People in Kazakhstan

Below I am offering you an article posted in blog by Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, who represents the Archbishop of Canterbury in an international interfaith initiative based in Kazakhstan (Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions). 

I met Nick back in October 2003 during the Secretariat of the Congress in Turkistan, Kazakhstan, and he is a permanent member of these meetings. In this article Nick shares his opinion and observations about people in Kazakhstan.

Nick has kindly offered and gave his consent to have his articles published in my blog. 

Thank you, Nick!

July 1, 2009

A steppe up (Kazakhstan 4)

Posted by nickbaines under religion | Tags: Kazakhstan |

The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions is why I am here in Astana, but there are benefits to be had from all the hard work, too.

I have been coming here for inter-faith work since 2003 and have met some really lovely people. Kazakh young people are optimistic and proud of their young country’s achievements, looking ahead to a peaceful and prosperous future. They are not selfish or cynical, but want to see their country serve the peace of the region and the world. To tired Europeans that probably sounds very quaint, but if you meet these wonderful people, you will know what I mean.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had walked around Astana with a good friend, Lyazzat. She has helped me enormously in the work of the Congress and its Secretariat in the past and has now become a good friend to me and my family. She stayed with us in Croydon for two months in summer 2007 while doing an English language course in London. Lyazzat is bright, has the ideal personality and skills for diplomatic work and epitomises young Kazakh commitment to more than self-realisation. She is a lovely person and a great ambassador for her country.

Each Congress delegation is assigned a ‘liaison officer’ and I have always come up trumps with young, intelligent and sociable young people. This time we have been assigned a young woman called Zhanara Abdulova. Her first name means ’sunbeam’! I asked her if I could put her photo on here and she agreed. She has been unfailingly helpful, patient and efficient and we couldn’t have wished for anyone nicer. Like Lyazzat, she is a great ambassador for her country and my colleagues and I will be sad to say goodbye to her.

This evening we went into Astana and had a cultural introduction to Kazakhstan. This involved music, dance and cultural artefacts in a series of yurts. All this was interesting enough as we sat in the sun and drank it all in, but I was also chatting at length with Jonathan Aitken who (I have just discovered) is publishing next month a biography of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. We went from there to a cultural centre for a reception put on by the President who also turned up, addressed us and then spent ages chatting to people.

Now it’s late, I’m going to bed and will just shove a few photos up to illustrate the cultural stuff.