Kazakhstan's Culture Festival was held in Beijing on Saturday, which is prevailing with the desire to boost sci-tech innovative cooperation between the two countries along with the fast-growing cultural and economic exchanges.

At the cultural event, the state concert organization of Kazakhstan "Qazaqconcert', which is named after the legendary Kazakh singer Roza Baglanova, staged excellent performances, including local folk music, pop music, opera, and folk dance.

Another highlight at the event was the launch ceremony of the "Digital People" project, in which two virtual characters Yi Yang and Sulu, from China and Kazakhstan respectively, were officially unveiled in a video titled "Same as You."

As a collective image of the younger generation of both countries who strive for development and international communication, the virtual characters were jointly developed by students from Tsinghua University and Kazakhstan State University, and they will be mascots of scientific and people-to-people exchanges between China and Kazakhstan in the Year of Kazakhstan's Tourism next year. Yang and Sulu will explore the tourism potential of the two countries.

"Scientific and technical cooperation is an integral part of our bilateral strategic partnership, and this digital project can help us realize innovative cooperation between the youth of the two countries. The goal of our today's event is to promote interactions. It is interactions at the youth level, so that our young people of both countries could understand each other and get to know each other better," said Askar Shalkarbaev, Minister Counselor of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in China.

"Recently, China and Kazakhstan talked about strengthening cultural and scientific exchanges at the Belt and Road Forum. In this regard, the Kazakh Embassy in China, the China International Communication Group, and we jointly launched the China-Kazakhstan Digital People project. We hope that this digital project can be used to develop culture and scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries," said Chen Xiaohan, deputy general director of Beijing Zhongguancun Tongli Science and Technology Service.

"Both Yang and Sulu represent the exchange and integration of different cultures, and also symbolize the strength of our youth. I have noticed that the humanistic exchanges between China and Kazakhstan are strengthening every day, whether it is the recent mutual exemption from visa requirements between our two countries or future actions in tourism, education and other fields, which show that the friendship between the two countries is becoming stronger and stronger," said Li Ziwei, a master's student in the Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University.