Official language:
Kazakh
Russian

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• Kazaks love stories. They often use stories as an indirect way to give advice, leaving the final decision up to the listener.
• Kazaks also love having guests and are generous in their hospitality.
• Regardless of the hour of arrival of the guests, Kazak women will immediately set to work to prepare a "dahsterhahn" - a table full of food. If guests arrive and the table remains empty, the host is shamed. At a minimum, each guest must sit down and have tea. Having tea includes bread, fruits & nuts, cookies and sweets.
• Some Kazakhs are semi nomadic shabans (shepherds), working as employees of the state and of collective farms. For part of each year they reside in the steppes and mountain areas in portable, felt-covered dwellings called yurts, while they watch over their grazing herds.
  
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• Islam.
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  Much Kazak food resembles that of the Middle East or the Mediterranean in its use of rice, savory seasonings, vegetables and legumes, yogurt and grilled meats.
• The daily diet consists mainly of meat (especially mutton, beef, and qazy, or horse meat), served with rice or noodles, many types of milk products, and large loaves of unleavened bread.
  Smoked sausages made of qazy are a Kazakh specialty.

  
  

  
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• Kazakhstan has three time zones.
• The Republic is a multinational state inhabited with representatives of more than 120 nationalities.
• Kazakhstan is more than twice as big as the four other Central Asian republics put together and is roughly half the size of mainland USA.
  
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