Yay! Istanbul (:

Out of nowhere, a border guard at the Moscow exit decided to grill me: really wanted to know the purpose of my trip, asked me to show my return ticket. First time that's happened on the way out. Guess the combination of my name and destination seemed suspicious to them. Like I suddenly decided to move to Syria.

But on entry, they just stamped my passport in half a minute and let me through.

By the way, the Turks closed their old Atatürk Airport for civilian flights in April—the one you could reach the city from by metro. Now there's a huge new Istanbul Airport instead (one of the largest in the world by area), but it's a whole hour bus ride from there.

TIL: India has 0 rupee banknotes in circulation. They mimic the design and size of 50 rupee notes, except they're worth 0.

The banknotes are issued by a private organization as a response to the extremely high level of corruption in the country. When people are extorted, they hand over these banknotes as a sign that they have absolutely no intention of paying. Apparently, it actually works. Government officials stop trying to squeeze illegal money out of them.

Five other countries have followed the Indian example: Yemen, Ghana, Benin, Mexico, and Nepal. Looks like we should probably join in too (:

So at work, I suddenly got asked to help interview a ton of Indians, Mexicans, and various Bulgarians for hardcore devops guru positions. Since mid-April, we've done over 50 interviews (that's a lot).
A couple of interesting observations:

- On average, the ratio of top-tier specialists to the number of interviews doesn't depend on the country. It's pretty much the same everywhere: 1 solid person per 7-10 interviews. Even among Indians.
- Indians have noticeably more female candidates. Well, to be precise: we didn't get a single one from Bulgarians or Mexicans. But from Indians, 4 out of 20!
- Surprisingly, a lot of Mexicans really love to chat after the interview about random stuff like "oh, where are you from, what's your project, what time is it for you". If you don't stop them in time, it can go on for a while. Nobody else does this.
- The most technically strong candidate was from Bulgaria. Arguably, the strongest one I can remember from the past couple of years of interviews.
- One candidate suddenly launched into a speech at the end of the interview about how amazing he is (he's really not), how much he loves this kind of work (he almost teared up) and how he absolutely needs to be hired. I have no idea what he was expecting, but you just shouldn't do that.

Finally (to fully immerse yourself in Kazakhstan), here are a couple of recommendations.

To read (about the old days):
- The "Nomads" trilogy by Ilyas Esenberlin

To watch (about our time):
- The Old Man (2012) — I was impressed by the story itself, the quality of the cinematography, and the fact that it was made by Kazakhs.
- The Racketeer (2007) — but whatever you do, don't watch the second part, just trust me on this.
- The Needle (1988)

PS. Meduza recently wrote about Personal Growth Training. It's written interestingly, but I haven't had a chance to watch it myself yet.

Didn't expect to hit a massive traffic jam at 5 AM on the way into the airport. Lost about 20 minutes stuck in a sea of cars. But managed to make it in time, yay (:️

I've already written about fancy grandmas. Here's what it looks like (:​

By 2025, Kazakhs are planning to completely switch from Cyrillic to Latin script. Which gives us some entertaining quirks. Although in the Cyrillic version it's an innocent "Sәbіz" (carrot 🥕) :)

Though for now the transition isn't very noticeable: practically all signs and announcements are still in Cyrillic. Often even road signs in Latin script don't have duplicates. Let's see what they end up with. The Azerbaijanis seem to have pulled it off.

New Kazakh trains. Designed by Spaniards, assembled in Kazakhstan. Noticeably faster and more comfortable than their predecessors. For some reason, locals really pay attention to the fact that the doors are automatic, and if you're late, the train won't wait for you.

If you're lucky, you can snag a spot in a half-compartment: there are only 2 seats (lower and upper). But there's only one of these half-compartments per car.

Inside the car everything is good, but the designers clearly didn't try to sleep there: an insanely bright blue LED indicator light on the switch (one by each bunk) blinds you and keeps you awake.

But the railway website is just terrible. I managed to buy a ticket on the third try.

The metro in Almaty is quite unique. It's brand new—opened in 2011 (though construction actually started back in Soviet times). There's just one line that runs mostly through the center, only barely touching the beginning of the residential areas.

So on weekends it's completely empty. The wait between trains is over 10 minutes (on weekdays it's 7). And even with that interval, you can usually find an empty seat.

And it's worth remembering that this is a seismically active area. That's why the metro was built to much higher safety standards. But how it would actually hold up in a major earthquake is anyone's guess. This place has experienced 10-point earthquakes back in the early 1900s.

PS. There's a metro station here called "Moscow." That's payback for the Almaty station in Moscow :)

We got lucky with the weather. The forecast promised +16 and cloudy. In reality, it turned out to be +25 and sunny. Though just a week ago, it was raining heavily here.

Social advertising. And a hint at gender equality 🤷‍♂🤷‍♀ But the police officer is only a man 👮‍♀
Oh my, you Kazakhs :)

You can't help but notice the huge number of pawn shops in Almaty. Literally at every turn. They're practically on top of each other. Guess there's demand for it.

Since I wanted to go, I figured I had to go, I thought. 4 hours of flying and I'm in Almaty. Hooray :)
First impressions — it feels like I've landed in a very quiet, peaceful provincial town on the outskirts. Let's see what happens next.

I'm really craving Kazakhstan for some reason... I can't help it, I just want to go to Kazakhstan so badly :)