a holiday that wasn’t

I spent the day in Almaty. Another day.

I had come up with a plan: I was going to leave after Constitution Day. And Constitution Day was today. I figured there would be parades and festivities, and I wanted to see all of it.

But there was nothing.

Kazakhstan had been shaken by terrorist attacks in the last few months. Then there was the crisis around Uzbekistan’s ailing president Karimov and a terrorist attack that happened just today in Kyrgyzstan, and everybody kind of figured that it would be better to keep a low profile and just go about with their daily lives.

And so did I.

I sorted my photographs. Wrote my diary. Updated the blog. Walked around in Almaty:

I did that until it was dark:

And then I slept.