Zahir Dakenov

Zahir Dakenov (December 31, 1962, Koryn – May 25, 1995, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian Kazakh novelist and poet.

Dakenov was born in a Kazakh family in Koryn, Astrakhan region with his family partially tracing back to Tatar ancestors.

Dakenov served in the ranks of the Soviet army, in convoy troops and studied carpentry in Astrakhan. He then moved to Moscow where he entered the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.

Dakenov died in the spring of 1995 in Moscow after falling from the top floor of a five-story building. Dina Nemirovskaya, another poet who knew Dakenov, insists that it was not a suicide, but an accident.