One of Kazakhstan's leading singers hopes the power of music will help Japan's antinuclear movement spread, just as her signature song became the symbol of a movement that forced the shutdown of a former Soviet nuclear test site in 1991.
"Songs have the power to raise people's spirits and to unite them," Roza Rymbayeva, 54, said during a recent trip to Hiroshima.
Rymbayeva, officially designated as Kazakhstan's national artist in 1979, said the power and melancholy of her antinuclear song "Zaman-ai" ("Oh Such Times") sends a message about "protecting nature, children, our country and our future."