Jeltoqsan: Riots erupt in Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, in response to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of ethnic Kazakh Dinmukhamed Kunaev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, and his replacement with Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian from the Russian SFSR.

The Jeltoqsan, also spelled Zheltoksan, or December of 1986, were protests that took place in Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, in response to CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, and his replacement with Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian from the Russian SFSR.

Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains in southern Kazakhstan, near the border with Kyrgyzstan, Almaty stands as a pivotal center of culture, commerce, finance and innovation. The city is nestled at an elevation of 700–900 metres, with the Big Almaty and Small Almaty rivers running through it, originating from the surrounding mountains and flowing into the plains. Almaty is the second-largest city in Central Asia and the fourth-largest in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Being located in northern Central Asia, the Kazakh SSR was created on 5 December 1936 from the erstwhile Kazakh ASSR, which was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. It shared borders with its fellow Soviet republics of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, while also sharing an international border with the People's Republic of China.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and the president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.