ASTANA – Fourteen Turkish school children visited Kazakhstan last week as part of the initiative to promote the legacy of Kazakh great poet and philosopher Abai Kunanbaiuly.
Photo credit: Ilyas Omarov
In April, the Kazakh Consulate General in Istanbul held a creative competition devoted to the Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbaiuly at the Istanbul secondary school to promote the work of the great poet in Türkiye.
School student Melike Eren, one of the winners of the competition, prepared for the test by reading Abai’s major philosophical piece, “Qara Sozder” (Words of Wisdom), and analyzing his instructions.
“After the first stage, the students with the highest scores moved on, and I was also among them. In the second stage, we had to write essays on topics related to our understanding of Abai’s works. In my essays, I tried to use his philosophical treatises, as they helped me look at many things from a different perspective,” she told The Astana Times.
As a result of the two stages of the competition, 14 winners were determined out of 700 Turkish schoolchildren. The winners were awarded memorable certificates, as well as special tourist vouchers to the Kazakh cities of Shymkent, Turkistan, and Astana from July 11 to July 15.
“In fact, I have always wanted to visit Turkic countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or the Kyrgyz Republic. I am very glad that I was able to visit Kazakhstan. We really liked the places in Astana, such as the Baiterek monument and the National Museum, which we also visited today,” said Eren.
This initiative has become a new project that is supposed to contribute to the development of cultural and humanitarian cooperation between Kazakhstan and Türkiye and promote the works of the Kazakh great poet in the fraternal country.
