Carpetblogger

If You Need Additional Evidence the World is a Bad Place

Check out this eyewitness report on the Serena attack.

At your own risk.

Sad Story From Kabul

As the news is consumed with Britney Spears and imminent collapse of the U.S. economy, I'd like to take a moment to point out that Afghanistan is on a predictable, completely avoidable, decline into chaos, as evidenced by the suicide attack at the Serena Hotel in downtown Kabul yesterday.

The attack was stunning in its audacity: suicide bombers in police uniforms stormed the lobby of the biggest, most prominent hotel in the city on a Monday evening when it was full of meetings (the Norwegian foreign minister) and foreigners working out in the hotel gym, and most likely, socializing in the restaurant. The Taleban took credit, suggesting that the illusion relative safety of the capital has been shattered for good. The new and improved Taleban are back and better than ever. Big shout out to Pakistan for its hard work in that regard!

Up to eight people were killed, including one American, Thor Hesla. That American happened to be a colleague from my political campaigning days who was working out in the gym, according to published reports. He was just living in the bubble of ex-pat Kabul, taking advantage of the Serena's gym after a day at work. Başınız sağolsun to his family and friends. 

In places like Afghanistan, there's a complicated mental risk assessment that makes life bearable and normal. You tell yourself that it's all about being at the wrong place at the wrong time (playing the odds). You tell yourself that other people -- Diplomats, dignitaries, police, military or Afghans -- are the targets, not you and your brunch companions.  When things like this finally happen to people you know, or people who are like you, your first reaction is "well, that would never happen to me because I would never do X, Y or Z."

Well, I would never work directly for the US Government.

Well, I would never travel around in those annoying convoys.

Well, I would never stay in a hotel that's such an obvious target.

Well, I would never go the gym after work.

The last one is so very, very true. I would have been in the bar.

Lament of the Crapistan Expat

While I write a review of my new most favoritest restaurant in Istanbul, read about poor Mind The Gap's grilled cheese experience.

Then, when you read about my most favoritest new restaurant, Istanbul will shine even brighter and remind you why you never want to live in the FSU.

Deuvushka Blogger Shout-Out

Three noted devushka bloggers -- Carpetblogger, Little Miss Moi and Mind the Gap (who wore her devuskha heels) -- met for mojitos last night at Decadence House, one of the most oligarch-tastic joints in town. The mojitos were top-notch, but did we need that many? Of course we did.

As I've said before, it's odd to sit and talk to people you've never met before but who  already know all your stories. Information was shared about the unreliability of masters, devushkas and husbands, humiliations suffered at the gym and in language classes, the pros and cons of locally produced champagnes and gossip about other bloggers we don't actually know.

Of course, we poured one out for our missing homie, Enidd.

Happy Melon Day!

Today is Melon Day in Turkmenistan, where, according to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, "since ancient times Turkmenistan has been considered the homeland of the best melons in the world."

Dem's fightin' words across the Turkic empire. I don't expect the Uzbeks to take such smack talk lying down.

Here in the Carpetblog family, we try to celebrate Melon Day every year, and have been enjoying  our share this summer. We buy them from the Karpuzci  Karpuzcu (I did not make that word up, as originally suspected, but wrote in violation of the most basic principle of Turkish grammar), who sells them -- sheltered from the sun by their own leaves-- from a horse -drawn cart.

Because we lived in Azerbaijan, we know there are dangers associated with watermelon consumption. No matter how orgiastic your Melon Day celebrations may get, be sure not to drink water while eating them or mix them with honey.

Ask Carpetblogger! How Do I Become a Bureaucracy Usta Like You?

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was dealing with things like setting up utilities, cable and ADSL in a language I don't speak, but here I am doing it again with only marginally more language skills.

Becoming an Usta (master) in Turkish bureaucracy is not something that can be achieved overnight, but every time you fail you learn something new and every time you succeed you feel like a complete bad-ass. My advice is start with something easy (setting up your Digiturk) and move up to advanced techniques (getting your resident permit).

Let's get started.

Do your advance work: There is a surprising amount of online information in Turkey in English. Many times, you can identify the location of the correct office, download the documents you need and figure out exactly what you should bring with you, thus saving you multiple trips and helping you avoid conversations you won't understand.

Block time. Do not assume it will go quickly and don't be in a rush. You will make mistakes and have to backtrack. You must not get annoyed.

Go early. This might be the most important hint. Crowds and chaos are your enemy, and while you cannot avoid either completely, you should do what you can to minimize them. Remember, Turks don't get up early. Get a good night's sleep the night before and be there when the office opens. Not only will you beat the rush, but you will avoid tea/lunch breaks which can disrupt the stamp-getting flow. Both you and the bureaucrats will be in a better mood, too.

Bring everything you think you could possibly be asked for: Passports, ikamet cards, tax cards, photos and multiple photocopies are the currency of Turkish bureaucracies. Come well stocked. Having it and not needing it is preferable than needing it and not having it. Remember though, if you forget something simple, there is probably someone selling it outside the door of the office that demands it.

Think like an Ottoman-era bureaucrat. Every figure is an authority and every authority figure needs a stamp. Your goal is to obtain a stamp from each of these authorities. Also, remember, no one can be trusted to handle money. If you understand this you will not be confused when you have to visit five windows for five different stamps and then go to the bank down the street to pay (you ALWAYS have to go somewhere different -- a different window or floor or building or city -- to pay). There is no penalty for going to the wrong window (other than time wasting). If you go to the wrong window, smile, be apologetic and someone will send you to the correct one eventually.  Remember, you do not need to understand what every stamp or window is for. Your goal is just to get them. (This is actually Carpetblogger's Key to Expat Success #4: You Do Not Need To Understand Everything That Happens Around You.

Watch carefully: Take a few minutes before jumping in to the process to read the signs (physical and psychological), to understand the flow and logic of the room and identify helpful, friendly-looking clerks. Identify centers of power in case you need to appeal to a higher authority. Look for another customer who is doing the same task as you and follow them.

Know your enemy. Your enemy is not the clerk behind the desk; it is other customers. Put on your game face and sharpen your elbows. Every new customer arrives, pushes to the front and asks a question.  This means that the clerk will stop doing whatever he or she was doing (i.e. helping you) to answer that question, probably only partially, then will forget to come back to whatever task he or she was doing before. This results in a room full of half-helped customers and clerks running around squawking. Americans are too polite and will fume quietly rather than join a scrum or cut a line. Get over this. Your goal is to cut the line yourself (play that foreigner card while  it still works!) while physically blocking other line cutters from getting to the front. Once you're there, you must make sure the clerk has space to focus on his or her task, which is helping you.

Make friends: Being a western foreigner gets you pretty far in Turkey (god help you if you are Russian or Bulgarian, though). Smile, be friendly and be free with your polite Turkish and the compliments.  This works in America, too. Once, while doing opposition research in an American courthouse, I was given documents I had no right to have simply by complementing the clerk's dress. The other goal is to identify a sympathetic, competent figure who maybe speaks a few words of English. This is especially important if you make repeat visits to a particular office.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't get your ADSL or telephone line yourself. It does take a little extra time, patience and creativity, but you can do it if you keep a few things in mind. In fact, I think many of these principles apply everywhere*, even if you do speak the language.

*Except the FSU. Forget it. You're screwed.

No Shit! Actually, That's Not The Case

Baku is the shittiest city in the world. No, really! Now there's objective proof, in the form of Mercer Human Resources Consulting's annual quality of living survey.

The lowest-ranking city for health and sanitation is Baku in Azerbaijan, which scores just 27.6. Other low-scoring cities include Dhaka in Bangladesh, Antananarivo in Madagascar and Port Au Prince in Haiti, which score 29.6, 30.1 and 34 respectively.

How bad does a city's sanitation have to be to be worse than Dhaka's and Port Au Prince's? You've really got to put some effort into it to be that bad. Congrats to Baku!  I hope this doesn't hurt Azerbaijan's shot at the 2016 summer Olympics. And you people thought the term Crapistan was just a term of endearment.

In other keen-grasp-of-the-obvious-findings, Baghdad is the worst city in the world to live in while Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt are the best.

Yah, the best if you're dead. What snoozers those five are. You should get a boredom differential if you're forced to live there.

Never Lock The Top Lock

Sometimes, things happens to you in your adult life that trouble you to your very soul, that scar you to such a degree that you block them out of your head, maybe with the assistance of chemicals or mood-altering pharmaceuticals.

Like that one time I tried to leave the Black Butte housing development in central Oregon the morning after a snow storm. I drove in circles for two hours, unable to find the road that led out of the development. I passed the same curling white lanes and the identical, pine-shrouded mountain chalet houses over and over and over again until finally, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I followed another driver out to the highway. Accordingly, I refuse ever to go to Black Butte again.

Anyway, my friend Enid wrote about how her cruel husband locked her inside her house with the Ukrainian cleaning lady. It stirred up memories of the most traumatic thing that happened to me in Baku.

Our apartment had one of those front doors that are very common in the FSU. You can lock it from the inside by means of a gear-like thing -- a primitive, retarded deadbolt, if you will. If it's locked from the inside, there's no unlocking it from the outside. I guess it was designed to keep the KGB out.

I arrived home from a work trip to Warsaw at four am. I waved my driver and his warm white Volga away and hauled my heavy bag up the two flights of stairs. I put my key in the lock and turned. Nothing happened.

No, something did happen. The Carpetdogs started barking their heads off, as they are wont to do when anyone comes to the door. I rang the doorbell. Once, twice, three times. Four times. A dozen times. No sleepy foot steps. No admonishments to "dogs shut up!" No sound, except frenzied barking.

Clearly, the Producer had indulged in some kind of horse tranquilizer, or a prodigious amount of alcohol, 'cause for the next two hours, I called his mobile, called the home phone, rang the doorbell and banged on the door. The Carpetdogs became hoarse. I became hysterical. It was, after all, early February at four in the morning, and freezing cold.

I knew I was doomed when the dogs stopped barking at the doorbell -- the first and only time this has ever happened. They, and my mobile, were my only hope. The dogs were going back to bed and my battery was nearly dead. I cursed all three, wait, I mean four of them. What to do? I tried curling up on the landing, but my ovaries started to freeze.

I did what I should have done after the first 20 minutes.

I left my suitcase on the doorstep, ran out to the street, got a taxi and checked into the Hyatt. It was 6 am and I was well past the point where $180 seemed excessive for five or six hours.

I was pretty confident the suitcase on the doorstep, 200 increasingly vitriolic sms's and 500 missed calls would have the desired impact.  Nestled into the Hyatt's cloudlike down comforter, I went off to sleepyland. I had also done what any aggrieved wife would have done. I switched my mobile off.

The next day, after sufficient time had passed to ensure maximum anguish over my whereabouts, I revealed my secret location. Naturally, harsh words and accusations were exchanged. Only one party had grounds for a grievance and the accused offered no defense. It was up to the guilty party to atone, which he did.

From that day forward, every time we planned to come home at different times, I would provide a gentle reminder. "Don't lock the top lock." Maybe even a pre-bedtime call . "Good night.  I love you.  You didn't lock the top lock, did you?"

The top lock was never locked again.  See? They can be trained. It's hard work though.

Ask Carpetblogger! How can I tell if expat life is right for me?

If getting what you want, the way you want it, when you want it, is critical to your overall life happiness, then life abroad is probably not for you. Sally, of When Harry Met Sally, would have melted. The key, in my experience, to success in expat life is the suppression of desire. Happiness comes from wanting what you get, rather than getting what you want.

Let's take a simple example: Soup of the day. You ask the waiter what it is and the only word you recognize is "tomato." Great, you think. I love tomato soup. Maybe there are a lot of other vegetables in that soup, too (another key to success in expat life is wishful thinking, but that's for another edition of "Ask Carpetblogger).

The soup comes. It's lentil soup, with tomatoes.  You are faced with a choice: disappointment because there are no visible tomatoes in your soup -- only a vague  hint of puree -- or complete satisfaction. Yay! Lentil soup! I love lentil soup!

Maybe this isn't the best example because in Turkey, nine times out of 10 soup of the day is going to be lentil and it's totally delusional to think otherwise. But even in Kyiv, when you order steak and get a pork chop, it's best just to accept that pork is probably better for you anyway.

Furthermore, there is a correlation between the intensity of the desire (for a really good bagel, for example) and the barriers that will prevent you from satisfying that desire (no Jews). Do not desire bagels. Be happy with a simit -- there's a simitci on every block. No barriers at all. Don't let the words "pork shashlyk" enter your mind. Ever.

The Buddha said the root of all suffering is desire. It's one of the four noble truths. That dude clearly spent a lot of time abroad.

Ask Carpetblogger: Banya Etiquette

"I've had an unfortunate accident with a razor in a sensitive area of my body. I worry that when I visit the banya with my friends, they will mock me. How should I handle this?"

By now, it should come as no surprise that Carpetblogger has expertise in many unusual areas, including this one. In response, here is a true story that contains helpful advice.

As a charter member of the Baku Diaspora, I have had the privilege of hosting a revolving door of Baku expats eager to visit "Europe" at a bargain price.  Truthfully, they, like the country they live in, are not ready for Europe. They are, with few exceptions, savages.

Behavior that passes for normal in Baku tends to stand out in Kyiv. For example, they pass out on Maidan after hitting the strip clubs. They come home at 4 am and leave my apartment door wide open (in the interest of fairness, that was the same person but the behavior is not atypical). While no one has set a couch on fire or stolen my stuff during a party, I know it's only a matter of time.

Nevertheless, I am nothing if not tolerant of deviant behavior and avail my pull-out bed to all.

Recently, a Bakuvian -- we'll call him "Steve*" -- visited Kyiv. He looked forward to bonding with his male friends in a traditional Ukrainian banya --in the nude of course, because that's how banyas operate -- away from the petty demands and disappointed sighs of their wimmen. They would whack themselves and each other with cleansing birch branches and alternate hot and cold dips in the pools, as Slavic men have done since time began. They would eat pickles and dried fish while lamenting the passage of time and inevitability of death.

"Steve" harbored a terrible secret, however. A recent experiment involving an electric shaver and his unmentionables went horribly awry. The resulting injuries -- visible to the casual observer -- would open him up to unceasing banya mockery.  Castration rumors might even seep into "In Baku" magazine, which is read by tout le monde. His social capital would dwindle to almost nothing.

The situation could not be ignored.

Already in the banya dressing room, "Steve" had to think quickly. He could pretend nothing was out of the ordinary, hoping the fresh scars would not be visible in the dank filth of the totally ghetto banya they selected. He could insist he was a victim of his wife's kinky tastes. He could feign surprise, as if he himself had just discovered the wounds. Unfortunately, all of these options were flawed.

"Steve" wisely slipped into damage control mode. In a stroke of genius, he got out in front of the story.

In the humid privacy of the banya dressing room, "Steve" came clean. He described the nature of his experiment and its unfortunate (but predictable) outcome to his companions. He took full responsibility, knowing his outspoken wife would issue a stinging public rebuke if he implicated her. He calculated that a weekend of intense public ridicule would be better than months of whispering speculation.

Oh, "Steve." Would that it was only a weekend of mockery among friends. Still, you did the right thing. I'm sure now that you have served as an example to others, you totally feel better.

*While the story is 100% true, with no embellishment whatsoever, names were changed to protect the victim's remaining dignity. Any resemblance to anyone named "Steve" currently in Baku is purely coincidental.