The story of Kaz & Stan

After the rough night on a sleeper train crossing the border between Russia and Kazakhstan (where it seemed like there was no end to the intimidating border guards who needed to check our passports or our phones), we arrived in Atyrau at 5:45am, sufficiently exhausted. And, of course, finding the place we were staying was anything but straightforward. But, once we’d found the place (helped greatly by a sleepy but incredibly kind young Kazakhstani woman who could speak English) we were finally able to rest. But, the place had no Wi-Fi (obviously) so we had to go on a quest to find a cafe or restaurant that had Wi-Fi we could use. Luckily, the woman who had helped us, Jannar, had recommended somewhere to go, and so off we went, free from our painfully heavy bags to go on an hour long walk across Atyrau, in the hopes that this restaurant had Wi-Fi we could actually use.

As we started our walk, we came across two stray dogs (which had been a very common sight in cities ever since Turkey) lying on the pavement, with tags on their ears which meant somebody had vaccinated and/or neutered them. They stood up as we walked past to give us a playful hello, and the white dog with brown spots seemed to want us to play with her. We thought it was cute, but continued on our walk as we had a long way to go, and to our amusement, she decided to walk alongside us, still stretching and wagging her tail as of to get us to play. Her equally friendly seeming companion, a large brown dog, padded along after her, and every so often they snapped playfully at one another.

We came to our first zebra crossing and had to wait for the cars to stop, and to our surprise, the dogs waited with us, until it was safe to cross, and then they followed us across the road. It was a bizarre but cute little coincidence. And then they followed us across another zebra crossing after that. It was starting to feel less like a coincidence that these dogs were going the same way as us, and more like they were actually following wherever we were going. But still, they were bound to turn off at some point. Right?

Fifteen minutes into our walk, and a few streets later, our canine companions were still trotting dutifully alongside us.

We turned down a road that they seemed slightly worried to go down, and yet still they followed as if it was common sense to go wherever we were going. They were barked at by a few dogs behind garden fences but stayed calm, and even came across one or two other strays who they greeted with cautious courtesy, and they were always smart enough to stay out of the way of the cars on the road.

We felt sort of responsible for them now, and they showed no signs of stopping following us. When they went ahead, at one point my mum stopped walking and so did we to see what they would do, and almost instantly our spotted friend turned back to look at us, waiting. She had immediately known, it was incredible. At this point, we had to give them names, and landed on Kaz (the spotted dog) and Stan (the brown one), after their country of residence, Kazakhstan.

Both of them made sure they were never too far ahead or behind us, although at one point Stan decided to follow a smell down another street and we thought he had gone his own way so we (slightly sadly) continued walking, until we turned back and saw him galloping up the street to catch up with us. Kaz crouched on the ground as he came running over to her, and when they met they jumped up, scrabbling and yapping at each other as if they were so excited just to see each other again (mind you Stan had been gone for about a minute at most), and then they continued on.

As we continued walking, so too did our friends, and while Stan padded along ahead he would keep stopping to look back at us to make sure he didn’t lose us. These dogs were melting our hearts, and if we lived in Kazakhstan you know we would have adopted them by now. We could tell Kaz was getting tired and thirsty from the long walk in the sun, and we really wanted to get her some water, so when we came across a supermarket we decided to go in to get her some. We also thought that maybe they would decide to move on from us at that point because we were starting to feel bad for them following us all this way, but they didn’t seem to want to leave our sides.

So, me and my mum went into the supermarket whilst my dad stayed outside with them. When we came back out with a bottle of water and a tub of cheese (we couldn’t find any dog food and also needed a water container), they were sitting being happily petted by my dad. We emptied the cheese onto the ground to use the tub for water, and Stan happily ate it but Kaz was only interested in the water. Once she had drank her fill, Stan did the same, and as we set off to leave again, the dogs got up and dutifully matched our stride beside us. It seemed like they really were coming the whole way.

After a few more long stretches of road and busy road crossings, we had made it to the Booblik cafe, and so too had our dog companions, Kaz and Stan. They had walked with us the whole way, right up to the entrance of the cafe – almost an hour of walking, and they had followed us that whole time. At the gate, as we said a difficult goodbye, Stan leapt up and put his paws on my dad’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes like he knew this was goodbye. We petted the dogs one last time, and as we went into the cafe, Stan even tried to come in with us. Later, when we walked past the door, they were still waiting outside, but by the time we had finally left the cafe, they had gone. It was for the best, but we still kept an eye out for them on our walk back, sad to have let them go.

Wherever in Atyrau those two beautiful dogs are now, I’m sure they’re happy because they have each other, and now we’ve met them, they will always have a piece of our hearts with them too. They’ve made our long walk through the city a bizarrely incredible story, a truly unforgettable experience. We send our love, Kaz and Stan, and we will miss you.

– Rosa