Mr Tleukhan is part of a plan to restore Kazakhstan's old culture (Pic: Michael Church)

Mr Tleukhan, the vice-minister for culture, was a highly-regarded musician before he turned to politics.

He has gone on the road as part of an initiative to restore the country's musical history after it was suppressed during Kazakhstan's time as a member of the USSR.

His latest lessons have been given at a new music school in Almaty, the old capital of Kazakhstan, where every student must learn the two-stringed dombra lute.

The project is funded the Aga Khan Trust For Culture.

"It is an attempt to preserve for posterity and to revive the musical traditions in Central Asia," Luis Monreal, the general manager of the Trust, told the BBC World Service's Music Review programme.

"Central Asia is a region that has suffered from cultural sterility, imposed by the Soviet Union.

"In this programme of making a unified Soviet Union there were a number of principles - first of all the dominance of a Slavic culture over any other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union."

Musical tradition

Mr Monreal said as a result, Western classical music had been imposed to replace the traditional music of the country's ethnic groups.

"This situation has to change," Mr Monreal said.

"That is the purpose of the programme."

The children are hearing some music barely heard for 80 years (Pic: Michael Church)

In Mr Tleukhan's class are 20 young players, all of whom seem keen to join in whenever they can.

They are of mixed ability, and seem simply to be enjoying the music.

"Our task isn't to train young virtuosos - for them, there are specialist music schools," Abdul Hamid Raimbergenov, the creator of the school, pointed out.

"Our aim is to let ordinary children hear our own Kazakh music so that they understand and love their musical tradition.

"For 70 years our national music was suppressed - Moscow tried to make us into one uniform nation.

"But a world with only one flower would not be very interesting."