Cultural programme from KazAID: ALZHIR museum

Cultural programme from KazAID: ALZHIR Museum

7 February 2025, Astana - At the end of the workshop, KazAID organised a cultural programme for the participants of the 2nd meeting of the Working Group of the Customs Risk Management Master Trainer Programme.

The guests of the seminar visited the memorial complex ALZHIR - one of the largest correctional labour camps of the Soviet Union, located in the Akmola region, where the wives of ‘enemies of the people’ were kept in 1938-1953.

ALZHIR is an abbreviated name that hides a tragic story: the Akmola camp of wives of traitors to the homeland, where thousands of women endured hardships as victims of political repression. During the tour, seminar participants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as seminar speakers, learnt about the fate of the camp prisoners, the hardships of those years and the importance of preserving historical memory. This visit allowed participants to gain a deeper understanding of the historical legacy.

Recall that the training of trainers programme was implemented from 3 to 7 February 2025 in cooperation with the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with the support of the Kazakhstan Agency for International Development ‘KazAID’.