He was born on April 25, 1916, in the village of Bayan-Aul (now in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan) into a family of a peasant-herder. He was the biological brother of the famous Kazakh director Shaken Aimanov. He comes from the Ay-Dabol subclan of the Suyindyk tribe of the Argyn clan. From 1935 to 1941, he studied at the Kazakh studio at the Moscow State Conservatory. From 1942 to 1946, he