About the book: 1983 / Sophie Smatayev, a Kazakh writer, in his novel turned to the distant past of his native people, describing one of the most difficult periods in the life of the Kazakh steppe — 1698—1725 These years went down in the history of the Kazakhs as years of great disasters. The army of one hundred thousand of the Dzungar huntaishi Tsevan-Rabdan, who more than once tried to establish his dominance over the Kazakhs, attacked peaceful villages, sowing death and destruction around.