On January 28, 2015, the scientific community of Pavlodar celebrated the birthday of Olzhabay Zharmakin, a famous scientist, linguist and talented teacher.

This year Professor of the Department of Foreign Philology and Translation Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Education, celebrates his 80th birthday.

Akim of the region Kanat Bozumbayev sent a letter of appreciation to the hero of the day. He noted Olzhabay Zharmakin's great contribution to the Kazakh language development, preservation and promotion of cultural values of the Kazakh people, our history and traditions.

Serik Omirbayev, Rector of S. Toraighyrov Pavlodar State University, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, congratulated Professor Zharmakin on his birthday and noted that he has trained many brilliant scientists and linguists who are now making their contribution to the development of linguistics and philology in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Olzhabay Zharmakin was the first Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Pavlodar Pedagogical Institute and then Head of the Department of Foreign Languages. Later he spent 5 years working in the regional administration as an advisor to the head of the region and then as the Head of the Regional Department of Languages Development.

Olzhabay Zharmakin is a prime example of a multilingual individual. He is an expert user of Kazakh, German and Russian. In his works, he addresses many topical problems of modern linguistics and methodology of teaching foreign languages. As the Head of the Kazak Tili society, he has done a lot to promote the official language. As a result, the quality of teaching in Kazakh has been raised, new textbooks, study guides and dictionaries have been published.

Over the years of working in the field of linguistics, Olzhabay Zharmakin has published more than 50 research papers, 2 monographs, and 5 textbooks for linguistic disciplines. All these works show the breadth of his research interests and profound theoretical and practical knowledge.

Based on the order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Olzhabay Zharmakin was awarded the Ybrai Altynsarin medal for significant achievements in education of the younger generation right on the day of his 80th birthday.

Photo by Rufina Torpischeva