Opened in 2004, the Beit Rachel Synagogue serves a Jewish community of roughly 150 families, most of which were forcibly moved to the area by Stalin in the 1950s from Belorussia, Lithuania and the Ukraine during Khruschev’s Virgin Lands Campaign. The synagogue was funded by businessman Alexander Mashkevich, head of the Eurasian Group and a pal of the President, and is named in honour of Maskevich’s late mother. It is the largest synagogue in Central Asia and is testament to Kazakhstan’s religious tolerance.