Screening of cartoons about sacred places: On September 23, at the children’s center for childhood and youth “Seytek”, the team of Aigine and the Sanjarbek Daniyarov Foundation held a screening of cartoons based on legends about two sacred places of the country, which were created within the framework of the partnership project of Aigine and Soltek. The screening was organized for students of At-Bashyn secondary school, who came to Bishkek at the invitation of the S. Daniyarov Foundation, as well as for students of Bishkek schools and “Seytek” center. After the show, there was a lively discussion of the plots and characters of the cartoons. The cartoons tell about the origin of two sacred places of Kyrgyzstan – Kulun-Ata, Osh oblast, and Azhydaar Tash, Talas oblast.

Presentation of the results of the project “Meeting Cultural Heritage with Modern Technologies”: Teams of Soltek and Aigine organizations completed the project “Meeting Cultural Heritage with Modern Technologies”. The results of the project – a digital catalog on Kyrgyz women’s traditional meditative practices and 2 cartoons on legends of sacred places were presented on September 24. During the presentation of the catalog “Ayaldyktan asylzaadalykka zhol” (Women’s path from biology to nobility) the project team showed the main meditative traditional practices of Kyrgyz women in action. After the cartoons were shown, there was an active discussion of their content and concept. The presentation was followed by a discussion of the project results. The participants of the presentation expressed constructively critical and supportive ideas and opinions.

Roundtable on the preservation of sacred sites: On September 22, 2023, a roundtable with practitioners, pilgrims and caretakers on the preservation of sacred sites was held with the participation of long-time Aigine CRC partner, Mamiyev Danil, Director of the information center “Uch Enmek” about the Sacred Valley of Karakol in the Altai Republic. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the increasing cases of anthropogenic destruction of sacred places in different regions of our country over the past few years and to find possible ways to prevent, counteract and/or solve these threats. Cases of burning and felling of trees at sacred sites, destruction of springs, as well as privatization/lease of land plots on the territory of sacred sites have become more frequent, which hinders pilgrimage practices and directly threatens the very existence of a sacred site.  Concerned about these developments, caretakers, pilgrims, practitioners and public figures from different regions of the country initiated this discussion. Danil Mamyev shared his many years of experience in working to protect sacred sites in Altai and gave some advice on developing possible protection mechanisms that may be useful given the specifics of our country.

Work on the national list of ICH of the Kyrgyz Republic: The working groups of the project “Digital Journey into the World of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Kyrgyzstan” continue the formation and editing of the national list of elements of ICH of Kyrgyzstan. The work on the formation and editing of the national ICH list of one more domain – oral folk art and the art of improvisation – has been completed. The work on forming and editing the list of this element is headed by expert Kiyal Tazhieva. The next step: analysis of this list by the project monitoring team.