NUR-SULTAN – Moscow residents Elizaveta Osipova and Anastasiya Reshetnikova launched the Moskva Qazaqsha (About Moscow in Kazakh) project about their hometown, its streets and people in the Kazakh language on YouTube.
Anastasiya Reshetnikova and Elizaveta Osipova.
They also started an online course on the most necessary and easy phrases that people need to know while visiting Kazakhstan.
“The idea for the project started with a love for the Kazakh language when we studied at the Linguistic University. In 2018 I suggested to Anastasiya that we create a video blog and she supported me. We wanted to practice the Kazakh language constantly,” Osipova said in an interview for this story.
Elizaveta Osipova
Now Osipova and Reshetnikova are pursuing careers in the public relations sphere. However, they devote all of their free time to the project.
“Of course, we are grateful to our Kazakh language teachers Ulzhan Musabekova and Kamshat Shakhatova. They greatly motivated us to study the language. We would not have such a passion for Kazakh language without their knowledge and efforts,” said Osipova.
Osipova strongly believes that it’s impossible to do something without love. “My goal is to contribute to the cultural relations between Russia and Kazakhstan. We have many opportunities for cooperation. The best thing to do something important is literally to do something in this direction,” she added.
Elizaveta Osipova and Anastasiya Reshetnikova as students used to celebrate the Kazakh Holiday Nauryz (New Year) on March 22 at the university.
The bloggers have already visited Kazakhstan several times and plan to continue their trips in the future.
Osipova noted that her mission is to promote Kazakh culture in Russia. As a result, the bloggers recently released interviews with soloist of the Turetsky choir band Alibek Almadiyev and young director of the Vakhtangov Theater Gulnaz Balpeisova.
“I think it would be interesting to take interviews with famous Kazakh DJ Imanbek, director Aisultan Seitov and singer Scryptonite,” she said.
On their social media, the young bloggers shared some characteristics of the Kazakh language that amazed them the most. “There’s a wide variety of words to express love and warmth in the Kazakh language. For example, you can call a person you love bauyrym (liver). It turns out that this organ is related to your affection. Our favorite expressions are janym (my soul) and aynalayin, a word without a clear translation, you can express love, care and warmth to someone by saying this word,” they wrote on their Facebook.
The bloggers are especially glad to receive positive feedback. “The thought that people are interested in our content inspires us. At first, we did not believe that we would have many followers. We were happy to see 60 views and, once we got 14,000 views, we knew that this was just the beginning,” said Osipova.
The first episode of Moskva Qazaqsha tells the history of the Ostozhenka street, one of the oldest and most beautiful streets in Moscow. The bloggers have a special feeling for this area because their university is located in this street. In other words, they found their passion in studying the Kazakh language and culture here. So they cannot but share the history of the Ostozhenka street and its buildings in Kazakh in their pilot episode.
