Fall 2007
October 14th, Sunday, 1pm-3pm	Lectures at SRH: “Bactrian Gold, Nomadic Rule, and Silk Road Trade: The art of the Tillya-tepe objects from Afghanistan” by Dr. Sanjyot Mehendale, Department of Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley
October 26th, Friday, 5:30pm	Lecture at SRH: Meeting with a Georgian ethnomusicologist, Dr. Joseph Jordania (Melbourne).
October 28, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:30pm	Exhibition/Lecture at SRH: "Depiction of Uyghur Life Through Paintings of Uyghur Artists" by Mr. Nijat Wushouer (Art University of Berlin, Germany). Several paintings of Mr. Nijat Wushouer and Ms. Merwayit Hapiz, natives of Urumchi, China, will be on display at SRH.
November 11, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:00pm	Lecture at SRH: "Bazaars, Billboards, Cars and Credit: Contemporary Consumer Culture in Karachi" by Tania Ahmad, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University. Lecture at SRH: "Samarqand: The Ring of Cellphones and the Political Quiet" by Charles Shaw, Ph.D. Student, History Department, UC-Berkeley.
November 25, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:00pm	Lecture at SRH w/slide presentation: "Iranian Archaeology and the Silk Road from the 6th to the 4th Centuries BC: Notes on the Earliest Known Yurt, Pasargadae, Persepolis and Pazyryk" by Professor David Stronach, Department of Near Eastern Studies, UCB.
December 2, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:00pm	Lecture at SRH: "A visual journey along the Silk Road from Xian to Kashgar" by Barbara Rydlander, a local community college art history instructor. An art historian shares her digital images of mosques, markets, monuments, museums, and murals that captured her imagination and interest on a trip taken this past summer. Among the featured sites are the caves at Dunhuang, Turpan, and Bezeklik and museums in Xian and Urumchi. Images of animal markets, food stalls, silk production, the Karakorum highway, deserted Han fortresses, and sand dunes of the Taklamakan will be shown. "The Altai in the eyes of a cameraman." by Andrew Black, Director of Photography, San Francisco
December 9, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:00pm	Marjana Sadowska, an ethnomusicologist and composer, one of a very few gifted folklorist-performers, who is currently working in the US, as a Fulbright scholar, on the ambitious project , a long-waited book-anthology of ancient Ukrainian folk songs and rituals with original texts, English translations, and musical notation, addressed to both Ukraine and the Western cultural world. In Bay Area she is known thanks to her CDs and successful collaboration with the famous “Kitka,” a unique women’s vocal ensemble. Marjana Sadowska will be so far the first Slavic presenter and performer at SRH.
December 16, 2007, Sunday, 1pm - 3pm Lecture begins at 1:00pm	Independence Day of the Republic of Kazakhstan Lecture at SRH: "Transformation of Space in Almaty, Kazakhstan" by Zhanara Nauryzbaeva, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, and Daniel Gallegos, an artist from San Francisco - the collaborative presentation of a multi-media art project.
Spring-Summer 2007
March 18th, Sunday, 11am-5pm	First Annual SRH Opening Ceremony for friends, supporters and families. Central Asian food and beverages, Tuva Art Exhibit, Central Asian Photo Posters exhibit, first Silk Road collection of books exhibit, music from Silk Road countries
March – April	Exhibition at SRH: Leonid Urjuk’s paintings (Tyva Republic). See http://www.urjuk.com for more information.
April 15th, Sunday, 1-3pm	Lecture at SRH: “Peoples in Between: Silk Road Geography” by Dr. David Hooson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
May 12th, Saturday, 11am-1pm	Lecture at SRH: “Celebrating Motherhood in Kazakhstan and Beyond” by Dr. Alma Kunanbaeva, President of SRH, meets families with children adopted from Central Asia
May 13th, Sunday, 1-3pm	Guests at SRH: Dr. Dovdoi Bayar (Mongolia) with Ph.D. Candidate Orna Uranchimeg-Tsultem (UC Berkeley). The recent archeological findings of Turkic period in Mongolia. PowerPoint presentation
May 13th - June	Exhibition at SRH: The opening of the exhibition of a Mongolian papercut artist Turburam Sandagdorj. Turburam is working in a rare silhouette technique and is presenting, along with other uniquely designed works, his recent cycle of pictures “The Youth of Jangar” based on the famous Mongolian epics “Jangar”. See http://www.turburam.com for more information.
May 20th, Sunday, 3-5pm	Lecture at SRH: Meeting with Prof. Dr. Rahile Dawut, School of Humanities, Xinjiang University, China, currently a Visiting Professor at Anthropology Department, University of California, Berkeley. She will be speaking on "Shrines in Xinjiang and Beyond: Rituals and the Oral Tradition Connected with Shrines". Lisa Ross, an artist based in New York City, her friend and collaborator, two-time recipient of the Hayward Prize, will join Dr. Dawut at the meeting. For the past five years they have been documenting Uighur mazars (Muslim holy sites, shrines) in the Takla Makan desert in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, northwest China.
May 27th, Sunday, 1-3pm	Lecture at SRH: “Religions Along the Silk Road”. A PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Albert Dien, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University.
June 16th, Saturday, 7pm	TV/DVD screening: Saturday Night Movies Series with introduction and comments provided by Alma Kunanbaeva. “Potomok Chingis-Khana” (The Heir to Genghis Khan) also known as “Storm Over Asia”. Director Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893-1953), scenario Osip Brik (1888-1945) from a story by Ivan Novokshonov (1895-1943). Cast: Valeri Inkizhinov, Alexander Chistyakov, Victor Tsoppi, A. Dedintsev, L. Belinskaya, Anel Sudakevich. Revolutionary drama centered on a young Mongol thought to be descended from Genghis Khan whom imperialists seek to use to further their expansionist interests. The movie depicts the authentic Buddhist ceremony at almost documentary level. Video disc release of a silent motion picture originally produced in 1928 in Russia. Silent film with English subtitles and musical accompaniment. Music by Timothy Brock. (Black and white, 125 min.). Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, Inc., 1997. (Series: Soviet avant garde).
June 23rd, Saturday, 7pm	TV/DVD screening: Saturday Night Movies Series with introduction and comments provided by Alma Kunanbaeva. The winner of the best film at Venice Film Festival 1991, nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1992, CLOSE TO EDEN (URGA) is a comedy about a cross-cultural friendship between a Mongolian shepherd named Gombo and a Russian road builder named Sergei. The movie URGA was shot around 1990/1991 in Hulun Buir Aimag, Inner Mongolia as a joint production by France and the former USSR (Images France/Studio Trite USSR). It was produced by Michel Seydoux and directed by Nikita Mikhalkov from his own idea. Story, Mikhalkov and Roustam Ibraguimbekov. Screenplay, Ibraguimbekov. Photography, Villenn Kaluta. Production design, Alexei Levchenko. Music, Eduard Artemiev. Cast: Badema, Bayaertu, Vladimir Gostukhin, et al. A Miramax release. Mongolian, Chinese and Russian with subtitles. 106 min. The true title of the film is "Urga", which is a long pole with a lasso at the end, for catching quadrupeds. When stuck on the ground, the urga becomes a "Do Not Disturb" sign signifying lovemaking in progress. The title "Close to Eden" is tendentious. It prods the audience into thinking in nostalgic terms of Paradise Lost -- which is only partly true. Having married a city girl, Gombo continues the simple life of a shepherd deep in the Mongolian steppes, with his wife Pagma, two children and a grandma. This is part of China, Inner Mongolia, and the rules are no more than two children in the family, which is the core for the simple plot. Gombo and Pagma are played by Bayartu and Badma from Inner Mongolia. Bayartu is a horticulturalist turned actor and Pagma is a professional music theatre actress. You would never know it from their performances, which are endowed with an appealing reality and charm. This can be applied to the rest of the cast but especially to Vladimir Gostukhin, as truck driver Sergei, who becomes deeply involved with the rural family through an accident. This opens door for Gombo to make a trip to the city, where his wife wants him to buy condoms and a TV set. Here fantasy and surreal events mix in a such way that it becomes an immensely realistic portrayal of the life of modern day Mongolian herdsmen living in Inner Mongolia: Bicycles replacing horses, TV pictures substituting nature's landscapes, Chinese replacing Mongolian and mines replacing majestic grassland, etc... ... The film can make one think of the simple, evocative things of life and to realize, as with the happy Mongol family, that the spread of modern civilization is the most destructive force. (Partly from the review by Mingan Choct)
June 24th, Sunday, 1-3pm	Silk Road Music Series of Lectures with Musical Demonstrations: Lecture 1. A Musical Map of Eurasia - A Panoramic View. Dr. Izaly Zemtsovsky, Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley and Stanford University
June 30th, Saturday, 7pm	TV/DVD screening: Saturday Night Movies Series with introduction and comments provided by Alma Kunanbaeva. “The Story of the Weeping Camel” is a 2003 Mongolian documentary distributed by ThinkFilm (USA) and directed by Byambasuren Davaa. It was released internationally in 2004. The movie was directed and written by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni. The plot is about a family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi desert trying to save the life of a rare white bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) calf after it was rejected by its mother. Music by Marcel Leniz, Marc Riedinger and Choigiw Sangidorj. A traditional Mongolian morin khuur musician performs a breathtaking ritual. The movie blends drama, nature documentary, and ethnographic theme in a single film. It was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Documentary at the 77th Academy Awards. Running time -- 87 minutes.
June - July, Every other Sunday 10am–2pm	Summer Programs at SRH: For families with children adopted from Central Asia including picnic for children and their families. Every other Sunday 10am – 2pm. Storytelling, children’s games, handicrafts workshops. Refreshments served.