diploma and was sent to work in the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences.
Zuev was a collaborator in important editions of the USSR history: "Historical Atlas of the USSR peoples", "Historical atlas of the Kazakh SSR", and five-volume edition "History of the Kazakh SSR from most ancient times to the present".
After the fall of the USSR, Zuev was able to publish a number of works on ancient and medieval history of nomadic peoples of the Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
These include "Sarmato-Alans of Aral (Yancai\Abzoya)" (1995), "Ancient Turkic social terminology in the Chinese texts of the 8th century" (1998), "Creation of Türgesh Kaganate: history and tradition" (1996), "Forms of the ethno-social organization of Central Asia nomadic peoples in antiquity and Middle Ages: pied horde, centuria (comparative – typological study)" (1998), "Kypchak Urbe-khan in epos and history" (2001), "Manichaeism and Talas (interpretation of Ancient Turkic inscriptions)" (2002).
Zuev's 70th birthday in 2002 coincided with the publication of his lifetime work, a monograph "Early Turks: Sketches of history and ideology", followed by "A Strongest Tribe" (2004) and "Seyanto Kaganate and Kimeks (Central Asian Turkic ethnogeography in the middle of the 7th century)" (2004).