The legend about the village of Shirikayak

A long time ago there lived a bai named Tarlan from the Kokzharly clan. He was in a matchmaking relationship with the Kerey tribe and in the summer, when he gave his daughter in marriage, he mounted her on a fast brown horse nicknamed Konyr (Brown).

Autumn passes, then winter, and when summer comes, the horse runs away and joins its herd. When the bai’s matchmakers come looking for a horse, Tarlan bai prepares Brown for the races (baiga).

In this baiga, two horsemen brothers wanted to win with their stallion nicknamed Karakok. Therefore, they wanted to kill Brown, lying in wait for him during the procession to the races. When all the horses were heading for the baiga and passing through the willow thickets, the brothers grabbed Brown.

Trying to free himself, Brown furiously bites the knee of the youngest of the brothers who is holding him. He screams: “Oibai, aha (elder brother), remember, I once told you about an old man who said that the one who is bitten by a tulpar will have no heirs. What good will this action bring us? The enraged Brown, having freed himself, gallops in a straight line and immediately reaches the finish line.

The wound of the horseman, who was bitten by Bury, does not heal, his leg begins to rot, and he dies. Since then, this area began to be called Shirikayak (literally – rotten leg). Now in the Kurchum district of the East Kazakhstan region there is a settlement called Shirikayak. And the direct path along which Brown rode – a deserted mountain road stretching from Shirikayak to the Balakaz area – was nicknamed Brown’s Road.