A little History in the Land of Kaz

Sunday, June 18

The kids had English lessons with Alona and we did a little homework in preparation. She came around 11:30am and then we had lunch. Alona offered to take us for a tour of Karaganda to see some of the historical sites. We got a taxi driver referral from Sergey and managed to all pile in somewhat comfortably all six of us with Stella in Garrett’s lap.

We were excited about the opportunity to see areas other than Aqua Park, the Zoom and the Bowling Alley. Those places are very exciting of course! The kids seemed eager to see these places as well. It is very prairie like in the countryside once you get outside the city. Karaganda itself is a very small city with only 17 million in the whole country which is about 2/3 the size of the U.S.

Our first stop was the site of a concentration camp during Stalin’s time. We did not know what to expect. I have been to Germany and seen Aueswitz (I know the spelling is wrong) and was very impressed with how they have memorialized the Holocaust and the atrocities that took place during Hitler’s time. I was surprised at this location how peaceful it was. There was a simple 2 foot tall fence surrounding the perimeter where the building once stood and sprinklings of crosses in groups of three. At the entrance were many memorials from many different countries that had citizens die there. There were memorials from Poland, Germany, Russia, and Japan among others. There were many prisoners of war here from Japan that were laborers and lived the remainder of their lives here in Kaz which was the Soviet Union then. Alona told us that many of the two story buildings here were built by Japanese people. She told us of a man she about that was doing demolition on a building not long ago and how he found a bottle in a wall with a note inside it written in Japanese. A translator found that it was from a man who was a prisoner of war here that was building that very building and said he would die here and if anyone found this letter to please tell his family what happened to him. They contacted the address and tracked down his grandchildren who were so glad to hear this because they never knew what had happened to him. They traveled to Kazakhstan and took pictures of the building and retrieved the note. They were so happy to have this piece of history complete.

Alona said these concentration camps were not the same as in Germany. They were bad but not quite as bad. It was often unjust imprisonment though. If a neighbor did not like another neighbor they could simply call the authorities and say they were saying bad things about Stalin and they would be taken in the night. She also has a great grandmother that was a Jew and fled here during the holocaust. It took her 3 months on the same train to arrive here. It took so long because they had to stop for bombings and many times she had to run for her life protecting the life of her baby. The rest of her family did not survive.

When we arrived at the concentration camp Sasha was most disappointed. He did not even know what it was and did not understand why we were just at a cemetery. I think we are going to have to do some history lessons. I gave him a brief lesson via our translator. He listened but as my friend Cindi would say, he just doesn’t get it. After looking around and taking pictures we piled in our car and headed back to town, about 20 minutes. We passed this old small village by the highway and Alona said it was summer homes. Upon closer inspection I noticed many of the homes had holes in the roof and the homes were in disrepair. She said they did not stay here but came for the day and planted gardens for the summer. They have no power and the villagers return home in the heat of the day. It is an inexpensive way to provide food for their families.

Our next stop was a reservoir that once was a coal mine. It is very deep and has trains and sharp debris on the bottom so you would not want to dive in it or even swim because of the bacteria in it. But there were people swimming everywhere. It was a beautiful day and we took lots of pictures. The kids spent the time picking up rocks for home souvenirs. It still amazes me the amount of litter we find in these places. There is broken glass everywhere and people just throw stuff in the streets in front of you and think nothing of it.

We then drove to the other side of town close to Timertau to see some of the coal mines. We could not go in and see them but just drive by and look. Alona said earlier she had taken another lady to tour this same area and when she stopped to take a picture someone stopped and asked why she was photographing their “object”. They seemed offended that she would photograph without permission. He told them if they wanted to take pictures they could come back at 8:00am the next morning and they could take pictures then. We were careful to take a few covert pictures without being watched.

We drove past a large hole and Sasha wanted to get out and look at it so we did. We went down a slippery hill and they had fun throwing rocks in the hole and listening for them to hit. Later when we got back to the car our driver told us he thought we had fallen into the hole. Glad we didn’t. On our way home we drove through another part of town. Our tour was through the Karaganda Region. There are several small cities all around the region that are not connected to each other. We saw a deskidom that has 600 children living in it. It looked like a 4 story apartment building. We feel very blessed that Sasha and Stella were in Timertau at their orphanage.

We missed dinner but Irina brought it down for us and so we chowed down in the apartment for a change. We were all very hungry! After dinner we went to the red market with Brett, Karen and Marat (he has decided he wants to keep Marat) to get an ice cream. We toured around upstairs and looked at all the fun stuff and then walked the aisles in the store and brought a few necessities and ice cream for the long 5 minute walk home. We are really enjoying the company of our American comrades. We played a little gameboy and went to bed. It was a great day and I am grateful to have a little more local history to understand more about our kids and where they come from in the land of Kaz.