A young child is standing in a dim and cramped train car. His grandfather is reciting a prayer in Hebrew, while the young boy, Sashka, is trying to hand him water. As…
Author: kondrashove
Towers, Empires, and Historical Tourism: Our Trip to Uzbekistan
If you’re an army looking to get through Central Asia, and don’t feel like crossing a mountain range or two, where do you go? Through Uzbekistan. It falls at the end of…
Tea Testimonies of Carleton Nomads
A few weeks ago, we were assigned to read Anuar Duisenbinov’s Testimonies about Tea. It’s a stunning collection of memories and stories about tea, which Duisenbinov sewed together into a quilt that…
Stories and Memories: Three Poems from Kazakhstan
When I’m alone at 5pm on a Wednesday or have a thought that I can’t get out of my head, I write a poem. Most of them never get finished, because the…
Review of “Testimonies about Tea”: More Than Just A Drink
Where do you remember drinking tea as kid? In the opening poem from Testimonies about Tea, Aunar Duisenbinov describes a backyard overflowing with life. A building stands in at the back of…
Review of the Folk Instrument Museum: Most Unexpected Museum So Far
The Ykhlas Museum of Folk Musical Instruments can be found in downtown Almaty, right next to Panfilov park. It’s a small museum, entirely contained within an old and beautiful pre-soviet wooden building…
Qazaq Trains: Two Drunk Men, Cramped Hallways, and a Poem
For our third weekend in the country, we went from Almaty to Astana by rail, the most popular way to get between the two cities. The two largest cities in Qazaqstan are…
Where is Modern Qazaq Art?
Who was the last Qazaq author you’ve heard of? What about poet? Or director? Or musician? Or even the last Qazaq you’ve heard of at all? Before I got here a…
The City Through Literature (Adrian and Ellis)
“Beloved Mordor” by Pavel Bannikov At first glance, it feels odd to compare the seemingly harmless Esentai riverbank to the realm of a dark lord, and even odder to portray this realm…
