The "Altai-Asia 2012" Forum Program
On June 27 the Forum guests were met in Barnaul and transferred to the venue, which was located in the Stick Travel tourist complex, Altai Krai.
On June 28 the opening session took place. It was begun with the member-countries’ flags parade. ASU rector Sergey Zemlyukov delivered a welcoming speech and stated that the initiative of the Forum Organization had come from the former President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev during his visit to ASU in 2011. The welcoming speech was followed by the cultural show, where the students and lecturers were dancing, singing national songs and telling the audience about their traditions. Right after that the hard work started.
The second day of the Forum was rich for the events.
One of the major Forum guests was Mushtaq Ahmad Kaw, chairman of the College Council, University of Kashmir. He delivered a presentation on the topic “Globalization as a factor of educational integration”, where stated the Forum work would encourage the Asian countries’ cultural integration, build a connection between the universities, students and lecturers. His point was that the world contains too much strain and conflicts, so it is essential to cooperate in order to deal with this kind of problem.
The other important points of the agenda were the environmental issues, academic mobility and social security.
The discussion sites for ecological problems and academic mobility attracted great attention from the experts’ side. The participants were talking about the alternate energy sources, water conservation, waste disposal, technologies development impact on people’s lives, the exchange programs significance, and so on. The speakers defined the relevant problems and agreed that the process of finding solutions would be taking a lot of time and efforts and depend on the youth. As for the social security, it was a burning issue as it had attracted the public interest long before the work started. The discussion there mainly concerned the socially oriented projects, youth policy, spiritual and moral values.
The organizers also made an attempt of preserving the traditional art by offering the creative master classes to the Forum guests, one of which was about making the traditional angel-dolls from typha. The working process managed to unite the international students and lecturers and make them the proud owners of the best gifts that were crafted with their own hands.
The third day, June 29, was dedicated to the healthy lifestyle, leisure activities, sports and tourism. There were a lot of interesting projects introduced by the Russian and foreign researchers, one of which was the youth leisure center “Megapolis” located in Chita, presented by Evgenia Domanova from Transbaikal State University. The center has 11 free and 15 paid clubs, including the DJ school, photography and journalism classes. The researchers from the Northeastern University of China also presented a new project – portable generator that helps charge a telephone or a laptop during a long jorney.
After lunch there was an offsite program prepared for the guests. Some of them visited “Altai. Points of Growth” Forum, which was held nearby, others went to see the sights and beauties of Altai – the Chemal hydroelectric plant, Patmos Island, Tavdinskie Caves, “The Worlds’ Crossroads” archeological park.
On June 30 the closing ceremony was held. The participants had been positive and creative, the high value of the newly obtained experience could hardly be overestimated, said Sergey Zemlyukov and promised to continue the Asian forums tradition.
