Monument to Isatay Taimanov and Makhambet Utemisov / From open sources

Kazakh nobility: Tattimbet is standing second from the left. 1862 / From open sources

From 1930 onwards, fearing social unrest due to forced collectivization, the 1932–1933 famine, and massive peasant migration into cities, Soviet authorities launched a series of purges. Between 1930 and 1939, hundreds of thousands of people perished / Alamy

Comrade Goloshchekin delivering a report at the VI All-Kazakh Congress of Soviets. 28.03-03.04.1927 / Reproduction from Party archive documents / Central State Archive of Film, Photo Documents and Sound Recordings of Kazakhstan (CSAFPDSR)

Coded message to Stalin / From open sources

NKVD Order No. 00447 / From open sources

E. Alexander. "Dombra Player (Dombyrashy)". Pavlodar. 1911 / Hamburg Ethnographic Museum collection / Central State Archive of Film, Photo Documents and Sound Recordings of Kazakhstan (CSAFPDSR)

Still from the film "Asharshylyk 1933" / From open sources

V. Pozdenko. "Uskenbaev M. — Akyn-Improviser, Composer, Virtuoso Dombra Player" (inv. No. 109). Alma-Ata. 1958 / Central State Archive of Film, Photo Documents and Sound Recordings of Kazakhstan (CSAFPDSR)

Yevgeny Sidorkin. "Storyteller" from the series "From the Mist of Centuries". 1971 / Bonart.kz