Aizhan Azimbayeva

She continues learning, traveling to masterclasses in Almaty, joining artistic associations, exploring new techniques, and passing her skills to others. Her work is not driven by profit alone; it is guided by purpose: inspiring children, mothers, and other women to believe in their abilities, and preserving cultural memory through handmade Qazaq crafts. When she says, “I am a happy person… because I found a calling I love,” she embodies Abai’s message that a meaningful life eliminates the fear of future regret. Aizhan Azimbayeva’s narrative proves that wisdom is not abstract, it is lived through small daily acts of courage, care, and creativity. She is crafting not just wool, but a life strengthened by aqyl (mind), warmed by jurek (heart), and sustained by qairat (will) a life Abai would describe as truly human, and one that she, too, will look back on with pride.

Aizhan grew up in Shymkent in a family where qolöner ( in Qazaq translates to “handcraft” or “handmade art”) was simply part of everyday life. Her mother sewed; at relatives’ homes she watched carpets being woven on a huge loom, listened to Qazaq melodies playing from a small Soviet radio, and heard the dombra being played in the evenings. As a little girl of four or five she did not know the word “heritage,” but she was already absorbing its sounds and textures. Later she would say, “I touched everything, I watched everything, and only now I realise how much it shaped me.” Those early images of woven carpets, mother’s hands, and Qazaq songs sank quietly into her jurek (heart) and waited there. As a young woman she followed that thread almost instinctively. She became a dressmaker and pattern designer, working in sewing factories and ateliers. The work was technically demanding but familiar: measuring, cutting, fitting, always one more client to help. At twenty, in a shearling coat factory, she could not bear to see beautiful offcuts of material thrown away. While the cutter swept them into the bin, she secretly gathered pieces into a bag, took them home, and stitched together her first jacket from what others called “waste.” Already her aqyl (mind) was searching for possibility where others saw nothing, and her qairat (will) refused to let good material be discarded.

Somewhere along the way there was a car accident. She speaks about it briefly, almost shyly, as if the pain is old but still tender. For a long time she did not even apply for disability status. She just tried to live as before, pushing her body to keep up with the pace of atelier work, standing, lifting, fitting, rushing to serve one urgent client after another. But the consequences of the accident slowly tightened around her life. Moving became harder. Long hours of sitting and straining over fine stitches damaged her eyesight. The emotional intensity of working with customers all day began to exhaust her.

Yet even in that pressure, something new was forming. One day, scrolling through Instagram, she saw a vest made of felt. Something in her responded immediately. She took a screenshot and kept looking at it until the image almost burned into her mind. “I was sick with it,” she laughs. “I burned with the desire to learn how to make that vest.” This was more than curiosity; it felt like a calling, mind seeing a new path, heart leaping toward it, and her will quietly preparing to move. At the time she was sewing traditional Qazaq outfits for rent in an atelier, working with velvet, embroidery and headpieces. The work was already closer to what stirred her soul, yet she still felt pushed by life toward something she could not yet name. When one of her colleagues was sent to a big exhibition in Turkestan, Aizhan offered to deliver some of her things and pay her own way, simply because something in her insisted she should go. “Sometimes miracles happen,” she says. “This was one of them.” In the hotel room she stepped into a small universe of felt art: vests, bags, and garments with that living texture she had seen on the screen. The first thing she recognised was a handbag by Gulmira Ualikhan, creator of the “Qazaqsha Quraq” course she followed online. Seeing that familiar design in real life, she grabbed it with both hands, overwhelmed. Only then did she notice a woman lying calmly on the bed, reading. While Aizhan was bubbling with excitement, the woman remained serene.

That woman was Ulbolsyn Daulenova, a renowned felting artist from Almaty, and, as it turned out, the author of the very vest Aizhan had been dreaming about. When Ulbolsyn glanced at the screenshot and said calmly, “That’s my vest,” Aizhan felt the world tilt. “When you really, truly want something,” she says, “it comes to meet you.” At that moment, her desire met its teacher. She did not hesitate. “I’ll come even as an apprentice,” she told Ulbolsyn. “I’ll do anything you say, I just want to learn.” Ulbolsyn smiled and replied that apprenticeship was even better than paid lessons, because an apprentice learns with jurek (heart), not just with money. For Aizhan, those words were like a breath of fresh air after years of suffocating routine.

Soon afterward, a large international felting festival opened in Almaty, the first of its kind in Qazaqstan. Masters from Hungary, Turkey, the US and across the country gathered to exhibit their work. On 13 November 2022, pushed by her own fierce desire, Aizhan left her comfort zone and travelled to Almaty. She describes the experience as stepping into a current of pure creative energy: jewelers, potters, quilters, felt-makers, all showing garments and artworks that seemed to hum with life. She took master classes during the festival, then went to study directly with Ulbolsyn, learning her author’s technique step by step. A year later, back in Shymkent, she made her first felt vest, the one she had dreamed of. Then three, then four more. From there the line of her creativity flowed outward: dolls, slippers, tubeteika, large tekemet

In her home workshop she discovered a different rhythm. She could wake up, step straight into her creative space, and work the whole day without feeling tired. “It doesn’t exhaust me; it gives me energy,” she explains. When orders are urgent, she can quickly produce twenty-three gifts for a Textile Forum in Almaty, another ten for relatives, all in a few weeks. But most of the time she lets inspiration, not quotas, decide the pace. Her grandchildren join her, shaping little pictures from wool while she plays Qazaq music in the background.

In these small scenes, Tolyq Adam is visible: aqyl (mind) guiding their skills, jurek (heart) anchoring them in culture, qairat (will) training them not to fear pain. Financially, the path is not easy. Wool, silk, and quality materials are expensive. She dreams of buying silk scarves to feel for 8 March, but often cannot afford the initial investment. Most of her learning still comes from free content on YouTube and Instagram. Access to formal grants and training is patchy. Some years earlier, when she completed the Bastau Business course, she applied for a grant to sew chapan but was rejected because she did not belong to a “privileged” social category.

Ironically, after registering as a person with a disability, she discovered that grants often prioritise people like her. She reads this with a mixture of realism and gratitude: “Support is actually good now, especially for creativity. Preference on grants is a plus.” Over time, her craft has grown from small items, simple tubeteika, to large tekemet pieces measuring two metres by 1.2 metres. Her apashki (elder women) dolls have been bought by foreigners; one of her works has even entered a museum collection. She recently received a grant of 1.5 million tenge, a concrete recognition that her talent has economic as well as cultural value. Her dream now is to open a larger workshop or school of sewing and feltmaking. She imagines a room filled with women, mothers of many children, pensioners from the Longevity Centre, young girls from universities, people with disabilities, rolling wool, sharing stories, relaxing away from household burdens. She has already tested the idea in small ways: conducting master classes at the Longevity Centre in Shymkent using fabric scraps from her home; visiting orphanages to teach children; planning a series of workshops at the Palace of Schoolchildren in Shymkent where kids could “draw with wool.” Each of these episodes is a rehearsal for the school she wants to build, a place where creativity becomes both therapy and livelihood.

Success, in her words, is not measured in tenge but in the ability “to create and to inspire others to realise their potential.” This is where her journey as an entrepreneur with disabilities departs from the deficit lens of the post-Soviet mindset. Her accident limited her mobility, but it did not shrink her world. Through felt, she has expanded it, connecting Shymkent to Almaty, Kyrgyzstan, America, England; connecting her mother’s loom to her grandchildren’s small hands; connecting personal pain to communal healing. In Aizhan’s life, Tolyq Adam is not a philosophical slogan but a lived practice. Her aqyl (mind) seeks new techniques, grant opportunities, and sustainable models. Her jurek (heart) insists on helping clients even when money is not counted, on teaching pensioners and orphans even when materials come from her own stash, and on filling her workshop with Qazaq music for the sake of her grandchildren’s souls. Her qairat (will) carries her through physical limitations, bereavement, and financial uncertainty, pushing her to travel to festivals, keep learning, and continue dreaming of a school that does not yet exist.

From a hotel room in Turkestan to a yurt at the World Nomad Games, from a small home workshop to the idea of a community felt centre, her narrative shows how an entrepreneur with disability can transform vulnerability into a source of moral strength. Each vest, doll, and tekemet she creates is more than an object for sale; it is a quiet act of resistance against a world that often measures people by productivity alone. Through her craft, Aizhan offers Qazaqstan another measure of value, one woven from care, courage, and the enduring warmth of human hands working wool into something that breathes. Throughout her life, she has been supported by her mother, daughters, brothers, daughters-in-law, friends and doctors