Jewish cemeteries in Kazakhstan, their survival and status

Cemeteries help reconstruct the history of communities

A synagogue can be closed, rebuilt or transferred to another institution. A community can shrink, move or change its organisational form. A cemetery may still preserve the names, languages, dates, family relationships and religious symbols of people who left few other traces in city archives.

Sources use the word “cemetery” for different kinds of sites.

It may mean a separate historic area intended for Jewish burials or a Jewish section of a large municipal cemetery. Sometimes a separate cemetery disappears while a few matzevot survive within another burial ground. Elsewhere, almost nothing remains of the site itself, but a death register, an old city plan or an account of development on the land survives.

A separate cemetery, a section of a municipal cemetery and a few graves have different territorial boundaries. Burial dates do not establish a site's present use. It may still accept burials, have become a closed cemetery or have disappeared. State protection applies to a specific object, which may be an entire cemetery, an individual grave or a gravestone.

Semey’s historic Jewish cemetery is the best documented

Expeditions by the East Kazakhstan Regional Museum in 2004 and 2005 examined the cemetery and its old gravestones. Researcher Nina Krutova provisionally divides the surviving cemetery into an old section with burials from 1879 to 1945 and a new section with burials from 1945 to 1970. The burial register allowed researchers to reconstruct 361 burials. For most, they established birth and death dates, along with the row and grave location.

These records refer to people buried, rather than the number of surviving stone monuments. Individual gravestones may have deteriorated or been replaced.

Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century matzevot are particularly valuable. They retain Hebrew and Russian inscriptions, Stars of David, images of the menorah and other funerary symbols. Some monuments reflect local artistic traditions and the work of Altai stone carvers, preserving information about the urban history of Semipalatinsk as well.

The cemetery ceased accepting new burials around the early 1970s. Studies and later city publications describe it as a closed historic site.

The former synagogue building at 16 Kozbagarov Street appears in the current state list of monuments of local significance. No separate entry for the Jewish cemetery was found in the heritage protection lists examined.

The former synagogue’s protected status does not automatically extend to the cemetery.

Semey. The historic Jewish cemetery physically survives. Burials from 1879 to 1970 are documented. The museum’s reconstruction includes 361 records. Whether the entire cemetery has protected heritage status requires verification against state registers.

Early matzevot in Ust-Kamenogorsk were documented in the municipal cemetery

The State Archive of East Kazakhstan Region holds a city plan from 1906 showing a separate Jewish cemetery. Museum researchers located it near the then Telegrafny and Kuznechny lanes. Calculations based on the old plan give an area of approximately 158 square metres.

The plan confirms that the site historically existed, but does not establish its survival today.

The city’s cemeteries changed from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Researchers suggest that some Jewish burials may have been transferred to the new municipal cemetery, or that subsequent burials continued there. Museum visits in 2004 and 2005 recorded individual Jewish gravestones among graves of other faiths at the old Ushanovskoye Cemetery. This is dated field evidence, rather than a survey conducted in 2026.

The museum expedition found matzevot here, including a gravestone dated 1879 and stones with Hebrew epitaphs, Stars of David and a menorah. One early monument belongs to Avraham Yitzhak, son of Moishe, named in Russian as Avraam Dobrovolsky.

There is a discrepancy in the dating of Reiza’s gravestone. The museum publication equates 17 Iyar 5666 with 1895, while a calendar conversion gives 12 May 1906. Without rereading the inscription itself, it is impossible to establish whether the error lies in the date’s translation or its initial deciphering. source 1, source 2

A separate historic cemetery is confirmed by the city map. Museum research also documented Jewish gravestones within the old municipal cemetery. Their present condition requires updated field documentation.

Ust-Kamenogorsk. The city map marks a separate pre-revolutionary Jewish cemetery. Museum research recorded Jewish gravestones in Ushanovskoye Cemetery; their survival as of September 2026 was not separately verified.

An accessible memorial and protected site in Almaty

Chabad Kazakhstan’s current website directs visitors to Almaty’s Central Cemetery at 235 Raiymbek Avenue. This is where Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, who died in Alma-Ata on 9 August 1944, is buried. The cemetery is within walking distance of the main Chabad centre at 206Е Raiymbek Avenue.

The grave has long been an international pilgrimage destination. In 2020, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Chabad.org reported that Kazakhstan had included Levi Yitzchak’s burial site in its list of national heritage sites. Later official speeches in Kazakhstan also identify it as particularly significant religious heritage.

This does not establish that the whole of Almaty’s Central Cemetery, or its entire Jewish section, received the same status.

The Central Cemetery, the Jewish graves within it, Levi Yitzchak’s grave and the protected site have different boundaries.

External directories call the site the “Jewish Cemetery” and give different historical addresses. Local Chabad’s website identifies the Central Cemetery at 235 Raiymbek Avenue and provides directions to the ohel. This is a source for practical navigation, rather than a document defining the protected area’s boundaries.

Recognition of Levi Yitzchak’s grave as a national heritage site was reported in 2020. The primary state record giving the object’s official name, number and boundaries could not be found.

Almaty. The municipal cemetery contains Jewish graves. Levi Yitzchak’s grave is accessible and remains an international pilgrimage destination; publications report national heritage status specifically for this burial site.

Cataloguing began for the Jewish cemetery section in Karaganda

The Jewish section of Karaganda’s municipal cemetery is associated primarily with the city’s Soviet history.

The specialist project Mitzvat Emet states that Jewish graves are located in the cemetery known as Dalny Park. Jewish organisations began cataloguing its Jewish section in 2018. By 2020, more than 300 burials had been entered in the electronic catalogue.

JewishGen JOWBR’s current Dalny Park entry, using Mitzvat Emet data, contains 339 records and gives a range from 1869 to 2017. The date 1869 requires local verification. A single entry in a genealogical catalogue does not confirm an organised community or a separate Jewish cemetery in Karaganda in that year.

The catalogue records individual burials and helps connect generations of families. Mitzvat Emet maintains a community record, which does not establish the cemetery’s foundation date, the section’s boundaries, land use arrangements or heritage status.

Karaganda. A Jewish section of the municipal cemetery is confirmed. More than 300 burials had been catalogued by 2020. Its current use and official boundaries require a municipal source.

Shymkent’s historic cemetery is confirmed, but its present condition is not described

Shymkent is among the cities where the existence of a Jewish cemetery is documented in the community’s pre-revolutionary history. The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia states that the city had three synagogues and a Jewish cemetery in 1910.

There is also much later evidence. In 2014, local reporting, citing the head of Shymkent’s Jewish community, stated that cemeteries on Tolstoy and Dulati streets each contained more than two hundred Jewish graves. The community and descendants of those buried maintained them.

The 2014 source does not describe the sections’ condition in September 2026. A more recent municipal register or official record for these sections could not be found.

Shymkent. Sources confirm a historic cemetery and later Jewish sections. Their present condition, boundaries and use in 2026 require local verification.

Knowledge of the cemetery in Chu rests on an unverified report of its loss

The JewishGen Cemetery Discovery Project holds an old entry for Chu. It states that Mitsva reported Jewish burials from the 1940s and 1950s that had not survived, and that a bus station had been built on the site.

The database compiler notes that this information could not be independently verified.

The account of a bus station being built over the burial site therefore remains unconfirmed.

Chu. Information about a lost burial site appears in an unverified archival report. A local primary source is needed before it can be treated as an established fact.

Akmolinsk’s cemetery existed, but accounts of its disappearance remain a reconstruction

Historical reference sources state that Akmolinsk had a Jewish cemetery by the early twentieth century. Contemporary local history publications describe a fuller sequence. In the late nineteenth century, local Jews sought formal recognition of their religious society and cemetery. Burials ceased during the Soviet period; the site was destroyed in the early 1960s and a gas equipment factory later occupied the land.

This reconstruction appeared in several contemporary media outlets, citing Astana local historian Dmitry Glukhikh and historical photographs.

No primary municipal act recording the cemetery’s closure or allocation of land for the factory was found.

Modern Astana has active Jewish religious infrastructure, but this does not mean the old cemetery was restored on its former site.

Akmolinsk. Reference works and local history materials confirm the historic cemetery’s existence. Accounts of its destruction in the 1960s require a primary archival document.

International directories do not provide a complete list of cemeteries

The JewishGen Cemetery Discovery Project’s national section lists Almaty, Chu and Semey / East Kazakhstan. It does not provide a complete breakdown by the country’s administrative territories.

Karaganda’s section is described in a separate specialist project, although it does not appear in JewishGen’s short national list.

Older Mitsva directories, local museums, archives and municipal cemetery registers likewise hold information absent from international databases.

No single open register of Kazakhstan’s cemeteries could be found, so their total number has not been established.

A burial register does not replace a survey of the site

A burial register records people buried and grave locations. It does not, by itself, establish territorial boundaries, present use or protected status.

JOWBR lists 360 burials for Semey, while the museum study counted 361. These figures come from different datasets; without the underlying registers, the reason for the discrepancy cannot be established.

A grave, a cemetery and a monument are different objects of protection

If the state recognises the historical significance of one grave, this does not imply protection for the entire cemetery. If a former synagogue appears on a state list, this says nothing about a neighbouring cemetery. If researchers describe a matzevah as a unique work of stone carving, that does not automatically give it the legal status of a monument.

Legal status depends on the specific object’s official name and boundaries, level of protection, and the number and date of the legal act. Without a primary list, the precise protection category of the cemeteries and graves mentioned cannot be established.

Cemetery survival by city

Semey. The historic cemetery’s recognisable grounds and a substantial collection of gravestones survive.

Ust-Kamenogorsk. Museum research documented individual Jewish gravestones. The early separate cemetery is known primarily from a map, and present survival requires a new check.

Almaty. The cemetery in use contains Levi Yitzchak’s accessible burial site and other Jewish graves.

Karaganda. A Jewish section of the municipal cemetery physically exists and is being catalogued.

Chu. An old report states that the burials did not survive. This requires confirmation from primary local documents.

Astana. Sources report a historic Jewish cemetery. A local historical reconstruction describes its destruction in the Soviet period, while its present location requires a separate archival map.

In brief

• Semey. A historic, separate Jewish cemetery with documented burials from 1879 to 1970. The museum’s reconstruction includes 361 burials.
• Ust-Kamenogorsk. A separate cemetery is marked on the 1906 plan. Museum visits in 2004 and 2005 recorded matzevot at Ushanovskoye Cemetery. These records do not establish that every object survives in 2026.
• Almaty. Jewish graves are located in the Central Cemetery. Levi Yitzchak Schneerson’s grave remains a pilgrimage destination. Recognition specifically of this grave as a national heritage site was reported in 2020.
• Karaganda. The Jewish section of Dalny Park Cemetery physically exists. Cataloguing began in 2018. More than 300 burials had been entered by 2020.
• Shymkent. A Jewish cemetery existed by 1910. In 2014, sources confirmed two maintained sections, but their present status requires an update.
• Chu. There is an old, unverified report of lost burials from the 1940s and 1950s and development on the site. This is a research hypothesis, rather than an established fact.
• Astana and Akmolinsk. Historical reference works and local history sources confirm a historic Jewish cemetery. Accounts of its demolition in the 1960s still require primary archival confirmation.