Metal Family. Trip to Kazakhstan. (Geek Time Fest)

[ORIGINAL VIDEO]

Kazakhstan GEEK TIME Fest. We rarely go anywhere at all, because...because we're constantly busy with far more important things. But we got a message from our partners from Almaty, who always greatly support us by buying our merch. They invited us to GEEK TIME Fest as guests. We won't lie, we had our own selfish goals for this trip. So selfish! We wanted to set up an overseas account in Kazakhstan. Why do we need an overseas account? Let me explain.

We wanted to make the English version at the same time as the Russian one, so that the English viewers wouldn't have to wait long, but due to sanctions we have no way of paying our English voice actors. For that we need an overseas account. "Bla, bla, bla... And the account will be ready in 3 days, ha ha!" Obviously, though, it was gonna take a lot longer than 3 days, so we had to abandon this idea. That's fine! Unfortunately, we're living in a time where...who knows, maybe next year we won't be able to go to another country again, you know? So we decided to go.

They paid for our plane tickets and accommodation. We asked them if they could maybe also pay for our assistant. He's from Kazakhstan too, by the way. "Nah, we can't afford another one." Yeah? Oh well, I guess we'll just have to pay for it ourselves. How expensive can a plane ticket be— Whoaaa! [On screen: A ticket to Kazakhstan for 1 person. Cheapest one (36 hours): 16 685 rubles. Cheapest direct one (4 hours): 32 885 rubles. Cheapest comfortable one (12 hours): 21 207 rubles.] Apparently due to the large and sudden influx of our compatriots in Kazakhstan, plane tickets have skyrocketed above the planes themselves. So we had to give up our assistant and hope that they'll assign a volunteer to help us with merch. Before on festivals we had to sit there and sell everything ourselves, and only at the last few fests we had help from our acquaintances.

They assigned us volunteers, who sold almost all the merch before we even got there. On the way home, Alina felt bad that we didn't bring enough merch.

"Attention, dear passengers, we are expecting slight turbulence."
Alina: Fuck…
Dima: Don't worry, I'm sure it's a common occurrence.
Alina: It's not that! If only we brought more merch...

But that was just on the way home.

First impressions. As soon as we got off the plane, I went to the restroom. To exit the restroom, you gotta push the door, as usual. I pushed it, came out of the restroom, but then some teenager pushed me back inside. And he did it with such force, as if he was going to rob me in this toilet. But people are supposed to exit first, then enter. So I pushed him with my belly, thankful for my greater mass. But the kid started pushing me back again. In the end, he seeped through me like Morph, and I was left wondering if maybe the people there entered first, or maybe he really badly needed to use the toilet, or maybe he recognized me and wanted to...whatever. Then one of the locals explained to me that I should've put my arm around his shoulder and said, "Bro, let me come out, okay?"

Overall, it seems that in Almaty it's quite common for everyone to negotiate with each other. If you book a hotel room in St. Petersburg or Moscow, they either say, "Yes, you can book it." Or "No, you can't." But here we observed the following:

Guy: We have a reservation, we check in at 12:00.
Receptionist: What did I tell you? I said come back after 12 and we'll figure something out!
Guy: You said we could check in by 12!
Receptionist: I said maybe! I didn't promise you anything!
Guy: You said the room was booked!
Receptionist: I didn't say it was booked in your name!

We were ready to pack our bags, like, that's it, they won't let us check in, we have to go look for a different hotel. But 15 minutes later they check us in. So then what was the point of all this, if the room wasn't even occupied?

By the way, the room itself was pretty cool. And just like a real orangutan, I mistook a decorative wall for a closet door and desperately tried to open it.

Alina: Ah yes, orangutans are known to have trouble identifying closets in the wall.

The SIM card situation was pretty funny, too. They took us to breakfast and gave us local SIM cards so we could stay in touch. But I couldn't hold on to the SIM card with my sausage fingers and dropped it somewhere and it just disappeared. Just like that. I started looking for it and Islam Ganjaev [voice actor] was stunned by my reaction. "Where the fuck is it?! Where is it?!"

Anyway, we had to go to the fest soon. [On screen: Fest. Autograph session. Performance. Autograph session. Autograph session.] And we hadn't had a good rest from the trip yet, because our flight was delayed, [On the screen: Flight to Almaty. Delayed.] which, according to Kazakhs, is quite normal, and everything here is late. So instead of four hours of sleep, we only had one. But the organizers took pity on us and canceled the first autograph session altogether. We arrived straight to the performance, and we were ready for it. We planned what we were gonna say, talk about, how we were gonna to talk about it, and even drew a presentation.

Then we took a short break and then the autograph session. There were a lot of people and everyone was literally crushing each other to get to us. They took pictures, got autographs and gave us presents. We got all kinds of pictures, greeting cards, a Glam doll, and we also got a lot of tasty treats. Look at all this! The muffins with the letters "MF" were especially delicious and were happily devoured by me. But that was in the evening, whereas at this moment the organizers tried their best to make sure that all the visitors could get what they wanted. So they asked not to take pictures, and allowed autographs only on purchased merch. And then we ran out of merch. Fuck! How did we fuck this up?! We only brought 50 comic books, should've known that wouldn't be enough!

A lot of people wanted to support us by buying comic books, shirts, and other things, but all the items were swept away in the first 3 hours. Thank you very much for that! I would like to take this opportunity to remind you about our little store, which heroically survived the sanctions period largely thanks to the competence of the folks at TrackMage, who are in charge of the site. They successfully fix the smallest faults and automate many processes to minimize the human factor.

[On screen: Packages not picked up on time: before 1018, after 77.] For example, the address is automatically verified when filling out the order, and if something is written incorrectly, it's indicated with an error. And everyone began to receive notifications about the status of orders and packages. We're growing, so to speak. [On screen: Missing emails: before 725, after 0. Collected reviews: 2150.] But just in case, we also opened on OZON. A lot of people have asked if the merch there is official or not. Well, it's official. We actively remove fakes on this site. Thankfully we registered our trademark in time. The link to OZON will be in the description. We're not monetized, so supporting us by buying merch and subscribing to Boosty is the main sponsor of not only this video, but also of future episodes. Third-party advertising is still not accepted. We only advertise ourselves.

Oh yeah. We signed the last autograph, then the very last one, then the very, very last one, then the very, very, very last one, and then a couple more. After the festival we met Fedor Nechitaylo, Tarakanbix and company [from the Russian animation studio Phoenix], who were just flying by. Spent a good time at the cafe on the local Arbat Street. It's the same as Moscow's Arbat, even the artists are the same. Later we were joined by Optimisster [YouTuber], who, by the way, gave us his comics. And we couldn't give him ours, because we ran out of merch! Anyway, we chatted and chatted, and then finally went back to the hotel, where we were like... Dead. That's how the first day ended.

The next morning we didn't have to be woken up. I woke up at dawn and decided to take a walk. I walked along Abay Avenue. I was told it was the longest street in Kazakhstan, along which they built the subway. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the subway. But we were still very impressed. For someone like me, who's used to the city, nothing really seemed too surprising at first. I mean, sure, there were 10 times more 24/7 pawn shops than grocery stores, which, by the way, weren't 24/7. All the billboards depicted true Kazakhs. The ditches that were dug along the roads were empty in the evening, but now were flowing with water. Nothing too remarkable— Holy shit! Just like that, you walk between the houses, and you see the mountains! It's like a fucking jpeg image glued to the sky. Very high quality texture.

This time we came to the fest full of energy. Merch was gone, so we signed everything that could be signed. Organizers have made some conclusions from yesterday's work day and made a couple of important changes: fans, organized queues, more markers — they were running out very quickly.

That day we were supposed to just answer questions, but we prepared a surprise! In addition to taking a guitar from the crowd and singing the yet-to-be-released song "Pathologist", we also brought a small snippet from episode 3. The screams were awesome for sure. Many complained in the comments that you couldn't hear the song itself because of all the yelling. I understand their frustration, but damn, all that screaming only contributed to the atmosphere of a real concert! It was epic!

By the way, we wrote the song ourselves, while AlexVas made it listenable and, of course, was responsible for the awesome arrangement and Glam's solo at the end. By the way, you can listen to the scream-less version of the song on Boosty. Subscribe! More songs coming soon... [On screen: WhoAreThoseFreaksOnStage album: 1. Smell Like Cherry; 2. Pathologist; 3. The Tale of a Pine; 4. Gallbladder; 5. School is Shit; 6. The Light.]

The people were thrilled. So were we. Because it was probably the most active gathering of fans I've ever seen. I hope we didn't disappoint anyone. It was very hard to sit there and sign things for hours, and there were probably some people who never managed to get an autograph. Some people managed to get through twice, though. Yes, I now know the definition of insanity. Thanks.

We ended the day at the bar, where we and the people who helped organize the whole event spent hours eating and drinking. We talked about all kinds of things, about animation, motorcycles, Gennady Golovkin. "Gena got cheated in the first fight with Canelo, it's obvious!" "Yeah, he landed more punches!" "He landed more punches!"

We also learned three things that piss off the residents of Almaty.

1: Never decline the word "Almaty". So no "trip to Almatu", forget it, it's always "Almaty"! [Russian grammar thing.]

2: Tenge. You don't say "sAcond", or "tAxt", or "mAssy". So why do you always say "tAnge"? Pronounce it correctly: "tEnge"! Tenge! [More Russian grammar.]

3: Scooters. While in Moscow the scooters have dedicated lanes, and their speed in the parks automatically slows down to 20 km/h, in Almaty it's a complete mess. The scooter drivers not only refuse to accept the fact that there's an unguarded scooter on the street, they just have to take it home. They also hack into them, so they lose their speed limit. And they fly around on the sidewalks, the roadways, disregarding any traffic rules or rules of decency. Shame on them.

On Monday we planned to just drive around the city and then fly home in the evening. But... "What did I tell you? We'll try for 8:50. I didn't promise you anything!" The flight was delayed until midnight on Tuesday. And then until 1:30. Well, it's a good thing we don't have to go to work. So, what should we do? We could visit a Kazakh spa. Or maybe take a cable car to the mountains? Perhaps go to a reservoir? What is there in Kazakhstan that we don't have in Russia? Hm... Oh yeah! McDonald's! And now we can go to the mountains.

Even though many visitors regularly hang out in these mountains, Kazakhs themselves don't seem to come here very often. "Why bother? They're right there. I don't really have time for mountains right now. Someday." It's actually really cool up there. At the bottom it's 35 degrees celsius, then you take a 20 minute ride to the top, and bam, there's snow. It's even chilly. We wanted to stop at the cafe, but... "The cableway closes in 40 minutes." We had to go down. And then we started to drive all over Almaty in search of any kind of fun. We drove around and around, and ended up back at the same bar we were at yesterday. And when it got dark, it was time for us to head home.

With great difficulty we packed all the gifts that were given to us these past 2 days, afraid that we wouldn't have enough hands to carry it all. Seems like not long ago I put a "like" on these figurines, and now we have them. Also an ashtray, and a doll, and this, and this, and so much more! And we only had hand baggage. And 7 kilos of excess baggage. "You have 7 kilos of excess baggage, you have to get rid of it right now!" But as is customary in Kazakhstan, we came to an agreement.

Islam Ganjaev, who also performed at the festival, wasn't able to reach an agreement, though. Someone gave him handcuffs and he wanted to take them home. But the brave security guards discovered this scary object and the entire airport police force gathered to decide what to do with it.

Islam: It's a toy.
Guard: No, it's made of metal!
Islam: Look, I'll show you.
Guard: We need backup. He ripped the handcuffs apart with his bare hands.
Islam: What am I supposed to do, throw them away?
Guard: Yes. Throw them away.

Thus, the trip, without a doubt, brought us a lot of emotions. Mostly positive. All the bad things have either been forgotten, or didn't seem that significant. In the end, the scooters didn't run us down, the hotel checked us in, the gifts weren't taken away, and we were fed on the plane. It was a pleasant experience. Why pleasant? Because despite the fact that we were constantly in a tired state, we were energized by the incredibly powerful presence of the audience. I'm still very impressed.

It was also nice to observe the work of the organizers, who literally worked as hard as they could, just to make sure everything went well. It was obvious they didn't do it to make money, but to give the people who came to the festival the most positive experience possible. It's also evident that they are willing to do everything possible to make their fest better every year. We personally wish they succeed in that. Also it was nice to just talk to these creative and kind people. I also liked qurut. [Kazakh snack.] "It's awesome, you just don't drink beer!" Also, we can now open a chocolate factory with Kazakh chocolate, we were given so much of it!

All in all, alga Kazakhstan! ["Go, Kazakhstan!" in Kazakh.] Thank you for everything! If we ever get a chance to, we'll definitely return! Well, that's all.

[Song: Батыр - Дождь.]