"History of the Great Steppe in the Museums of Europe and Asia"

Bern, October 8, 2021 - Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Switzerland Alibek Bakayev delivered a speech at the opening of the International Online Webinar dedicated to the “History of Kazakh Statehood in Artifacts and Archival Documents”. The webinar was held within the framework of the grand opening of the exhibition of copies of archival and visual materials dedicated to the “History and Culture of the Great Steppe”, organized by the Republican Center for the Study of Historical Materials at the R.B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies, in the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts in Almaty.

Scientists - orientalists, historians, anthropologists, archivists, museum workers from the USA, Switzerland, Great Britain, Japan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan took part in the webinar.

Ambassador Bakayev briefed the webinar participants on the work carried out by the Embassy to resume cooperation between the Suilemenov Institute of Oriental Studies and the Berne Historical Museum.

The Berne Historical Museum possesses the Central Asian collection of the famous 19th-century Swiss traveler and diplomat Henri Moser, who managed to collect unique artifacts - tapestries, utensils, blade weapons, photographs of the Kazakh nobility, and many other things during his life.

A small part of the collection is also exhibited in the Moser Family Museum in Charlottenfels in the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen.

Ambassador Bakayev noted that the result of the joint work was the signing of a cooperation agreement “Heritage of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia in Switzerland” for the period 2022-2025 between the Bern Historical Museum and the Information Center on Historical Sources of the R.B. Suilemenov Institute of Oriental Studies during the official visit of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tileuberdi to Switzerland on September 6, 2021.

During that visit, the Kazakh delegation also visited a special Exhibition in the Berne Historical Museum dedicated to unique archival materials from the history of Kazakh statehood, where special attention was paid to the silk wall frieze (tapestry), which indicates the places of honor of the political elite of the Kazakh society of the 19th century. As it is known, this tapestry has no analogs either in the world or in Kazakhstan.

In August 2021, with the assistance of the Embassy, ​​a Memorandum of Cooperation was also signed between the Information Center on Historical Sources at the R.B. Suilemenov Institute of Oriental Studies and the Heinrich and Henri Moser Foundation.

Within the framework of the Webinar, Mr. Roger Nicholas Balsiger, a descendant of Henri and Heinrich Moser and the Head of the “Henri and Heinrich Moser Foundation”, made a video message to the participants. He spoke about the history of his family and the life of Henri Moser.

In general, the Webinar showed that Kazakh scientists and diplomats are united by a common goal - to strengthen and enrich the history of Kazakh statehood.