Snow fun in Astana's sub zero temperatures

Claire McCarthy finds Kazakhs in Astana make the most of the sub zero temperatures

By Claire McCarthy, on Saturday, January 21, 2012

The people of Astana make the most of their subzero temperatures. Here's on of their snow slides at night

Upon returning to Astana, my body went into shock. My summer in Australia had been short but with temperatures of +35°C I had grown to enjoy getting up and putting a t-shirt and skirt and slipping into my flip flops!

Alighting from the plane at 1am into the freezing Astana night, dressed pretty much the same way, I soon realised I was going to have to change my attire!

Each day would involve putting on the thermals my family had so kindly given me for Christmas, putting on my beaver fur hat, woollen mittens, fur boots and 50-year-old mink coat (kindly donated by my parents’ neighbour!)

However, the first morning back, I awoke to discover the beauty that lay behind the freezing temperatures. When the temperatures are so low, it seems that a frost and blue sky causes everything to sparkle! It was truly beautiful!

After a relaxing day getting over the long journey that I had been through, I went out in the evening in an attempt to find the location of my new gym (the address giving nothing away and unknown to all taxi drivers I spoke to). I started to walk down my street towards the river and the park, where I was sure the gym was located.

Opposite my block of flats is a large building, which appears to be some sort of educational establishment, the grounds were full of ice sculptures. Having been away for three weeks I did not see them being erected so I am not sure if they were carved in situ or brought here that way but they were rather impressive. Going around the corner, however, I was greeted by a huge crowd of people.

In the summer there are also large crowds of people going for their Sunday promenade along the river bank, but I had, obviously, wrongly, assumed that this would not be the case in the deep mid-winter. As I got closer I realised that there were all age groups and they were throwing themselves down the river bank!

The river bank had had slides built into them! The walkway was lined with the old women who had sold popcorn and ice cream in the summer, now wrapped from head to toe in fur and selling plastic sledges.

I stopped to watch the Kazakhs throwing themselves down the slippery vertical drops. All ages, from 1 to 90 were standing, sitting and lying. I looked out across what was the river, and realised this was the place to be when you had free time. There were cross country skiers, people on snowmobiles, sledging, ice skating and some people sitting under plastic bags. This last one was rather surreal and I realised by looking closer that they were actually fisherman! All they had was, what looked like, a large metal screwdriver, a stool and a plastic bag and they sat inside these bags waiting to catch a fish (though considering the river is man-made, it is not really clear which fish they will catch!)

I stood and watched the shivering fishermen for a while and then wandered through the park in the subzero temperatures, finally finding the gym and eventually making my way back home, I came across another pasttime of the young people of Astana.

It seems to have a good time as a young male Kazakh, you all pile into a Lada and drive down to the riverside. You then drive at high speeds along the frozen embankment until you come to a roundabout where you pull a handbrake turn. The noise and resulting ice spray are really impressive but rather scary when you are walking alongside.

The last form of extreme ice sport I noted while walking through the park, was snow-jogging. In temperatures of -35°C! I am a keen jogger, but watching these guys turning blue in temperatures colder than a freezer seems unnatural! They jog past you at a snail’s pace and seem to be deriving little pleasure from the exercise! I was just happy that I had found my gym and could wrap myself up in mink to get there.