Abstract
The cultural landscape of Mangystau is a complex interweaving of natural forms, sacred architecture, mythological narratives and sustainable pilgrimage practices. A special place in this space is occupied by underground mosques such as Bekt ata, Shopan ata, and Shakpak ata, which serve not only as religious sites, but also as key nodes of cultural memory. The article offers a culturalogical understanding of these sacred spaces through the combination of classical theories of the cultural landscape (K. Sauer), the antropology of movement and the «ritual world» (T. Ingold), the «spirit of place» (K. Norberg-Schultz), the theory of habitus (P. Bourdieu), the concerts of collective and cultural memory (M. Halbwachs, J. Assman), as well as the concert of «places of memory» by P.Nor. Along with this, the Kazakh research tradition is used, in which sacred places are interpreted as «steppe memory» (F. Musataeva), «memory practices» of modern society (K. Medeuova), as well as a part of the mythogeographic body of Mangystau, reconstructed in the works of Serikbol Kondybay. Through a comparison of philosophical, anthropological and mythological models, the article reveals that underground mosques are spaces where memory is not only stored, but also produced through rituals, bodily practices, movement, narratives and visual images that arise in the experience of pilgrims. The research methodology includes hermeneutic and conceptual analysis, philosophical reconstruction, cultural and landscape approach and elements of comparative analysis. The empirical base is made up of pilgrimage descriptions, S. Kondybay texts, materials from the Sacred Kazakstan project, UNESCO documents, and field observation data. The results of the analysis show that the underground mosques of Mangystau form a multi-layered network of memory nodes, which combines ancestral identity, sacred geography, collective forms of memory, practices of commemoration and state strategies for the sacralization of space. In the cultural dimension, underground mosques become sites where the rethinking of the past and the formation of modern models of national identity take place.