REPUBLICAN STATE ENTERPRISE KAZRESTAVRATSIYA, KAZAKHSTAN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL. caal technical specialist
Yerkebulat is an architect and passionate about creativity, scientific understanding and the search for new solutions. He always strives for self-improvement, inspired by the richness and diversity of cultural heritage and the skill of ancient architects. These are unique Saki monuments, majestic constructions of Karakhanids and Timurid times, monumental complexes and religious monuments of the period of the Kazakh Khanate, as well as Medieval cities and settlements. Stretching from his beginnings as a young specialist architect to his current position as deputy director general – his career is firmly connected with the protection and use of historical and cultural heritage of Kazakhstan.
After graduating from the Alma-Ata Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering (now the Kazakh Leading Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering) he began at the Kazproektrestavratsiya Research and Design Institute, where he worked until its closure in 1995. During this time, as a city planner, he dealt with the problems of regeneration and rebuilding of the historical cities of Kazakhstan, the development of historical and urban planning and architectural support plans for the cities of Turkestan, Shymkent, Taraz. In 1986 he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Union of Architects of the USSR for Best Project of the Year for the project Protective zones of Turkestan. He repeatedly participated, and then led architectural expeditions in South and Central Kazakhstan in order to record and certify immovable historical and cultural monuments, as well as in the preparation and publication of the Code of Historical and Cultural Monuments. As a consultant, he was involved in the preparation and production of the program series Monuments of History and Culture of Kazakhstan on the Mir and Khabar television channels, and the documentary film Memory of Generations. He is a member of the Union of Architects of the USSR since 1988 and the Union of Architects of Kazakhstan since 1992.
From 1995 to 2000, he worked with one of the largest tourist companies in the country, Intourist-Kazakhstan, where he developed cultural and educational programmes and tourist routes to historical sites of interest to be included in the national and international tourism industry.
Subsequently, he continued to work in the field of protection and restoration of monuments in the government agencies of the country: in the Department of Historical and Cultural Heritage and Protection of Monuments of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and then in the Almaty Department of Culture. In 2006, he received his architecture degree by defending a dissertation titled: Regional Features of the Middle-Age Memorial Architecture of Central Kazakhstan (VIII-early XX centuries).
From 2008 to the present, he has organized and conducted scientific and restoration work on historical and cultural monuments in the Kazrestavratsiya Republican State Enterprise. He actively participated in the preparation of the first serial nomination Chang’an-Tian-shan Silk Road Corridor.
He has been influenced by people like Mithat Bulatov (Yerkebulat’s first scientific adviser), who studied the architecture of Central Asia in terms of geometric harmonisation; Toleu Bassenov, the founder of the Kazakh architectural school; Malgabar Mendikulova, the founder of Kazakhstan’s architectural science; Liya Mankovskaya, a prominent Soviet researcher of the architecture of Central Asia and Kazakhstan; Bayan Tuyakbayeva (Director of Kazrestavratsiya), who devoted herself to the revival of the Mausoleum of Khawaja Ahmed Yasawi and the city of Turkestan.