This is a confession. It’s a fifteen-hundred-word monument to a lapse, a moment of weakness that very little was done to counteract. It’s a journey which begins soon after I arrived in Kazakhstan’s largest city and former capital, Almaty.
My arrival into this cosmopolitan hub had highlighted to me the true grit and resilience required to travel in the Central Asian region. Vast distances, poor infrastructure and little in the way of creature comforts all had slowly eaten away at my iron-clad resolve to cling to local tradition. As I had travelled through Uzbekistan’s Silk Road cities, I had eaten local food, taken local transport and lived out of cheap hostels and hotels.
“As much as I … may claim to stay local—whatever that means—it’s just occasionally untrue”
Up until that point, I had been absolutely fine – possibly even in the swing of things. Then came the journey between Tashkent and Almaty. 24 hours, a border crossing and far too much steppe for a Brit sat in a cramped and decrepit bus seat.
Suddenly the rhythm had been upset and a mental excuse to escape from Central Asian custom formed. I found myself wandering the streets of Almaty with an American friend I had first met in Samarkand.
“Have you ever tried Georgian food?” He asked as we walked past a promising-looking restaurant, promising all sorts of distinctly un-Central Asian wares. At the time, I hadn’t, though I did have a vague awareness of the Instagram-friendly cheesy bread, without any idea of its name. Even so (and having frankly had enough of the plov, lagman and manty for a night), I wasn’t in the mood for cultural compliance. We went in.
Fortunately, my American friend had actually been to Georgia and knew to order an Adjarian khachapuri, the richest and most decadent type of “cheesy bread” there was. Suddenly I was far from my frustrations with the region. It felt like I had been thrown across the steppe and beyond the Caspian Sea. I had escaped.
Yes, as much as I (and others, wherever they travel) may claim to stay local—whatever that means—it’s just occasionally untrue. We are creatures of habit and, when the going gets tough or when you’ve just been somewhere different for a bloody long time, we will snap back to those habits and the comfort they bring.
The Georgian food, despite its apparent unfamiliarity, brought me closer to home.
It was the stews and liberal use of cheese that differentiated it from anything I had eaten over the previous weeks. In that way, it felt European; more akin to something you’d find in Budapest or even a British countryside pub than the depths of Uzbekistan or any of its neighbours.
As much as you would have also assumed it would be a risk to try Georgian cuisine for the first time when visiting Kazakhstan, it was also surprisingly delicious and, according to my companion, authentic to its Georgian roots.
On this front, I was lucky. Almaty was by far the largest, busiest and most Westernised of all of the places I had visited in the region. The roads were shared by the standard Ladas and white Chevrolets, sitting alongside BMWs and Mercedes off-roaders which would have been entirely out of place anywhere else.
“In so many other circumstances, this would have been something of a cultural cardinal sin”
There were high-rise buildings and excellent, timetabled transport links with route maps and designated stops. This may seem normal to the Western psyche but, after a few weeks of very little of all of the above, this was the place to ever so slightly let loose.
As I lapped down the last of my Georgian stew, my mind began to travel further along the route of “letting loose”.
“I wonder if there’s a pub somewhere in this city?” I thought out loud as the last slice of khachapuri disappeared from its plate, “Should I have a look?”
In so many other circumstances, this would have been something of a cultural cardinal sin. I was in Almaty, not Dublin and, as much as I was unfamiliar with local drinking habits, going to a pub was almost certainly not a typical Kazakh pastime. Still, the bus ride here was very tough and so I figured that I deserved the break from my usual puritanical approach.
As it happened, there was also a pub two minutes down the road.
The establishment in question was simply called Guinness Pub. Walking down the steps into it from street level, I could feel both a sense of shame and yet excitement. My American friend, who had gamely followed me, was by now merely tolerating the whole idea, doubtless wondering why he had travelled halfway across the world to get something which he could have got just as easily in his native Austin.
Stepping over the threshold, the pub opened up in front of me, its many arches spanning the gaps between thickset columns supporting the structures above, giving it a cavernous feel. Making my way over to the bar, it felt both familiar and yet somewhat exaggerated in its impression of a British pub.
The bar was barely visible under the sheer number of elaborate taps advertising every sort of beer I was familiar with back home, from the predictable and apt Guinness to the more surprising London Pride or Carling. It was as if someone had created a parody of a pub, starting their exercise of imitation without truly knowing when to stop and pat itself on the back.
Still, it was undeniably a slice of home in Kazakhstan. Browsing the ridiculously extensive menu, full of beers from across the UK and Ireland, I simply ordered a Guinness which I felt was appropriate given the pub’s name.
As we sat at the bar and slowly settled into our drinks, I heard the thump of a bass drum and the clunk of a guitar being plugged into an amp. I braced for live music with all of the Central Asian pop songs which I had been forced to listen to endlessly in taxis and marshrutkas flashing through my mind’s eye. My act of escapism was about to be thwarted.
A familiar introduction played. Two thumps of the bass drum. Then, to my amazement, “Down a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.” This was no Central Asian Europop ballad. To boot, it was even a surprisingly good rendition of the Eagles’ most famous song. I twisted round in my bar stool and watched, surprised and relieved in equal measure.
Yes, this was hardly the most Kazakh experience: drinking Irish beer in a British-inspired pub listening to American songs having eaten a Georgian meal. In the moment it just didn’t matter though. I needed to return to my comfort zone for a short while and truly relax in a region where, due to differences in just about everything you could imagine, relaxation often got knocked down the list of things to do.
Reflecting over my delicious pint of Irish stout, my mind began to wonder, though. Was this actually as un-cultural a thing to do as I first imagined or was I perhaps just holding too dear an image in my head of what I thought this region should be, ignoring the obvious effects of globalisation and what it often actually was.
It was fair to say that I never refused to ride in one of the many white Chevrolet taxis, just because they were American in origin. As much as they were doubtless a recent addition to this part of the world, they were by no means un-Kazakh.
The same was true of the Georgian food and then the visit to the pub. Though neither were branded as Kazakh experiences, it didn’t mean for a second that they were there purely as tourist gimmicks and an abomination to local culture. They were quite the opposite – a diversification of the local culture, enhancing it and opening it up to new boundaries and traditions.
It showed too; the Georgian restaurant was full of locals all enjoying one of the best cuisines in the world. Granted, it wasn’t a Kazakh restaurant but it was still a local experience and part of Almaty’s very fabric and culture. The same was true of the pub.
Of course, this change of opinion didn’t result in me travelling exclusively to pubs throughout the region as I continued my journey. There were some things which couldn’t be replicated in other, faraway countries such as Almaty’s stunning, multicolour cathedral or Kyrgyzstan’s monumental mountain ranges. These were still things I had to experience.
What it did change in me though was that feeling of puritanical devotion to the singular, traditional culture of the country I found myself in at any given point. So yes, I confess. I did break after a tough journey across the steppe and decided to shamelessly crawl to the nearest patch of comfort I could find.
The difference was that, after I had done it, I didn’t actually feel guilty about momentarily turning my back on whatever I thought the locals would do. The fact of the matter was that, in large part, they were actually doing exactly the same thing.
Into The Elsewhere 