Кот Олега, Almaty, Kazakhstan

 Кот Олега

The title of this Post is Oleg's Cat and it's dedicated and so named in honour of Oleg, his Cat and his family in beautiful and friendly Kazakhstan.

I got up about a month ago or so after waking from yet again another bout of illness which had impacted on my fitness and well being. 

I guess I'm generally blessed with reasonable health and fitness and I had a great year cycling around last year but after three bouts of illness in succession I was starting to feel slightly self pitying which I didn't like at all.

"To hell with this" I thought to myself, "I'm off on a trip".

Where to, where to, where to? I initially thought about Iran and as I filled in my details applying online for a visa after about fifteen minutes they "disappeared" into the ephemeral and melliferous ether never to be seen again and without so much as a "by your leave". Such are the vagaries of the Interwebs.

Deciding I wasn't going to bother spending more time re-inputting all that information again I subsequently decided my destination should be Visa free.

For no good reason other than I knew it was the original home of the cultivated Apple, it was a "Turkic" country, it lay in central Asia, it was both huge and a country of extreme contrasts, that they spoke Russian and Turkic languages none of which I spoke anyway, that it produced massive amounts of natural gas and that it bordered Russia, Mongolia and China among others, I decided Kazakhstan would be an interesting Country to visit.

Thinking that the Capital Astana (which had not too long ago been name changed to Nur-Sultan before reverting back once again to Astana) might be a bit too brash and flashy for me while knowing little about it I opted instead to visit its former Capital and largest city, Almaty. 

Shame to say I also knew absolutely nothing about Almaty but from experience I've often found that some of the best times are often had when you "walk in blindfolded" so to speak.

Now relishing the thoughts of this forthcoming trip I quickly emailed and texted six or seven Bike and Ski hire shops in succession hoping I could get my hands on a hired "Fat Bike" which would be perfect for snowy conditions in the hills or at least if it wasn't snowing I knew that a Fat Bike would cover all eventualities and terrain types. Failing that a Mountain Bike would suffice perfectly.

All to no avail.......

To my surprise I didn't get a single reply to my enquiries about renting a bike. This was beginning to look a little ominous.

If I was going to travel all the way to Almaty in the far South-east of Kazakhstan I wanted to also at the very least, cycle for a day or two. 

While I love sightseeing and enjoy visiting museums and doing just about anything "outdoorsey" I knew I would easily be kept well occupied in Almaty. But wandering around visiting sites of interest and staring mindlessly at any weird architectural structures (as I have a habit of doing) I came across wouldn't be quite satisfying unless I also included some cycling.

I rarely use Facetube but cue some rapid interaction online in an effort to find some resources or information viz a viz hiring a bicycle in Almaty.

One thing led to another and some pointers on Facetube led to Telegram which I duly downloaded and installed. I suppose you'd call it a Social media type platform and I had very little previous experience using it but it was straightforward enough.

Here on Telegram I discovered a few cycling sites and groups based in Kazakhstan and many wonderful and helpful people including not least of all Arman, Sherkhan, and the aforementioned Oleg.

It wasn't long before I had offers of company on rides, an offer to enquire in shops on my behalf and lastly a solution to my conundrum which had instigated my initial enquiries.

Oleg very generously offered me his Mountain Bike to use for the duration of my visit. Imagine that.... A complete stranger in Kazakhstan offering an unknown Irishman halfway across the world a loan of his bicycle !!!

In a world often awash with negativity and bad news I think it's important to remember that this very same world is indeed far greater blessed with decent, kind and caring people but unfortunately this information doesn't often sell Newspapers or get "Clicks".

During my short time spent in Kazakhstan I was the beneficiary of several random acts of kindness from Kazakhs towards a stranger which reinvigorated my faith in humanity.

Long after my departure from Ireland and after a rather hurried walk through Istanbul Airport to catch my connecting flight I was finally descending to Almaty on a Turkish Airlines flight.

The pilot informed us as we came in to land that the temperature was minus 23 Celsius..... "Hmmmmm" I thought, "that's a wee bit chilly" and indeed it was.

Later on the temperature rose to a much more reasonable minus 15 Celsius and in the days following it fell below this again. Unused to these temperatures on a regular basis I nonetheless intriguingly found that, in actual fact, anything at all under minus 15 was grand.

It's a bit like the old saying; there's no such thing as bad weather, merely bad clothing.

I met up with Oleg a day later and I kept his bicycle for three days. Unfortunately I didn't cycle as much as I would have liked but I did attempt to get to Big Almaty Lake in the Trans-lli-Alatau, part of the Tian Shan mountain range which stretches across central Asia and China.

I wanted to go from Big Lake towards the Kyrgyzstan border and while the lower Avalanche road closure barriers were open it was when I got to about 1800/2000 metres that there was a Border guard at the barriers who apologised for not letting me through and was curious as to where I came from. He seemed like a nice guy. The road was closed due to the risk of possible avalanches.

I took a few photographs during the ride but I didn't like leaving my hand ungloved for too long in the cold. 

The descent was "mighty craic" and I flew downhill along the snowy road with a few exhilarating semi-controlled skids along the way.

Cycling in these temperatures had required a level of clothing I had never worn before in my life while on the bicycle although it was a totally different kind of cold out here. The air felt quite dry compared to the damp air back home, a not unpleasant sensation.

THE CLOTHING. 

I wore a complete set of long-sleeve top and full-length legging bottoms thermal underwear with three further sets of different full-length cycling leggings over these. I also wore two types of long sleeve tops over the thermal top, a full soft shell cycling jacket and an Endura heavy duty cycling jacket over that again. A grand total of five top layers and four bottom layers.

My head was covered with a swimming cap over which was pulled a full face balaclava topped with my cycling helmet.

On my feet I wore heavy duty leather hiking boots which were well waxed  and served a dual purpose. These would serve me well keeping my feet both warm and dry and should the worst occur and I had to abandon the bicycle for some reason I would be able to hike cross country in the Snow and come back later to collect the bicycle.

My hands were firmly ensconced within two sets of gloves, the inner a mid-level glove and the outer a heavy duty.

Strangely enough while I was at first unsure as to whether I was correctly dressed it subsequently transpired that what I wore was perfect. I don't know whether I've just made up this phrase or whether I've read it somewhere else before....;

Thermal Equilibrium

To me Thermal Equilibrium represents a situation where you've achieved a perfect balance between being neither overly hot nor overly cold. We've all been on a bicycle slightly overdressed at some stage with literally buckets of sweat rolling down our backs.

Likewise each of us has probably at least once been underdressed and feeling slightly chilly no matter how hard or fast we cycled because we didn't wear enough clothing for the cooler conditions.

By the time I got back to the Hotel I had been out on the bike for over 6 hours. As I removed the many layers of clothing I was covered in from head to toe I couldn't believe how dry I was. I had cycled uphill at a steady pace and flown downhill back to the City and wandered about so perhaps staying steady-state helped reduce sweating. Nonetheless I was still amazed at how dry my inner layers and body were.

I did a small bit of cycling in the City but I didn't like the traffic. I'm a happy County Bumpkin now and quite unused to busy traffic despite my previous life decades ago as a City boy.

My all to brief visit to Kazakhstan has only left me "itching" to get back.

While there I visited the Central State museum, Almaty Museum, the Central Mosque, Panfilov Park and the Ascension Cathedral among other places of interest in Almaty.

It is without doubt an interesting and wonderful place to visit with the side by side juxtaposition of huge "Soviet" style statement buildings on display alongside the ever-rising shimmer of the glass and steel of its modern day monuments to wealth and prosperity.

The Central State Museum houses many artifacts and it documents a large aspect and wide variety of chronological periods throughout Kazakhstan's history alongside displaying numerous objects of historical significance.

Oddly enough I was particularly drawn to an enormous Anti-Tank Sniper rifle and various Kazakh musical instruments which seems a strange combination but there you go. There's no accounting for taste and mine can be especially eclectic at times.

I also got to experience an earthquake too which was a first for me. One morning as I lay awake in bed about to get up the bed rocked back and forth.... "Wow, that's an Earthquake", I thought to myself.

I looked at the ceiling to see if cracks appeared or if the shaking got worse. It didn't, so after a while I got up and went Ice skating at beautiful Medeu, apparently the largest High altitude Speed Skating rink in the world where over 120 world records have been set.

Oleg's Cat is spotted just like a Leopard. 

It struck me as very unusual so I asked him about it.

Oleg's Cat is a Bengal.

With thanks and gratitude to Kazakhstan and its friendly peoples, keep the wheels turning.