Karaganda

Karagandy Қарағанды
Seal
Karagandy Location in Kazakhstan
Coordinates: 49°50′0″N 73°10′0″E
Country	Kazakhstan
Province	Karagandy Province
Founded	1931
Government
• Akim (mayor)	Abdishev Baurzhan
Area
• Total	497,800 km2 (192,200 sq mi)
Population (1 January 2010)
• Total	471,800
Time zone	BTT (UTC+6)
Postal code	100000 - 100030
Area code(s)	+7 7212
Website	http://www.karaganda-akimat.kz/

Statue of Nurken Abdirov in downtown Karaganda

Karagandy (Kazakh: Қарағанды / Qarağandı), more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda, (Russian: Караганда, until 1993), is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty (Alma-Ata), Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 471,800 (as of 1 January 2010). In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic Germans. Most of the ethnic Germans are descendants of Soviet Volga Germans who were collectively deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan on Stalin's order when Hitler invaded Poland. Until the 1950s, many were interned in labor camps, often only due to their heritage. The population of Karaganda fell by 14% from 1989-1999; it was once Kazakhstan's second largest city after Almaty. One hundred thousand people have since emigrated to Germany. There is also a smaller concentration of ethnic Poles.

It is the home city of Kazakh World War II hero Nurken Abdirov. A statue in Abdirov's honor is located in the center of the city.

History

The name "Karagandy" is derived from a "caragana" bushes (Caragana arborescens, Caragana frutex) which are abundant in the area. The original site of Karaganda is now labeled on city maps as the "Old Town," but almost nothing remains on that site. In exploiting the rich coal deposits, the Soviets undermined the entire city, and the town had to be abandoned completely and moved several miles to the south.

Climate

Climate data for Karaganda
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	−11 (13)	−9 (15)	−3 (26)	9 (48)	19 (67)	24 (76)	27 (81)	25 (77)	18 (65)	9 (48)	−2 (28)	−9 (16)	8.1 (46.7)
Average low °C (°F)	−20 (−4)	−19 (−3)	−14 (7)	−2 (28)	5 (41)	11 (51)	13 (55)	11 (51)	5 (41)	−2 (28)	−11 (12)	−18 (0)	−3.6 (25.6)
Precipitation mm (inches)	15 (0.6)	25 (1)	30 (1.2)	20 (0.8)	33 (1.3)	41 (1.6)	48 (1.9)	46 (1.8)	18 (0.7)	30 (1.2)	18 (0.7)	15 (0.6)	340 (13.4)
Source: Weatherbase

Industry

Karaganda is an industrial city, built to exploit nearby coal mines using the slave work of prisoners of labor camps. Flora Leipman, a British citizen, spent several years unlawfully detained in a number of other nearby camps, and described her experiences in the book "The Long Journey Home" (published 1987). Commercial extraction of coal continues to be an important activity in the region even today. In the early 1990s, it was briefly considered as a candidate for the capital of the (then) recently independent Republic of Kazakhstan, but its bid was turned down in favor of Astana.

Culture

Theater

The Miners Palace of Culture is a major landmark in Karagandy.

Sports

FC Shakhter Karagandy is a football club based in Shakhtyor Stadium. The city sent a bandy team to the Spartakiade 2009. The popularity of winter sports is growing each year and multi-sports winter games are organised for the Karagandy Province.

Other

• Karaganda Zoo
• Karaganda State University

Religion

The city is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Karaganda.

Other

Karaganda was often used as the punchline in a popular joke in the former Soviet Union. Karaganda is fairly isolated in a vast area of uninhabited steppe, and is thought by many to be "the middle of nowhere". When used in the locative case (Караганде), the final syllable rhymes with the Russian word for "where" (где), as well as with a Russian obscenity used to answer to an unwanted question "Where?". Thus the exchange: "Где?" — "В Караганде!" ("Where is it?" — "In Karaganda!")

Transport

Sary-Arka Airport is located 20 kilometers south of the city.

Notable residents

• Nurken Abdirov, Soviet World War II pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union
• Anjelika Akbar, pianist
• Toktar Aubakirov, former cosmonaut (Soyuz TM-13) and member of Kazakhstan parliament
• Boris Avrukh, chess grandmaster
• Sahan Dosova, super-centenarian, reputed to have lived to age 130 (though disputed)
• Konstantin Engel, professional football player
• Akhmad Kadyrov, former President of the Chechen Republic
• Dimitri Kotschnew, professional ice hockey player
• Andrei Krukov, Olympic figure skater (1998 Winter Olympics)
• Juri Litvinov, Olympic figure skater (1998 Winter Olympics) and national champion
• Aslan Maskhadov, third President, Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
• Valery Oisteanu, writer, photographer, and performance artist
• Aleksandr Shustov, gold medal-winning high jumper
• Pavel Vorobiev, professional ice hockey player
• Joseph Werth, Bishop of Transfiguration, Novosibirsk, Russia

EMP

Nurkena Abdirova Street at the corner of Gogol.

Karaganda suffered the most severe electromagnetic pulse effects ever observed when its electrical power plant was set on fire by currents induced in a 1,000 km (620 mi) long shallow buried power cable by Soviet Test ‘184’ on 22 October 1962. The test was part of ‘Operation K’ (ABM System A proof tests), and consisted of a 300-kiloton high-altitude nuclear explosion at an altitude of 290 km (180 mi) over Zhezkazgan. Prompt gamma ray-produced EMP induced a current of 2,500 amps measured by spark gaps in a 570 km (350 mi) stretch of overhead telephone line to Zharyq, blowing all the protective fuses. The late-time MHD-EMP was of low enough frequency to enable it to penetrate 90 cm (35 in) into the ground, overloading a shallow buried lead and steel tape-protected 1,000 km (620 mi) long power cable between Aqmola and Almaty, firing circuit breakers and setting the Karaganda power plant on fire [1].

Sister cities

• Songpa-gu, South Korea (since 1994)
• Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine
• Arak, Iran (since 2008)

Further reading

Kate Brown, "Gridded Lives: Why Kazakhstan and Montana are Nearly the Same Place." American Historical Review 106, 1 (2001): 17-48.

See Also

• Karlag

External links

• http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.1/ah000017.html