Kenesary Khan was beheaded in 1847 and his skull sent to Omsk as a trophy; in 2021 Putin promised to return it

Kenesary Kasymov was a grandson of Ablai Khan and a descendant of Genghis Khan. After 1821 the Russian empire abolished the khan's government on the steppe. His brother Sarzhan was killed in 1836 and his father Kasym in 1840; Kazakh historians attribute both deaths to Kokand. In September 1841 a congress of the three zhuzes declared Kenesary khan. RFE/RL calls his revolt the largest uprising against Russian colonial troops in Kazakhstan in the 19th century. In 1847 he was betrayed, captured by Kyrgyz warriors and killed in what is now Kyrgyzstan. His head was cut off and sent to the Russian authorities in Omsk as a trophy. His body is believed to be buried in Kyrgyzstan. The skull was reportedly in Omsk until the 1930s. Researchers looked for it at the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg; in 2004 the museum said it had no record of any of his items. In October 2016 Kazakhstan's culture ministry said it was still working to bring the remains home; that day the skull of another rebel, Keiki Batyr, arrived from Moscow. In June 2021 Vladimir Putin told Nursultan Nazarbayev the skull would be returned. In January 2023 a Kazakh member of parliament said the skull and Kenesary's rifle were held at the Ethnography Museum in Moscow and urged the government to secure them. The skull had not been returned as of that report.