Kasmalieva studied fine art at the Surikov Institute of Art in Moscow and Djumaliev at the Vera Mukhina Academy in Leningrad (now St Petersburg). Afterwards they worked in the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, which gained independence as Kyrgyzstan after "perestroika" and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In their first documentaries and photographs they show , often focusing on the effect the communist state had on the lives and the sense of identity of the Kyrgyz people.