CENTRAL STATE MUSEUM OF KAZAKHSTAN

The museum offers a complete panorama of the country's history, from the origins of life onwards, in a well-designed chronological tour, albeit without English commentary. Four brightly-lit, beautifully-designed halls, linked by galleries, display over 200,000 historical items evoking Kazakhstan through four historical periods. We start with dinosaurs and fossils, before moving on to anthropology and the first human populations of the Altai Mountains. The exhibition then moves on to the first societies, nomadic burials and daily life on the steppes in the ^19th century. A beautiful room is devoted to local ethnography, with numerous everyday objects and, of course, the reconstitution of a nomadic yurt. Horses are not left out, in this society that for a long time remained equestrian, and their harnessing, weaponry and ceremonial outfits can be seen in detail. This is followed by a very long exhibition upstairs, devoted to the Soviet period, with numerous items illustrating famine, forced sedentarization, war, industrialization and finally de-Stalinization. The final room is devoted to independent Kazakhstan and President Nazarbaev: a veritable work of propaganda of the kind found almost everywhere in Central Asia, highlighting the country's strengths, brilliantly exploited by a providential statesman... We appreciate it!