A positive and progressive step was taken towards implementing a sustainable approach to urban planning in Kazakhstan recently.

The administration of Shymkent has reached out to the community of artists and intellectuals to integrate their ideas into the process of building a new city. They organized a round table discussion involving twenty one artists and intellectuals from different parts of Kazakhstan as well as Shymkent. I was also invited to participate in this discussion on May 12-13. Along with artists and intellectuals, local people and the media were invited to sit in and give input on the future of Shymkent in a way not ever done before.

In the past, Shymkent has been a city deeply associated with corruption. The most recent scandal involved the local department of health that resulted in mass HIV-AIDS contamination. As a result of this crisis the government of Shymkent was replaced by a new one intent on breathing new life into the city by finding creative ways to help develop it.

The new project seeks to use the experience of what many cities in Kazakhstan are going through today. Almaty and Astana are going through building booms and consequently great destruction of their communities at the benefit of a few wealthy construction companies and land owners. Shymkent does not seem to want to follow along with these two cities as a model for its own future. The plan is to maintain elements of Shymkent’s past while paving a new image for the future.

Zhanat Yelyubayeva, the chief facilitator of this project, is a fan of the contemporary art scene in Kazakhstan and probably one of the few ranking government officials who see the value in contemporary artists. She seems to realize that they are a useful and powerful tool to help reinvigorate Shymkent. Mrs. Yelyubayeva is no stranger to the arts and major art projects. She was the one time director of Kokserek gallery in Almaty. She has headed an outdoor project in Astana for contemporary artists to have their works displayed in public spaces to raise the profile of the arts and culture of Kazakhstan.

Many of these intellectuals and artists have often been snubbed by the government as mere nuisances to the politics of the Kazakhstani government. These artists and intellectuals are now being asked to help them in a way unprecedented in Kazakhtan’s recent history. They are being asked to give input into facilitating ongoing projects to start Shymkent in the direction of being a city that may one day be Kazakhstan’s main tourist destination and cultural center. The hope is to give rise to a more interesting place for foreigners to visit because there will be many future events to attend as well as cultural institutions for locals and tourists to be intellectually enriched and entertained. The city is even reclaiming one of its historical buildings for the opening of the first museum of contemporary art in Kazakhstan.

Some of the contributing contemporary artists are Erbossyn Meldibekov, Askar Esdauletov, and Said Atabekov who’ve gained success around the world by being actively critical towards the state produced culture. They are bent on being the antagonistic alternative to artists who depict idealized war heroes (batyrs) on horses stamped out by the hundreds every year all over the steppe and in major cities throughout Kazakhstan. These new Kazakh war heroes are the replacements for many of the Lenins, and other socialist monuments that were commissioned during the Soviet Union.

Many contemporary artists persevere despite very little support from the government but have been gaining lots of critical attention around the world because their art is critical and in fact sometimes brutally honest about the human condition here in Central Asia. They rarely put on a pretty face to their art to tell the story of Kazakhstan and receive critical praise for depicting what is not told to us through standard forms of media.

Some of the ideas that were proposed may be idealistic and far-fetched but many of the ideas said during the meeting are a beginning and as far as I can see, a step in the right direction for a young country going through so much rapid change. Perhaps this is the one chance every overgrown polluted city in the last 20-21st century has failed to do.

A Sustainable Pedestrian City

I should also note that I proposed some ideas on implementing more pedestrian and bicycle friendly streets to contribute to the development of a sustainable city. You can’t have traffic jams and loud streets to make cities sustainable. You need a town with small streets and houses close together to make you feel safe and contained. Cars in fact are a danger and menace to urban culture and lead to a lower quality of life. In fact not much was said about how the city would tackle the rising number of automobiles. Limiting the use of automobiles in your city by creating alternative forms of transportation like tramways, subways and bicycles will help eliminate this problem. Think of the mountain villages of Tuscany or the back streets of Paris and you can understand that these urban elements are an approach to cities that will make Shymkent more efficient and safe for pedestrians, especially the young and old.

Sustainable Building Materials

I also recommended that Shymkent should try to find new ways of using local building materials that are more ecologically friendly and require less energy to keep dwellings and commercial space cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Using foreign industrial materials will always be more expensive to use and upkeep because they require air conditioning and are often inferior in quality to tried and true tested materials that have been used for centuries.

Preserving Uniqueness of Place

I also asked how many times can you use the same generic Chinese building materials over and over again? These foreign materials do not help create the local character and vernacular of the architecture of Shymkent. These materials are for large mall complexes in a generic suburban America.

Scale Creates a Sustainable City

Another suggestion I made was to keep in scale with the rest of the city. If you’re going to rebuild your city you have to maintain the size and character of the already existing historical buildings. You can’t have a charming artesan village looming in the shadow of 30-story glass office towers.

At the end, a few people asked how far would the city go with this project. Many expressed fears that the government would not follow through with implementing it. In response to these fears expressed, Zhanat Yelyubayeva assured the public and the round table that she would manage this project during its ongoing development and would ask the participants to return the following year to discuss the further development of Shymkent.