President of Misva Association Alexander Baron visited Semipalatinsk where he met with the Jewish Community of this city. On July 27th, in the House of Friendship, Alexander Iosifovich shared Jewish news with the audience, which occurred during the previous month and included the visit of President of Israel Shimon Peres to Kazakhstan, festival "Freilehe Kinder", opening of new synagogues in Ust-Kamenogorsk and Kostanai. After the presentation, Alexander Baron answered in detail all the questions related to the life of Jewish Community.

   In the House of Friendship, an exhibition of archive documents and presentation of research papers produced by the international historic conference held in Almaty in October of 2008, took place. The event was opened by a conference participant, Chairman of the Semipalatinsk Jewish Cultural Center Grigoriy Shtilman. He said: "Mitsva Association works on recreating the historic environment of Jewish people lives on the territory of present Kazakhstan", and presented a book of materials "EVACUATION: Recollecting the Past". This research paper is dedicated to the issue of evacuation of people and production facilities in 1941-1942 from the West to the East of the country. One of the speakers was Director of the Oblast Archive, who highly evaluated the work done by the international historic conference and the exhibition of the archive documents. Representative of a Smaller Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan in Semipalatinsk also expressed his support of the research related to history of different ethnic groups in Kazakhstan. Director of the Semipalatinsk House of Friendship noted a contribution of the Jewish community to the issue of lightening unknown parts of Kazakhstan’s history.

  Hesed clients, witnesses of the historic events described in the new book, were present at the exhibition. The exposition of the copies of archive documents deeply touched the people who had lived in that difficult time.

  Great value represents the historic heredity of the Jewish community of Semipalatinsk. These are well preserved two storey stone-made buildings of three synagogues (built in the XIX century). Jewish cemetery set before the October Revolution, which is well cared for by the community. These are artifacts of long time living of Jews in Kazakhstan.

Lyudmila Starodubova