Gulmiram Srazhova

Another element of Word Thirty Seven that resonates with her life is Abai’s observation that the world holds many illusions, flattery, false friendship, empty praise, and that a person must learn to distinguish between sincerity and show. Gulmiram’s narrative includes quiet awareness of this: people doubted her, discouraged her from studying, judged her pregnancy, or looked at her disability with pity or condescension. Yet she neither internalized nor retaliated against these reactions. She simply continued growing, learning, and building her life. By refusing to live in the shadow of others’ perceptions, she embodied the self-possession and steady moral compass that Abai urges his readers to cultivate.

Her relationship with difficulty also aligns with Abai’s teaching that misfortune is not permanent and that only the weak give up hope. She has faced pain, loss, stigma, and the daily physical challenges of disability, yet sees her life through a lens of gratitude. Her daughter gives her joy; sports give her strength; work gives her meaning; and every day brings her opportunities to be useful and kind. This refusal to surrender to bitterness, her ability to welcome small joys even after deep hardship, reflects Abai’s belief that spring always follows winter.

Gulmiram Srazhova’s life unfolds in the western city of Aktobe, where the wind moves across the steppe with the same persistence that has carried her through every turn of fate. Today she is an athlete, a coach, a public activist, a small business owner, and a single mother. To meet her is to feel an unexpected brightness, a refusal to let life harden her spirit. But the roots of this brightness lie deep in a period of darkness that redefined everything she thought she knew about herself and the world. Her disability was not something she was born with. It came abruptly at fifteen, through a railway accident that took both her lower limbs and her left forearm. She remembers that time not only through the lens of physical loss but through the shock of an identity suddenly broken apart. Before the accident she was a medical college student, running freely, dreaming freely. Afterward, she faced an entirely new landscape,one where even walking, studying, and being seen required immense courage. At that age, the world feels large and one’s own fragility feels unbearable; yet she learned to stand psychologically long before she learned to stand physically. She says little about those early emotions now, but the quiet firmness in her voice suggests a reservoir of resilience that has become the foundation of her adult life.

In the years after the accident, she made a decision that would become characteristic of her: not to be defeated by circumstance, but to meet it with — aqyl (mind), jurek (heart), and qairat (will) — an inner balance that Abai would call the essence of the Tolyq Adam. She completed her recovery, and when it became clear that the medical college was no longer an option, she carved a new path. She enrolled at Zhubanov University and earned a degree in elementary education with honors. Later she entered the NGO world, working in a public association for people with musculoskeletal impairments. Eventually she would complete a second higher degree in law, and later a master’s degree in physical education and sport, following each new field as necessity and curiosity required. “A person should never say they have reached everything,” she says. “There are no boundaries to selfdevelopment.” Over the years she found herself drawn more deeply into sports, eventually becoming both an athlete and a trainer in track and field for people with disabilities. Shot put, javelin, discus, the disciplines that demand force, precision, and willpower seemed to resonate with her inner strength. Training in the open stadium under the sun became her refuge. “For a quarter of a century I’ve been on that track,” she says. “Those hours bring me the most joy.” But becoming an athlete did not solve the practical challenges of life. When she became a mother at forty-seven, her sense of responsibility shifted sharply. Her daughter was only four months old when she began wondering how she would secure a stable future for the two of them. She had spent years in public work, writing reports, attending meetings, and found herself worn out. Her income was modest, and social assistance for people with disabilities was limited. She needed a new source of stability, one that allowed her to build a future rather than simply endure the present.

This was the beginning of her entrepreneurial path. Her first step into business was far from grand. She began studying targeted advertising through Kaspi and YouTube videos, learning late at night while her infant daughter slept. “Once I decide, I make the decision quickly, and correctly,” she says, with the calm confidence of someone who has learned to trust her own judgment. She opened an online shop and registered her sole proprietorship. At first nothing happened; the shop sat unchanged for months. But the turning point came when her niece, an enthusiastic home baker, suggested they try developing the confectionery direction together. With modest means, they began selling cakes and chocolate-dipped strawberries, simple offerings, but crafted with care. Her niece handled the baking, while Gulmiram managed Instagram, orders, and customer interaction. “I didn’t have much skill in confectionery,” she admits. “But I believed in my family and learned along the way.” The e-wallet filled slowly, small amounts, but steady. And more importantly, the work felt light, something she enjoyed instead of endured. She saw how business could be done “with love,” and not with the Sovietera mentality that every loaf of bread must come from toil and suffering. Here, joy was allowed. Creativity was allowed. And the customers responded. As she speaks about her business, the concept of responsibility surfaces repeatedly, not only responsibility to her daughter, but responsibility to clients and to the Almighty. “When you sell food, you must be 100% sure it won’t harm anyone,” she says. “It is a very big responsibility.” She dreams of expanding, of opening a real workshop that meets all sanitary standards. She watches competitions and grant announcements from banks and companies like Coca-Cola, quietly hoping for a chance to scale.

Motherhood is the core of her entrepreneurial motivation. “A mother must be a guarantor that her child will live in sufficiency and safety,” she says. The business is a means to give her daughter a dignified life, education, experiences, a home. Through a “50/50” bank program, she has even bought an apartment, carrying the loan with a pragmatic acceptance: “This is life,” she says. “We must live here and now, be happy now. If the mother is happy, the child is happy.” Her daily routine is structured around this philosophy of presence and balance. Each morning she wakes with her daughter, takes her to kindergarten, and then devotes the day to training, public work, network marketing, or handling confectionery orders. She plans her schedule carefully so that by the time she retrieves her daughter in the evening, she can be fully, lovingly present. Their evenings are filled with drawing, storytelling, learning languages, and simple joy. “She has taught me to enjoy life,” Gulmiram says. “She delights in small things, and I delight with her.”

But motherhood also brought physical challenges. During pregnancy she could no longer use her prosthetics, and after giving birth she developed complications in her knee joint. She switched to a wheelchair, which created new obstacles and physical discomfort. “My lower back hurts; I can’t sit for long,” she says. “I post content even lying down sometimes.” Yet she refuses to surrender to limitations. Her goal is to return to prosthetics, despite the physical pain. “Prosthetics give more freedom and independence,” she says. She wants that freedom back, not only for herself, but so she can bring her daughter everywhere, unburdened. Despite her strength, she has known the sting of prejudice. People stare, sometimes with pity, sometimes with confusion. “Society doesn’t know how to see people with disabilities,” she admits. But she meets these gazes with forgiveness

Women play an enormous role in her life, her eighty-year-old mother, whom she calls her “spiritual teacher,” and the leader of her public association, a woman whose selflessness inspires her deeply. She sees every woman, even those struggling, as carrying something worthy inside. “God forgives even the fallen,” she says softly. “I try to learn from everyone.” Her own resilience developed partly because she often faced doubt from family and society. When she wanted to study at the university, her relatives questioned how she would get there, there were no ramps, transport was difficult, taxis were too expensive. She simply found a way, sometimes hitchhiking to reach classes. “In life, whenever you set out to do something, people try to dissuade you,” she says. “But the main brake is your own mind.” Her most private battle was the decision to become a mother through IVF at fortyfive. She hid the pregnancy for months, fearing judgment, fearing her own vulnerability. “Until the baby moved inside me, I didn’t believe it was real,” she says. When her mother found out, she was speechless for half an hour. Society whispered; some assumed she had adopted. She ignored it all. Becoming a mother restored her sense of wholeness. It also gave her a new inner vitality.

Her business values reflect her worldview: bringing joy, respect, patience, and love into people’s homes. “A cake is a symbol of friendship, respect, and love,” she says. Success for her is not glamor, but contentment. Money is simply a tool to secure life, health, and stability. For women with disabilities seeking to enter business, she offers direct advice: decide for yourself. “You can consult your mother, brother, husband, but the final decision is yours,” she insists. “You must understand your own resources and capabilities.” To help others, she believes Qazaqstan needs more micro-loans and grants specifically for people with disabilities, enabling them to try, fail, and grow.

She dreams now of living to see her daughter grow into her own person, of building larger projects, and of developing her athletes into champions. She laughs as she describes her aspirations, to speak beautifully, to live a vivid life, to continue inspiring others. And many already come to her for advice, encouragement, or simply comfort, women, friends, strangers, young athletes. “When someone succeeds,” she says, “it brings me satisfaction.” There is a quiet heroism in the way she moves through life, without bitterness, without self-pity, grounded in the harmony of mind, heart, and will that Abai believed forms the foundation of a full human being. Through loss, reinvention, motherhood, and entrepreneurship, Gulmiram Srazhova has shaped a life marked not by what she lacks, but by the abundance she creates around her. And in every cake she bakes, every athlete she trains, and every moment she shares with her daughter, she continues to choose life, love, and dignity, a testament to the strength of the human spirit.