Translation of ankona‘s post (RUS).

Didn’t like the venue – far and hard to reach… I went without expecting to find spectacularly interesting things, but I couldn’t even find what I was looking for, a t-shirt with a print and a knitted hat… :)

We were warmly greeted by a Statue-of-Liberty-wielding Madi Mambetov, editor-in-chief of Time Out Almaty. The first room inside was a dark hallway lit with blacklights, although I soon realized it wasn’t a hallway at all, but rather a bar.

I always thought you should be able to see what you’re drinking, and not use all your energy to try and identify what you’ve been served. In my opinion, the soothsayer tent was every interestingly designed. It was a real tent, lit by candles from the inside, but I didn’t feel like having my fortune told, so I didn’t go in.

The fair itself consisted of two rooms connected by a wide archway. The first negative impression was the odor of incense, which, combined with the stuffy air, was awful. I didn’t think I’d survive five minutes, given my allergies – and I wasn’t alone: many people left, saying someone had forgotten about solidarity. Incense is nice to have at home, not in a public space, especially one that isn’t ventilated.

I was immediately drawn to the first table, which was covered in a linen sheet with a picture of Marilyn Monroe. It seems young people today are inspired by great American actresses of the past – Monroe, Garbo, Dietrich, etc. There was a bracelet with pictures of the abovementioned stars, but I hesitated to buy it right away. When I returned for a second look, it was gone. I also liked the lamp made of pipes. They were offering origami tutorials for 50 tenge, but I wasn’t inspired by the idea.

The next table was full of junk. We sifted through the CDs and discovered this gem:

The book titles were of one mind.

It was hot and stuffy, which made me consider buying a fan.

Henna “tattoos,” I presume.

Very cool dolls. I almost bought the rabbit.

My only purchase of the day: a “Vilia-Avto” film camera for 1000 tenge. Adam-kesher test-drives the machine:

And then… the lights went out. Initially, we were told it would be 15 minutes before it was fixed, then 30, then an hour, and still nothing. Of course, it wasn’t the organizers’ fault – and nobody’s fault, really. As far as I know, this part of the city constantly has power outages…

That could have been taken into account when selecting the venue. We didn’t waste any time, though, going outside to take pictures, brag about purchases, etc… but then the weather changed quickly, it got windy, and everyone wanted to go home.

…But they didn’t! Not everything was sifted through and purchased.

In the end, I liked it. There was an interesting concentration of people with positive energy, the DJ was playing good music, people were having fun and enjoying shopping. The film was good, too… So were the prices; I didn’t see anything waaaay too expensive.

Alas, there was no designer clothing, except for a few knitted hats, mittens, scarves, etc. There were plenty of Turkish and Chinese wares, which never look very good. Then again, this was one of the first events of its kind, so let’s not be too harsh. I liked it a lot, and I’ll definitely come to the next one, even if they have incense.