The Quest for a Bancomat

In Kazakhstan, pay day never slips by quietly. It seems to me that a great many people live from month to month, paycheck to paycheck. Some do this by necessity, others by "choice" -- in other words, a complete lack of financial planning. In America, we can be more "sophisticated" about our budgetary recklessness by burying ourselves in debt, but the interest rates on personal loans in Kazakhstan sometimes give the impression that local banks are institutionalized loan sharks. Therefore, the Kazakhstani spendthrift lacks the option of elaborately lying to himself and is left with little recourse but to simply spend the monthly wages as they come in. Tongue-in-cheek commentary aside, life is difficult for many people here, so I don't actually begrudge people buying a little happiness by blowing their money on a lavish dinner party. However, my unscientific opinion is that the savings rate must be very low.

So on pay day, which is usually around the end of the first week of the month, there is a full-blown assault on all the ATMs ("bancomats") in the city. There are quite a few, but not enough to avoid lengthy lines and chronic shortages of actual cash. I have been meaning to go to the bazaar for the last two days, but every time I try to withdraw a little money, I am faced with an insurmountable phalanx of chattering grandmothers, who somehow either take out cash $10 at a time or have 16 different bank accounts. In truth I don't have any idea what goes on with them, but the level of incompetence with an ATM is at times infuriating. Around pay day, the promise of an open ATM is always fool's gold -- it means that the cash allotment for the day had dried up long ago.

One strange thing about ATM etiquette in Kazakhstan is that there is no privacy. If you step up to an ATM, people behind you in line -- and by in line, I mean trying to outflank each other to force their way to the front -- will crowd up on either side and examine every button you press in rapture. There is no thought to the idea that one might like a little space while dealing with their finances, but this is unsurprising in the greater context of local culture. People often ask what my salary is, how much I pay for my apartment, and so on. There just isn't any stigma about questions related to money here.

Today, I was once again unsuccessful in finding a working ATM. Since my refrigerator was looking awfully empty, I was left with no choice but to go bargain-hunting in the bazaar. Avoiding meat and cheese, which are more expensive, I walked into the fresh produce area, foolishly concerned about the fact that I had only a few small bills. I walked out with a kilogram of tomatoes, a half a kilo of bell peppers, and five small spicy peppers, which cost a grand total of 140 tenge, or about 90 cents. I don't know what I was worried about.