Zhidebai

Zhidebai is the winter homestead in the Chingiz hills where Abai Kunanbayuly spent much of his later life and wrote, a low white house with the rooms preserved as a museum, and a few kilometres away stands the mausoleum where he is buried alongside Shakarim Kudaiberdiuly, his nephew and a poet in his own right. The mausoleum built in 1995 is a large stone structure with twin towers, replacing an earlier tomb, and it stands alone in open steppe. The complex is a place of national pilgrimage: Abai's Book of Words and his poetry are foundational to Kazakh literature, and school groups and visitors come in numbers, particularly around his August anniversary.

What you actually see

• The homestead - Abai's house with rooms kept as a museum.
• The mausoleum - the twin-towered tomb of Abai and Shakarim.
• The Chingiz hills - the steppe country the poet wrote from.
• The museum displays - manuscripts, belongings and the literary context.

When to go

May to September; the steppe roads are difficult in winter and thaw. The August anniversary of Abai's birth brings ceremonies and crowds. Weekdays outside that are quiet.

Honest expectations

The site is 170 kilometres from Semey over long straight steppe roads with nothing between. The mausoleum is a 1990s construction rather than a historic tomb. Interpretation is in Kazakh and Russian. Facilities are limited to the museum.

Nearby

Semey lies northeast; the Chingiz hills surround the site.