Food in Kazakhstan (manti)

Cooking, cooking, cooking! :-)

I'd never done cooking with so much care as here. When I cooked such dishes at home, there was usually someone, mother or aunt, who was like a manager, a conductor in the orchestra, who navigated the process, and I was just a part of the "manufacturing" team.

Same people plus more volunteers got together last Sunday to cook some "manti", which are very popular in Kazakhstan! Our manti were "international", with Kazakh and Uighur elements blended together.

If you've been invited to a lunch or dinner at a Kazakhstani family, be sure, they will serve beshparmak (I wrote about it in another post), manti or plov. These are the basic traditional dishes. I'll write about plov later, let's get back to our muttons!





So, we prepared the filling with meat (usually beef, but never chicken), pumpkin, onions (everything minced or cut in small pieces), salt and pepper.







Then we did another gym exercise with the dough (which is prepared same as for beshparmak (if you need the recipe, please leave a comment, I'll put it right away), and prepared pieces of dough (they can be round or square, not very thick or thin).

You put some filling inside the piece of dough and then shape it.



















We made manti in two different shapes which are common in KZ. Here we go! Below you will see the stages of one of these types.

























It did not take us too much time to make manti, but we made quite many of them :-)


















Time just flew by while we were chatting and having fun. We put manti in a steamer and 40 minutes later here they are!

You may also wish to check how we cooked Beshparmak, national dish of Kazakhstan.




                                                                                                 

Top 4 Kazakhstani souvenirs

Looking for souvenirs for your friends? Here are some popular ones:






Camel is probably the most popular one. It is usually made of felt.













Kazakh yurta (nomads used to live in them). But it's no longer used for living!



















Dombra, the national musical instrument




















A girl in traditional Kazakh dress, but you will see no girls wearing such dress nowadays, only during the Nauryz national holiday.













Other options could include kamcha (whip), flag, T-shirts with writings about Kazakhstan on it, horse, pictures, and etc. Souvenirs are usually made of felt, wood, leather, silver and gold. These are the most typical materials.

So, where should you go to get some souvenirs?

The first place you will see souvenirs is of course the airport, but their prices are exorbitant (!)

When you are in Almaty, many people will advise you to go to the TsUM (a department store, which has its third floor full of various souvenirs). You can find lots of different souvenirs there, but still they are expensive.

Nearly in every store or mall you will also see a department with souvenirs. But they usually have a small number of them.

If you don't mind going to the Zelyoniy Bazaar (Green market), which is not a store but represents a number of stalls both outside an inside, you will find many souvenirs there at a cheaper price. The variety is not the same as in TsUM, so if you like something in TsUM, it is possible you will not be able to find that in the Zelyoniy Bazaar.

Zelyoniy Bazaar takes a big territory and it has different entrances depending on what you would like to buy: fruit, vegetables, clothes, souvenirs and etc. For souvenirs you will need to enter the outside area next to the main entrance to Alma store. It will be on your right.

Prices for souvenirs are different. The average cost is USD 2-8 for small ones, and the price increases depending on the size.

Good luck!

Borat: true or false?

Many of you might have seen the Borat movie.

Which things (presented as facts) do you think were true and which were false about Kazakhstan?

Calls in Kazakhstan and abroad

So, you are here, welcome to Kazakhstan!

Of course, you need a phone, right? Let's try to choose.

If you wish to make a call to land line in KZ, you just use a land line phone, it is free! The exception, no doubt, is the hotel phone (and they charge too much!).

But, if you need mobile connection, there are different options:











These are the three main operators, each offering its advantages.
What I would advise is that you get a Beeline sim-card: first, it's cheap, second, it's easy to get it, you just buy a sim-card for USD 7 (with USD 7 on your account) and you usually don't need to provide any documents for registration, except some places. Better go to TsUM.

One more option that the sellers can offer you is Activ.






I would not recommend buying that one, though it's easy to get it and it has a number of promo campaigns, it is very expensive! It is like fast sand compared to other options.

If you urgently need to make a call to your friend, business partner, husband/wife, children, boy/girlfriend... in your home country, don't worry! Of course you can make it from land line phone, but it, as well as your mobile, will cost you a fortune!

What you could do, is buy another phone (don't think I am trying to get you into a trap!), it will be much cheaper for calls abroad, but it will be not so cheap for making calls inside Kazakhstan. So, it's up to you to choose, which one you really need!

If you buy a phone and sim-card from Dalacom (or Pathword), you will pay USD 30 for the phone, if you don't have a CDMA one, and USD 7 for the sim-card (with USD 5 on your account), but you will be able to make calls at 8 cents per minute (any destination) and the connection is very good, believe me! My friends are calling me and it seems they are here in Washington!







NEO also has cheap calls abroad, but they are more expensive (16-20 cents per minuted) and their connection is very poor, you will be disconnected for a number of times!

P.S. You can use your phone and just buy a sim-card, but remember that Beeline, K-Cell, Activ and Neo need GSM phones, unlike Dalacom and Pathword which are compatible with CDMA phones only! Any phone that you'll purchase in Kazakhstan is unlocked.


Summary:

Calls in KZ: Beeline
Calls abroad: Pathword

To make a call abroad from Kazakhstan, you need to dial:
either + country code - area code - number
or 8 - (10) - country code - area code - number
10 is not used for a number of countries, please check

Calls to Kazakhstan

When I came to DC and called my parents to say I have reached the place, a 3-min talk with my KZ operator cost me USD 15 because of high roaming charges. So, I was looking for some other possible options not to let the phone calls eat my budget quickly!

Option 1
Pros: moderate charges
Cons: need to look for it

Many people advised me to buy a card for international calls, which was USD 5 for 1 hour of talks, with the decreasing number of minutes every day if you do not use it. Since I was new to DC, I did not know where to get them. I was looking for a card but could not find it. I suppose I went to the wrong places, didn't I?

Option 2.
Pros: easy, if you have a computer
Cons: you need a computer and earphones

So, I put some money on my skype account to be able to make calls to people when they are not at their computers. I made some calls, at rather cheaper prices, @ 20 cents per minute. Unfortunately, there was no monthly subscription like making calls to other countries.

Option 3.
Pros: very(!) cheap, you can use your mobile
Cons: no

My friends told me there is another cheaper option, Allo Kazakhstan. It's that easy! You do not need your computer, you just call from your mobile! And it costs much cheaper than other options! All you need to do is just 3 steps, subscribe, put money on your account and... make calls! It's just 2 cents per minute, if you call Almaty, and 5 cents for making calls to other cities, 12 cents for calling mobiles.

So, if you ever need to call Kazakhstan, talking to your friends, or business partners, or you want to talk to the hotel... it's that easy and cheap!

Just follow this link AlloKazakhstan

By the way, to make a call to Kazakhstan outside US or Canada, you will need to dial:
011 - 7 (country code) - area code - number

Area codes:
Astana - 7172
Almaty - 727

Food in Kazakhstan (beshparmak)

Since I came to Washington, I've been asked what the typical food in KZ is.

Having a plenty of different ethnic groups populating the country (the official figure is over 130), we have a number of different dishes prepared. We cook Uighur, Uzbek, Russian, German and other dishes and eat them with pleasure! (I think it has become a part of our culture and somewhat a part of our traditional food.)

Of course, we have some national dishes and one of them is beshparmak (or beshbarmak). If you google it, you will find a lot of information, like its literary translation (five fingers), what it consists of, the way it is served, and etc.

My friends in Fairfax, VA, invited me on a stormy day (last Saturday, Feb 6) for beshparmak. I was so glad to go there as power in my building was off, and I was also excited to prepare beshparmak in the US!


Some people cook it for special occasions like national holidays or when they invite their relatives, sometimes they prepare it just for dinner.

They decided to cook it because the guys were terribly missing the home food, having been away from KZ for 2 years!




We were lucky to have the kazy (horse meat marinated with garlic and salt) here as you would not find that in US (and please don't ask me how we got it :-) ).


It is actually a piece of meat looking like a big sausage which you just need to boil for 2-2.5 hours. We also boiled some beef (this was found in a supermarket here).

Meat is the easiest part as you just put it in water and check it...





What we were most concerned of was the second component - the dough! It was the first time for Muhabat (my friend) and me to make the dough, so we were a bit unsure of our success and whether we will be able to make it as our moms.




The most difficult thing was to roll the dough as it needs to be round and pretty thin. If you don't have experience in that, your will feel as if you've been to a gym.








When the meat was ready, Nurzhan cut it in pieces, while we were boiling the dough and potatoes. Well, it's up to you to add either potatoes or dough, or both.



















So, we took a plate (normally a bigger one), put the ready dough and potatoes, put the meat over it and then topped it with onions (which are usually stewed for a little while with salt, pepper and some broth).



















Here it is, the beshparmak! Of course, it is a little bit clumsy, but it was our own experience!







Bon appetit! :-)












You may also wish to check how we cooked manti, another popular dish in Kazakhstan.

General information about Kazakhstan

Welcome to Kazakhstan!

If you do not have the slightest idea about Kazakhstan (KZ), I think watching this short video would be great to get some general information about Kazakhstan.

If you are soon traveling to Astana (capital city of KZ) or Almaty (the Southern capital), you can some tips about these two large cities, which are the main event hosting venues!

For your convenience on the sidebar of this blog you will find the currency converter (look for Kazakhstani Tenge) and temperature converter (as we use the metric system).

The beauty of Kazakhstan
Early history