With pink-coloured lake in backdrop, Kazakh woman plays dombyra at Lake Kobeytuz

Often times we come across a video on social media that makes us stop and take a second look at it. Former Minister of International Development of Norway Erik Solheim’s recent tweet might do just that.

The former diplomat shared a video of an artist from Nursultan, Kazakhstan where she was seen playing the country’s national instrument with a pink salt lake in the background. The video, originally shared in 2020, shows Marzhan Kapsamat playing the dombra, a long-necked two-string lute with a pear body. In the video, she took her dombra and played it while sitting on a chair in Lake Kobeytuz, a body of water located in the Akmolinskaya region of Kazakhstan that turns a shade of Pepto pink every few years.

It is not just the instrument and the enchanting background that makes the video stand out, but Kapsamat’s costume as well that adds a touch of fashionable zing to the video. The young artist, who was 23 at the time the video was shot, had put a modern spin on traditional Kazakh clothing and paired a tulle baby blue dress with a version of an ornamental hat called a saukele, an ornate headdress that Kazakh women would wear as brides.

A 23-year-old musician, is playing in Lake Köbeituz, a salt lake in Kazakhstan