Navekat, Suab and Burana: What works are being carried out today on UNESCO World Heritage sites in Chui region?

**«Culture» (AKIpress) —** The Ministry of Culture, Information and Youth Policy held a press tour on May 13 to the historical and cultural sites of Krasnaya Rechka, Burana, and Ak-Beshim, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in Kyrgyzstan under the project «Silk Roads: the Central Asian Corridor of Chang’an–Tianshan».

The introductory trip was led by Deputy Minister of Culture Askaraly Mamadinov, who noted that the trip includes specialists from «Kyrgyzrestoration», archaeologist-restorers, researchers, scientists, the head of the department of historical and cultural heritage at the Ministry of Culture, and other specialists in the field of cultural heritage and archaeology.

As reported by the deputy head of the Ministry of Culture, the trip was organized to disseminate accurate and correct information regarding the ongoing works on site and on objects of historical and cultural significance.

All three sites are located in the Chui region and are important from a cultural and historical point of view, telling about the rich history of this area.

**Krasnaya Rechka Settlement — Navekat**

At the Krasnaya Rechka settlement (Navekat), located 36 km from Bishkek, remains of the ancient city of Navekat (meaning «new city») were discovered, one of the flourishing cities of the Great Silk Road from the 6th to 12th centuries.

Navekat was a major trading and cultural center of the ancient Turkic khaganates. The city’s layout included a citadel, two shahristans (in Arabic terminology — «the city proper»), and an extensive suburb with estates, surrounded by so-called «long walls», covering an area of up to 20 sq. km.

During excavations on the settlement territory, sections of a ceramic water pipeline supplying water from the main canal to the homes of wealthy citizens, as well as drainage wells, were identified.

Over the years, Buddhist, Manichaean, and Zoroastrian temples, a residential castle, palace, and public buildings, as well as memorial-burial and cult complexes of the necropolis system left by representatives of various confessions, have been discovered here.

Beyond the city walls, under the ruler’s patronage, followers of Buddhism and Manichaeism lived. The Krasnorechensk temples included a sanctuary with a circumambulatory corridor, an iwan with an inner courtyard, a gatehouse, and utility parts. Both monumental structures were built of brick and decorated with paintings. The Buddhist temple contained several sculptures of Buddha and bodhisattvas.

Among the unique finds of the temple are a golden and silver sculpture of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, a granite stele, remains of Buddhist texts on paper or birch bark, and inscriptions in Brahmi script. The granite stele holds particular artistic value with traditional iconography characteristic of Chinese and Tibetan monuments: Buddha under an arch, surrounded by bodhisattvas, a stupa with guardians, scenes from the lives of saints, and images of donors.

From the second half of the 13th century, Navekat began to decline and was finally abandoned during the Mongol conquests.

Architect-restorer, chief specialist of the Republican Inspectorate for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments Olesya Tereshchenko conducted a tour of the second Buddhist temple on the southern side of the settlement, which was excavated in the 1970s-1980s and a Buddhist reliquary was found in the sanctuary.

She said that in 2006, under the leadership of the Honored Worker of Culture of the Kyrgyz Republic, Doctor of Architectural Sciences, Professor Jumamedel Imanakulov, a shelter was first erected over the second Buddhist temple.

«After the excavations, this is raw brick architecture, and to preserve the original structure of the walls, to somehow protect them. Because there are very aggressive weather conditions here — strong winds and open terrain. Raw brick is unfired brick that crumbles under the influence of humid and windy conditions. For this reason, we installed a permanent canopy over the object,» noted the architect-restorer.

In 1961, a monumental sculpture «Sleeping Buddha» was found on the sufa of the western gallery of the temple. It is now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Also, near the temple, another object was found — an estate from the Karakhanid period. Excavations were conducted there last year.

«As part of the first phase with funding from the Turkic Fund, there was a field season of work in 2025 for the de-conservation of this object. This was done so that we have points for designing the supports of the future shelter. On the same principle as the second Buddhist temple, the Karakhanid estate will be covered, because it is also raw brick architecture,» explained Tereshchenko.

She said that the next stage will be designing the shelter, the third stage will involve conservation under the shelter and museification of this object. And in the future, creating a common infrastructure for the two objects — the Karakhanid estate and the second Buddhist temple — located opposite each other and conceptually creating a common infrastructure.

**Ak-Beshim Settlement — Suab**

Ak-Beshim is a settlement from the 6th–12th centuries, located 6 km southwest of Tokmak city. In its structure, it is a typical early medieval city of Northern Kyrgyzstan. On the territory adjacent to the central part, there were craft quarters, trading rows, and residential houses of citizens engaged in various crafts.

Here, remains of residential buildings, household items, coins, artistically designed products, as well as rich materials on architecture, sculpture, painting, and construction techniques from two Buddhist temples of the 6th–8th centuries located in the southern part of the shahristan have been discovered.

During the trip to Suab, participants were introduced to the Nestorian (historical branch of Christianity) church dating back to the 6th–8th centuries. This is one of the largest churches in Central Asia. Archaeological excavations are currently underway here.

An employee of the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnology named after B. Dzhamgerchinov of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, Candidate of Historical Sciences, archaeologist Baky tAmanbayeva said that during excavations, bronze coins are often found here.

Amanbayeva said that initial work on the church territory began back in 1996-1998. «And this is very strange because a lot of work was done here before and no one noticed anything, there were no mounds, hills. And probably intuition, and here they discovered the church — a complex of churches with three churches. This dates to the 10th-11th centuries, even the materials more specifically to the 11th century,» she said.

Amanbayeva noted that China…