1. Case-study No. & Title:
No. 190. Realisation of the "Days of Languages, Traditions and Culture of the South Kazakhstan Ethnic Groups" in the year 2000.

Keywords

2. Author information
2.1 Author’s Name
Igor Savin

2.2 Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details:
Non-governmental Organisation - the Informative Communicative Service "The Dialogue"

Tel.: 7 3252 537028
E-mail: savdial-shm@nursat.kz; savigsa@inbox.ru

2.3 Date recorded
23/12/2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
The Local Administration of the South-Kazakhstan district adopted the special program "Days of Languages, Traditions and Cultures of the South Kazakhstan Ethnic Groups". According to this program during the year 2000 several ethnic festivals took place aimed at making different ethnic groups more familiar to each other and at improving tolerance in the interethnic relations.

3.2 Location:
The city of Chimkent, South Kazakhstan.

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
Russians, Jews, Kurds, Greeks, Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens and others.

3.4 Major Actors Involved

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors
17,000 USD from the local administration budget

3.6 Timeframe
The initiative was proposed on the VI Session of the Assembly of peoples of Kazakhstan and approved by State's Secretary of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 4 February 2000. Soon after it the Head of Administration of the South-Kazakhstan district issued a decree "On arrangements for the Days of Languages, Traditions and Cultures of the South Kazakhstan Ethnic Groups".

The implementation of the Program began on 20 May 2000 with the Holiday of Slavic letters and culture and ended on December 2000.

The program is expected to be financed again for the year 2001

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy
The Program is in accordance with the basic principles of the State legislation.

4. Good Practice Description
The Akim (Head of local administration) of South-Kazakhstan adopted the realisation of the festivals named "days of language, traditions and culture" for the year 2000 with a special decree which prescribes the measures to be realised, the staff of the special commission, the schedule of the festivals’ realisation for the national-cultural centres. For these measures the state allocated 2,500,000 Tenge (equivalent to approximately 17,000 USD).

Representatives of more than 100 nationalities reside in South Kazakhstan. In the region there are 17 National-Cultural Centres (NCC) and two houses of friendship (in the city of Chimkent and in the Maktaaral district, financed by the local budget).

Within the program several activities and celebration took place during the year 2000 such as for instance: the Islamic Holiday Nauryz, the day of the Kazakhstan peoples’ union, the republic’s day, the independence day. All of these event were celebrated as popular holidays with the active support of all NCCs, and were characterised by the unity and consolidation of the participants (representing different nationalities).

On the eve of Kazakhstan peoples’ unity day there was a meeting (in the house of friendship) of all NCCs which was also attended by the members and leaders of the youth movement "for the future of Kazakhstan".

Some meetings were organised for the political victims’ Remembrance Day – especially for the peoples repressed (deported) in the past, there were thematic exhibitions, charitable actions, and a meeting at the memorial "Kasyret" in Chimkent.

On 25 August the round table "5 years with the Constitution. Experiences and thoughts" was attended by representatives of NCCs, of political organisations and of religious organisations.

The NCCs have been organising days of the peoples’ culture, painters, amateurs artisans and children’s creative works’ exhibitions, meetings of the war veterans, intergeneration’ dialogs, thematic conferences, "round tables" etc. Putting into practice the resolutions of the regional Akim, the secretariat of the Small Assembly of South Kazakhstan held its co-ordinating council session on 6 July 2000 discussing the question concerning the realisation of activities which were necessaries for the days of languages, traditions and culture.

The Slavic NCC presented an interesting program on May 20, 200 in the park "World of fantasy". The main motto of all activities was the unity of nations and prosperity of cultures.
An interesting festival was organised by the Jewish NCC on 27 May 2000. The pupils of the Sunday school, members of the local youth club, students of Ivrit courses Ulpan gave the visitors the opportunity to get to know the arts and language of their traditions.

A lot of people attended the Sabantuy, festival of the Tartar-Bashkir NCC in the Abay Park, 27 May 2000, where amateur circles from Taraz, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, Semipalatinsk and also from Tartarstan took part. Some children’s ensembles – Umyrzaya, Zamandashlar, Idel, Sarman appeared on the stage too. There were also sports games.

The Greek NCC, Irni, organised its festival on 3 June 2000 in the house of friendship. This festival of language, culture and traditions was done in the day of the 5th anniversary of this centre.

On the 24 July 2000 it was the day of the Kurdish NCC’s festival, with an exposition of national dishes, clothes, and the ensemble Agry played national music.

Other festivals were organised also by the NCCs representing ethnic groups such as the Uighur, the Chechen, the Azer, ect.