Today I Joined a Mob

Mob Mentality

Today I was part of an angry mob. I have always assumed that being part of an angry mob was something that would never happen to me, but today it did. When I say “Angry Mob” I do not use the term lightly. The mob itself consisted of hundreds of people and if they weren’t angry, they were at least frustrated. Hundreds of people violently pushed against each other, there was yelling, there was screaming, and it was dangerous.

This all started five years ago when Almaty, Kazakhstan was chosen to host the 7th annual Asian winter games. Almaty was deemed developed and modern enough to host the thousands of competitors, journalists, and tourists who would attend the games. And I have to hand it to them, they did an ok job. For the first time in its history there were street signs in the city denoting what cross street you were on. They limited traffic to the streets, they cleaned up the facilities, they advertised, there were logos and slogans and they were proud.

There was just one problem with all of this. In Kazakhstan they don’t have lines.Now there is usually order in Kazakhstan (although that order seemed to dissolve today) but there aren’t really any lines. For example, when ordering from a fast food restaurant do not be surprised if, when you are waiting patiently to order, someone swoops in front of you and orders first. When walking into a bank, do not assume that if you wait behind the counter that you are next in line. There are people in the room sitting on the couches who are in front of you and the right thing to do when entering a bank, instead of getting in line, is to ask who is ahead of you and then sit down on the couches.

Now usually these methods work for the Kazakhs, despite the fact that they frustrate foreigners. The Kazakh mentality is that you have to butt to get ahead, that if you don’t cheat and steal your way to the top, you’ll never get what is coming to you. I’m not sure if this was the mentality before the Soviets, but this is what a post-communist society looks like. I have learned to deal with it over the past year and a half. And then came the bandy tickets.

I’ve been wanting to attend the winter games since they started last week, but I didn’t know how to acquire tickets- so when my friend Martin called me up and asked me if I wanted some tickets to Russian Hockey, I said “Of course”.

My friends and I left the apartment at 9:00 this morning and caught a gypsy cab downtown,

where we were told we could catch a shuttle to the ice rink for the 11:00 game. The roads into the mountains were closed for the games, so the shuttle was the only way up. Here in lies the problem. One bus comes every ten minutes and there are over five-thousand people who want to go to the game.

When we arrived at the bus stop there was

already a mob. At first we watched from afar. There were hundreds of Kazakhs pounding on the bus, even before the doors opened. Once they opened people fought tooth and nail to get on the shuttle. People shoved and screamed and crammed their way in. Hundreds of people were now not on the bus curb, but storming the street, interrupting traffic, waiting eagerly for the next bus to come. The police- although there were plenty around- chose to do little about the situation that was all around them.

Joining a mob comes surprisingly naturally. No one ever tries to form a mob, they just form and when they do it is easy for people to jump on in. So my seven friends and I butted our way to the front of the line. We were in the middle of the street and we saw the next bus coming.

Have you ever seen an elephant attacked by a hundred hyenas? Long before the bus came to a halt the hyenas were chasing it down, clinging to its side, waiting for the doors to open. We shoved, and the crowd moved. They shoved back and we moved. The bus doors opened and the hyenas attacked. There was shoving and pushing and sometimes it felt as if you would be swallowed by the crowd. And then it was over. We were still on the street and the bus was gone. We counted our numbers. Only one of the seven of us had managed to push onto the bus.

Time was ticking now and if we had any hope of catching even part of the game, we would need to get onto the next bus. We edged further into the street. The police tried to push us back. I thought to myself, certainly in a civil society if the cops failed in their duty to maintain order a citizen would step up. I thought of waiting in line for Star Wars Episode III and pulling out a permanent marker to number the people so that we could feel free to wander without stepping out of line. This was no Star Wars line, however, this was Kazakhstan.

The next bus arrived. I pushed ahead. I thought about dashing into the bus but then I saw my friend Renee. I pushed the crowd back to give Renee a chance. People grabbed and pulled and shoved and as Renee tried to step up her leg was caught. She screamed, but no one listened. She turned and shouted at the lady behind her and then jumped on the bus.

I was being pushed back and I thought that there was no point anymore, the bus was too full. It was too late. But still I pushed. The crowd went left and I was driven further from the door, I pushed back right and then before I knew it I was in the entrance way. I stepped toward the bus but glanced back towards my fiancée. She was drifting back into the crowd.

There is a movie, several movies actually, where two lovers are trying to get to each other but the crowd is too thick. Today, I was in that movie. Standing under the bus door frame with hundreds of angry people shoving toward me (they were only missing the torches) I stood firm and reached back to my fiancée. I grabbed her gloves and the crowed pushed left. She was being pressed against the side of the bus, squashed between the mob and the retired German vehicle (German buses go to Kazakhstan to die).

I held her tight with both my hands and pulled, but the crowd didn’t let her in. They shouted at me in words I could not understand. Kazakh words. Russian words. Guttural sounds that come from the dark depths of angry people. In Cathy’s eyes I saw that she had given up. “Just leave me” said those eyes. But I held firm. I pulled her toward me and as the mob shifted back to the right Cathy was given a free pocket.

A woman stepped up to the platform but as I turned to her my face said “Not without my girl friend” and the woman gave way. I pulled Cathy onto the bus and we moved into the center. Dozens more boarded, more than I thought possible. My friend Brooke was shoved forth and tripped. I went back to the door and pulled her too. More tried to push on but the doors were closing. People were caught in the door as the bus rolled off. The door opened once more and people fell back onto the street.

Were we evacuating a war zone? No we were going to a hockey game. The Kazakh government had years to plan this moment and they had failed miserably.

The game was joy-filled. People forgot about their journey up. The locals asked us where we were from (Canada, always say Canada), gave us gifts and wanted to take pictures with us. We laughed and cheered. Kazakhstan won and they played the Star Wars music at the medal ceremony. The president was there and people were ecstatic. “Ra, Ra, Kazakhstan!” Never have I experienced so much joy in this country.

But when the game was over and we walked back down to catch a ride into the city, we saw that there were thousands of people and only a few buses.

“Here we go again,” I thought to myself, and for the second time in one day I became a member of an angry mob.