Shashlyk and Vodka

Last night, I was taken out for dinner to a nice restaurant by my coordinator, Gulnara, and my translator, Alex, along with two other Canadians.  We were having a send-off for the Canadian woman who is leaving today, going home with her new son.  We went for a traditional meal of shashlyk, which is Kazakh grilled meat on a skewer, served with a sauce and assorted side dishes.  This was also accompanied by a significant amount of Finnish cranberry vodka.  I would not say that I am generally a fan of vodka, but this stuff was surprisingly tasty.  I did manage to limit my vodka consumption to a quite reasonable level by quietly only drinking half a shot at a time for the first two toasts.  Fortunately, no one I work with owns a car, so we always have a designated taxi driver prearranged.  Like in Thailand, it is clear that here one is expected to make long, emotional speeches when giving a toast, and everyone makes their toast in turn, starting with a male guest of honour.

We had a long discussion of inter-ethnic relations, which was interesting, as the Quebecois male guest of honour (who was also given the first toast!) drew parallels between the Kazakh-Russian tensions of language and culture, and the Anglo-Francophone tensions in Canada.  Gulnara, who is Kazakh, went into a long speech about the 'chauvanistic Russian' while sitting next to my ethnic Russian translator, Alex - I was afraid a fight would break out!  But Alex took it in stride - I am quite sure that he has heard all of this from her before.  I asked Alex how he would describe his nationality.  He said, "I am Russian but I live in Kazakhstan."  Russians here would not call themselves "Kazakh."  Gulnara was critical of the fact that despite 20 years of independence from the Soviet Union, her Russian friends could not speak 20 words of Kazakh.  We joked that learning one word per year would not be too much to ask.  Everyone, of course, took all of this debate with good humour - no real risk of any fights breaking out!