Paperjam: Please, introduce yourselves.

Nurgul Tursinova: I’m Nurgul and I’ve been living in Luxembourg since 2009. I came here for work, from Paris. I’m Kazakh, originally from Kazakhstan.

In 2014 I met my future husband and in 2019 we decided to launch the Kazakhstan-Luxembourg Cooperation. When I arrived here, I think I was one of maybe three Kazakh people. I was feeling like the only one in Luxembourg for many years. And then later, let’s say in 2015, we started seeing that people were coming here from Kazakhstan for work, young people with families--so we thought: this could be the time to do something, to introduce Kazakhstan.

Halim Titsaoui: And I’m Halim, husband of Nurgul. I’ve been living in Luxembourg for more than 20 years, in and out, but based here. I’m from Lebanon. As Nurgul said, since 2015 we’ve seen the community growing, growing, growing--so we thought about doing something, for ourselves but also for the wider community. You know, so many raw materials in Europe--and maybe European people don’t know this--come from Kazakhstan. It’s the only country that has all of the elements on the periodic table. Canada is second, but first is Kazakhstan. But people have no clue where Kazakhstan is! There are many Luxembourgish companies working in Kazakhstan and vice versa, but, whenever you speak with people, Kazakhstan is very hard to locate. Is it Chinese? Russian? But we have our own identity: Kazakh.

I see. Could you talk more about your mission?

Nurgul: There are a lot of common points between Kazakhstan and Luxembourg. In terms of language politics, in terms of the diversity of the communities, in terms of tolerance, in terms of vision. We took on several missions with the creation of this cooperation, and one of them is to be the bridge between our countries. One part of it is doing something for our communities, but another is doing something for the broader community of Luxembourg.

Halim: Indeed, our cooperation is not only for Kazakhs, because Kazakhs--we know our country! So most of the people going to our events are Luxembourgish or Luxembourg residents--meaning Irish, Swedish, all the communities living here. What is our target? OK, we are a hub for Kazakh people if they need help settling down here, but the main target is to raise awareness in the whole community.

We believe--we come from business backgrounds--we believe that the future will only work if you know people, if you know who you are, if we share interests… a one shot deal is easy to do, but for a long-term relationship you have to know your neighbour.

So, in that context… what kind of events do you have?

Halim: In 2019 we screened a movie at Kinepolis: Kazakh Khanate: Diamond Sword. It was actually the first Kazakh movie shown on a big screen outside of a festival in Europe. You have a lot of Kazakh movies, but they’re always part of festivals. That was the first event we did.

Nurgul: We also had a screening of a Kazakh film, Yellow Cat, at the Cinémathèque. For us it was a big event--even if it’s a small theatre--because, to be in the programme of the Cinémathèque, that’s a big thing. It’s very difficult and it’s kind of prestigious as well. And our movie became the movie of the month there. We also did Tulpan at the Cinémathèque.

From the feedback we get, we understand that we’re covering a gap that’s not [otherwise] covered in Luxembourg. And we don’t only talk about Kazakhstan here--I guess the cooperation, in terms of culture, is the only one in Luxembourg representing Central Asia.

OK, movies… what else?

Halim: We do cultural meetups. We do business meetings as well. As Nurgul mentioned, we’re the only one--so we try to cover all of it.

Nurgul: We have a nice, easy format of meetup called Apero Kazakhs. We’ve been doing it since 2019 every six months. It’s an easy way of meeting people and it’s been very popular.

We have also created an offline platform called The Roots. It’s a Ted-like platform where we discuss social topics but there is also art, music, history. So the event consists of several sessions. It’s very interesting--we’ve attracted quite a few people.

Halim: The first one we did three years ago was “The Decolonisation of Mindsets.” It was a big success.

Nurgul: We invite guest speakers, musicians, performance artists, artists who bring their art. It’s like a discussion but we have one topic that goes through all those sessions. People have told us they had never seen such an event--that it’s kind of different from other events. The second one was called “Back to the Future” and we touched this topic of artificial intelligence and its impact on future societies.

We have poetry evenings as well. We had a very beautiful one in December 2021 dedicated to our poet Abai Qunanbaiuly. And we asked our community to read Abai in in their own language--he’s a poet and philosopher from the 19th century, a big figure in Kazakh culture. So they read it in German, French. We had it translated into Swedish.

Halim: And one of our biggest events is called--maybe you’ve heard about it--Nauryz. Nauryz is something that we celebrate on 21 March. It’s the welcoming of spring. So we’ve been calling it “Welcome Spring.” It’s something that unites not only Kazakhs, not only Central Asia: here in Luxembourg, we burn something.

The Bourgbrennen.

Halim: Indeed! But we do it differently. For us, it’s more festive. Let’s say there’s more music, more colours. There’s dancing. This is the main celebration in our countries. We did it once at the Philharmonie, with a big band coming from Kazakhstan.

Nurgul: Nauryz is actually one of the oldest festivities in the world. As Halim said, it’s not only for Kazakhs but all of Central Asia. It’s regarded like a new year. It’s the spring equinox, when the day is equal to the night, when spring starts. But I see here as well, we celebrate the start of spring. Nauryz is probably one of the most ancient celebrations. It’s had Unesco heritage status since 2016. And this celebration is not linked to any religion, nation, region. It’s linked to nature, the cycles of the nature--and we are part of nature. So we thought that it’s really a uniting celebration, a common celebration for every community of Luxembourg. That’s why we don’t call it “Nauryz” for Kazakhs or for Central Asia, but “Welcome Spring”--for everyone.

How many events do you have per year?

Halim: Three or four.

And how many members?

Nurgul: Officially… only three!

Halim: Because we don’t chase after people--we don’t rely much on member fees--people come anyway to our events. At the beginning it was hard to get people to pay for our events. 

Nurgul: We were coming from a different understanding: that culture should be for free.

Halim: So at the beginning our events were free. But we spoke once with the culture minister, who said: “Don’t be shy about asking for a fee.” So [laughing] we asked! So… it’s a budget. We’re still in Luxembourg, we have high standards, but through the events we’ve covered our costs. Mostly.

Nurgul: [laughing] Mostly!

You said earlier that you help newcomers from Kazakhstan or Central Asia?

Halim: We try our best. We answer questions on how to register, housing, commutes. There’s a Google PDF.

Nurgul: We do whatever we can. But I cannot say that we take that responsibility on ourselves. There’s a group chat, a big chat of Kazakhs--and not only--so they have each other.

How big is community of Kazakhs in Luxembourg nowadays?

Halim: Under 300.

Are there any places in Luxembourg that remind you of Kazakhstan?

Halim: I don’t know if you know this, but Kazakhstan is the first country where horses were domesticated. Tulips as well, they come from Kazakhstan. A lot of things.

Nurgul: Apples.

Halim: Apples! Yeah… so whenever we see horses--and we live in town next to Merl, and behind Merl there is a stable--that reminds us a bit of Kazakhstan.

Nurgul: Absolutely.

Halim: Because in Kazakhstan, whenever you drive outside big cities, you see wild horses just running on the steppes.

Nurgul: They’re a big  part of our identity and culture. Whenever we can, we try to go to polo events or horse riding competitions.

For people from Kazakhstan, what’s the most shocking or amazing thing about Luxembourg?

Nurgul: What has amazed me is that, even though Luxembourgish is not a language that is regarded as practical, people--and they say this about Kazakhs too--Luxembourgish people keep their own language and they use it. They use it with their families, in their communications, to the extent that now it’s the language of politics.

Halim: Shocking… maybe the weather! Because in Kazakhstan we have four seasons. The four seasons are really respected. Here [laughing] we have two seasons.

And what’s something that people here don’t know about Kazakhstan?

Nurugl: [laughing] There are a lot of things that they don’t know!

Halim: We're not Chinese, we’re not Russian: we’re Kazakh!

Nurgul: It’s a big country.

Halim: All the countries of Europe--you can fit them inside Kazakhstan. For a population of 18m people! So it’s huge.

Nurgul: But there is a big gap for our part of the world in people’s minds--not only in Luxembourg or Europe, but in general. Maybe because of the Soviet period, 70 years when we were not visible. Not only us, but the republics who were part of the Soviet Union. It was always known as Russia, Russia, Russia, even if the Soviet Union was “one” union. But there are a lot of absolutely different cultures, different ethnicities, different nations. And after the Soviet Union collapsed, probably we could not yet do this job of positioning ourselves and really promoting our identity. It’s a big job. This is what our cooperation is about as well, trying to do this. But as I say it’s a big job. Even writing a post takes time. But by writing a post, you bring some knowledge. By holding events, you bring some knowledge.

In Kazakhstan, 1,200,000 people fought in World War Two. So 600,000 people died fighting fascism. People don’t know about it.

Halim: The guy who raised the flag of the Soviet Union on the Reichstag building in Berlin was a Kazakh [Raqymjan Qoshqarbaev; editor’s note].

Nurgul: For many years, because of the politics of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t written that he was Kazakh.

Halim: We had famine under the Soviet Union. People don’t always know. We had genocide. Half of our population died. And after the Soviet Union, people thought Kazakhstan was a new country. But we existed before.

Nurgul: We have a rich history coming from old civilisations. That first film that we showed was a historical film: we wanted to show not what’s going on now, but to give background… this is the time to talk about our own history. The time to say who we are, our identity.