ASTANA – Creators of the largest international festival of modern ethnic music in Central Asia, The Spirit of Tengri, will soon present their project at a kurultai (assembly) in Hungary to reunite the Turkic world and demonstrate their national cultures.

“We accepted an invitation with great pleasure and will present our project at the kurultai. This indeed is a significant occasion and event that gives a good opportunity for exchanging experience, including our foreign partners. We met organisers of the kurultai in June at our festival in Almaty, now we will continue the collaboration on Hungarian land,” The Spirit of Tengri Chief Director Sergey Maiboroda explained in an interview with Tengrinews.

This assembly has been held every two years since 2007. Kurultai gathers representatives of a dozen countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia (Bashkortostan and Tatarstan), Moldova (Gagauzia) and Bulgaria, the report stated.

Theatrical shows, music performances, archeological and anthropologic exhibitions and craftsmen’s fair will be held as part of this kurultai.

According to the director, kurultai is an atmospheric act and helps preserve the traditions of the Great Steppe nations, which is one of the project’s key values.

“As we already made sure that The Spirit of Tengri is well known in Europe, we have, therefore, prepared a surprise for guests of the kurultai,” Maiboroda added, Tengrinews.kz writes.

The Spirit of Tengri festival was established by the Tengri FM national radio station in 2013.

Musicians from 30 countries and regions across the world like the Turkish BaBa Zula band, Chinese-Mongolian Hanggai team, Magyar Tilla Török’s Band & Holdviola band, Estonian TRAD.ATTACK! ethno band, Georgian The Shin trio and Argymak band from Bashkortostan have performed over these years, the news report said.

Buryat, Finnish and Norwegian Nordic Namgar project, Tuvan throat singer and musician Radik Tyulyush, Tuvan Huun Huur Tu band and American DJ Carmen Rizzo have also been part of past festivals.

Kazakh Aldaspan, Sharapat, Tigrahaud, Roksonaki, Barabany Almaty (Drums of Almaty) bands and folklore maestro Yedil Khussainov were also on the stage of the latest festival in June.

This year’s open-air festival held in June in front of Almaty’s Republic Palace gathered more than 20,000 spectators in two days. More than ten musical collectives from nine countries performed.