Kazakhstan's culture and traditions are rooted in centuries of nomadic life on the steppe. From celebrating the spring equinox at Nauryz to mastering the art of eagle hunting, Kazakh customs reflect a deep connection to nature, family, and community — and most of them are still practised, not merely remembered.
Despite rapid modernization, many ancient traditions remain vibrant in contemporary Kazakhstan, offering visitors a unique window into a culture that has preserved its identity while embracing the future.
Legendary Kazakh Hospitality
Kazakhs are renowned for their exceptional hospitality, a tradition deeply rooted in nomadic culture where helping travelers was essential for survival on the vast steppes.
The Guest is Sacred
In Kazakh culture, guests are treated with utmost respect and generosity:
- Qonaqasy (қонақасы): The meal owed to a guest — traditionally an obligation, not a courtesy. A host who turned a traveller away could once be fined under customary law.
- Dastarkhan (дастархан): The laid table itself, and by extension the whole ritual of eating together. It begins with tea and sweets, not with the main dish, and nobody leaves before the host closes it.
- Bata (бата): A short spoken blessing given at the end of a meal, usually by the eldest person present, with palms held up and then drawn down over the face. Sit still for it.
- Tea ceremony: Guests are immediately offered tea, regardless of the time
- Best seat: Honored guests sit at the tor (place of honor) farthest from the door
- Refusing is rude: Accept hospitality graciously, even if just a small portion
- Mutual respect: Hosts and guests show deep respect for each other
Traditional Greetings
- "Salem" or "Salam": Hello (universal greeting)
- "Kalay zhagday?": How are you?
- Handshakes: Common between men; may be light between men and women
- Respect for elders: Always greet older people first
- Cheek kissing: Common between women, and between close male relatives or old friends — usually one kiss on each cheek, or a light touch of cheeks. It is a greeting between people who already know each other; a handshake is the safer default for a visitor.
- Two-handed handshake: Offering your right hand while touching your left to the other person's forearm, or using both hands, signals extra respect and is common when greeting an elder.
Music & Performing Arts
Traditional Instruments
Dombra (Домбыра)
The national instrument—a two-stringed lute central to Kazakh music. Master dombra players are revered for preserving oral histories and epic poems through music.
Kobyz (Қобыз)
Ancient two-stringed bowed instrument with a haunting sound. Traditionally used by shamans and storytellers, believed to have spiritual power.
Sybyzgy (Сыбызғы)
End-blown flute made from reed or wood, producing melodic tunes that echo across the steppes. Associated with pastoral life and nature.
Traditional Performance
- Aitys: Improvised poetry contests where performers exchange witty verses accompanied by dombra
- Kui: Instrumental compositions telling stories without words
- Epic poetry: Oral narratives preserving historical and mythological tales
- Traditional dance: Graceful movements often mimicking animals or nature
Kazakhstan's Dance Traditions
Kazakh dance grew out of a culture that spent its life on horseback, and it shows: the upper body does most of the work. Shoulders shrug and ripple, arms sweep wide, and the hands imitate things a herder saw every day — a hawk stooping, a camel's gait, a woman spinning wool. Steps stay small and close to the ground. Because dance was one of the few arts a nomadic household could carry with it, it survived the move to towns almost intact, and the pieces below are the ones you are most likely to see performed.
- Kara Zhorga (Қара жорға): The best-known Kazakh folk dance, named after a black ambling horse. Dancers mimic a rider's bounce with a rolling shoulder movement, and it is danced at weddings and Nauryz by everyone from children to grandparents.
- Ormek Bi (Өрмек би): The “weaving dance”, in which the movements act out setting up a loom and working the thread — a women's dance built from ordinary daily labour.
- Koshbasy (Көшбасшы): A processional dance tied to the seasonal migration between summer and winter pastures, led by a single dancer at the head of the line.
- Hunting and animal dances: A broad family of solo pieces set to a fast dombra kui, in which the dancer takes the part of an eagle, a horse or the quarry itself. These are what folk ensembles most often stage.
Dance is rarely a stand-alone event. You will usually meet it inside something else — a wedding toy, a Nauryz square, a yurt-camp evening, or the state folk ensembles that perform year-round in Almaty and Astana. If you want to see it without an occasion, look for a programme at Almaty's Kazakh State Philharmonic or the Astana Opera.
Life Ceremonies & Rituals
Birth Traditions
- Shildekhana: Celebration on the 40th day after birth when baby is first bathed
- Besik toy: Ceremony placing baby in traditional cradle (besik)
- Tusau kesu: Cutting ceremonial rope tied to child's legs when they take first steps, symbolizing freedom to walk through life
Weddings (Toy)
Kazakh weddings are elaborate multi-day celebrations combining ancient customs with modern elements:
- Kyz uzatu: Farewell ceremony for the bride at her family's home
- Betashar: Veiling ceremony where bride is introduced to groom's family
- Kelin tusiru: Welcome ceremony for the new daughter-in-law
- Large celebrations: Hundreds of guests, abundant food, music, and gifts
Respect for Elders
Elderly people hold special status in Kazakh society:
- Always stand when an elder enters the room
- Serve elders first at meals
- Seek advice and blessings from elders
- Children are taught to respect age and wisdom
Ethnic Kazakh Culture Today
It is fair to ask how much of this is still real. Kazakhstan is now a mostly urban country — around three in five people live in cities — and the last genuinely nomadic households were settled by force in the 1930s. What survived was not the nomadism but the social code that came with it.
In practice, that means the traditions on this page are unevenly alive. Some are universal: the dastarkhan, the seating order that puts the eldest guest furthest from the door, the blessing at the end of a meal, the deference shown to elders in speech and in who is served first. A city family in an Almaty apartment observes these as readily as a herding family in Zhetysu. Nauryz is a public holiday everyone marks, and beshbarmak still arrives on a shared platter at any occasion that matters.
Others have become specialist pursuits. Eagle hunting is practised by a few hundred burkitshi, concentrated in the east and in the Kazakh communities of western Mongolia. Kokpar survives as an organised sport with leagues and rules rather than as a village free-for-all. Yurts are put up for weddings, festivals and tourism, and dismantled again afterwards. Felt-making and jewellery work are kept going largely by craft cooperatives and a state-backed revival.
Kazakhstan is also genuinely multi-ethnic: ethnic Kazakhs are about 70% of the population, alongside large Russian, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Tatar and German communities, and the culture you meet in Shymkent is noticeably more traditional than the culture you meet in Astana. Language use splits the same way — Kazakh dominates in the south and west, Russian in the north and in business. Read this page as the Kazakh thread inside that mix, not as a description of everyone in the country. For how faith fits into the same picture, see religion in Kazakhstan; for the language question, see Kazakh and Russian for travellers.