On 13 October 2020, a research associate of the museum and educational department of Bolgar Museum-Reserve Krivosheyeva S. V. held an interactive event on “Alphabet from ancient times to renaissance” for the students of the 5th grade of Bolgar special boarding school for children with limited opportunities.
Civilization became inevitable on that day when our unknown ancestor made a discovery the sense of which is not fully understood by human mind even in our days. He invented the alphabetical writing in which every written symbol corresponded to the sound of speech.
It is known how the aborigines of America and Australia perceived the writing brought by white people. They thought that learning to write was a kind of religious ritual and a book was a living thing, which could speak and see. There was a case when an aboriginal messenger refused to take a written message because he was afraid that it would speak with him on the way. In another case, an aborigine was bringing four loaves of bread and a letter showing the number of loaves to the next village. He ate one of the loaves and, of course, he was exposed. Next time, before eating bread, he hid the letter in a hollow tree but the truth came out. Then he started beating the letter saying to it not to spy on him and left him alone. Similarly, peoples of Europe, Africa and Asia perceived the emergence of writing.
At the event, children heard about the history of emergence of the first written language and became familiar with Turkic runic writing, Arabic graphics, Latin alphabet and Cyrillic script. The kids also tried to write and read their names in Cyrillic alphabet.

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