IICAS, PROJECT ASSISTANT

Anastasiya has a BA in English philology and teaching languages from Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages. Before graduating she began her career in tourism where she acquired organisational and planning skills as a tour operator. Occasional sightseeing tours around Samarkand enabled her to learn more about her birth city and country in general. This experience was taken into account when Anastasiya applied for the position of tour leader and guide for a Canadian company not long before the Coronavirus spread all over the globe and made travelling impossible. The pandemic led her to the doorstep of IICAS where she has been able to continue working with places of interest in a new position. Working for IICAS, and the CAAL project in particular, has given her a chance to enrich her knowledge about cultural heritage all over Central Asia and contribute to the digitising process of archives, thus preserving them for future generations.

When she is not in the office Anastasiya is fired up by architectural masterpieces but says her favourite spot is somewhere in nature such as Lake Kaindy in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. She says ‘my big passion is learning, so whatever teaches me something new is on my list. Whether it is a new book about human evolution or driving a car. At the moment I am devoted to learning French, studying for a master’s degree in museum studies, and reading as many books as I can.’