A hunter in the steppes of the Kazakh SSR. The 1950s. Traditional Hunting in the Steppes of the Kazakh SSR in the 1950s In the 1950s, the vast steppes of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (Kazakh SSR) remained a land of open horizons, sweeping grasslands, and a deeply rooted nomadic heritage, despite the sweeping changes brought by Soviet modernization. Amid collectivization, industrialization, and the push toward urbanization, traditional hunting practices persisted—adapted, transformed, but not entirely extinguished—among the rural Kazakh population. Hunting in the Kazakh steppes during this era was not primarily a sport, as it might have been in the West, but a practical means of survival, a cultural tradition, and a way of maintaining a connection to ancestral ways in the face of rapid societal change. For many Kazakh families, especially in remote rural areas, hunting supplemented food supplies in a time of scarcity and limited access to markets. It also preserved a sense of
Post: 11 October 04:19
