Kazakh Traditions & Customs

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.

What Are the Main Traditions in Kazakhstan?

The traditions you will actually meet in Kazakhstan today are about guests, elders and family occasions. In short:

• Hospitality: guests are fed first and generously — the dastarkhan table and the qonaqasy meal owed to a visitor
• Respect for elders: they are greeted first, seated in the place of honour and give the bata blessing
• Nauryz: the spring new year on 21–23 March, the biggest celebration of the year
• Toy: big family feasts for weddings, births, a child's first steps and milestone birthdays
• Horse culture: kokpar, horse racing, eagle hunting and the dombra music that grew up around them

Many of these customs are shared across the country's ethnic groups, and Muslim and Orthodox festivals add another layer — see religion in Kazakhstan.

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: Handshakes and Cheek Kisses

A handshake is the standard greeting in Kazakhstan; cheek kissing is kept for people who already know each other. Men shake hands with every man in the room, often with both hands for an elder. Women greet friends and relatives with a kiss or a touch on each cheek. Between men and women, wait for the woman to offer her hand.

• "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

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.

Where to see a traditional Kazakh show: 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 held soon after a baby is born, when relatives come to congratulate the family
• Kyrkynan shygaru: The 40th-day ritual, when the baby is bathed in water with 40 spoonfuls poured in and has its first haircut and nail trim
• 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

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Milestone birthdays are family events rather than private ones. Round-number birthdays — above all the 60th — and the 63rd, the age at which the Prophet Muhammad is said to have died, are traditionally marked with a large toy: a hired hall or a big home meal, speeches (tost) by each guest in turn, a blessing from the eldest, and gifts of money or clothing. The Kazakh calendar also counts life in twelve-year cycles (mushel), and the years that close a cycle — 13, 25, 37, 49 and so on — are traditionally treated with care, often marked by giving away a personal item. If you are invited to any toy as a guest, go: bring a gift or an envelope, expect to be asked to say a few words, and do not plan to leave early.

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.

Where to Experience Traditions

• Ethnographic Villages: Near Almaty and Astana, experience yurt stays and traditional activities
• Nauryz Celebrations: March 21-23 in all cities—the best time for cultural immersion
• Museums: Central State Museum (Almaty), National Museum (Astana)
• Cultural Centers: Regular performances of traditional music and dance
• Rural Areas: Visit villages to see authentic nomadic lifestyle
• Food: The dastarkhan in practice — see Kazakh food and dining etiquette
• Eagle Hunting Festivals: Seasonal events near Almaty (October-March)