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📰 Digitizing the First Issues of “Erkin Too” Newspaper: Since the fall of 2024, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Kyrgyz statehood, the Aigine Cultural Research Center, in collaboration with Soltek LLC, has launched a project to digitize and transliterate the earliest issues of the “Erkin Too” newspaper (1925–1927). Over the course of three weeks, 324 issues have been scanned. A student from China, where Kyrgyz communities use the Arabic script, is working on transliterating the texts into Cyrillic. Once completed, the digitized newspapers will be made available in…

⛰️ Final Meetings in Paraguay: This week marked the conclusion of the Aigine CRC team’s working trip to Paraguay. On December 7, we visited a family of artists from the indigenous Ishir community, who practice traditional crafts such as creating rare baskets and drawings. During our conversation, we learned their story and gained insight into the life of the Ishir community, which has long been neglected by the government. These people preserve their traditional rituals only in the northern regions of Paraguay, from where they were forced to move to…

🔥 Fire Ritual: This week, the Aigine CRC team and practitioners collaborating with our center participated in the 19th session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The session took place in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, from December 2 to 6. On December 2, as part of the cultural program of the session, Chynar Seidakhmatova conducted the Umai Sham (Women’s Fire) ritual—a fire ceremony. The ritual was accompanied by a performance on the ooz-komuz by Temirbek Toktogaziev and a traditional meditative song performed by…

🌌 This week, we completed work on a unique calendar that brings together traditional Kyrgyz perceptions of celestial bodies and stars. The project became truly inspiring thanks to the efforts of a group of young female artists led by Asel Kitayeva. The artists created visual representations of the planets in the Solar System, drawing on legends and stories collected by astronomer and lecturer Abakir Kalybekov from Kyrgyz National University. The calendar is both visually stunning and informative, aiming to introduce youth and other enthusiasts to the rich heritage of Kyrgyz…