Some Visits

A couple of exciting visits this past week...

First, the President was at the office tower for some Sovereign Wealth Fund meetings. Of course, nobody knew if it would be the first president or second president until the visit, but preparations were intense none-the-less. 

First, all interlocking brick sidewalks were finished over the past week, trees planted, main street was pressure washed, and a wall was put up (left side) all along the road so the unsightly village in the middle of town couldn't be seen from the road...

Next, all winter-killed grass was replaced, fresh shrubs and plants put in...

And finally, day of the visit, all road lines and crosswalks were freshly painted. The motorcade route was pretty clear (bottom right side road...not painted...)!

And finally, the big arrival. Note every person on the sidewalks is KNB (Kazakh Intelligence Service) and military - posted on every corner, including in front of my apartment tower off in the distance...and here come the Prez...

Hopping out to shake a couple of hands - with snipers on the roof across from my window...

 

Note a few key vehicles in the picture below - white bus top centre to load up any problematic people, black KNB truck top left with dogs that checked all cars, parking lots, and all building offices, and the white KNB truck with antennas sticking out - it scrambles all cell signals in the vicinity, so no cell service in the building that day...

oh, and it turned out to be the first president...

KATCO and SaUran

The rest of the week was spent on a trip to Shymkent in South Kazakhstan to train some subsidiary personnel on disclosure post-IPO, along with a visit to the Orano JV KATCO sites (Kazatomprom-Cogema) and SaUran site. For this particular outing I was nestled right in among all the 'stans!

Shymkent was great, with $35/night hotel rooms and amazing lamb Shashlik (for which it's famous - best shish-kabobs in Kazakhstan due to the proximity to Uzbekistan)

A balmy +35C, great outdoor restaurants. 

 Very few buildings greater than 6 stories due to the earthquake risk in the area.

 

And as always, extremely ornate restaurants (that were largely empty due to Ramadan, which is a bit more diligently observed in south Kazakhstan vs. Nur-Sultan)

Left Shymkent for the mines and on the 4 hour drive, passed through a few smaller poor villages, bit different atmosphere...

 But aside from the lack of fences and animals just grazing randomly, felt like Alberta foothills...

Looks like Regina to me?

Then a couple of hours in, got a little drier...

And BOOM - not quite Alberta anymore...

And finally, to the world's largest in-situ recovery mine (producing 7% of the world's uranium) at the Muyunkum and Tortkuduk deposits.

Night was spent at camp, called "La Porte Des Etoiles" - "door of stars" owing to the shape of the camp from the air.

Not there long enough to catch a movie...

Main camp common area was a huge open area with plants and birds, pool tables, commissary, computers, etc. 

Rooms were quite typical - though a nicer feature compared to Canadian mines was an exterior metal roller blind operated from inside that completely blacks out the room for night shift workers (vs. Garbage bags on windows which is typically the case). 

Every room had warnings to keep an eye out for the local fauna...with awesome translations. "Symptoms of the scorpion bite: IS PROBABILITY OF THE DEATH OUTCOME". Well shit.

On the mine site...few surprises - little to see on surface - pumps in fields, a header house to fine-tune extraction chemistry and pump it back to the mill. Biggest difference at the mill was the space - buildings generally leave lots of extra room vs. North America, where everything is only big enough to house exactly the equipment needed.

Next stop was SaUran, 100% Kazatomprom owned. Tour was a little harder - at Katco, with Russian and French ownership bused in from all over, common working language was English. At SaUran, where the entire staff lives in the nearby town...all Russian and Kazakh. They had 1 partly English speaking girl in IT who helped me out!

Very nice in-situ recovery demo model.

And then back to Shymkent to head home. Heard of horses at a bus stop, also waiting to head home, apparently.

That completed yet another trip - stubs have been building up since Feb. This week is on to planning a North American IR roadshow, followed by a trip back to S'toon! 

More Adventures in Kazakhstan (and elsewhere)

I had planned to make it a habit to throw a new post up every time I traveled back to Canada for a break - helps pass the 20-some-odd-hour flight home. That would result in an update every 6-8 weeks, which is about right...however, the last trip home I went to Sudbury for Esso Cup hockey, and since I kept working while there (not vacation time - worked all night, slept all day and got up early for hockey), it meant I was also working on the flight over. This put me wayy behind on updates, so this is a big one. Grab a coffee.

Esso Cup
As per last update - I headed to Sudbury on a roundabout route through Poland and Belarus. Delays on LOT Polish airlines resulted in a missed Sudbury connection, so I was pissed off, stole a fuel truck and rammed the Sudbury plane about 5 times (kidding, that was some other guy that must have missed his connection about 2 weeks later...). Made it partway through game 1 and saw a great week of hockey.

Proud of Haylee, played well and the team finished first after the round robin, but unfortunately they didn't have quite enough left in the home stretch, coming away 4th. Something to work towards for next year!

Faceoff and awards dinner (great centerpiece)

Haylee with team Captain Grace (also plays on team Canada) and long-time teammate Bridgette

Haylee with a slapshot and assist

After a token Sudbury picture with the big nickel, it was back to work in Nur-Sultan, arriving at 6 am with company board meetings starting at 9 am...

I figured I would use the last 4-hour leg to sleep. 

Belarus:

Unfortunately the IIHF Div 1 Group A tournament was hosted in Nur-Sultan starting Monday that week, so the whole plane out of Minsk was filled with Belarus fans who all followed a simple formula:

1) Arrive 2 hours early for the 4 hour midnight flight, purchase a 40 of vodka at duty free

2) consume vodka, get the week's celebration started

3) keep it going with team Belarus chants and Soviet songs allllll the way to Kazakhstan.

If it was in North America, this flight would have been grounded 10 minutes in and half the passengers arrested. Instead, the flight staff on Belavia airlines was chanting right along with the fans! I pictured Russian pilots with shots of vodka singing in the cockpit. Regardless, made it back to work and meetings unscathed (minus bags, which stayed an extra few days in Toronto).

Back in Nur-Sultan

The country recently celebrated victory and defenders days - equivalent to Canadian Remembrance day, but they combine with a "father's/men's" day...so we had the men's equivalent to the March women's day at work!

 Applause and chocolate when coming it, with balloon darts and a resulting "fortune". Apparently I can expect a new Dacha this year. A country house would be great!

Pre-Summer Spring weather

Summer hit in Nur-Sultan, with a couple of weekend days going above 30C. I'm told it was exceptional for this time of year, but it was great to get out and explore. I grabbed a "city bike" card, which for about $25 gives access to these bikes all around the city. After an hour of hit-and-miss translation with the bike people and about a dozen forms (if I lose a bike, I might get deported, not sure what I signed), I was on my way to tour around.

Forms for a bike card 

(kidding, it was half the size. This is an expense claim for 4 hotel nights at 3 hotels and a plane ticket on a one-week IR trip at work...well almost 2 weeks once the claim paperwork was completed...)

 Astana bike rack

Pretty simply - swipe card, enter pin and go

Cable lock system built into handlebars for locking it wherever

App tells you where the racks are, how many bikes are there, and how many empty spots are available for returns

It's meant to be a commuter system, so as long as you stop at a rack every ~30 mins to check in, rental is free. Going in a block of time of more than 30 mins and it takes from your card balance (100 KZT/30 min...that's 35 cents in CAD!!!). Cycling infrastructure isn't that well developed, but not bad - easy way to get around and see everything!

Heading to look around, moments before being jumped to have my bike stolen by a North Korean ninja. Sergey is a friend from the strategy department at work - big into cycling and took me around.

Monument Kazakh Eli - Independence park area

Hazrat Sultan Mosque - phenomenal piece of architecture!

 

Massive screen artwork piece running facts about Kazakhstan's peaceful history

And of course - Baiterek tower - which houses a peace monument and the first president's golden hand print to visit at the top

Back closer to my flat - building that houses the national oil and gas company KMG with the purple lit Kahn Shatyr mall beside my flat in the background

They've already replaced "I Love Astana" with a Nur-Sultan sign!

Lots of impressive materials used - monuments were solid marble, bronze, and granite...found a little bit of  local "Tydall-like" stone (like UofS buildings). Here is was merely used for an electronic billboard...

A few pictures around the Ishim River, which runs through the city dividing Nur-Sultan into the "left" and "right" sides.

Flowers were starting to be put out...but just to make it feel more like Canada...one week after +30C...

A different "Bike" hobby...

As the weather warms up and everyone wants to get outside, like most people (I assume), it's hard to resist the urge to start a biker gang. So for a week, I went with a couple of friends to look for motorcycles to buy. The idea is to buy 4 different styles of bikes and share the cost, reselling them later. Nurbek (VP Corporate Development) and Riaz (CFO) are first out of the gate, taking lessons at a track in Almaty and picking up a Honda 600cc and a Russian motocross Racer 

 

Riaz testing a Honda street bike and BMW

Collection in our parking garage has started

2 block commute to work on a dirt bike could be fun (view from office, Riaz down there somewhere)

Sergey (Director in Strategy group) and I are planning an Almaty trip for the track training, and then we're to complete the bike collection.

Sergey is getting more of a scrambler type bike

I'm liking a 2014 Shadow Phantom...

The Shadow is only a bit more expensive than this BMW pedal bike at the dealership...

Food

As always, a blurb on food. Touring around took me down Turan Ave, which hosts an array of restaurants. One strip in particular has several massive, multi-story cuisine-themed places to eat, been to a couple, the Ukrainian was phenomenal...

Yakitoriya Japanese and Korean House

Bagrationi Georgian and Portofino Italian 

Alasha Uzbeki and "The Mill" Ukranian 

Russian

All pretty amazing, too much to try...Sushi is awesome (despite being a landlocked country...), Georgian (above right) was very unique with lots of ground nuts, garlic, tarragon, dill and coriander.. 

This bread boat thing is called Georgian khachapuri - cheese with some spices, they bring it out, crack an egg and mix it all up for you (cooking the egg with hot cheese). You rip the bread off to dip in the cheese and it's bloody amazing...

Coming back from a work Conference

Lastly, just returned from taking the company to an investor conference in Barcelona for the week. Like most trips in and out of Nur-Sultan, getting there was a pain with limited options, leaving at 3:30 am (and I thought 6:30 am was bad...), arriving a day early. 

Istanbul from the air

The time zones were about 4 hours apart, but still didn't want to sleep, so wandered around for the day. First stop was naturally Tim Hortons...

Conference at Hotel Arts Barcelona

Walking around, I ended up at La Sagrada Familia - an amazing Catholic church designed by famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (died 1926). It's now been under construction for over 100 years, still following Gaudi's original design and funded by donations and planned for completion in 2026. A massive place where every dimension and measurement, block, rock type, facade and ornament carries some type of very specific greater meaning.

Passion Facade (west facing)

Nativity Facade (east) 

Stained glass - nativity facade side with more blues and "morning" east light

Main area designed to look like trees with light shining through

Passion Facade - west side with more warmer sunset stained glass colors - pillars are huge, with different rock types based on the weight they must bear. This one will be under the ~130m high main tower when it's done. Church already dominates Barcelona's skyline, but tower will be just cms shorter than the surrounding mountains, as Gaudi believed "nothing man builds should be more grand than what God built".

I was wondering how an architect planned something this massive (with plans still used today), before computers, 3D modelling, etc, and they had an amazing display to explain. This is an upside-down to-scale model of the church, with little bags of weights representing the weights that the various parts of the structure had to bear (to scale as well). Using small chains hanging across the model, they could calculate the required angles and arches needed to support the structure. 

Similar methods were used for 100's of years in Europe, Gaudi is pretty recent compared to some others...but I'm sure today's "math makes sense" program will help today's kids achieve an equivalent math and geometry knowledge, allowing for a new generation of great projects like this. "How did the angle make you feel"?

Continuing around, went to Parc Guell - what was supposed to be a countryside subdivision with rich acreages (also a Gaudi design)...but the project failed, and became a city park

...and the first residential house Gaudi designed. This was a countryside manor on an acreage outside the city walls when it was built...now in the heart of the city and carefully restored over the course of decades.

...and on the bus back, noticed 1000's of people in "Messi" jerseys, so stepped off and caught a Sunday Spanish league game in the 100,000+ seat Barcelona stadium

2-0 win. And I still don't like Soccer.

Ended with supper at a hole-in-the-wall, jam-packed restaurant with local food recommended by the CFO's chef friend - popular among locals with a very cultural atmosphere

Back at the hotel...lots of nice cars kicking around for the Spanish F1 race on that day

And up in the morning with a Mediterranean sunrise to start with meetings

This was way too long...so I can't let the next post be too far away...

Next up will be a North American IR trip, followed by a trip home for Reece's grade 8 grad...then the BIG family trip for a week in Paris and a week in Astana and Almaty, so they can all see where I'm living and what I'm up to! Can't wait to surprise Kim and the kids with a couple nights in a Yurt with camel milk for breakfast, and eating whatever our guide's Golden Eagle catches for us!