**Acknowledgements**

*Education, Human Rights and Peace in Sustainable Development*

cultural properties to be protected.

**5. Conclusions**

*"For many in the region, the Silk Road is a story of peaceful trade, and a rich history of religious and harmonious cultural exchange. The Belt and Road seeks to directly build on this legacy. It rest up a historical narrative that connectivity—both cultural and economic—reduces suspicion and promotes common prosperity…." [1]*

For developing nations such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the invitation to join the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor Silk Route initiative gives these nations status, recognition, and also a stake in the "One Belt, One Road" economic initiatives of the core state of China. World Heritage status of archaeological sites often brings cultural, scientific, and financial backers into a nation. For example, the UNESCO-backed restoration of the medieval city of Otrar, a main city along the southern Silk Route, was for the most part financed by Japan. Petroglyph research and the training of local archaeologists and museum personnel at Tamgaly, the major archaeological rock art and landscape reserve in southern Kazakhstan near the Karatau Mountains, were supported in part by Norway. For local archaeologists in Kazakhstan, these World Heritage nominations attract more tourism and boost employment and research opportunities. Government grants through the Kazakh National Institute of Science and Technology have been awarded to archaeologists pursuing the excavation, survey, and research into significant archaeological sites; both are included in World Heritage site nominations and on the tentative list of

In the Republic of Kazakhstan, cultural and historic heritage of archaeological sites and monuments arises out of the previous Soviet system for the protection and restoration of important archaeological sites and historic monuments. This tradition of heritage management continues to this day but has been influenced now by rapid infrastructural development and national and global mandates under the UNESCO system of inscribing World Heritage sites and natural landscapes. This new level of transnational and global heritage has both positive and negative impacts on the stakeholders of Kazakh history and culture and the citizens themselves. Nationalism, especially with regard to the early evolution of prehistory on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as mentioned by former President Nazarbayev in 1997–1998, builds among its citizenry a sense of pride and belonging to a greater Eurasian past. The linkage between the contemporary Kazakh culture, whose historic roots can be traced to the sixteenth century AD, and earlier nomadic steppe traditions such as the ancient Saka (eastern variants of the Scythians), although perhaps historically inaccurate, does instill a national pride in the dominant ethnic group, the Kazakhs. Under Soviet rule, indigenous nomadic peoples were often seen as the "little brothers" to the dominant Russian cultural and historic traditions. Former President Nazarbayev since independence in 1991 has been able to weave a national identity that is both multiethnic and multireligious within the territory of the nation-state while asserting the political dominance of the Kazakhs through language reform and the Kazakhization of the national culture [8, 10, 11]. In spite of rapid infrastructural development from vast oil and gas reserves, it is also of great importance to the politicians and diplomats as well as the professional archaeologists and historians to promote the role of cultural and historical heritage in the Republic of Kazakhstan. There will still, however, be tensions in these competing national and global narratives as long as sustainable development appears to be separate from the management of heritage

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policies.

I wish to thank Yuri Peshkov, former cultural officer of the Almaty cluster office of the UNESCO. Boris A. Zheleznyakov provided reports and other information about the World Heritage listing of Tamgaly Reserve Park for which I am grateful.
