Gulistan Khamzayeva is the Chairwoman of the Kazakhstan diplomats’ wives community: https://www.instagram.com/kazdiplomat_ladies/
From 1993 to 2018 Gulistan has accompanied her husband, Almaz Khamzayev, a career diplomat, on diplomatic postings to Washington, D.C., USA; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Rome, Italy; and Brussels, Belgium. They have also been accredited to Greece, Malta, and San Marino.
Gulistan is fluent in 7 languages: Kazakh, Russian, English, Italian, Spanish, French and German
Gulistan has written extensively about her life as the wife of ambassador in her books, which she has presented in Kazakhstan, in the US, in Italy, in Belgium and in Spain.
Her first book, Leaving a Piece of My Heart Behind, written in Russian, was published in 2009 in Kazakhstan and re-edited in 2011. It is about women who, due to their husbands’ jobs, had to leave their home country to follow their husbands, to find their own way in the host country and learn about the duties of a wife of an ambassador. She received many warm responses and comments from men and women of different ages and social status. The proceeds from the book sales went to support the Association of Parents with Disabled Children of Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Gulistan has over 20 years of experience as a professor of English, having taught at Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University from 1979 to 1992 and as a senior lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy of Kazakhstan in Almaty in 1997-1999.
She enjoys crafts and is fond of painting. She is also a contemporary painter, having mastered an array of painting techniques and skills while living extensively in Italy. Her painting style is a synthesis of her poetic inclinations that draw on and evolve from her own everyday experience and represents a merger of her cultural traditions with the thought and aesthetics of the West.
Gulistan is an honorary Board Member of Lucas Koch Foundation and AODI (The Association for Leisure for the Mentally Disabled of Alicante), non-profit organization. In 2011 she received an award from AODI for her active participation in charity. She is also a member of the Brussels Circle of Diplomatic Artists. https://brucoda.expat.brussels/gulistan-khamzayeva/
In May 2013 Gulistan published her new book Behind the Silk Curtain in Brussels, Belgium. It is about multiculturalism, adapting to new environments, socializing with people of different cultures, about linguistic integration, gaining experience, and facing challenges, about friends and family, about some of the Kazakh traditions and the country’s mentality, about charity and weddings and many other fascinating contexts she was involved in. The proceeds from the sale of the new book go to supporting the project Te Invito a Mi Mundo, an initiative that started in Spain with the aim of fostering awareness of disabled children.
In 2017 her book ‘Behind the Silk Curtain’ was translated into Italian, published and presented in Rome, Italy. The proceeds from the sale of the book went to supporting Associazione KIM Onlus, a non-profit organization that helps sick children from developing countries. https://www.lafeltrinelli.it/libri/gulistan-khamzayeva/dietro-cortina-seta-moglie-un/9788892320963