Whitney Houston is a pop legend

Pop superstar Whitney Houston has passed away aged 48. The blues and soul songstress died in a Beverly Hills hotel room on Sunday, just hours before she was to appear at a pre-Grammy Awards party. Ms Houston was expected to receive a lifetime achievement award at the main ceremony. Medics arrived at her room around 3.43 pm and administered CPR. She was pronounced dead 12 minutes later. The cause of her death is not yet known. Her body was quickly removed from the hotel to avoid the chaos of the world’s media, which had congregated to cover the story. A police officer told reporters: "She has been positively identified by friends and family…and next of kin have already been notified.”

Whitney Houston was one of the world’s most influential, successful and popular singers. She was born into a musical family. Her mother Cissy was a gospel singer and her aunt was the legendary Dionne Warwick. Houston won six Grammy awards among many other top prizes. She released seven studio albums and sold over 170 million CDs, singles and videos. Her most famous song is her worldwide hit, "I Will Always Love You." In 1992, she married soul singer Bobby Brown. They had a rocky relationship that was widely covered by the press. The last 10 years of her life were dominated by drug use. Tributes to her have poured in from the world’s music superstars. Rihanna posted on Twitter: "No words, just tears."

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Titanic – the most expensive film ever made

In April 1912, the Titanic, left Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York. On the night of 14^th April, in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the supposedly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg. 1,513 of the 2,300 people on board were killed.

In 1985, film director James Cameron saw a television documentary about the Titanic.

The documentary, contained haunting images of the giant ship lying in pieces on the bed of the North Atlantic. Cameron was busy with other projects at the time, but ten years later, he put together a script idea which would combine the real disaster with a fictional love story between characters from completely different backgrounds.

Cameron presented his idea to 20^th Century-Fox in March 1995. the director had already spent an enormous £125 million on his film True Lies, and told the studio that he estimated Titanic would cost no more than £80 million. ‘I anticipate that it will be less expensive than my last two films’, he told Hollywood reporters. Studio bosses were interested and offered Cameron a contract to make the film.

Next, Cameron decided that he needed footage of the actual wreck itself, and chartered the Academic Mstislav Keldysh. The brilliant underwater images impressed the studio, and in May 1996, they told Cameron that he could proceed with the movie. Cameron told them that the costs had increased and would now be about $125 million,. The studio chief objected and told him not to let the costs get out of hand. Had they known what was going to happen, they would probably have killed the project off there and them.

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An American actor, producer and musician John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on 9 June, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky. He’s the son of John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer, and his wife, the former Betty Sue Wells, a waitress. He has one brother, Daniel, who is a novelist, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie.

He was given a guitar from his father for his twelfth birthday. Depp began playing in various bands. A year after his parents' divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician

On December 24, 1983, Depp married Lori Anne Allison, the sister of his band's bass player and singer. His wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to pursue an acting career. Depp and his wife divorced in 1985.

Depp's first major role was in the 1984 classic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street.

In 2003 the Walt Disney Pictures film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a major success, in which Depp's performance as the suave but shambling pirate Captain Jack Sparrow was highly praised. His character became popular with the movie-going public. He returned to the role of Jack Sparrow for the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which opened on 7 July 2006 and grossed $135.5 million in the first three days of its U.S. release, breaking a box office record of the highest weekend tally. The next sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, At World's End, was released on May 2007. Depp has said that Sparrow is "definitely a big part of me", and he wants to play the role in further sequels.

He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. He has collaborated with director and friend Tim Burton in seven films, most recently with Alice in Wonderland (2010). He has been nominated for top awards many times, winning the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He has been listed in the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor with $75 million. Films featuring Depp have grossed over $3.1 billion at the United States box office and over $7.6 billion worldwide.

Depp's Hollywood Walk of Fame star received on November 19, 1999.

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Before crossing

He passed a sleepless night. It was only at dawn that Abai lay down, but feel­ing wide awake he soon returned to his desk, which was heaped with open books. Volumes in old Uzbek, a language he could freely read, jostled with others in Persian and Arabic, more difficult, and still others in Russian—even harder.

These polyglot friends had not got together on his table fortuitously. Life itself demanded of him the knowl­edge secreted in these folios. For several days Abai had been poring over them by day and night like an obsessed scholar or a devout recluse. Glancing up from the pages from time to time, he would look about, momentarily awaking to reality.

The Uzbek works carried Abai back to the flowering gardens of Shiraz; he saw the ancient tombs of Samar­kand, strolled through the orchards fringing the limpid waters of Merv and Mash-had, wandered through the fairy palaces, the madrasahs and the libraries of Herat, Ghazni and Baghdad, the land of the immortal poets. The books in Arabic and Persian conjured up scenes of the flashing scimitars with which the Arabs, Persians, Turks and Mongols settled scores in turn throughout the centuries. The Russian books disclosed the mysteries of the seas and sandy wastes of Central Asia, Persia, Arabia and the life of the great cities of barter and trade.

Abai wanted to know how these countries lived today. He made careful notes of the caravan routes and water­ways, of great cities and rich bazaars.

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Abylkhan Kasteev (1904-1973), National Artist of Kazakh SSR was born in Taldy-Kurgan region in a family of poor nomad. He studied in the art studio named after N.G.Khludova in Almaty, in the art studio in the House of National Work named by N.K.Krupskaya in Moscow.

Abylkhan Kasteev was the first honored the title of National Artist of Kazakhstan. Kasteev’s art work embodies transfer from the element of a national applied art of the early 20^th century to the new. His works are stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery, in the State Museum of East Nations Art and in the museums of our country.

The history of the State Art Museum begins since 1935 when Kazakh National art gallery was founded. In 1976 was opened the museum of arts on the basis of gallery and National Republican museum of applied art, which existed from 1970. In 1984 the museum was renamed in honor of Abylkhan Kasteev. Nowadays the State Art Museum named after Kasteev is the largest art museum in Kazakhstan and a well known regional center for research and education in the field of art history. Its collection has more than 22 000 first-class exhibits that make up the country's national heritage.

In the museum we can see works of ancient and contemporary Kazakhstan art, works of the Soviet period (1920s-1990s).

The subjects of folk applied arts reflect all areas of Kazakh’s life over a long period.  In the halls of the fine arts of Kazakhstan, you can trace the history of formation and development of easel art.

  Beautiful paintings, which are in the halls of Russian art, mirror the history of Russian art from the 18^th to 20^th centuries. It was traced in the works of F. Rokotov, D. Levitsky, C. Brullov, I. Repin, I. Kramskoy.

West-European art collection of the 16th–20th centuries includes original works of 4 major schools: Italian, Dutch, Flemish and French - Kambiazo, Savereya, Dyuge, Ostade, Koro, Dobin, Gudona, Kuazevo.

 The exhibition of eastern art represents the art of India, China, Japan, Korea, and also Dungan, Uighur, Tibetan, the most important species - bronze, wood and stone, lacquer products, embroidery, porcelain and ceramics. Nowadays the Museum takes a leading position among the all art museums of the country.

The Museum arranges tours with English-speaking guides.

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