Skateboarding
Skating the dried bed of Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea
See Nestor Judkins, Gabriel Summers, Vladik Scholz and Rob Wootton rinse Kazakhstan – last episode!
9 min
Skating the dried bed of the Aral Sea, Kazakhstan
See Nestor Judkins, Gabriel Summers, Vladik Scholz and Rob Wootton rinse Kazakhstan - last episode!
Our concluding episode of Patrik Wallner’s Kazakhstan trip starts at what used to be the bottom of the Aral Sea. When the rivers supplying the inland sea were diverted for a Soviet agricultural project, the sea shrank dramatically in an environmental disaster which left in its wake a new and unusual topography.
After skating Aralsk, Nestor Judkins, Gabriel Summers, Rob Wootton and Vladik Scholz were ready to head to Almaty. We arrived on a Saturday and got really lucky, since that hip spot at the university is usually a bust after five minutes – but we were able to skate there for almost two hours and no one bothered us at all.
Long train running
© Dan Zvereff
Vladik Scholz takes a breather
© Dan Zvereff
The endless vastness of Kazakhstan
© Dan Zvereff
Vladik Scholz – Kickflip Shifty
© Dan Zvereff
Almaty was really fun; I think it is the most westernised city in Central Asia in terms of culture and manners. It still has its own identity, but the whole vibe feels more modern than elsewhere. They have nice bars and restaurants, and the way people dress and spend their leisure time, it felt more like 2016.
#SkateKazakhstan