In Almaty, over a thousand people sang the songs of the great poet Abai Kunanbayev together under the open sky. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
According to the city administration, the audience also watched a documentary film "The First Book" telling about the history of the publication of Abai's first collection of works.
This documentary film in the genre of docudrama depicts an amazing event in the centuries-old spiritual history of the Kazakhs – the dramatic fate of Abai's first book, published in 1909 in St. Petersburg by Ilyas Boragansky's printing house.
The film tells how Abai's first book was published, whether the poet tried to collect and publish his works during his lifetime, who prepared the book and how it saw the light of day.
The film also raises the question of why the book was published not in Semey but in St. Petersburg, and what obstacles arose during its publication.