The genre of the historical novel, in which the historical past is reconstructed, implies a special work of the writer with language - the main means of materializing, embodying and detailing the depicted historical reality. The artistic materialization of the objective world of the historical period, recreated in the novel under study is carried out by the author of the work through a description of household items and interior, beliefs and superstitions, the way of managing, ethics and speech culture, relations between estates, etc. Expressed by phraseological units, idiomatic expressions, dialect words, including obsolete reconstruction of the surrounding reality and the spiritual and psychological sphere, the inner world of the characters requires special attention of the translator. The purpose of the article is to comprehend and describe the ethnolinguistic units (phraseological word combination, idioms, dialect words, realities) found in Adam Mekebaev’s historical novel “A Cache in the Steppe”, and to substantiate their translation into Russian. The author of the article is the author of the translation of the novel into Russian.