Almata is founded
They had yet to become famous as A’Studio. Meanwhile, the four musicians – Batyrkhan Shukenov, Baygali Serkebayev, Vladimir Miklosic, Baglan Sadvakassov – left Aray ensemble and formed a band called Almata.

“At first we were called Almata, because of the city Alma-Ata. Then we added the word “studio” to make the name a little more fashionable. And when we started working with Alla, we decided to leave only the letter “a”.

“It was a tough moment, because for me and Taskyn, the guys’ desire to separate came as a surprise. Because everyone worked well together, everyone was doing their own thing. But we understood. We got it right. There were no scandals, no big fights, I didn’t say: “I’m not letting you guys go.”

“The guys left Aray and were preparing a repertoire that had half Kazakh songs and half was in Russian. They were going on tour in Kazakhstan, and Batyr took my song “Otan Ana” in that program for the first time. In 1987 I got an apartment and Batyr came to live with me. He was constantly on tour – he would leave and come back. One day at five in the morning the doorbell rang. I open the door – Batyr is standing there, as usual, with his saxophone in its case and a suitcase. And he holds out his hand: “Aman.” I shake his hand: “Yesen”. That's the chuckle we had. It was as if we had just met. But in reality, it was ‘aman esen keldim’ (‘returned safely’– Ed.)”

During the Aray period, Batyr and company rehearsed in the old “Kazakhconcert” building. Then “Kazakhconcert” moved and so did the musicians. Another rehearsal base was in the Palace of the Republic. After the guys left Roza Rymbayeva, leaving all the instruments behind, they began rehearsing in an old mansion (tentatively – the intersection of Tole Bi and Dostyk streets), where the Union of Music Workers under the leadership of Yermek Serkebayev was located in those years. The musicians of Almata rehearsed their first compositions in the basement of the mansion. After a while, they were briefly “sheltered” in the building of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League of Kazakhstan (on Tole Bi street, below Tchaikovskiy street).

“In those days there were very few recording studios – there were probably three or four in Alma-Ata. And the best and most professional was the Kazakhfilm studio, where the famous Alim Baygarin worked. We recorded our earliest songs with him. And that’s where we wrote our first album, “Put bez ostanovok”. I remember one morning. We worked very hard then, literally twenty hours straight, and in the morning we crawled out of the studio and walked through the territory of Kazakhfilm. We walked along a path among the trees to catch a cab at dawn and we were happy. We felt satisfaction from our creativity, joy that we got what we wanted and more. It was an amazing feeling. We remembered that sunrise at Kazakhfilm Studios.”