Kazakhstan, from the inside
Free wanderers, seven fathers, renamed in-laws, the world’s first apples and the first human in space.
Not a history lesson: the customs, origins and surprises that make Kazakhstan worth talking about. Twelve stops from the steppe’s ancient horse-keepers to its role in the space age.
- I
Start with the name itself, which means something like “free wanderer”.
No. 069Word originCountries“Kazakh” and “Cossack” are the same word The name of the Kazakh people most likely means a free wanderer, and the Cossacks of Ukraine and Russia share the same root. - II
A people on the move kept their identity in memory: seven fathers, recited by heart.
No. 067ConceptCountriesWhy many Kazakhs can name seven generations of ancestors A Kazakh child is traditionally expected to know seven fathers back, and the rule exists to prevent marriage between relatives. - III
In those big families, a new bride renamed her elders instead of speaking their names.
No. 008ConceptCountriesThe Kazakh bride who renames her husband’s family By custom, a Kazakh daughter-in-law does not say the names of her husband’s elder relatives aloud. Instead she invents a respectful nickname for each one. - IV
And the children’s names carried wishes, fears and the story of the day they were born.
No. 070Word originCountriesKazakh names that tell a story A girl named Ulbolsyn carries a message: “let the next one be a boy”. Traditional Kazakh names record wishes, fears, wars and the day a child was born. - V
Visit such a family and the tea will tell you whether to stay.
No. 071ConceptCountriesIn a Kazakh home, a half-empty cup is a compliment Kazakh hosts pour tea only part-way, so they can keep refilling it while you stay and talk. A cup filled to the brim can be a polite hint. - VI
Go back 5,500 years, to some of the earliest horse-keepers on Earth.
No. 016FactCountriesThe “last wild horse” descends from tamed horses of the Kazakh steppe 5,500 years ago, people at Botai in northern Kazakhstan were bridling horses and probably milking mares. Their horses’ descendants became Przewalski’s horse, long thought to be truly wild. - VII
Meanwhile, the wild ancestor of every apple was growing in the mountains near Almaty.
No. 006FactCountriesEvery apple you have eaten comes from Kazakhstan The main wild ancestor of the domestic apple still grows in forests in the mountains around Almaty, a city whose name is often linked to the Kazakh word for apple. - VIII
A Saka warrior in 4,000 pieces of gold became the nation’s symbol, and may have been a woman.
No. 046ObjectCountriesKazakhstan’s national symbol might be a woman The “Golden Man” on top of Almaty’s Independence Monument is a Saka warrior found in 1969 in a costume of about 4,000 gold pieces. Archaeologists still can’t say for sure whether the warrior was a man. - IX
A Silk Road city in Kazakhstan once provoked Genghis Khan.
No. 088EventCountriesThe city in Kazakhstan that provoked Genghis Khan In 1218 the governor of Otrar, a Silk Road city in today’s southern Kazakhstan, executed a Mongol trade caravan. The insult launched one of the most destructive invasions in history. - X
Seven centuries later, the space age began on the same steppe.
No. 009PlaceCountriesThe first human in space took off from Kazakhstan Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin both launched from Baikonur, on the Kazakh steppe. Today Russia rents the cosmodrome, and the town around it, from Kazakhstan. - XI
The Soviet era also left 456 nuclear explosions, and a country that chose to give its bombs away.
No. 105EventCountriesThe country that gave up the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal The Soviet Union set off 456 nuclear explosions in Kazakhstan. After independence, Kazakhstan closed the test site and gave up about 1,400 nuclear warheads. - XII
And a dying sea that Kazakhstan partly brought back to life.
No. 007PlaceCountriesKazakhstan brought half of a dying sea back to life The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest lake. Soviet irrigation drained it into a desert, but a dam built by Kazakhstan in 2005 revived its northern part, and the fish came back.