Zataevich Alexandr Victorovich(1869-1936) - musician, ethnographer, composer, People’s Artist of the Kaz.SSR. During his work in 1920 in Orenburg, he for the first time heard Kazakh folk songs and kiuis. At first it was the usual interest of a musician to the novel. But, later, the melodic richness of the songs and their extinction in professional circles made Zataevich seriously start collecting and studying the popular creative legacy. He recorded more than 2,300 works of Kazakhstani musical folklore. The two volumes published by him under the title «1000 Songs of the Kyrgyz People» and «500 Kazakh Songs and Kiuis» became fundamental to students of Kazakh folklore. The content of Zataevich’s collections represents is an anthology of Kazakh folk music from ancient times up to the 1930s. Zataevich elaborated the classification of the main genres of Kazakh folk song by themes, singling out among them everyday-life, historical, traditional, competitive, humouristic ones. Zataevich for the first time in the history of Kazakh music gave the characteristics of several great people’s composers - Abai Kunanbaev, Kurmangazy, Zhayau Musa, Birzhan-sal, Mukhit, Dauletkerei, Ibrai and supplied some biographic data about them. Of big educational significance are the perspicacious characteristics of mastery, which Zataevich gave to the most prominent performers: Amre Kashaubaev, Gabbas Aitpaev, Kali Baizhanov and others. Besides this, the collections of Zataevich are of great ethnographic value because together with the recordings are collected the data on the lifestyles of the Kazakh people, the traditions, the character and the every day. Zataevich is one of the founders of Kazakh professional piano music. He is the author of the musical collections «Kazakh Songs in the Form of Miniatures for Piano» and «Kazakh Instrumental Plays and Melodies».