Hakloot

First Summer in Kazakhstan

Saturday June 23 ’07 was Speech day at St Antony’s Leweston School and Sports day at Sherborne Preparatory School. I was on a busines trip in the Caucausu when on Thursday night June 21 I received a call from Louise to say that both Leanne and herself would be getting a prize on speech day. So I decided late night to change travel plans and to fly to the UK from Istanbul on Friday night after my meetings instead of returning to Almaty and to surprise the children. The beauty of internet is that this is all rather easy to organize as long as you have an internet connection and a credit card. So in a matter of hours the return flight from Istanbul to Almaty was re-scheduled from Friday night to Sunday night and an additional return ticket booked on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to London, a car reservation made and a hotel booked in Sherborne.

Louise was the first to go up and receive her prize from hands of the head girl. Louise has been awarded the “Old Antonians Prize” for best overall performance and results during the year. Unfortunately the quality of the pictures is poor as it was taken with Hans’ phone as Leanne had forgotten to put batteries in her camera …

Shortly afterwards it was Leanne’s turn to go up and collect her prize from the hands of the school governor. Leanne received her prize for the best results in Art this year. After the prize giving we went to Sherborne Preparatory School to see Lawrence and to go out for lunch and to attend the school play at Leweston. The next morning Hans was on his way back to Almaty.

I have recently been exploring the mountains in our vicinity and found himself on the top of Almatinsky peak which overlooks Almaty and our house. Altogehter over 3500m high. The views are fantastic both on the city of Almaty as on the mountain range behind towards Kyrgyzstan.

Early August 07 we went to visit the petroglyphs (rock carvings) at the archeological site of Tamgaly about 160km west of Almaty. The site is a “UNESCO World Heritage” site. The road from Almaty take syou through the beautiful empty space of South Kazakhstan with its straight unending roads and beautiful landscapes. On the last stretch of 60km we met 3 cars!

The site is very much worth the trip with its rock carvings dating back 4000 years. There are over 5000 rock petroglyphs formed using a picketing technique with stone or metal tools on unsheltered rock.

Some of the most impressive and exceptional engravings date from the earliest period, the Middle Bronze Age, and consist of large figures deeply cut in sharp way with such unique images as solar deities, i.e. human like beings with sun-heads. This one is the most characteristic images of Tamgaly of which a total of 30 have been found.

Last Updated: 05-08-2007



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