Any time you visit new place, the majority of people you are going to see around are locals. As a visitor it is not easy to blend in, even if you speak local language something will give you away – your cloth, your camera or your race. In different places there are certain attitudes to non locals and it is usually man who show these attitudes and local behaviors. Some are nice and friendly, some can be rude, some can be hostile. In my experience you might encounter it in smaller cities and villages. In big cities, it is not as common.
So here is the photo of a local guy in Issik. Issik is a small town in Central Asia, about 40 km east from Almaty. After some hiking in the mountains, at around 3PM, we were going to the local market to get some food and I was crossing the bridge across river Issik. In the middle of the bridge I stopped and took a picture of the river and nearby mountains. At the same time I heard someone saying in Russian – “Hey, American, take a picture of me”. He said something else, I can’t recall. I turned around, pointed my camera at him and snapped it away. The guy was drunk and started talking some trash to me, while his friend (not pictured, on the right) was pulling him away. My wife was behind me and started passing us forward the market, this guy said something like “Hey, girl, you are pretty my little blond hotty”, in a trashy Russian way and tried to grab her by the arm. We quickly moved forward away from this character. Btw, gold teeth are the norm in central Asia for denture replacement. Some folks have full mouth of them. I haven’t seen it in the west for quite a while now.
