Top products from r/Kazakhstan

If she likes cooking like I do, I guess this with this would make a good gift.
Or buy those and cook her plov as a gift.

Another Russian speaker here, although I have learned some basic Kazakh.

One of my good friends teaches Kazakh at an American university and highly recommends this textbook. Generally, though, I know there's a dearth of resources, especially for native English speakers. The only other resources I know of are those for Russian speakers learning Kazakh, and it doesn't sound like that would help you.

https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Steppe-Famine-Violence-Kazakhstan/dp/1501730436

• Kazakhs as a nation are conglomeration of Turkic tribes that migrated to modern day Kazakhstan too from Altai Region. Kazakhs did not exist as a nation till late mid 15th century. Those 'saka and huns' you are talking about were displaced/assimilated during mongol invasion and later displaced again with the migration of Turkic tribes.
  
• Kazakh identity on the other hand emerged as a result of Soviet program of nation-building called Korenizatsiya in early 20th century. According Grigol Ubiria, people inhabiting this region identified their tribe first and some of them described themselves as Kazakhs as second option. He further concludes (providing sufficient academical evidence) that before Korenization 'Kazakh' was more of a geopolitical union and affiliation to the ruling elite and people could switch 'identity' to kazakh/uzbek depending on the the political situation. People were forced to identify as one of the predefined options provided by Soviet Census Bureau and as a result we ended up having 'nationality' graph in our passports/ids. This helped to further facilitate national distinction between the Central Asian regions as their kids and descendants inherited the same 'title' in nationality graph. There are accounts of hundreds of thousands of Kazakh/Uzbek people who identified themselves contrariwise out of fear of being forcefully displaced. Link to the book that is very well accepted within academic society if you are interested on reading up on this topic.
  
  
• You fail to realize that 'immigrants' that lived here for several generations are already part of 'Kazakh identity'. And the culture they have brought have been partially adopted and merged.
  >if they would adopt our lifestyle and language
  
  What kind of lifestyle are you talking about? Long gone folk culture and customs that nobody follows these days because we are modern secular society that have outgrown that? Speaking of Russian language, it has been enforced by Soviet authorities, and we've accepted it. And it's history now. Russians in Kazakhstan never had strong motivation to learn Kazakh language, since all of the correspondence including government business have always been done in Russian. Russian is the official language of the country on par with Kazakh and I don't see any reason why one would need to learn Kazakh language instead of focusing their effort on being functioning member of society and improving their quality of life. Everything comes out of a need and purpose in the end.
  
  
• Since Kazakhs have always been a conglomeration of different tribes, I don't see why Russians (and people of other ethnic backgrounds) can't be part of us (Kazakhs). We all value our family, tribe first, but we are all Kazakhs after all for the rest of the world.
  
  Source: I'm Kazakh not fueling my nationalism with my ignorance.