Haileybury Astana Faces: time

Christopher: "I grew up in England in the 1970’s and 80’s. I remember when I was very young having an outside toilet that would freeze every winter. We had a single bar electric heater and a black and white TV. The winters were long and cold and the summers were a fun adventure of rope swings and cuts and bruises. The days seemed to last forever. In many respects, my childhood would have been very similar to that of my father’s. However, things began to change and people no longer had outside toilets, they had washing machines and microwaves.

We got a colour TV and I became glued to sci-fi shows such as Doctor Who and Blake’s 7. Television ceased to be solely about the here and now, but started to imagine the possibilities of the future. As a consequence, as with many other boys of my generation, I began to dream of one day living on Moon Base Alpha, of dressing in silver foil outfits and taking a rocket ship to Jupiter and beyond the infinite, with an attractive blue haired companion in tow. The future was an exciting place and rather than enjoying the stillness of time on those long summer afternoons, I wanted to get there as quickly as possible.

I travelled to Russia in 1990, which then was still Soviet and I visited the cities of Moscow, Lenningrad and Murmansk. I loved being there. I loved being exposed to such a different culture and language. The sights, the sounds and all the sensory input was so alien. It was like being on another world. I was still young and my thoughts were still of an impending technological change that would propel me to the stars. I should though have been concentrating on the impending social change that was about to open up brave new worlds here on Earth.

I now live in Astana, Kazakhstan and the future that I imagined as a child and a young adult is very different from what I experience today. It is far, far better.I now live in a future that is greater than I could have possibly imagined. To have the ability to explore the world and to travel to places to places that were inaccessible to me as a young man. To meet people that grew up on the other side of a global divide and to learn about this wonderful planet on which we live. Kazakhstan is a great place to enjoy this future. I feel so privileged."