Rival to Turkestan

Due to efforts of national archaeologists, there has not remained a single region in Kazakhstan where multiple confirmations of a developed and multifaceted culture of peoples and states that existed on our land would not be found in the last few years. But even with this background the ancient Otrar heritage continues to astonish us by its numerous historical and archaeological monuments.

Apart from Otrar itself, there are 100 other ancient city sites located in its oasis on 150 hectares. A part of them remains still unstudied and historians do not doubt that after a complex research the number of the archaeological properties will grow.

It is not an occasion that the government of Kazakhstan allocates a special place for the ancient Otrar in the state programme "Cultural heritage". It is enough to say that the "Otrar programme" budget, allocated by the republic is 2 billion tenge. The programme is designed for five years, during which a complete monitoring and studies of the already fixed monuments will be carried out and a cultural and tourist centre, including the whole complex of ancient Otrar monuments, will be founded. The archaeological research, restoration and conservation of all historical properties will be carried out as well.

The super-target of the programme is to develop a powerful tourist business on the basis of this historical centre as a main source for further scientific and protection works at the Otrar complex.

By the way, a similar task has been successfully achieved in the neighbouring Turkestan. But according to specialists the ancient Otrar is not going to become a rival to the "Turkic Mecca". On the contrary, the proximity of two such important historical sites between each other will create a high tourist attraction for the region.

One of the main attractions of the tourist service planned in the "Ancient Otrar" will be a rope way, looming over several ancient cities. Thus, according to the architect design, tourists will be able to see all details of the ancient buildings by a virtually "non-contact" way. The latter is quite important exactly for the ancient Otrar monuments.

The prevailing majority of ancient cities, burial mounds, etc are made of raw clay. And although the average age of the artefacts is 2-3 thousand years, they were conserved by the nature during that whole period, staying under a thick layer of sand. The archaeological excavations not only managed to discover ancient walls, but, alas, created conditions for a complete disappearance of the artifacts.

So the main target of the "Ancient Otrar" is actually restoration and trustworthy conservation of the architectural monuments.

An implementation of a scientific research project of restoration and conservation of the ancient city of Otrar started already in 2001 under the UNESCO auspices in South Kazakhstan.

The best restorers, archaeologists, engineers from Central Asia, Europe and America fathered at an improvised symposium in Otrar to find the best way of conservation of ancient clay objects. The climatic specifics of our region and a number of characteristics of the materials of which the ancient Otrar properties were made, does not allow to simply copy foreign experiences. The big range of the complex needing to be preserved - 150 hectares - is another problem.

A whole number of new unique restoration and conservation technologies for the clay architecture was developed for three years of the scientific research.

By means of these technologies, archaeologists and architects now plan to restore the original outlook of many walls, buildings, ancient mounds destroyed by time. And to use for further conservation a special solution of clay and cementing chemical additives.

Thus, virtually all properties in Otrar receive an opportunity to further "live and work" under the open sky. However, Specialists observe that, restoration and conservation works are not a single or absolute factor, but a permanent, timeless process.

Only with such approach the cultural heritage of Otrar can be maintained.