In Almaty for next few days if anyone's around

Anyone in Kazakhstan right now? Do you find it easy to make friends with the locals?

Anyone have experience opening a Kazakh bank account?

Yeah hit up the bars, not many tourists come here so many curious people wanna talk

Do you have a link?

I have. What do you need for it:

1. Local phone number. Beeline for example
2. Local IIN (Individual Identification Number), you need to get it at Public Service Center, they pronounce it “tson”. You better take a kazakh/russian-speaking friend with you, in the “tson” they likely don’t speak english
3. Then you can go to a bank and open an account. But beware, ask what the card expiring period is. It might be like a year for foreigners in some banks

Also keep in mind that Kaspi Bank is the mostly used in Kazakhstan, but they don’t offer multi currencies cards. Tenge only. It’s Visa, so it works outside of KZ too, but tenge

Halyk, Jusan, BCC offer multi currencies cards

Hey, everyone. Anyone in Almaty in early January to catch up?