Travel blog
Festival AlmanyTravelFest2017. Results
The idea of holding the festival was born by the famous traveler and travel blogger in Kazakhstan Nurzhan Algashov. He was supported by the insurance company NSK, which paid for the very cool hall of the ARTiSHOCK theater and provided gifts to the participants, and then, thanks to Nurzhan’s charm and fame, everything started moving at great speed.
The day before the start of the forum, 556 people registered online; in fact, 220 people came. Very good turnout for free events. Well, Nurzhan invited such cool and interesting speakers that it was simply impossible to miss the performance of any of them!
The first speaker was Ilyas Galimbekov, who spoke about the expedition to Antarctica. Four guys first climbed to the top of the Vinson Massif - the highest point in Antarctica, and then skied to the South Pole of the Earth. Eh, I wouldn’t mind taking part in such an expedition either, but our state, unlike Kazakhstan, doesn’t really finance such expeditions...
Vitaly Shuptar, President of the Avalon Historical and Geographical Society, who specially flew to the festival from Karaganda, spoke about his travels in Nepal, in which he has been there many times and knows no worse than his native Kazakhstan, about which he writes and publishes guidebooks, one of which I now have :)
The third speaker was yours truly with a story about travels around Norway and Iceland, who flew in from Moscow and, according to Nurzhan, gave the festival international status :)
Nursultan Balganov - a 25-year-old guy who had a prestigious and well-paid job, which, by the way, he achieved himself, at one fine moment quit his job her and went hitchhiking to... Iceland, having 100 dollars with him. He traveled through Russia and all of Europe without money, reached Iceland and, having traveled all over it, returned home safely. This is what his story was about - funny and educational.
Yuri and Svetlana Kuzin from Pavlodar talked about a six-month journey with four small children across India. Even compared to all the other cool travelers, they looked like real heroes, especially for those who have been to India and know what it is like. By the way, this trip was only the first in their “career” travelers with children. In the winter of 2015, Svetlana went to India with four children alone; her husband was busy with work and was planning to join the family trip later. In March, Svetlana moved to Nepal, where she lived for about a month in the suburbs of Kathmandu, and in April she went to the mountains with her children. At this time there was an earthquake there. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934, killing over 7,000 people and destroying thousands of buildings, including ancient temples, across the country. At that time, there were approximately 18 citizens of Kazakhstan in Nepal, including the Kuzin family. For three days Svetlana did not get in touch... But everything ended well - the family was evacuated from Nepal on a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry plane.
You can read a story about the adventures of a mother and her children in Nepal, which was devastated by an earthquake here.
The children were also present in the hall and, without any embarrassment, came onto the stage when they were called. Looking ahead, it must be said that the Kuzins’ eldest daughter, 10-year-old Radomira, went on an equal footing with us on a mountain hike not far from Almaty the next day. We reached an altitude of 3100 meters, we felt a little short of breath due to the onset of oxygen deficiency, but even there Radomira did a cartwheel on her hands and raised her leg into a vertical split. Children travelers - that's what they are :))
Elena Bekboeva told all about cruise travel. From her words it seemed that cruises were not only for pensioners and lovers of 24-hour free booze, as I personally thought before. I'll have to check it out sometime :)
One of the most famous bloggers in Kazakhstan Alisher Elikbaev told how to make money from traveling. Alisher is a real media star in Kazakhstan and not knowing him there is the same as not knowing, for example, Ivan Urgant in Russia. Actually, his story and behavior were not very different from Ivan’s behavior - he laughed all the time, made fun of himself and his friends who were present in the hall and, despite the fact that I didn’t know him before, it was interesting to listen to him.
Next, the speech was made by Maksut Zhumaev - a world-class legend. He climbed all 14 eight-thousanders without oxygen - there are few people in the world who have managed to repeat this. He talked about climbing Everest. His story was so interesting and, dare I say it, poetic that the audience gave him a standing ovation and did not want to let him go for a long time. And then, in the foyer, I was able to talk to him personally and get some very valuable advice on solo climbing Everest, which is my long-time dream and real plan for the next few years.
Usually, solo ascents to peaks are considered more dangerous than group climbs, and many climbers have a sharply negative attitude towards them. I have heard “you are suicidal” more than once. and similar definitions of my solo trips to the mountains. I asked Maksut how he felt about climbing Everest solo and received a completely unexpected, but very strengthening answer: “You know, there’s no other way to climb Everest.” Above 8 thousand meters, in any case, everyone walks on their own, alone, and even if there is someone nearby, it doesn’t mean anything - there you are only responsible for yourself and no one can help you... "
Anuar Nurpeisov spoke about seven reasons to travel around Kazakhstan. To be honest, I didn’t remember all 7 reasons, but I was strengthened in the idea that traveling around Kazakhstan is very cool and beautiful. The photographs that Anuar showed illustrated this better than any words - in Kazastan, just like in Russia, there are a huge number of very interesting, unusual and beautiful places, and the trip itself is much cheaper than abroad. The only pity is that the overwhelming majority of residents of both Kazakhstan and Russia do not understand this. For the second year now I have been trying to organize a group on the Ustyurt Plateau in Kazakhstan - a place comparable in its beauty and grandeur to the American Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, but I do not receive a single application - people do not understand how interesting and cool it is. I will definitely visit there in 2018, with or without you :)
Konstantin Kikvidze spoke about travel photography in the wild. This is generally my topic, so I listened to him with special attention and received several interesting tips.
Well, the next day, in a small group consisting of Nurzhan Algashov, his wife Dana, Yuri Kuzin with his daughter Radomira and yours truly, we made a small mountain hike in the vicinity of Almaty. We were lucky with the weather - the thick fog that shrouded the mountain peaks in the morning quickly dissipated and the bright sun shone all day, making the already beautiful mountain landscape simply delightful.
We reached the Mynzhilki weather station at an altitude of 3100 meters, felt slight shortness of breath from the oncoming oxygen deficiency, took a group photo and went down to the Shymbulak ski resort - a wonderful place where I spent the whole next day , having skied until my knees trembled from tension and fatigue :)
Shymbulak, by the way, is a very worthy resort , no worse than our Elbrus or Cheget (where I was recently and therefore can compare from fresh impressions), and is as inexpensive as a flight to Almaty, so I sincerely recommend it to all Russian fans of alpine skiing and snowboarding, but in In Kazakhstan, everyone knows him well even without me :)
In conclusion, I would like to express special gratitude to Nurzhan Algashov for the invitation to the festival and its wonderful organization, as well as to everyone with whom I talked, drank beer in the evening in a wonderful bar, walked around the evening city and went hiking! To everyone who was so warm and hospitable with me - Lucien Foisy, the financial director of LVMH P&C Kazakhtan, who invited me to stay in his house in the mountains and the simple pensioner Adai-Myrza, who invited me straight from the airport to his home and fed him pilaf in 6 am, and then took part in the festival without knowing about it in advance.
If the festival takes place next year (and it will, there is no doubt about it), I will definitely go to it! And I invite everyone with me - this is such an informal, sincere event, the likes of which have been very few in my life.
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