unity day

for much of the world, today is the day to celebrate working people. the u.s. however got uncomfortable with that version of may day when the soviet block embraced it. so it made up its own labor day in early september. after the soviet union crumbled and kazakhstan became independent, it inherited the may 1st holiday but i guess the powers that be decided that ethnic harmony was more important that workers' rights, so today in kazakhstan it's unity day.

what do people do for unity day here in taraz? well, aside from having a long weekend off from work, they go to the central square and watch people in colorful ethnic costumes dance together around a may pole, or at least whatever ethnic costumes they can see over the heads of the people standing in front of them.





we didn’t know which costume went with which ethnic group, but that didn’t stop us from making stuff up. pointing at groups of people and saying "definitely uzbeks", "see them... tatars", and "koreans, no question". the only really obvious ones were the germans, who had some kind of bavarian oompah band play when it was their turn to dance in the center.

then came the parade, it started with more people in colorful ethnic costumes marching past. but then came other, less colorfully dressed people. the local universities made their students march, and kaztelecom made their employees do it as well (so much for labor day...). the ruling party's crew was easy to spot when they went by, chanting "Kazakhstan, nursultan, nur otan!" along with the crowd.

as each group marching was announced by the MC, the crowd yelled "oo-rah! oo-rah!" (russian doesn't really have an "h"). periodically the people would show their excitement by letting go of balloons to sail off into the sky. and so wave after wave of balloons sailed off towards kyrgyzstan. these days those kyrgyz need some cheering up.