Conversations on the Silk Way

Bakhyt Ashirbayev, artist, poet, and architect, believes that development of humanitarian and philosophical sciences is impossible without experience exchanges between specialists on one hand and on the other hand intellectual searches must always aim at solution of concrete relevant tasks.

Only in such combination philosophical theories do not sink into scholastics, but become an important and ideally primary component in the social and cultural development, in the socio-political life of peoples and states.

Thus about a year ago an idea of organising in South Kazakhstan creative meetings and conversations between intellectual elites from the entire Central Asian region was born. Which, thanks to the energy and purposefulness of Bakhyt Ashirbayev became reality in early June.

Already the first workshop has gathered famous representatives of intelligentsia not only from Kazakhstan, but also from Russia and Central Asian states.

In the event officially baptised as "Conversations on the Silk Way" such persons as Marat Sembi, PhD in history, Safar Abdullo, leading scientific employee of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Sharif Shukurov, specialist in fine arts from Russia, Yevgeniy Sidorov, member of Russian state commission for UNESCO affairs, Nikolai Afanasiyev, professor of Moscow State University, Musurkula Kabylbekov, Kyrgyz publicist, participated. The workshop was chaired by the director of the National Library of Kazakhstan, famous scientist Murat Auezov.

The schedule of the workshop included scientific conversations between the scientists themselves preceded by visits to historical and cultural monuments of South Kazakhstan. The event organisers think that a touch of the ancient times allowed participants to swicthc to a philosophical tone in their conversations, but at the same time disclosed a number of problems and subjects for discussion.

Thus, for instance, attention of the scientists was attracted by a circumstance that such South Kazakhstani villages as Sairam and Shaulder are a real font of ancient books written in Persian, Arabic, Chagatay, and other ancient languages. The books are mainly private property of the villagers, they are not always kept in due conditions and the main thing is that they are not being studied at all.

The scientists also noted errors in the restoration of Hodja Ahmad Yassawi Mausoleum - ancient inscriptions disappeared from the Mausoleum walls after the restoration. They were simply plastered. So far the inscriptions can still be saved.

"The history doesn't teach those who don't want to learn anything," - such is one of the workshop postulates.

- Even here, in South Kazakhstan, we can find very clear and instructive examples of history, which will not only enrich our knowledge, but will also help us understand how to resolve certain modern problems, they can serve as a point of departure for further development, - the workshop participants believe.

So a conversation about the past of a concrete region created preconditions for speculation on the future of the entire Eurasian area, where the main thing is a formation of a unitary Eurasian community.

And the latter in its turn is impossible without realising specific features of each culture, an analysis of the integration processes, tolerance and originality of all ethnicities.

On the basis of the philosophic dialogues of the workshop a cycle of programmes will be crated as a part of the TV programme "Thread of Time" by Murat Auezov. It has also been decided to make these "Conversations on the Silk Way" regular, for which an NGO of the same name has been registered in Shymkent.