Like any good American, I spent Sunday afternoon at the mall. I met a few Kazakh friends (yes, friends!) at a mall food court and we got lunch at a take-out place called King Burger. No, that's not dyslexia speaking, it was actually called King Burger and not Burger King.
The idea of a mall is pretty novel for Central Asia. Kazakhstan has been experiencing some pretty remarkable economic growth in recent years, thanks to investment in its oil resources and a growing banking/finance industry. This has fueled the growth of a Kazakh "middle class," which in turn has spurred a demand for Western goods and Western lifestyles. And so was born the Kazakh mall...
There are actually several malls around Almaty. The biggest and newest is the MegaCenter, pictured here. It has a movie theater, an ice skating rink, a climbing wall, and a food court, in addition to dozens of luxury shops and a huge grocery store. It is a pretty surreal experience, especially because the halls are filled with janitorial women-- about one woman every ten feet or so-- who continuously mop the floor to get rid of the mud and dirt tracked in by us shoppers. They sort of scurry after you as you walk down the hall... making them the closest thing I'll ever have to a maid. (By the way, I'll save a full discussion of the omnipresent mud for another day...) Anyway, so MegaCenter and the other malls around get packed on the weekends with new middle class Kazakhs who fight over parking spaces for their Toyotas, Land Rovers, and BMWs. Just another part of the American dream exported to Central Asia...
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