Qonayev (Kazakh: Қонаев, romanized: Qonaev [qoˈnɑjɪf]), also known as Konaev (Russian: Конаев) and by other names, is a city in southeastern Kazakhstan.

When the town of Iliysk that grew up around the fort was set to be flooded, the settlement was relocated to the planned western shore of the Kapshagay Reservoir.

It strengthened their control of the lower Ili, whose upstream valleys in present-day Xinjiang included the major settlement of Kulja (now Yining).

Many of Kapchagay's Russian inhabitants fled the city during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but its population saw a resurgence in the 2000s and has since returned to predissolution numbers.

[6] The city was renamed Qonayev and made the capital of Almaty Region[7] on 17 March 2022 as part of Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's reforms.