Phase II of the project, called “Museums Online” started in May 2011 and is dedicated to 20 years of independence of Kazakhstan, as a dynamic and fast growing sovereign state.

This year we continue the work, started last year, to translate museum materials and labels, and have engaged new museums for the development and production of English language visitor’s guidebooks and brochures, based on text and photo-materials provided by museum curators. The 12 additional museums are:

1. “Issyk” State Museum and National Park, Issyk town, Almaty region.
2. “Tamgaly” State Historical-Cultural Museum and National Park, Almaty region.
3. Temirtau Museum of History and Local Lore, Temirtau city.
4. “Ulytau” National Historical-Cultural Museum and National Park, Ulytau town.
5. Lissakovsk Historical-Cultural Museum, Lissakovsk town.
6. Museum of Fine Arts named after the Nevzorov Family, Semei city.
7. East-Kazakhstan Regional Architectural-Ethnographic Reserve, Ust-Kamenogorsk.
8. North-Kazakhstan Regional Museum of History and Local Lore, Petropavlovsk.
9. “Azret-Sultan” State Historical -Cultural Museum and National Park, Turkestan.
10. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Astana.
11. KarLAG Museum-Memorial Complex of Victims of Political Repressions, Karaganda
12. Museum of Applied Arts named after Usta Darkembay, Almaty region.

To make information about Kazakhstan’s cultural and historical heritage available, and easily accessible, to English speakers all around the world, the project started the development of a tri-lingual web-site where all museums of Kazakhstan will be brought together. To empower Kazakhstani youth to participate in this initiative, the British Council launched a national competition for the design of the web-site, through the web-resources, HEIs, teaching IT and colleges, graphic design courses, private architectural and design businesses, open source, partner web-sites and poster advertisement in Almaty and Astana.

The winner will be identified in the end of September. After this, the British Council will commission the development of the web-site, based on the winning design. The web-site’s first content will be sourced from English language materials, developed in partnership with the 30 museums which have partnered the British Council during the two years since the start of the project. Images and information about these museums, with the downloadable English language brochures, will make the web-site a fascinating attraction for those who are interested in Central Asia’s remarkable history.

The work on phase II will be completed in December 2011, when the participating museums will receive the English language brochures and the Museums web-site go live.

For additional information on the museums project, please contact Maya Zedelashvili on maya.zedelashvili@kz.britishcouncil.org or Yuliya Pechenkina on Yuliya.pechenkina@kz.britishcouncil.org