So I went for a drive . . . in Kazakhstan. Ya that's right. They gave me the wheel. I know you are jealous.

Coolest day ever.  Driving in Kazakhstan is an event anyway.  The infrastructure isn't the best.  Most roads have tons of potholes or turn into dirt and gravel and back to pavement, or not.  Some secondary roads & tertiary roads looked to me like paths through a field in Maine!  However, these were the roads of the neighborhood.  I cannot quite imagine having to drive them all the time and I wondered between speeding up, slamming on breaks, and navigating potholes constantly, how much these people spend a year on alignments or new tires.

 There are a variety of cars here in Kazakhstan.  There are numerous cars like the ones above in just about any color imaginable.  The average cost for one in decent condition runs between $1500 - 2000.  I believe they are called Ladas.

The above automobile is made by a Russian auto company called GAZ.  The company GAZ started in 1932 as NAZ, a cooperative enterprise between Ford and the Soviet Union.  The Soviets agreed to purchase $13 million worth of automobiles and parts, while Ford agreed to give technical assistance until 1938 to construct an integrated automobile-manufacturing plant at Novogorod.  Production started on January 1, 1932, and the factory and marque was titled Nizhegorodsky Avtomobilny Zavod, or NAZ, but also displayed the "Ford" sign.  GAZ's first vehicle was the medium-priced Ford Model-A sold as the Naz-A, and a light truck, the Ford Model AA (NAZ AA).   NAZ-A production lasted until 1936, during which time over 100,000 examples were built. 

 We spent a lot of time in Kostanay riding in vehicles that belonged to Yelena's friends and family.  It was incredibly decent of these folks to take time out of their day to take us where our busy schedules needed us to be.  We always seemed to have fun on the ride.  Often I would use the time to snap pictures of landscapes, houses or other vehicles.  Sometimes we just sat and laughed about things.  Sometimes we toured.  Sometimes Kristi and I would process what we had seen and debate or discuss the plight of current religious or political ideologies that we did or did not agree with.  And sometimes we simply napped because it was the only chance we were going to get to get some zzzzzzzzzzzs.

 Kristi is who I would refer to as the Jennifer Braunfels of Kazakhstan.  There are numerous reasons for this.  I believe they are actually twins separated at birth.  You will see what I mean as these blog postings go on . . .

 So my favorite time came when I got into this car for a ride.  For some reason, I adored this car even though yellow is not a favorite of mine.  I loved it anyway.  So I started telling Yelena to tell the owner how much I liked it and was asking how much they cost and about a million other questions.  The man spoke Russian so he had to hear questions twice.  Poor guy.

Later in the day we were headed to Yelena's house for some dinner after our long day.  He turned down her road and stopped the vehicle and stepped out of the drivers side.  Yelena turned to me and asked if I wanted to drive.  Without missing a beat of course my reply was ABSOLUTELY.  My trusty pal Kristi started filming immediately without even being asked, cause she just knew . . . watch this:

 I shall forever be thankful to my Russian friend for letting me drive.  He was a sport.  And it made me very very happy indeed.

As you can see from the pictures and video, roads sometimes pose obstacles for drivers.  Ruts, mud and snow make for messy conditions and numerous pot holes.

 Some roads are in good condition with curbing and paving.  These are usually in town and cities look a lot like this.

 Stop light for you.  They hang sideways from our perspective.

 This is one of the highways we traveled.  Pretty narrow as you can see with only one lane on either side. 

 A lot of people walk here in Kazakhstan.  It is expensive to own a car in the city and in the country a lot of people still use public transportation.  They will walk to the nearest bus stop.

Bus stop.

Typical bus found here.  Some buses have curtains on the window with beads on the fringes.  It varies from bus to bus and town to town.  The decor that is.  Children in Kazakhstan ride these buses to school.  There is no such thing as a yellow school bus here and when these students saw pictures of the yellow buses our students take to school, it caused quite a stir in the classrooms we were in.

Roads themselves aren't that wide and I noticed that if you came up behind someone going too slow, they simply just pulled out and around and passed eachother when it was clear.  There are no lines down the middle of the road designating sides from one another, nor are there passing or non-passing zones.  People are pretty chill about driving here.  I did not see any muttering, road rage or swearing.
There are roundabouts that work the same way ours do.  Average speed in town is around 25-30 mph.  And on the highway I would say about 50 mph because of conditions.  They all go slower.  And there are speed bumps through most local communities.

 

 The next series of pictures are ones we took from the back seat of our drivers.  This was to enable you to also see how many different types of cars we rode in.  Many of these cars were of the same brands and makes found in the United States.  As you can see, we had many drivers. 

 If you need a ride in Kazakhstan you can call a private taxi or simply flag down any car that will stop.  Sometimes average people or non-taxi owning persons will stop and give you a ride if they need gas money.  It is very common.

 Street signs were few and far between.  I do not recall seeing any speed limit signs although everyone knows what the speed limits are.

 Waiting of course for a train to pass.

Train crossing.

 On the highway.

 Rest stop on the highway.

Typical gas station.  Gas is priced by liter here.  So average cost of a liter of petrol right now in Kazakhstan is .87.  So it would run about $3.29/gallon.  A bit lower than current US price, but not by much.

 Turning at intersections can be a bit complicated at times as many of them do not have turn signals of any kind.  There are accidents of course.  People have insurance if it happens and many people drive with a digital recording camera just in case of accident they can have evidence of what happened.
The digital cameras are attached to windshields and run about $100.

Loved this, although you can't see it as it is a still picture, rather than wait to get out onto the main street, this guy drove down a side road right off of the main road until we found an opening in traffic that would allow him to get over into the right lane again.  People typically drive on the same sides of the road that we do in the US.  With exception of this.  It made me laugh.  It is not uncommon to find another route, path or throughway to get where one needs to be.  They simply drive around many obstacles.  It works.

 Look closely.  It is a speed trap.  Yep, cops sit and wait here too.  I did not ask how much the fine was for speeding.  I will try to think of it before I leave.

This is an undercover police car.  We also have these.

And that is driving in Kazakhstan.