June 3, 2014
Everything Best for Children. 3
Ethics and Enlightenment Originate in the Family. 5
First Characters Are Puppets. 6
Press-service of MFA of the Republic of Uzbekistan
transport
Airport Urganch
Airports are justly called the gateways to a country, since they often make initial impressions of it on its foreign guests. Such people may want to come back later, or they may not – it often depends how comfortable and technologically advanced the hosting airport is.
Air services cannot exist without an efficient infrastructure. The profits of an airline are directly dependent on the quality of services at the airports it owns or uses: how efficiently the aircraft of other airlines are handled, how well the passengers are dealt with, how professional the airport staff are, etc. The approach is logical – if a passenger or a cargo carrier likes the airport, they will use the services of the airline using it again. That is why the national airline Uzbekistan Airways, from the very foundation of it, aimed at modernization of its airports and terminals, as well as introduction of the international quality assessment criteria to be used in their operations. Since independence, the airline has completely restructured the airport system in the country and built a number of new modern terminals and runways. While modernizing the local airport infrastructure, Uzbekistan Airways focused on creating maximally comfortable conditions for all the passengers and foreign airlines flying to Uzbekistan’s cities.
The new terminal of the international airport Urganch, opened last week, marks a new phase of the airport infrastructure development in the country. The terminal complies with all the modern international standards. Its capacity is over 300 passengers per hour. It has a transit zone, a VIP and a CIP halls to seat 200 people, a currency exchange office, a baby care room, a first-aid station, duty-free shops and cafés, and the airfield, modernized earlier, has all the necessary modern aviation electronic equipment and is capable of receiving all types of aircraft.
“While working on the design of the building, we incorporated both Central Asian traditional and modern western elements,” said Giyos Abdullaev, deputy director of OJSC Mahsustrest 93, which reconstructed of the airport. The total cost of the project exceeded $8 million. The terminal features hi-tech facilities and complies with the international safety standards for airports.
Experts point out that the terminal will play an important part in attracting foreign tourists to Khiva, one of the country’s historic cities. The airport is located at a distance of only 25 kilometers from this world-famous museum city. Today, it receives not only aircraft from Tashkent but also international flights from Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg), Austria, Germany, Italy and France. Last year, the airport received over 143,000 passengers; 46,000 of them were foreigners, and as from now, this number will certainly significantly grow. In 2015, the following new flights via Urganch will be established: the weekly flight Tashkent – Vienna – Urganch – Tashkent as from March 25; the twice-a-week flight Tashkent – Paris – Urganch – Tashkent as from April 19; and the weekly flight Tashkent – Munich – Urganch – Tashkent as from March 28.
Uzbekistan Airways is planning to build another terminal at the airport – special for the passengers departing from the country. Currently, the authorities are working on the issue of opening a visa office at the airport. Such a facility would allow European tourists to enjoy lower costs of visits to Uzbekistan, for they will be able to start their tours right from Urganch, with their visas issued there, not from Tashkent. After visiting other cities in the country, setting off from Urganch, they will arrive in Tashkent from where they will fly back home. According to travel industry experts, European tourists will find this innovation both cheaper and more convenient.
Urganch airport is not the only project the national airline is carrying out, of course. Uzbekistan Airways is going on with the infrastructure modernization. Earlier this year, they launched a project of installing special scanning equipment at the airports in the country – 53 sets of this equipment are to arrive soon. The airline is also purchasing 37 units of high-tech equipment for other purposes for over $8 million.
CONTEXT
In the first quarter of 2014, Uzbekistan Airways transported 573,000 passengers and ran 5,494 flights. Its airfreight totaled 9,900 tons, showing a 14% growth as against the same period last year.
(Source: “Uzbekistan Today” newspaper)
Society
Everything Best for Children
Uzbekistan has celebrated International Children’s Day in a special atmosphere. At the initiative of President Islam Karimov, the day is marked under the motto Year of Healthy Child and the government has adopted and is implementing a relevant national program. It is aimed at improving the mechanism of ensuring fundamental rights of the younger generation.
SPRINGBOARD
Our children are mainstay of the country for tomorrow. Caring for them, creating conditions for the comprehensive development has come to be a priority of the state policy ever since the first days of independence. Children’s health and welfare begins with a healthy mother. The national healthcare establishments carry out regular measures to ensure good health of women of childbearing age, children and adolescents. Young persons entering into a marriage pass mandatory premarital medical examination. There is a network of screening centers, responsible for detecting and preventing hereditary and genetic diseases. Maternity hospitals have been renovated and reequipped, and adopted approaches to the care of pregnant women and children in accordance with the World Health Organization recommendations. The Health Ministry is developing a network of pediatric services. Maternal and infant mortality has reduced more than three times; number of children with congenital anomalies almost halved. Uzbekistan has a unique system of compulsory twelve-year free education, having no analogues in the world. Nine years at school and three years at vocational college or academic lyceum allows boys and girls to start an independent life with profession. These are just some of the facts of what has been done in the country.
These and many other norms captured in national legislation. The parliament passed laws on Health Protection, on the National Personnel Training Program, on Education, on Guarantees of the Rights of the Child and other acts. At the same time these mechanisms are constantly being improved. Thus, the government launches new national programs. For more than fifteen years the government devotes each year to a particular social issue: 1998 was named as the Year of Family, 2000 was the Year of Healthy Generation, 2001 was the Year of Mother and Child, 2008 was the Year of Youth, 2010 was named as the Year of Comprehensively Advanced Generation, 2012 was the Year of Family, and the present one is the Year of Healthy Child. This once again underlines the great importance the country attaches to the education of the younger generation.
YOUTHS
Uzbekistan’s population has reached nearly 31 million people, with people under 30 accounting for 60%. This implies large-scale measures enshrined in the national program Year of Healthy Child, aimed at promoting healthy and strong families, improving the welfare of the population.
Today, this work involves Mahalla Fund, Women’s Committee, Kamolot Youth Movement, Oila academic center, ministries and agencies, foundations and fundraising organizations.
Great attention is paid to improving health literacy – healthy lifestyles, nutrition and hygiene, healthy pregnancy and childcare, reproductive health and HIV prevention. Annual Health Train marshals monthly Health Weeks for women of childbearing age, children and adolescent girls living in remote settlements, making a huge contribution to this job.
Measures aimed at employment and attraction of young people to business, including family ones, are considered to be the main instrument for improving family wellbeing and their financial stability. Therefore, banks provide loans to young enterprising people to start their own business.
Young families can buy modern and comfortable houses. As part of the rural Housing Development Program, this year it is projected to build over 11,000 individual houses. Consumer lending is also developing in Uzbekistan. As part of the program, low-income families receive household appliances for free.
Social infrastructure in cities and towns is getting improved. This year it is projected to build 15 recreation parks, reconstruct 21 and repair 10 parks. For instance, one of them, Lokomotiv, became technologically the most modern parks in Uzbekistan after reconstruction. Tashkent Botanical Garden undergoes major redesign; a modern built waterpark is being built in Zarafshon; and soon each residential area will have its own playground.
HEALTHY GENERATION
Quality of medical care depends largely on the rural health units and local family clinics, and in particular on the visiting nurses. So that they could visit each family in a timely manner and take preventive measures, their workload has been reduced 1.5 times, and also they enjoy increased long-service pay.
One of the key points in the development of healthcare system is reduction in new cases of childhood disability. In this context, an important role is played by a program for identification of congenital and hereditary diseases through prenatal and neonatal screening of pregnant women and newborns in the National Screening Center and its regional affiliates. Clinics are getting involved in mass perinatal screening. Simultaneously, the clinics are working on the quality of care. Eleven perinatal centers are getting retrofitted with medical equipment, and multidisciplinary care centers in Karakalpakstan, Samarqand, Andijon and Qashqadaryo Regions open neonatal surgeries, where, if necessary, the children can be operating in the first days of life.
The national healthcare system introduces new high-performance methods of treating diseases, preventing development of complications and disabilities, reduce the number of child deaths. Local health centers and hospitals receive modern equipment as part of the Health-3 project, implemented by the Ministry of Health together with the World Bank. Ministry of Health has already received the first batch of equipment provided as part of a project implemented by the ministry in collaboration with the Germany’s KfW Bank. It is intended for the National Specialized Medical Research Center of Pediatrics, Tashkent Pediatric Medical Institute and regional children’s diversified medical centers.
Hospitals widely introduced new high-tech treatment methods of infants with congenital and acquired diseases. Tashkent Pediatric Medical Institute and the National Specialized Center of Surgery mastered the technology of reconstructive and restorative endovascular operations on children with congenital heart defects and development anomalies. In June, the National Specialized Medical Research Center of Pediatrics will perform cochlear implantation operations that will allow children to acquire normal hearing. National Specialized Medical Center of Endocrinology introduces pump therapy in the treatment of children with diabetes, which can significantly improve patients’ health. Leading medical centers use new surgical technologies for treating hip dislocations, fractures, brain surgery in hydrocephalus, tumors of the head and spinal cord.
Efforts have been enhanced to prevent diseases caused by iodine deficiency. In-depth examination of children with developmental delays is organized. They are given free medicines and antistrumin Mikroyod.
The Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion has compiled a register of children with leukemia and thalassemia. This database will help doctors to conduct an objective monitoring of patients. At the same time, children will be provided with free medicines. This will help reduce mortality among children suffering from leukemia by 50% and raise survival rate among five-year-old patients from 40 to 90%. Also, mortality from thalassemia, as doctors predict, should decrease by 70%, and twenty-five-year survival rate increase from 10 to 90%.
COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT
This year, the primary education system focuses on improving pre-school and primary education. Program designed to develop preschool education for 2015-2020 and a set of measures to improve the educational process in the elementary school. Education ministries are building new kindergartens, as the number of children attending pre-school institutions increases, and primary school will make wider use of modern media and information and communication technologies.
Uzbekistan continues to improve conditions for education and upbringing comprehensively developed generation. 220 schools are being reconstructed and 160 overhauled. Four academic lyceums and 35 vocational colleges are being built and reconstructed, and 122 more overhauled.
The government adopted legal instruments aimed at improving the financing of children’s music and art schools. Now, more funds will be directed toward a variety of creative activities, participations in competitions and festivals. Schools make up children’s and creative teams. There are special measures aimed at improvement of children’s centers Barkamol Avlod. They will pay special attention to the development of hobby clubs of technical areas related to the use of modern computer technology.
Yesterday, Namangan gave a start to Barkamol Avlod national sports games among students of academic lyceums and vocational colleges. There is no doubt that the results the young athletes show will be higher than those were in previous years. And it is natural, as children’s sports enjoy huge support in the country. There will be a program, scheduled for 2015-2020, to provide all schools with sports halls. The government carries out extensive work to modernize youth sports schools and specialized youth sports school of Olympic reserve.
Academic year is over, summer holidays are ahead. Children will be able to choose from 1,000 summer camps. Among them are three new, 16 reconstructed and 24 overhauled camps. There is a special program designed for schoolchildren to take group tours around museums, theaters and historical sites.
(Source: “Uzbekistan Today” newspaper)
Ethics and Enlightenment Originate in the Family
A conference organized by the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan on May 24 at the Palace of Youth Creativity in Tashkent enquired into the theme that ethics and enlightenment start in the family.
The forum was spearheaded as part of the implementation efforts of the State Program “The Year of the Healthy Child” and in tribute to the 10th anniversary of the presidential decree “On Additional Measures to Support the Activities of the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan”. The conference was attended by senators, lower house deputies, officials of ministries, other government agencies and social organizations, activists of the Women’s Committee, advisers for religious enlightenment and spiritual-ethical education, laureates of the Zulfiya State Prize.
It was noted at the occasion that was led by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan – Chairperson of the Women’s Committee of the country E.Basitkhanova that special significance has been attached in the independence years in Uzbekistan under the leadership of President Islam Karimov to boosting the role and status of women in the society, securing their rights and interests, uplifting their socio-political and socio-economic activity, bolstering their intellectual and spiritual potential, creating an environment essential for enhancing their involvement in the modernization and revitalization of all walks of life.
The Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the approximately eighty decrees and resolutions and state programs of social significance approved in the country serve as an important normative foundation for elevating the standing of women in the family and society, and for protecting the institution of family, motherhood and childhood.
The decree of the head of our state “On Additional Measures to Support the Activities of the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan” signed 25 May 2004 has served as an essential guide for action in lifting the efforts directed at the social security of women to a qualitatively new level and boosting their health.
Speaking at the conference, Director of the Independent Institute for Monitoring the Formation of Civil Society E.Salikhov, Chairperson of the Federation Council of Uzbekistan’s Trade Unions T.Norboeva, director of a general school no.5 in Gurlan district of Khorezm region – the Hero of Uzbekistan A.Mahmudova, adviser for religious enlightenment and spiritual-ethical education of the citizens’ assembly of Buston mahalla in Tashkent’s Shaykhantaur district F.Otamatova and others noted that the consistent implementation of tasks envisaged in President Islam Karimov’s decree helped uplift the endeavors dedicated to boosting the socio-political activeness of women, to further reinforce their role in the parliament, government and management bodies, citizens’ self-government bodies, political parties, to promote healthy lifestyle in the society, and nurture a sound and comprehensively advanced generation.
An important objective in the State Program “Year of the Healthy Child” is assigned to the realization of measures aimed at the consolidation of the atmosphere of mutual respect and love, high spiritual-ethical values in the family.
The conference participants went into detail in discussing the works undertaken in the past years in accordance with the decree of the President of the country, and the progress being made in the execution of tasks envisioned in the State Program “Year of the Healthy Child”. They exchanged views on the definition of prospective tasks in such directions as the further elevation of socio-political activity of women, protection of maternity and childhood, coordination of activities of nongovernmental nonprofit organizations.
A fair entitled “Uzbek Woman Is Entrepreneur and Creative Person” was organized within the event.
(Source: Uza.uz)
cinema
First Characters Are Puppets
Animated cartoons were first shot in Uzbekistan fifty years ago. For more detailed information you may refer to a monograph by Mahsura Mirzamuhamedova, Ph.D. in Art History, which will come off the press these days. We have found out a lot about the way animated cartoon evolved during an interview with the author.
“The first animation film in Uzbekistan was made in 1964. Yuri Petrov, atrist from Uzbekfilm, and the young director Damir Salimov started shooting ‘In Square 6×6’ cartoon. The animated picture was dedicated to a topical theme of hard work of rural laborers. Dolls, made by specialists of the Republican Puppet Theater, are characters. Due to lack of specialists the work on the cartoon was really hard and cartoon makers had literally to learn from the process. Their cartoon was awarded first category in ‘Soyuzmultfilm’. The first picture cartoon, ‘A Brave Sparrow’, was made in Uzbekistan in 1969.
But the real development of the picture cartoons in Uzbekistan started in 1970, when professional cartoon makers came, including Mavzur Mahmudov and Nozim Tolahojaev, who acquired a special education, as well as the transformation of cartoon department of ‘Uzbekkino’ to the Union of Puppet and Picture Cartoons. They started shooting cartoons for grown ups: parables without words, and voice-assisted cartoons for children. ‘Ballad about Falcon’ and ‘Lake in the Desert’ were the first cartoons made in the union. These cartoons motivated the re-equipment of Uzbek cartoonists which allowed to make cartoons by means of puppet applied method. ‘Tender Rain will Come’ was the first such cartoon, creator of which was Sergey Alibekov.
“I wonder, when modern technologies were introduced to the national cartoon animation, how did a variety of themes of the Uzbek cartoonists developed?”
“Large changes happened after 1996, when the national cinema started developing. Along with cartoon masters, a new generation of specialists such as Dmitriy Vlasov, Aziz Muhamedov, Gayane Matevosyan and others developed. Along with Uzbekkino private companies came in the market. Computer technologies become the primary tool of making cartoons. By doing so, national cartoonists apply classic methods. In 2011 first national ‘Alien Guest’ 3-D cartoon launched. Several cartoons were made of playdough.
Over the past 20 years, subjects of cartoons expanded. For the first time, authors are inspired with the works of orient classicists. Based upon the works by Alisher Navoi cartoons such as ‘Bahrom and Dilorom’, ‘Black Door’, ‘Farhod and Shirin’, and ‘Lion and Francolin’ were made. Authors became more interested in the works of such children’s story writers as Hans Christian Anderson, and Oscar Wilde. Along with this, the authors use historical theme, and oral folk arts. Cartoons about ‘Jaloloddin Manguberdi’, ‘Tumaris’ and ‘Zoroastrian Star’ are made.
Uzbek national traditions became apparent not only in the dress of characters, but also in their nature and dialogues. They choose the content of those fairy tales, which reflect moral and historical heritage.
“Why do we watch national cartoons rarely?”
“The fact is that, I guess, the mechanism of distribution of cartoons is insufficiently developed; we, probably, advertise our cartoons not as much as required. We are proud of our products, instead. Our cartoon ‘Tender Rain will Come’ was awarded Golden Dove Prize in Lipetsk. Cartoons created by national cartoonists during the Independence deserved high opinion. For instance, ‘Nightingale’ by Mavzur Mahmudov was awarded Golden Fish Prize, while ‘Potter’ by Svetlana Murotkhujaeva and Dmitry Vlasov was awarded a golden medal at the festival in Tehran.