Kokshetau's First Mosque

This wooden mosque in Kokshetau was built in the late 19th century on the initiative of the city's imam, Nauryzbai Talasov, known locally as Nauan Khazret, who had served the city's Muslim community since 1886. Funds came from wealthy Tatar merchants as well as ordinary believers, and builders were brought in from Kazan alongside local craftsmen. The structure combined log-built walls sheathed in thin boards with a domed octagonal tower and hexagonal drum, decorated window surrounds giving it an eclectic look that mixed classical form with timber-architecture detail. Nauan Khazret used the mosque as a base for religious education, founding a madrasa and boarding school there. It served worshippers until 1920, when Soviet authorities closed it and tore down its minaret; the building was then used by a military unit, a local history museum, and an exhibition hall before being returned to the faithful in 1989, with the minaret later rebuilt. After a larger new mosque bearing the same name opened in 2015, the historic original was renamed the Zhakiya Kazhy Mosque.