Erbulat Toguzakov

“Whatever falls from heaven, you may keep.” So goes the unwritten law of the Kazakh steppes. A law avidly adhered to by the inhabitants of a small village, who collect the space debris that falls downrange from the nearby Baikonur space station. The last two youthful members of the village are the radio operator Iskander, known as Gagarin, and the spirited Nazira. While Nazira finds it increasing difficult to conceal her love for Iskander by means of her unconventional behaviour, Iskander is evidently not only crazy about Baikonur and the vastness of outer space, but also deeply smitten with the beautiful French astronaut Julie Mahé, whose journey to the stars he wistfully follows on television.

This is a survival story - a Hemingway's 'Old Man and the Sea' as if written for our days.

A mysterious monk with mystical powers issues a man a license to kill by imbuing him with the fighting skills necessary to avenge his brother’s death.

Provincial guy Yerlan is a 3rd—year student of one of the Almaty universities. He came to the city hoping to succeed in the future. However, the environment of the golden youth, where he got, turned out to be difficult. It has its own laws, its own rules, and in order to preserve its moral principles, many things will have to be relived and experienced.

A Jewish child deported to Kazakhstan is saved and adopted by Kasym, an old Kazakh railway-man. Kasym gives him a Kazakh name, Sabyr, that in Kazakh language means humble. The child grows up in the small Kazakh village along with other deportees Vera, a traitor's wife, and Ezhik a Polish doctor. The Soviet militia harasses the poor peasants and Vera suffered the harassment of a bully cop: Bulgabi. Finally Vera accepts the marriage proposal of Ezhik but the jealous Bulgabi tries to prevent the marriage. The result is a fight in which Ezhik shoots himself accidentally. The old Kasym decides that Sabyr is now old enough to go to seek his real parents. At the end Sabyr, now an adult, decides to return to the village, but the village no longer exists because it was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear test.

An English correspondent arrives in Astana to interview the named Leader of the Nation Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev is hosting an English guest. The interview turns into Nazarbayev's story about life, fate and the difficult path of gaining independence. The President introduces the writer to local customs, at the same time telling about the most difficult periods of his life, from his appointment in 1984 as chairman of the Council of Ministers to becoming President of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 1991.