While I was in Kazakhstan last week for the Eurasian Media Forum I had a chance to interview Adil Nurmakov, Central Asia editor for Global Voices Online.

I was having a hard time tracking him down, because my coal-powered cell phone doesn’t work outside the United States. (It does, however, use clean coal.) Fortunately Robin Hamman, an American expat social-media wizard who now lives in the U.K., let me borrow his iPhone, and I was able to make contact.

Adil and I walked about a mile to a restaurant where I had thought we might get some authentic Kazakh food. No such luck. We ended up at a British-style pub, complete with a snooker match playing on two flat-panel TVs hanging from the walls on either side of us. I did order some genuine Kazakh beer. It tasted like … beer. Quite good.

We spent a couple of hours talking about his life and career, then walked back to the InterContinental Hotel, where I conducted a brief video interview in the mezzanine-level press room that had been set up for the forum.