Mukay Elebayev was a Kyrgyz poet and author born in Chong Tash village, Semirechye Oblast, Russian Turkestan in what is now the Tüp District of Issyk-Kul Region, Kyrgyzstan on 15 January 1906. Left orphaned at age 9, he fled to China in 1916 during the Urkun, returning in 1919.