Galim Shoykin: Kazakhstan is a Laboratory of Friendship

• 07.30.2015, 23:42
•  EEU,  "Armedia" and the world,  World,  Interview

Armedia" IAA presents an exclusive interview with Galim Shoykin, Chairman of the Committee for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan. The Interview was conducted during the "5th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions" in Astana in the framework of "Armenia-Kazakhstan: Cooperation Platforms" project, with the support of Embassy of Kazakhstan in Armenia. 

- Kazakhstan ia multinational and multi-confessional country. Will you tell, how do you manage to live here in peace and harmony?

- In an answer to this question, I usually say that it is our mentality, which is has been formed during many centuries. In the course of world development, Central Eurasia has been the crossroads of the movement of civilizations, different cultures. The Great Silk Road passed through here. Even the conquerors, who passed through Eurasia, left a piece of their culture here.

Thus in this process, some special mentality of the population living in this territory was formed - open to other cultures, ethnicities and religions. And the history of Kazakhstan says that many centuries ago both Buddhists and Christians lived here. Even the tragic period that our country experienced in the Soviet times, when there were many victims of political repressions, deportations, then our Kazakhstan not at will became a laboratory of friendship.

Representatives of different nationalities in poverty came here, and the only thing that saved them, was that local people fed them, provided shelter. Today the generation of these people, and Kazakhs remember the common past, it is genetically incorporated. We have a special culture, and we live peacefully only through such a culture. If we lose it, we will have no future. All this has formed a mentality of peace, tolerance to other cultures, and we have made this our our advantage during the years of independence, because today we mutually enriching by cultures, we celebrate all the holidays - national and religious - together, rest together. This is  the beauty of our lives.