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Milk and vodka, baursaki and chechil - not much spare room on the table at a Kazakh barbecue / picnic :)

There was much food at our Saturday picnic.

Yessenbay, a surveyor during the week, turned out to be a crack plov maker at the weekend.

Plov is a very popular dish from Uzbekistan - ideal for cooking at a gathering such as this, and just the thing to fill any gaps in ones stomach that just might have been left empty from the many previous dishes.

After the logs were sawn, a fire was quickly started by Ruslan, one of my colleagues from work.

Half an hour later the marinaded meat was cooking over the hot coals - this is a mangal, a popular barbecue in Kazakhstan, and perfect for cooking shashlyk.

Our picnic spot was a popular place - groups book one of a number of 'sites', that come (for a price ...) complete with a wooden shelter, tables and seats, a Kazakh style BBQ (great for Shashlyk), and a pile of wood.

The guy in red with the chainsaw is the boss / manager / owner / head honcho, and turned up soon after our arrival to deftly slice a number of tree trunks in to perfect sized logs for the fire - no bags of charcoal needed here :)

This Saturday saw us take a drive with a group of colleagues about an hours drive north of Atyrau, to a picnic spot alongside the Ural River.

A hot day for humans, and a hot day for horses too - this group were sheltering from the midday sun; tails constantly brushing away the flies. The herd of about 10 adults also had 4 foals - a good omen in Kazakh tradition.