The Travel Giraffe

[Maggi Young]

Here are two pictures from yesterday from North Kazakhstan about 50 km West of Aktobe. I travel now in farming area so not so many plants.

/Stellan

What does the travel giraffe eat?

onions! 

[TheOnionMan]

Here are two pictures from yesterday from North Kazakhstan about 50 km West of Aktobe. I travel now in farming area so not so many plants.

/Stellan

What does the travel giraffe eat?

onions! 

   Could be, but I'd like to hear from the travel giraffe himself.  I wonder if he like nuts?

[stellan]

What does the travel giraffe eat?

onions!  

   Could be, but I'd like to hear from the travel giraffe himself.  I wonder if he like nuts?

One pictures tell more than 1000 words...

[stellan]

From dry steppe about 150 km west of Aktobe

[stellan]

For photos from the road... About 250 km west of Aktobe. 30 cm dry clay on lime stone.

[stellan]

Some plants from the banks along a river i passed. About 200 km southeast from Uralsk

[stellan]

Last pictures from today... About 150 km southeast from Uralsk

/Stellan

[TheOnionMan]

Last pictures from today... About 150 km southeast from Uralsk

/Stellan

The last one, Boraginaceae_5890.JPG, looks like a Rindera species.

[stellan]

I got mail from Zetterlund and he told it's not Corydalis and if you want the plant you should order seeds of Leontice incerta. So when I thought it was a Berberidaceae it wasn't wrong...

/Stellan

i guess the bladders are not such a rare adaptation for this sort of environment.. i guess this would then have yellow flowers--very cool plant for sure!

There are lots of different plants with bladders. Most of them are from Fabaceae but sometimes from different families. This is the most common species with bladders in Nortwest Kazakhstan

[stellan]

We have left Kazakhstan and are now North of Samara in Russia.Here are some photos of flowers Southeast of Samara.

The map is from Kazakstan and show the roads I took by bike and what year.
2002 Blue
2003 Green
2008 Purple
2009 Pink
2010 Red

Flowers from Kazakhstan 2010-06-05

Index of pictures 2007-2010 Sorry, it's in Swedish...

[Giles]

My favourite Forum thread 
Thankyou!

[Lesley Cox]

May I digress a little here please?

With recent and current problems in Kirghizstan, apparently with the Uzbek population in danger - honestly, I'm not too sure of WHAT exactly is happening there or why - I've been wondering about the ethnic background of these "stan" countries. Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kazakhstan, etc. Are the peoples in each country so different from each other that they need to fight and bully each other and not get along? One could add Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan of course and yes, obviously there are great differences in religion, culture and lifestyle and I can understand each country wanting to protect its own identity but why ARE the Kirghiz people and the Uzbeks so much at odds?

[stellan]

May I digress a little here please?

With recent and current problems in Kirghizstan, apparently with the Uzbek population in danger - honestly, I'm not too sure of WHAT exactly is happening there or why - I've been wondering about the ethnic background of these "stan" countries. Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kazakhstan, etc. Are the peoples in each country so different from each other that they need to fight and bully each other and not get along? One could add Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan of course and yes, obviously there are great differences in religion, culture and lifestyle and I can understand each country wanting to protect its own identity but why ARE the Kirghiz people and the Uzbeks so much at odds?

I can't see the different between Kirghiz, Uzbeks and Kazakh. The culture are similare and have been mixed during hundreds of years. I think it's better to talk about different clans than different etnic groups. You support you family and when there are problems you fight. Lots of Uzbeks have moved from Uzbekistan to Kirghizstan during last years mostly for work. The kirghiz lose there work and start to hate the Uzbeks. There are also fights between Kirghiz, Russian, Turks, Uzbeks and Tadjiks and everyone try to protect there own clan from the others. You can kill a person without and future problems if you pay the police...

There are also a problems with the borders in the area. The lines are made by Stalin and they don't follow the etnics groups or any rivers, mountains or something else. They was made for making it difficult for people to move and also to make it difficult to rule a country. I think they have to redraw the borders again but to do that there will be a war...

Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek and Turkmen => Different etnic turkish groups
Iran, Afghanistan, Tadjikistan => Different etnic persian groups

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Stellan, your notes are a great help in letting me understand the situation today. In a way, it's a bit like the rivalries between, say, Canterbury and Auckland, here in NZ, but those are based largely on rugby and cricket, rather than anything else. Another problem of the area that perhaps can be put down to Stalin then. I am reading Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago' at present. It is a deeply harrowing book and makes me think that Hitler was an amateur in camparison with Stalin.

Thankfully, in spite of horrible politics, a country's wild flowers may continue to flourish. We are grateful that you are showing them to us.

[stellan]

Some photos from Russia. They are taken in the area between Samara and Penza in June

/Stellan