The most celebrated Burabay legend links Zhumbaktas, the Sphinx-like rock sticking out of the lake, with Okzhetpes, the striking 380m-tall rock pile rising on the shore behind it.
While Abylay Khan’s army was fighting the Zhungars back in the 18th century, the story goes, a beautiful princess was captured and brought to Burabay, where many Kazakh warriors wanted her as a wife. The princess agreed to marry the first warrior who could shoot an arrow to the top of Okzhetpes. All failed, hence the name Okzhetpes, which means ‘Unreachable by Arrows’. The distraught princess then drowned herself in the lake, thus creating Zhumbaktas (Mysterious Stone).