Gumisay Berdikhanova

She is one of only two female musicians in Karakalpakstan who play the four-stringed spike fiddle ghirjek (the Karakalpak name for ghijak). She is a first-year student in the Nukus branch of the Uzbekistan State Institute of Arts, studying in the Department of Folklore and Ethnography under Gulbahar Ahimbetova. She also studies independently as a shogird, or apprentice, of master musician Ghairatdin Otemuratov. In 2014 she won first prize in the Traditional Music Competition named after Muhiddin Kari-Yakubov, in Nukus.