One of my more memorable experiences in Almaty has been attending a spectacular three-hour feast at the home of one of my host mom’s neighbors. My host mom excitedly told me that there would be an American historian also coming to the dinner—since I’m a PhD student in art history, she thought I would be excited to meet him. After some discussion with other PhD students on my program, I sleuthed out that our hostess was a woman who had been a landlord to several American historians researching in Almaty over the last two decades—now professors whose work I knew and admired. By pure coincidence, the apartment where they all had stayed was across the street.
Dinner began on a cool evening immediately after a harsh rainstorm in Almaty—I was caught in the storm and arrived home just in time to change out of my wet clothes and head over for dinner. I was introduced to our hostess, who was overwhelmingly kind and excited to meet me. She introduced me to the American historian, who she spoke about adoringly—the Russian translation of his book, she gushed, should be assigned as a textbook in Kazakhstan.
When we sat down for dinner, I was in awe of the spread on the table. Our hostess had prepared beshbarmark, the national dish of Kazakhstan. It’s a hearty meal meant to be shared, comprised of boiled meat (often horse or beef; we ate horse) over flat noodles and onions in a rich broth. The dish’s name translates to “five fingers,” referring to its origins as a dish traditionally eaten by hand. The main dish was accompanied by an assortment of beet, tomato, cheese, and broccoli salads. We drank freshly made kompot, a sweet beverage made from boiled fruit, and strong black tea after dinner.
Over the course of the long meal, I was treated to the kind, overwhelming hospitality that I’ve now become accustomed to in Kazakhstan. Courses kept coming—salads, pie, chocolates, tea. At one point, our hostess was simply tossing nuts at my place at the table and telling me to eat. It was also a test of both my stomach capacity and my Russian skills—our hostess and her family spoke fast, and I had to work to follow what they were saying. Luckily, at moments when I got lost, I had an American table-mate who has been speaking Russian far longer than me and helped get me back on track. We talked about research, family, and travel.
After dinner, we passed books around the table from all the historians to whom our hostess had rented an apartment over the years. They all had handwritten notes in English, Kazakh, and Russian thanking her for giving them a safe place to land while they were deep in archival research. It was special to chat with the American historian and watch him reminisce about his early days in Kazakhstan as he researched for his dissertation—potentially a glimpse into what the future will look like for my friends and I, years ahead of us.