550 Years of Kazakh History

This past month, Kazakhstan celebrated its 550th year of statehood.  All those years ago, the meeting and agreement were finalized here in Taraz.

The town has been getting ready for this celebration for months.  New streets, flowers planted everywhere, new bus stops, new parks, new white stuff painted on the bottom of the trees...

The celebration lasted 3 days and brought President Nazarbayev and the presidents of our neighboring countries to Taraz.  Although I had to work, Terry was able to attend some of the events, so I thought I could share a few of his pictures.

Taraz was a major crossroads on the Silk Road.  To celebrate that, there was a caravan of about 30 camels that brought in materials and goods to set up a Kazakh cultural event in one of the big parks.

 Here are the camels diagonally parked on the side of the road.

Yurts were set up around the park, and artisans were practicing their crafts.  This is the beginning of a felt rug made from wool.

This is the inside of one of the yurts.  You can see the handmade instruments hanging on the blue background.  If you look at the ceiling, you can see the "ribs" of wood that form the yurt structure.  It's kind of like a teepee idea.

These young ladies in traditional garb were very busy posing for pictures.

Sorry, those are all the pictures I have.  I'm bummed that I missed it all.