(until 1961, the settlement Churubai-Nura), city in Karaganda Oblast, Kazakh SSR, with a population of 32,000 (1968). Abai is at the Karabas railroad station, which lies 30 km southwest of Karaganda on the Tselinograd-Alma-Ata line. The city’s industries include woodworking, house building, and the mining of coal and limestone. The site of the Karaganda State Regional Electric Power Plant, Abai has a mining school and an evening school for power engineering. The city was named in honor of Abai Kunanbaev.