100 Tenge Abai Kunanbaev - Mother

Issued as part of Kazakhstan's first sovereign commemorative series, this coin honors Abai Qunanbaiuly, the 19th-century Kazakh poet and composer whose work became central to the post-Soviet construction of Kazakh national identity. The subject — his mother — reflects a broader thematic strand in the series drawing on figures from Abai's life and verse rather than treating him as a solitary icon.

Kazakhstan had only formally dissolved from the Soviet Union in December 1991, making this 1995 issue remarkably early for a newly independent state building mint infrastructure and numismatic programs simultaneously.