This article examines otkochevka (out-migration) as a forced survival strategy for the population of Central Kazakhstan and border regions during the mass famine of the 1930s. Based on the analysis of archival documents – resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh ASSR, special reports of the OGPU, memoranda of party and state bodies – the causes, scale, and consequences of mass migrations of the Kazakh population are revealed. The study demonstrates that migrations resulted from a complex of factors: forced collectivization, violent sedentarization of nomads, livestock confiscation, and food shortages. Particular attention is paid to analyzing the ineffectiveness of state measures for the return and economic settlement of migrants. Documents testify to systemic deficiencies in organizing assistance: theft of food funds, formal approach to registration of returnees, unsatisfactory conditions at reception points and orphanages. Migrations affected 71 districts of the republic; over 100,000 migrant households were located within Kazakhstan. Mass mortality from hunger and exhaustion, cases of cannibalism, and catastrophic growth of child homelessness became tragic consequences of this period. The article contributes to understanding the mechanisms of social catastrophe and demonstrates how the traditional form of nomadic population mobility transformed into a survival strategy under conditions of anthropogenic famine.