WELCOME TO KAZAKHSTAN PART II

photos: anna wegelin

Well camping is fun, but camping in the fun wilderness of Kazakhstan with a bunch of Russians aka my family can be different. Check out those life saving tips for Russian campers; Bacon, we don't do "Skinny Camping"! Try to eat as much bacon as you can. The fat keeps you warm during the frosty night. You're hungry? Get that pony over here and make yourself a Kasa sausage, it's a specialty made out of horse-meat. YUM!

You will need Vodka, in case you're crossing a bear path you better wanna be drunk as fuck. If you're Russian you'll be trying to fight with the bear, of course! First you will try to trick the bear with aclassical Russian dance to confuse the bear, then you attack the bear with your hands, you're Russian and drunk, you don't need any weapons.

So you're fighting with a three meter tall bear and you realize you're about to lose, that's your chance to do the dance again...okay that doesn't help, the bear will rip off your arm but that shit doesn't hurt you, remember you're Russian and drunk.

But let me get back to my 2nd night. I was pretty exhausted by drinking brandy & eating too much baby lamb. So I felt asleep like a little princess until my sister woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me if I heard that car stopping by? Fuck yeah, a car stopped by.

Just to make this clear, we are in the middle of fukn nowhere, no one stops by in the night, there are no people around. Sometimes you see a unicorn flying by, but that's about it.

The people in the car turned off their light & jumped out off it. The next thing I hear is a few guys are running around our tent. True story guys! I'm not kidding. So my little sister asked me what to do? And I was like, I dunno. I mean what can you do in this situation. I started thinking, but that took me too long. I was thinking about all the possibilities to scare a terrorist, meanwhile my sister felt asleep, but I was still awake. In the end I decided to play dead and I started praying.

I was praying and waiting but nothing happened, no one tried to kill me and I couldn't hear anyone anymore. Weird story, but true for real. The next day I woke up everyone was still alive, what a good reason to start the day with a shot of vodka! Nazdorov'je.