As my homesickness began to reach its peak in conjunction with the start of the holiday season, I found myself recalling even the most inconsequential details of my life back home in the U.S. with some sympathy. Even Washington, D.C.’s infamous Beltway called out to me with its siren song of car horns and exhaust, and I was instantly brought back to the iconic “Welcome to Virginia” sign underlined by the state’s travel slogan: “Virginia is for Lovers.”
I had always found the slogan odd — Virginia is perhaps one of the states I would be least likely to describe as “for lovers,” although maybe my Maryland roots predisposed me against the sparks of romance hidden (deep) within the sprawling suburbs of Fairfax County.
In Almaty, there is nothing hidden about the love running through the city — likely in place of the water that never fills its narrow canal system or artificial river. I have never seen a city with as many couples out and about as Almaty. Just a single walk by the invariably empty river brought me past an elderly man bending over to tenderly light the cigarette in his wife’s mouth, a pair of college students wrapped around each other so tightly on a park bench that it nearly felt illegal and a middle-aged couple strolling in the moonlight as they shared a bag of sunflower seeds. It is impossible to go anywhere in Almaty without seeing people — young and old alike — in love, or innumerable dogs and children racing by under the watchful and loving eyes of parents. The city bursts at the seams with a youthful, earnest energy that is impossible to deny.
The city is more than just one of personal loves; it’s also one of deep love for art, culture, food and architecture. Theaters line the streets, centered around Russian, Kazakh, German, Uyghur, Korean and every culture that could possibly hope to express itself, while intricate murals of astronauts and camels remain hidden behind unassuming office buildings. The tiny bridge near my house, crossing a drainage canal barely a meter wide, is delicately painted with grapevines. Such minor details are tended to out of a seemingly unadulterated love for the city itself and its unusual beauty. Even as winter draws gray-streaked curtains across the sky, I feel a certain warmth and tenderness emanating from the cobblestones of the city itself, springing me forward with every step into the lovely next step.
Yet as this love abounds, I have begun to fear the very loss of it, as the date of my departure for that other land of love — Dulles, Virginia — now looms almost one week away. I can only hope that in its indiscriminate affection, the city has truly grown to love me, too — that my own reciprocal love will be felt and remembered, in some small way, by the stray dogs who sleep piled against one another in the park, the woman who always patiently waits as I stumble through my order at a local bakery and the amazing friends, teachers and mentors I have managed to find here.
Even with my brain fully cooked into a stew by a potent combination of final exams, winter illness and air pollution, I still can’t stop myself from waxing poetic about Almaty. And as I sit in Beltway traffic and look back on this fantastical three-month immersion in the city of lovers, I can say that I didn’t just love her — I grew to truly know her.
