Medeu

It occurs to me that--while I have often described the situation in Almaty--I have failed to mention a favorite area just outside of the city. Medeu is about 20 minutes away from the center of the city (as long as you don’t encounter a probka-or traffic jam), and it can be hard to believe that you are so close to such a major metropolitan area. The area is actually a large park--although some people do live there--and is nestled right at the base of the Tien Shan mountains. I love taking the bus there midweek, and enjoying the fresh clean air. When possible, I also enjoy some hiking--but always being careful to stay away from the less populated areas. There is a ski resort (Chimbulak) further up the hill from Medeu, but the buses don’t run that far. However, there are cabs from Medeu--and I’m hoping to get to Chimbulak fairly soon. But I don’t want to go by myself, so will wait for my friends to accompany me.

When you first get off of the bus in Medeu, you encounter a massive Soviet-era building. It is actually an ice skating rink--and where Soviet athletes practiced, once upon a time. There are the requisite bas-relief sculptures of speed skaters above the entrance to the rink. The ice itself is rather different from skating rinks in the US, or those that I have encountered in Europe. After walking up a steep flight of stairs, you enter the rink itself--which is built right into the side of the mountain. There is no separation between the ice and the spectator area. It is just a large open area of ice with some snow along the edges. No zambonis, no guard rail, nothing. People fly by on their skates, while in random areas others practice their figure skating.

I went to Medeu on Wednesday--not to skate or hike, but just to breathe the clean mountain air for a while. When I entered the stadium, I could not help but laugh. I was walking up the steps to the rink--and was directly underneath those bas relief sculptures of speed skaters--when a new song began blaring through the stereo system. Yes, it was “Winds of Change”--that late 80s/early 90s anthem to the fall of the Berlin Wall and end of communism. I had to stop and just enjoy the moment.

Once I entered the stadium, I found a seat near the edge of the ice and just enjoyed watching the skaters and the music that was playing. How often do you get to hear Paula Abdul on the radio anymore? Particularly when it is her classic (?) song “Rush Rush” (Please don’t ask why I know the song. Some things just should better left unsaid). Halfway through the song, the radio announcer cut into the music to announce that the artist (?) was the famous choreographer for the Los Angeles Lakers cheerleaders. It was one of those delightfully surreal moments when all you can do is laugh. And make sure to write it down in your journal, so you don’t forget it later.

There was quite a mix of people skating that afternoon--families with small children, would-be hockey players, the obligatory drunk man staggering around on skates, and adolescents trying to impress members of the opposite sex by demonstrating their prowess on the ice. One in particular caught my attention--a young man doing everything he could to impress another. He would skate around the object of his affections, trying out dance moves and generally trying to be as suave as possible. To no avail. She was clearly not interested or impressed. To make the situation even funnier, the young man was a doppelganger for a neighbor from the same building as my sister and me when we were at UMASS. It took me a minute to realize why he looked so familiar--but it suddenly struck me that he was the image of Kevin Messina. Had Kevin been even slightly coordinated. (You can stop laughing now, Catherine!).

When I left the rink, I walked around surrounding area for a while. While doing so, I came across the bus for the Kazakh national speed skating team (complete with logos from the last Olympics in Turino). Unfortunately, there was no one on or around the bus--that would have been pretty cool. At least I was able to take some pictures--which I will hopefully be able to post sometime in the near future. Or at least in the next few months.