This article examines the effects of the Soviet legacy in nation-building process in Kazakhstan to argue that the roots of many conflicts come from the Soviet concepts, methods, and institutions in nation–building, which divide society between Majority and a minority. The goals of this article is to illustrate how the Soviet structures of nation-building formed antagonistic views among two ethnic communities at the local level through methods of legal and sociological analysis and ethnography.  By looking at the case of intercommunal violence in Kordai in 2020, we show as our primary result, that the concepts with the binary division between titular and minorities, produced interethnic clashes at the local level embedded in the antagonistic expectations and practices. Conclusion. The need to desovietize nation-building strategies and the crucial definition of ‘narod’ is vital to sustaining peace at the local level. Such analytical exercise requires not only academic, but also policy interventions as key stakeholders responsible for nation-building policies continue to rely and use the binary divisions. As academics, we need to think critically and offer alternatives to the existing notion of ‘narod’. To ensure national unity in Kazakhstan, it is necessary to constantly integrate social and political changes and rethink the national ideology.