Happy New Year

Kazakhstan celebrates springtime.  They celebrate with larger than life decorated tulips outside of federal buildings.  They celebrate by setting up colorful yurts in various places around the city, some filled with nic-knacks and Kazakh art, others filled with food, and still others guarded with men dressed in Kazakh warrior outfits.  They celebrate by turning their national monument into a light show set to Russian-sounding orchestral music, including an arrangement of "Live and Let Die."  They celebrate by dancing in neon Kazakh costumes to peppy pop music with graceful anachronistic movements from a former time.  They celebrate with the accordion and the dombra.  They celebrate by reenacting a Kazakh style wedding in which the woman, dressed in a full white and gold ruffled dress and a tall pointed Kazakh hat looking lovely, is led around by her party of women and is wished poetic sounding blessings by other women with shawls over their heads, culminating in her standing behind a shear fabric, swaying and bowing to the music while members of our audience brought up bills and placed them in a basket in front of her to roaring applause, the whole ceremony feeling both familiar and new.  The men celebrate by wrestling, weightlifting and arm wrestling on platforms while the crowd watches.  

And what better to celebrate than the end of winter.  The end of layer upon layer of ice that we don't realize is stacking up until you see them using a jackhammer to break down through the 12 inches of it.  The pieces break off and show their layers, a heavy snow thick layer of white, a warm day causing an icy blue layer followed immediately by a thin dirty layer to keep people from falling, a map of the winter.  And then you can see the ground again and walk on it, something you didn't know you missed.  In Spring there is no longer the need to rush to and from your destination, you can wander over to look in a shop window or even just raise your head up to look around you rather than looking at the ground in front of you.  Some of the trees even have small buds braving the still very cold air.  It rains sometimes.  It's muddy all the time, but mud is new.  The temperature, although still below freezing, is 20-30 degrees warmer than they were a few weeks ago. 

   

The Kazakhs are right to celebrate the new year in Spring, it is a time for celebration.