China may host Asian Championships in Toguz Kumalak

“In 2015, the Embassy of Kazakhstan together with the World Toguz Kumalak Federation held a presentation of this game in Beijing. The issue of hosting the Asian Championships in Toguz Kumalak is being discussed now,” the Ambassador told today at the briefing in the MFA Office in Astana.

The Kazakh Diplomat touched upon also cultural-humanitarian cooperation the two countries.

According to him, three Kazakhstan Research Centres are functioning to date in Shanghai, Beijing and Dalian.  The fourth will be opened in 2017.

A professor of the al-Farabi Kazakh National University teaches Kazakh language to local students at the Kazakhstan Research Centre at the Beijing University of Foreign Languages.

“Local students of Han, Kazakh and Uyghur communities are keen on studying at the Kazakhstan Research Centres,” Sh.Nuryshev noted.

Toguz Kumalak is the Kazakhs’ traditional game played by two people. The game is played on a board with two rows of nine holes. There are two “kazans” between the rows, which are used to collect captured stones of each user. At the beginning of the game, each of the players has nine stones in each hole. The task is to gather as many as possible stones in   kazans.