The five-day Shanghai Culture Week unveiled Sunday in a national theater in Kazakhstan's biggest city Alma Ata with a spectacular dance opera "Wild Zebras."

During the culture week, about 190 entertainers from Shanghai will perform a variety of programs, including concerts, dances and songs, for the residents in the Central Asian city.

Meanwhile, there will be a photography exhibition titled "Shanghai Impression," a display of paintings by late Liu Haisu, Shanghai movie exhibition, and speeches on the development and construction of Shanghai in the next few days.

Alma Ata's municipal government sent a congratulatory message to the cultural event, saying that it would help the residents in the city understand the colorful life styles of the Chinese people.

Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said in his congratulatory message that the event is a follow-up to the Alma Ata Culture Week in Shanghai in 2004 and will boost cooperation and exchanges between the two cities and the two countries.

In 2003, Shanghai and Alma Ata signed a memorandum on holding culture weeks. In April 2004, 280 people from the cultural circle of Alma Ata held a five-day culture week in Shanghai.

(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2005)