During our weekly project meeting today, we further discussed ideas for contributions to the project. Gulnara said that she's gone through all the old photography albums in her family, and this recourse into the past gave her many ideas. She grew up in the neighborhood adjacent to the railroad station and comes from a family of people all connected to railroad. As the novels written by Central Asian writers such as Chingiz Aitmatov and Hamid Ismailov attest, railroad was one of the major ways in which modernization initiated by the Soviet regime took place. The Turksib (Turkestano-Sibirskaya Magistral') railroad was a major project that changed lives in Central Asia.
Gulnara brought a watercolor sketch of her grandfather who was the operator for a military train in the 1930s. We really loved the old steam train and the crowds of people. It's exciting to see the potential of how art brings to life the memories of childhood and family.
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