CINEMA AS BRANDING - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 178

In this chapter, I try to rescue what was shown and said in the film and
to situate its story within the past and present cultural milieus searching for
the answers to the questions: (a) why this costly effort failed to produce a
plausible narrative for the national audience and (b) what went wrong with
this project designed to introduce the country, its people and their history
to the world. I end my discussion of Nomad , a film that was expected to
produce a particular international image for Kazakhstan, referring to the
concepts of place branding and creative environment , which guided the
country's leadership attempts 'to put their country on the map.'
BACKGROUND, ORGANIZATION, AND METHODOLOGY
The film draws on two episodes in Kazakh history. One is a story of the af-
termath of serious military attacks on Kazakhs by Jungars, Mongol tribes,
who will be discussed later. The scale of the devastation inflicted upon
Kazakh communities was documented in oral narratives from this period
(1723-1726) defined as Aktaban Shubirindy or the Time of the Great Ca-
lamity . 8 A central narrative here is Elim-ay, a song, which is well-known
among modern Kazakhs. Its lyrics evoke human loss, loss of homeland,
and disintegration of the society since different communities had to take
up separate paths on their way to safety. 9 Before they split, they swore to
never forget their grief, to rejoin and reclaim their land from the enemy.
As they went on, they heard a baby camel crying over separation with
his mother. They added their voices to his cry and it became the Elim-ay
song. The passionate desire to reunite as a people forms a background in
the film-story.
The other episode centers on a historical figure, Ablai (1711-1781)
who entered the steppe politics in the late 1730s and, towards the end of
his life, became a khan. Ablai's political career was shaped by the hostility
between Kazakhs and Jungars. Yet, a number of skilled and dedicated war-
8 Aktaban Shubirindy is transcribed as “the time when the entire people is laying down [exhausted]
with the soles worn away from running and having no strength” (Yessenberlin [1973] 1989: 241).
This event has been documented in written historical sources because of the devastating impact of the
“arrival of desperate and destitute Kazakhs” on Central Asian cities, Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara
(Khodarkovsky 2002: 150).
9 Elim-ay is transcribed as “Oh, my devastated people.” As one of its verses goes: “Nothing is harder
than to say good bye // when you don't know if you meet ever again!” (cited in, including the complete
text of the song, in Kudayberdy-Uly [1911] 1990: 50).