61st Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference

26 August — 4 September 2018

Bishkek and Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan

The 61st Annual Meeting was jointly hosted by the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, the “Muras” Foundation for the Historical and Cultural Heritage of the People of Kyrgyzstan under the Office of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic and The Kyrgyz State University named after Ishenaly Arabaev (KSU) in Bishkek and Cholpon-Ata. The 61st Annual Meeting of the PIAC was embedded in a series of major international events, namely the Third World Nomad Games 2018, beginning September 2, 2018 and the 6th Summit of the Turkic Council on September 6, 2018. Very much on the same level of protocol, the opening session of the PIAC Meeting was hosted at the Government Guest House, opened with an address by then president Sooronbay Jeenbekov.

All these events were scheduled around the festivities for Independence Day of Kyrgyzstan, August 31st, which was celebrated which huge festivities and cultural displays in the centre of Bishkek.

Since the Third World Nomad Games took place near Issyk-Kul, all members of the meeting travelled, in best nomadic style, to Cholpon-Ata to a pleasant sanatorium on the banks of Lake Issyk-Kul, “Aurora”. With the Third World Nomad Games as a backdrop, the choice of the annual theme for this meeting was more than natural:

Popular Games in the Altaic World and Related Customs and Traditions

The 61st Meeting can be definitely regarded as one of the “big congress”-type meetings, in the words of Denis Sinor. The List of Participants includes more than 150 names.

Since the central theme focussed on popular games, the section of the programme dealing with games was by far the biggest. For a general overview of the sequence of events, see the programme; the detailed schedule of presentations is presented in a separate document.

Oliver Corff