Properties inscribed on the World Heritage List

Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi

The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi and its site represent an exceptional testimony to the culture of the Central Asian region, and to the development of building technology. It was a prototype for the development of a major building type in the Timurid period, becoming a significant reference in the history of Timurid architecture and contributing significantly to the development of Islamic religious architecture.

The origins of the modern town of Turkestan go back to the early Middle Ages. At first known as Yasi, it was a suburban area of Shavgar, in the region of Syr Daria, the crossroads of agricultural and nomadic cultures. Shavgar developed into a large handicraft and trade centre, but from the 12th century, Yasi gained in importance over it. Pilgrimage to the tomb of Ahmed Yasawi was another factor that contributed to its development. In the 1370s, Timur (Tamerlane, c . 1336-1405) became the new ruler of Central Asia, and his reign extended from Mesopotamia and Iran to Transoxiana. His capital was Samarkand.

Timur’s policies involved the construction of monumental public and cult buildings (mosques, mausoleums,madrasas ) in regions such as Syr Daria, where towns were vital outposts on the northern frontier of his possessions, including the Mausoleum of Ahmed Yasawi. Timur’s wish was to contribute to the diffusion of Islam, but even more so to fulfill specific political objectives. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, a distinguished Sufi master of the 12th century, is situated in southern Kazakhstan, in the city of Turkestan (Yasi). The mausoleum is placed in the area of the former citadel, in the north-eastern part of the ancient town, now an open archaeological site. To the south, there is a nature protection area; on the other sides the modern city of Turkestan surrounds the site. The property is limited to the mausoleum of Ahmed Yasawi; the buffer zone covers the archaeological area of the ancient town.

The mausoleum was built between 1389 and 1399, continuing until the death of Timur in 1405. The building was left unfinished at the entrance and some parts of the interior, thus providing documented evidence of the working methods at that time. In the 16th century, the mausoleum went through some repair and reconstruction on the main portal; the arch was repaired by Abdullah Khan, the governor of Bokhara. From this time until the 19th century, Turkestan was the residence of the Kazakh khans. In the 19th century, Kokand Khan turned the mausoleum into a fortress, and built a defensive wall around it in mud brick.

The mausoleum is one of the largest built in the Timurid period. There are some other buildings in the vicinity, including mausolea for distinguished persons, small mosques, and a medieval bath house. On the north side, the mausoleum is separated from the new town by a section of the ancient citadel wall, which has here been reconstructed. The structure of the building is in fired brick with mortar of gypsum mixed with clay (ganch). The foundations were originally built from layers of clay, but these have recently been rebuilt in concrete. The main entrance is from the south-east through the iwan into the large square Main Hall, Kazandyk, covered with a conic-spherical dome, the largest in Central Asia (18.2 m in diameter). In the centre of this hall is a bronze cauldron (kazan ) for ritual purposes, dated 1399. The tomb of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (Gur khana), the most important space, is situated on the central axis at the end of the building in the north-west. The sarcophagus is in the centre of this space.

The building has spaces assigned for several functions: as meeting rooms, a refectory (Ash khana), a library (Kitab khana), and a mosque. The mosque is the only room where fragments of the original wall paintings are preserved, which are geometric and floral ornaments in light blue color. The intrados of the domes is decorated in alabaster stalactites (muqarnas ). In the exterior, the walls are covered with glazed tiles with large geometric patterns with epigraphic ornaments, characteristic of Timurid architecture.

There are fine Kufic inscriptions on the walls and texts from the Qu’ran on the drums of the domes. The building remained unfinished at the death of Timur in 1405, and was never completed, and so the main entrance still lacks the surface finish and the two minarets that were planned. See more…

Index of Economic Freedom

…Corruption, bribery, and graft are widespread at all levels of government as evidenced by several high-profile cases in the past year. The judiciary is constitutionally subservient to the executive branch. Judges are subject to political bias, and corruption pervades the judicial system. Courts cannot protect property rights effectively, and infringements of intellectual property rights are rife. See more…

Kazakhstanies Take Part in Syrian War

Kazakhstan’s security forces arrested two Kazakh nationals on charges of participating in the Syrian crisis upon their return from Syria.

The arrested Kazakh nationals had illegally left Kazakhstan and visited Syria via Turkey.

Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee announced that it is interrogating the detainees and it will soon publish new information about them.

Earlier this week, Deputy Chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee Nurgali Bilisbekov announced that a large number of Kazakh citizens are fighting in Syria and special investigations are underway to identify them.

In a related development, Kyrgyzstan’s intelligence agency announced last month that a number of Kyrgyz citizens are also taking part in the Syrian war against President Bashar Al-Assad’s government.

Analysts believe that what is presently going on in Syria is directly linked to the future stability and security of the former Soviet Union republics, including Central Asian countries.

The security sources, knowing the fact that hundreds of militants from the former Soviet Union are fighting in Syria, are worried that if the Syrian crisis is resolved most of the armed rebels will return to their countries and they will use their experiences under the management of intelligence agencies of the western and Arabic countries.

Last week, Syria’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun said more than 3,000 citizens from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are fighting along other foreign-backed militants in Syria.

“Around 2,000 Russian nationals most of them from the North Caucasus region and some 1,300 others from other former Soviet republics are fighting along armed opposition groups in this country,” the Syrian grand mufti said, addressing a ceremony at the Islamic University of Moscow said.

Sheikh Hassoun noted that the Russian militants poured into Syria after the outbreak of the unrest in 2011.

The Syrian government has long been charging that foreign fighters are joining the battle alongside the opposition rebels.

Many foreign nationals, including Russian and Chechen fighters, have been killed in the battle with the Syrian army.

In December 2012, a group of 39 Chechen terrorists left London’s Heathrow airport for Istanbul to sneak into Syria via the Turkish borders and join other terrorist and armed rebel groups in the war on Damascus.

The 39 terrorists were not the first group of Chechens sent to Syria. When armed rebellion against the Damascus government broke out, Chechen terrorists were among the first foreign troops sent to Syria through Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Britain.

All throughout the last century, Chechens who had always been treated like an enemy, or at least a second class citizen, both under Tsarist and Communist Russia mostly left their land for various world countries, specially in the Middle-East.

Chechnya which is a part of Russian territory has declared autonomy despite the opposition of the government in Moscow. The officials of the region who are aware of Moscow’s advocacy of the Damascus government now want to attract the attention and support of the western states which provide aid to the terrorists in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s government by sending terrorists to the Arab country.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against the Syrian police, border guards, statesmen, army and civilians being reported across the country.

Thousands of people have been killed since terrorist and armed groups turned protest rallies into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. See more…

WHEN MONUMENTS BECOME MYTH ERBOSSYN MELDIBEKOV

From his 2009 “Asian Weapon” series of black-and-white drawings of household items converted into weapons, to his vividly colored ceramic plates depicting camels with hi-tech rocket launchers on their backs, Erbossyn Meldibekov is known for politically loaded works that appropriate simplistic views of Central Asia as a region defined solely by barren landscapes and violent histories. Born in 1964 in southern Kazakhstan, Meldibekov lives and works in Almaty. ArtAsiaPacific talked with him about the fictional nation of Pastan, cannabis and the evolution of Soviet monuments.

In a performance at the Venice Biennale in 2005, you introduced yourself to tourists as a native of Pastan, and they pretended they knew the country. Why do you think they did this?

I think few people care where Tajikistan or Turkmenistan is. To them, Central Asia might as well be a meteorite that exploded out of Venus.

In your 2005 performance, Pastan on the Street, and your 2004 video Pastan 2, you allow people to verbally and physically abuse you. How does this meekness relate to your views of the political situation in Kazakhstan?  

That period of protest against president Akayev was a time of optimism, and I was attempting to create protest art. But now, instead of violence and obscenity there is only laughter in my work. My rebuttal to the Pastan works is Shu-Chu (2009). Its title comes from the railway station in my hometown, where cannabis grows, and it means “I joke.” This is important, since the main quality of this herb is that it makes you laugh.

Black Square (2005), is a parody of Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich’s famous Black Square (1915)—yours is a square of live worms. What led you to appropriate this artist’s work? 

I had a passionate period of applying my revisions to other artists’ work. I wanted to take the static Malevich and connect it to the earth, like the nomads, who are in constant motion.

Wolf-Ram (2006) is a taxidermied sculpture made from the front half of a wolf and the back half of a ram sewn together in the middle. What are you implying with this piece?  

Kazakh mythology, nomads and animals play a big role in the aesthetics of most of my works. Wolves represent an idealized image of courage, bravery, skill and, most crucially, independence. Meanwhile, the ram, especially its backside, signifies stupidity and thickheadedness. With this work, I wanted to create a sort of hybrid animal because that’s what it felt like after Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991. Many artists tried to renew these kinds of mythologies and legends, not only here, but in the Ukraine and Russia as well. I, on the other hand, tried to demythologize these themes.

 

What is your religious standpoint, especially in reference to the performance Hypermuslim (2006) in which you circumcise yourself a second time? 

The 16th-century general Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat is one of the original founders of Mongolian-Islamic culture in the Kazakh homeland. I like his thoughts and teachings about Islam. I was born in the religious part of southern Kazakhstan, but I’m an artist and do not consider myself very religious. I was always interested in dead-end questions, such as these little pieces of ourselves, which we cut off, making them useless. It’s very strange.

You have become very popular in the European contemporary art world. What sort of treatment do you receive in your home country?  

In Central Asia, the people in power are allergic to artists like me. It is becoming more and more dangerous to make radical works. I am afraid to make these kinds of works there now. In Uzbekistan, Umida Akhmedova was recently taken to court [for photographs that allegedly “insult and slander the Uzbek people and traditions”], and the Russian dealer Marat Guelman was beaten up in his own gallery in Moscow in 2006 after he showed politically provocative work. Instead of blatant pessimism, now I employ irony and laughter.

All of your work so far has been about Kazakhstan. Do you feel like you will ever run out of subject matter, or is Kazakhstan an endless theme for you?

Perhaps because I was born on the mountainous border between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, I consider myself a Central Asian artist and cannot discern Kazakhstan from its neighbors. I find the political problems in Kyrgyzstan closer to my heart and more interesting than the political intrigue in Kazakhstan.

Your “Family Photo Album” series (2007–09), which you made with your brother, shows family members posing in places they visited decades ago. Here, your medium appears to be time itself.  Many of my new pieces consist of forgotten utopian stories, incidents and even gossip. For instance, there’s a monument in Uzbekistan that was changed 11 times in 90 years. At first, in 1912, it was governor-general Kaufman, but in 1917, the Bolsheviks replaced him with a red flag, calling it “Monument to Revolution.” Then it was Stalin, Karl Marx and Amir Temur. It’s absurd to change a monument every ten years. Another time, we found a picture of our sister standing in front of a monument of Lenin in Kazakhstan, and decided to photograph her there, in the same pose. The strange thing was that the background stood out more than her. Lenin’s figure was replaced by an equestrian statue of the Kazakh hero Baidiber-Batir, but in the end it looks like the Soviet military leader Kotovsky or the Red Army commander Chapaev. It was interesting to see how these Soviet symbols mutated and in some cases disappeared altogether.

BY IRINA MAKAROVA

Turkestan – the capital of the Kazakh Khanship

In the XVI-XVIII centuries Turkestan was the capital of the Kazakh Khanship. Kazakh Khans understood the geopilitical and spiritual importance of this town for unification of nomadic tribes included into the composition of the young state formation.

Turkestan and his majestic monument are connected with the idea of the Kazakh state system. This role of Turkestan is emphasized by the fact that such a significant and revered place in the course of time was turned into the pantheon of outstanding statesmen, famous scientists and poets. Such prominent historic persons as Abulkhair, Rabiga Sultan-begim, Zholbarys-khan, Esim-khan, Ondan-sultan (the son of Shygai-khan), Abylai-khan, Kaz dauysty Kazbek-bi and many others were buried inside this complex.

After adjourning of the whole territory of the Middle Syr Darya to the Kazakh Khanship the town of Yasy – Turkestan, became the residence of the Kazakh khans. To that time this town turned into the largest trade and handicraft centre. Makhmud ibn Vali, the author of “Bakhr al-asrar” informed about one more name of the town: “Now Turkestan – is the town of Saksi, that is named by ordinary people as Yasy. Ahmed Ata Yasawi was born in this place and buried there.” In the same source there is also the indication about the location of Esim-khan settlement in Turkestan, that was confirmed by Abulgazi who enjoyed the hospitality of Esim-khan during the years of disturbances in his motherland. 

Before the main portal of the Ahmed Ata Yasawi complex a special mausoleum was built for Esim-khan. At this cemetery there was the mausoleum of Ondan-sultan, the other son of Shygai-khan, mentioned by Kadyralibek in “Jami at-tavarikh”. But this mausoleum was destroyed and do not exist now. However, the grave-stone of Amanbike is consdered to be the earliest monument related to the governing clan of the Kazakhs in Turkestan. Judging from the epitaph she was the daughter of Janibek, the founder of the Kazakh Khanship, and died in 925 according to the Muslem calendar-khizhdra ( i.e. in 1519).

The Embassies from the neighbouring states were sent to Turkestan, to the Kazakh khans. The record of the Russian Embassy to Tauke khan arrived to Turkestan on July 22, 1694 survived almost in full. Turkestan was not only the quarters of the Kazakh rulers. Here the meetings of the higher Kazakh nobility were held to solve the most important state-related matters. Later holding of meetings of the higher nobility in Turkestan was documented.

In Turkestan there were ceremonies of elevation of the Kazakh khans to the throne. Thus, in 1737 sultan Abulmambet was elected as khan. According to the message of Janibek batyr, Abulmambet , “the son of the former Pulat-khan was the last year elected in Turkestan as khan by the noblest Kyrghyz-Kaisak clans such as Argyn, Aktai, Uvaktirey and others… ” The messages about the ceremonial election of Abylai as khan are more detailed and in general provide a clear picture of the historic ceremony. According to the record of captain Brekhov, Abylai “was honoured of the khan title in the previous 1771 in the time of pursuing of the Volga kalmyks escaped from areas that were under the authority of Her Imperial Majesty. This title was given to him in Turkestan near the grave of the sacred Ahmed Ata by the khans of three Hordes, sultans, Kyrghyz leaders, and also by the best representatives of Tashkent and Turkestan towns for him to be the sultan superior to all khans . Then according to their customs, as all former khans had been elevated to the throne, the approving prayer was read and he was elevated to the throne by lifting on the white felt mat before the whole meeting”.

It is known that in other places of Kazakhstan the all-kazakh kurultais (meetings) were also held (for example, in Ordabasy). However, as the historic facts testify, only in Turkestan the meetings of the national level were held on the regular basis. Not by chance namely Turkestan was chosen as the political centre of the Kazakh khanship. This town was the second Mecca for the Muslems of Central Asia, it was situated on the border of the nomadic and settled cultures, on the juncture of trade roads, it had powerful fortifications… see more

(Social) Realism: Kazakhstan Art

Sakhi Romanov (1926-2002) 
Folk artist of Kazakhstan (1981). Artist of the cinema, graph, painter. Finished the All-union institute of cinematography (1955). Worked on a studio «Kazakhfil’m», was the artist-producer of many interesting films, that imposed an imprint on all his machine creation. His painting is energetic, multicoloured and showy.

Shardenov Zhanatai
Folk artist of Kazakhstan. Has finished Almaty theatrically-art school of the name of Gogol in 1949 and two years studied in the Leningrad institute of painting, sculptures and architectures of the name of Repin. Leading landscape-painter of Kazakhstan, possessed the especially individual handwriting. Worked in a pastes manner, very liked to paint mountains.

Sharipov A. (1964)
Was born in 1964 in Gijduvan Bukharas area. Graduated the Samarkand State Architecturally-building Institute it. Mirzo-Ulugbeka in 1989. Taught on faculty of figure up to 2000.

Rashid Kulbatyrov Utepbergenovich (1967)
Rashid Kulbatyrov Utepbergenovich was born in 1967 in Aktobe region. He has graduated from Art department in Aktobe city on 1986 and from Abaya Graphic Art Department on 1995. He takes an active part in international and national exhibitions. Held several solo exhibitions (City: Aktau, Almaty, Aktobe, Astana). 2002 Winner of the international youth festival «Shabyt». 2005 International Festival «The Caspian Sea of Friendship» 3 place.Besides painting Kulbatyrov Rashid wrote watercolor, light and filled with air, but with a carefully prescribed details.In the work of this artist can see a few prevailing view, it is – the landscape, everyday scenes and games that illustrate the ancient traditions of the nomads. In all landscapes Rashid, either watercolor or oil, there is a special inner state of harmony, which allows you to «tune in» to the contemplation of and appreciate the beauty of work.Pictures Kulbatyrov Rashid writes in a light, expressive style, perfectly conveying dynamic strokes racing clouds and foaming waves of the sea or the excitement of the races. The works of this artist mountains, made in silver scale, appear before the audience beautiful and majestic.

Fridlin Yevgeniy (1974)
Was born in 1974 in Pavlodar. Has ended Pavlodar art college, the winner of the nominal premium of Aubakir Ismailov, festival ” Shabyt-2003 ” Works are in: the Pavlodar regional art museum (Pavlodar), the Museum of the fine arts of Family Nevzorovy (Semey), the State museum of arts of name Kasteev (Almaty), assembly of ATF-BANK (Almaty), gallery of the modern art “Ular” , private collections of Kazakhstan, Poland, Germany, the USA, France, Italy…

 

Figurative painter

Abdalieva Akzhan is a very young and gifted artist from Almaty, Kazakhstan. She studied art for twenty-five years in many different colleges. Today she has a doctorate in Fine Arts. Her works are in private collections in Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Germany, USA and other countries.

Kazakhstan photos on www.mediagallery.usatoday.com/Kazakhstan

Kazakh wolf hunt