Marty and the babushkas

Older women in Kazakhstan LOVE Martyn!

Babushkas experience number 1:

Unbeknownst to Marty and I who were having a beer and a kebab in the local bar near our apartment, Astana, the Kazakhstan capital had it's 10th birthday. As we were about to pay the bill, in bowled a harem of giggling mildly inebriated older women out to celebrate the occasion. One of them clocked us immediately as being not from round these parts and pulled up a chair and began furiously babbling to us in Kazakh, Russian, and German, whilst her friends settled down at a nearby table and began slinging back shots of vodka and pints of beer. Mildly inebriated turned into rip-roaring drunk and with sinister glances between our table and the dancefloor they charged Marty, pulling him out of his chair, encircling him and pretty much flinging him around between each other, until they'd worked up enough of a thirst to set him back down and return to their fishtails and vodka (both of which were liberally plied on us).

Babushka experience number 2:
In a small town called Lenger near Ugam national park, we stopped to get some camping supplies for a further camping trip. The wife of the local eco-tourism officer took a shine to Martyn and before we knew what had happened had bundled him into the bazaar and was chasing him around the place, calling over her shoulder "Marteeena, Marteeeena" whilst throwing tomatoes into bags and inspecting potatoes for us. The spectacle of a 6"1 red headed man being chased around the market was too much to bear, before long all the babushkas were cooing "Marteena, Marteeeena" and waving their wares at him, as Martyn tried to figure out what the hell was going on, having money shoved in and out of his pockets and bags of produce forced upon him, I'm afraid to say all I could do was look on from a distance and laugh!

Babushka experience number 3:
Now in Semey in the North of Kazakhstan, I left Marty in town to get some lunch and I headed back to the hotel. Six hours later, I was getting a bit concerned that Marty still hadn't turned up, when the door opened and Marty came bowling in looking a bit flustered, "Holly, you won't believe what just happened to me, you have to come downstairs to the lobby, I've got a couple of surprises for you", so off I went and found yet another a couple of babushkas Marty had picked up on his way home, or rather they had picked Marty up and put him down again at the hotel.
How had this come about I asked, why does this keep happening to my boyfriend?! Over lunch Marty had been acosted by a couple of incredibly drunk men, who were talking to him in Russian something about money, things seemed to be turning a bit nasty, when one of the men finally dragged the other one away. Once they'd left a bunch of women who were sat on the table opposite immediately came over to Marty very concerned. Two of them insisted on escorting him back to the hotel (a good 3 kilometers away) and so flanked by babushkas on either side Marty was frogmarched back to me. Not quite understanding why they were so concerned for Marty, after all he's a big boy and can look after himself, the ladies then went on to explain they were sure that the two drunk men were waiting around the corner to jump Marty as he left the bar and rob him. So we sat down and toasted their success in averting a major catastrophe over a bottle of vodka. Thank you to Goolia and Natacha returning my beau unscathed!