Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 16, 1993 TAG: 9307160281
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CELESTE KATZ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Do you like to travel?
Have you ever traveled overseas?
When you travel, what do you like to do or what are you interested in?
Nineteen young people from Central Asia were extremely curious about what locals would answer to these four questions.
The students, 15 to 18 years old, are visiting from Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan, two nations of the former Soviet Union. Clad in the colorful traditional dress of their lands, they performed folk songs and dances in downtown Roanoke's Market Square on Thursday.
In between performances, though, they got down to business.
Through Legacy International, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the United Nations to promote cross-cultural understanding through adult and youth programs, the group is undergoing summer training in business and marketing.
They're focusing on increasing tourism to their newly liberated countries, which are little known to many.
"We are young, independent states. We need to learn about liberty, and democracy. That's the only way for us to create a free-market system," said professor Bakhodir Kayumov, leader of the Uzbekistan group. "We would like to apply these skills in our own country.
In English, which some students have studied for only six months, the youths invited passersby to examine photographs and artifacts from their native countries and to answer questions designed to gauge how attractive travel to Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan might be for Americans.
"Many tourists come to our country, but not enough. That's why we're here," said Sandjar Malikov, 16, of Uzbekistan, who spoke of his nation's 2,000-year history and vibrant architecture as major attractions.
Uzbekistan, with its capital at Tashkent, was among the most economically valuable republics of the former U.S.S.R., producing much of the cotton, rice, and silk exported by the Soviet government.
Kyrgystan, which lies far east on the Chinese border, boasts spectacular mountains and natural scenery and has been called the "Switzerland of Central Asia."
Some people on Market Square were receptive to the information, stopping to chat for several minutes. The talks didn't always clear confusion, though.
"They were telling me about where they're from in Southeast Asia," Clinton Thurman of Boones Mill said after completing the survey.
Thurman said that while he was not persuaded to make an overseas trip, he complimented the students' "unique outfits."
"That looks like it could be a style over here," he said.
Despite a few communication problems, most of the students were enthusiastic about the short-term exchange.
"I just love it here," said one student, identifying the group's excursion to Washington, D.C., as a highlight of the three-week program. "The people are very honest, and although some of them are very busy, some have time and they talk to us with pleasure," said Ganisher Rahimov, 17.
"It's really fantastic," said Azalia Bairbekova of Kyrgystan, an 18-year-old with six years of English study. "America is an ideal for us. Everybody dreamed of seeing America." She added that her previous exposure to American culture, mainly through television and movies, had showed only "the good side" of life in the United States, although her opinion hasn't changed.
Shirin Rasulova, a student at Tashkent State Economic University in Uzbekistan, described the Americans she had encountered as "kind and very friendly."
"I think people here are interested in our culture. They had only heard about us as part of Russia," she said.
Rasulova plans to use the knowledge she gleans in the U.S. for a career in economics and to increase Westerners' awareness of and interest in Central Asia.
"They don't know us," she judged.
by CNB