DUSHANBE, July 24, 2009, Asia-Plus — A two-day cultural-ecological festival, entitled “The Roof of the World,” will be held in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan or GBAO) on July 25-26.
Organized by a number of local public associations and international organizations active in Tajikistan, the festival will bring together representatives from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan.
The festival organizers include the public association Amesha Spenta, the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS), German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), De Pamiri Handicraft, the Christensen Fund, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the University of Central Asia (UCA), as well as a number of public associations and neighborhoods of Khorog.
The festival is held in Gorno Badakhshan for the second time and the theme of this year’s festival is “Culture and Nature Are Foundations of Our Life.”
The De Pamiri Handicraft manager Yorali Berdov said in an interview with Asia-Plus that folk groups from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan would participate in the festival that would be held in the Khorog Central Park. “The Shashmaqom Academy from Dushanbe, known Tajik singer Daler Nazarov and folk groups from Gorno Badakhshan will represent Tajikistan in the festival,” Berdov said.
Besides, MSDSP and GTZ will organize a joint exhibition, entitled “Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Gorno Badakhshan,” on sidelines of the festival. They will put on display their activities in sectors like power efficient technologies and sustainable management of forests and waters. “The main objective of the exhibition is in showing how people may rationally use natural resources in order to improve their living conditions during the period of global climate change,” the De Pamiri Handicraft manager said.
Handicraftsmen from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will put on display their outputs at the fair in Khorog. An exhibition of traditional clothes and dishes, children’s drawings and works by local painters will also be held on sidelines of the festival.
In parallel, documentaries about traditions of peoples of Central Asia, featuring diversity of cultures in the region, will be shown in Khorog.
“The main objective of the festival is in developing cultural exchange between the peoples of the region and sharing our wealthy traditions by means of music, art and dance,” said Berdov, “The festival emphasizes the importance of cultural ties and sustainable management of natural resources and it will promote preservation and development of traditional art and increase in the general ecological awareness among the population.”
According to the festival organizers, it will be held in Gorno Badakhshan every year.
