining 10 -15 people  and head home.

So that sounds straight forward doesn't it. As long as you don't mind waiting for 2 hrs in a stairway. Surely there must a better way?

The list ... Well it turns out that if you turn up at 7am and put your name on the list, you can actually pass the list and the pen to the next people who turnup. They write their names on the list and then  you tell them you will be back in an hour. How do we know that we can do that? We saw someone else do it. 5 minutes drive away is the American bar and grill which has breakfast! So off we go to breakfast and have bacon and eggs and pancakes and bottomless cups of coffee. We arrive back to the foyer refreshed but slightly guilty.

Everyone else is hungry, cold and has been waiting for 2 hrs, standing in the entrance way. 

So every few months we do this ... first for me and then for the girls. We the routine down now. But today there is yet another variation. We arrive at 7am but there is no one else there. It is really cold this morning. Dave takes out the paper and the pen and writes something then comes back out to the car and gets ready to drive away.

"Aren't you going to wait for someone else to arrive so you can hand them the list?'

"No". He starts the engine and we start to drive away to breakfast.

"Are you sure that the list will be there when you get back?"

" No, but its worth a shot"

We have breakfast and come back. The entrance is full, about 12 people. The list is lying there on the window sill. Our names are securely on the top. We chat in English and people in the room stop and listen. 9 am and the policeman pops his head out. Takes the list and calls our name. We hear the people talking to eachother as we go inside. They are wondering how we could be first on the list when they didn't see us till 9am. But they aren't really angry, more bemused, a little irritated. 

This is Kazakhstan. Queues have a culture. Whatever works, works. And it always changes. Its like someone keeps changing how it works  just so no one really ever really thinks they know how it works. As long as you know that about Kazakhstan, and accept it, its ok.

Left turns, roundabouts, potholes, weaving and other deterents to taking the road in Almaty.

It took us 8 years to get around to buying a car here. The lure of the mountains and a way to get home late at night rather than walking for ages to find a taxi, gradually overcame our commitment to "doing it like the locals" especially when more and more locals were driving. Kind of like my commitment not to wear singlet tops or shorts until I saw the Kazakh grandma in a skin tight version of the former, right outside our flat. That was the beginning of the demise into the life of luxury we now live in. First the singlet top and shorts, then the car, then out of the flat into the house on the ground and then coffee at Gloria Jeans. All a far cry from dried goats cheese, roasted millet in your tea, week old uygur bread and sitting on the floor in yurts. O how the mighty have fallen. 

Anyway back to the car. My biggest fear was driving on the right hand side of the road. That would be scary enough in the US or in Europe, but in Almaty where the lane markings seem to be more "guidelines" and where when you get to a parked car you kind of weave out from behind it, flowing gracely and hopefully without incident into the next lane of traffic rather than stopping and indicating, waiting for a break or someone to left you in like we would do in Australia. The other big road block was turning left. There are very few left turn arrows and the art is to get around the intersection when the yellow warning light starts flashing and be in the intersection before it changes to red. The problem is that the on coming traffic tries to get through till the last microsecond of their green light changing to yellow and the guys on the left are trying to turn across your bows before their light has actually turned green. Pretty narrow window of opportunity!

So lots of crashes at intersections is the rule , not the exception. I would watch Dave turning and try and work out for each intersection how many cars could on average get around. Of course you can always double up as you make your left turn and while you are sitting in the middle of the intersection waiting for the flashing yellow light, the guys behind you might decide you arn't far enough out in the intersection to help them get around on your their turn so they might double or triple up on your inside or outside or even better, come right around in front of you so that they go through before you.  In that situation we hope the cops are waiting around the corner to nab them. The cops conveniently waiting is also handy when you have your intersection fender bender.

By the time I did start driving here about 9 years ago, we had already long surpassed the early glory days when there were only 3 Almaty road rules: Don't hit anyone, don't hit anything and don't fall in any holes. To that was added : how do you tell a drunk is driving in Almaty? He drives in straight lines! ( the rest of us are driving around all the massive pot holes that come every spring due to snow freezing and breaking up the bitumen).

Our first car was  front wheel drive Audi that used to start hesitating when it idiled. So there I was mid intersection with the engine threatening to stall - put it in park and rev the accelerator so it won't die and then quickly back into drive when the yellow starts flashing and I am waiting for the guys in front of me to turn so I can slip past before the policeman nabs me or I stall in the middle again. Overall , not a confidence booster. I would drive blocks out of my way to avoid certain left turns but you can't really drive around a city all day without making the occasional left turn. I would also have to avoid the roundabout on Saina and Djandosova street. 

Round abouts are a whole new challenge of their own in Almaty. In Australia anyone IN the roundabout has right of way over anyone outside the round about so you give way as you come in. Not so here. For example there is a concept of "the main road" . If the main road runs through a round about then all the traffic on the main road has right of way on through the roundabout. The other subtle nuance is that the main road may not go straight ahead - it might curve to the left and up the hill. Just to keep us on our toes the road planners will suddenly change the right of way rule for a particular intersection to see which works best. Police (GAI) are usually conventiently  placed just past the round about so they can pick of any one who happens to be unaware of the change.

In 2001 we finally bought a reliable Mitsubishi space wagon and I found I could get through intersections without incident and began to venture further and further from home. First on Sundays , then late at night and eventually all day any where. 

Things do get worse before they get better and the better has come. After being home in Australia for a year I returned to find that our fellow drivers are now thanking eachother for allowing them to cut in  by flashing their accident lights. Women drivers didn't exist 15 yrs ago and now they fill the streets. They let eachother cut in and occasionally don't queue across the intersections. I guess everyone is sick of fender benders and in this time of "cris" who has money to fix or buy new cars. 

So take the plunge, be ready to "weave", never lose concentration for a second, be ready for the guy on your left to run across infront of you , slam on the brakes to pick up a taxi fare and be ready to have the horn blown at you constantly for all sorts of reasons. Don't lose your cool and always keep a car length ahead (although the other drivers might jump in infront of you). 

Be ready to skate up to the traffic lights on the black ice in winter. So many things to do, so little time.

First blog

Not a very original name but have to start somewhere. I was watching my daughter play basketball at a local school tonight and one of the mums asked me about what i would do when i went back to Australia. We have only just started making this public and so I started the conversation that i dreaded having. I wonder how many times i will have this conversation before we leave. 

I am still in denial so I am basically not ready to have that conversation because it makes me have to think about going and I don't want to think or talk about it. So I will be pushing a button in my brain and putting out the the automatic answer. I will have a variety ready for different occasions so that i don't have to think too deeply at the time. 

I have started to have crying episodes out of the blue. I cried at the ADEM store before christmas when i realised it was the last time I would shop there for Christmas. I cry when I see Gemma's lost dog signs because if she is found after we are gone, no one can bring her back to us.

The victorian bushfires are awful. People lost homes, lives and communities. Some of them can choose to rebuild and start again but they will never get that community back again, because some of them died, some of them won't come back even if they survived. Our Kazakhstan community is like a slow motion bush fire. I have seen the "transition" coming, I will pack up and take what I can , I will have to start again somewhere new and i will never have this community again.  I didn't get physically burnt and my loved ones weren't killed. I have had warning. So I am better off than the fire survivors but I still feel traumatised.

I know about transitions. I still hate them.