Accompanied by his father, a schoolboy lays flowers at a monument on Zheltoksan Street in Almaty. His bouquet is neither the first nor the last placed there on December 16, as mostly elderly people gather throughout the morning to pay their respects.

Among them is 67-year-old Madina Khabibulla, who took part in the December 1986 uprising in Almaty. Known as Zheltoksan (meaning “December” in Kazakh) the student-led protests erupted after the Soviet leadership replaced the popular Kazakh leader Dinmukhamed Kunaev with an outsider from Moscow. Although violently suppressed, the protests later came to symbolize the country’s independence, which was declared on the same date five years later.

Khabibulla says she has attended the commemoration almost every year since 1986, often alongside those she protested with nearly four decades ago. While the anniversary was once used as a platform to draw attention to political repression, at times bringing hundreds of activists into the streets, recent years have seen a noticeably calmer atmosphere, accompanied by a strong police presence.

A small crowd gathered at the Zheltoksan monument in Almaty on December 16,........

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