Karaganda, also spelled
Karagandy , is the capital of
Karagandy ProvinceKaragandy is a province of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. The population of the province is 1,375,000; that of the city is 437,000.-History:...
in
KazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country situated in Eurasia that is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe...
. It is located at . It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind
AlmatyAlmaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of 1,348,500 , which represents 9% of the population of the country....
,
AstanaAstana , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 750,700 as of November 2008....
and
ShymkentShymkent , also sometimes spelt Shimkent or Chimkent, is the capital city of South Kazakhstan Province, the most populated region in Kazakhstan. It is the third most populous city in Kazakhstan behind Almaty and Astana with a population of 650,200 as of 12 March 2009...
, with a population of 846,200 (as of 1 January 2006). In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic
GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
. Most of the ethnic Germans are descendants of Soviet
Volga GermanThe Volga Germans were ethnic Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. They maintained German culture, language, traditions and churches: Lutherans, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites...
s who were collectively deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan on Stalin's order when Hitler invaded Poland.
Karaganda, also spelled
Karagandy , is the capital of
Karagandy ProvinceKaragandy is a province of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. The population of the province is 1,375,000; that of the city is 437,000.-History:...
in
KazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country situated in Eurasia that is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe...
. It is located at . It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind
AlmatyAlmaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of 1,348,500 , which represents 9% of the population of the country....
,
AstanaAstana , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 750,700 as of November 2008....
and
ShymkentShymkent , also sometimes spelt Shimkent or Chimkent, is the capital city of South Kazakhstan Province, the most populated region in Kazakhstan. It is the third most populous city in Kazakhstan behind Almaty and Astana with a population of 650,200 as of 12 March 2009...
, with a population of 846,200 (as of 1 January 2006). In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic
GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
. Most of the ethnic Germans are descendants of Soviet
Volga GermanThe Volga Germans were ethnic Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. They maintained German culture, language, traditions and churches: Lutherans, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites...
s 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 Alma-Ata. One hundred thousand people have since emigrated to
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
The name "Karagandy" is derived from a "
caraganaCaragana is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, native to Asia and eastern Europe.They are shrubs or small trees growing 1-6 m tall...
" bushes (
Caragana arborescensCaragana arborescens, or Caragana or Siberian peashrub, is a species of legume. It is a shrub growing to heights of 12 feet or more. Typically, it has a moderate to fast growth rate, being able to grow one to three feet during the first year after trimming. The plant is native to Siberia and parts...
, Caragana frutex) which are abundant in the area. Karaganda is an industrial city, built to exploit nearby coal mines using the slave work of prisoners of labor camps. 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
AstanaAstana , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 750,700 as of November 2008....
.
It is the birthplace of the late
Chechen PresidentThis is a list of Presidents of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a pro-independence movement that controlled most of Chechnya from 1991 to 1999 . Ichkeria's last Presidential elections were held in January 1997.-See also:* President of the Chechen Republic - list of presidents of the...
Aslan MaskhadovAslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the Chechen separatist movement and the third President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the...
. It is also the home city of Kazakh
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
hero
Nurken AbdirovNurken Abdirov was a Kazakh pilot who served for the Soviet Union in World War II, and was killed in the Battle of Stalingrad.Abdirov is a legendary figure in his hometown of Karaganda, Kazakhstan...
. A statue in Abdirov's honor is located in the center of the city.
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 next door, the Soviets undermined the entire city, and the town had to be abandoned completely and moved several miles to the south.
EMP
Karaganda suffered the most severe
electromagnetic pulseThe term electromagnetic pulse has the following meanings:# A burst of electromagnetic radiation from an explosion or a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field. The resulting electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage...
effects ever observed in history, when its electrical power plant was set on fire by currents induced in a 1,000 km 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-kt
nuclear explosionA nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
at 290-km altitude over Zhezkazgan. Prompt gamma ray-produced EMP induced a current of 2,500 amps measured by spark gaps in a 570-km 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 the 90 cm into the ground, overloading a shallow buried lead and steel tape-protected 1,000-km long power cable between Aqmola and Almaty, firing circuit breakers and setting the Karaganda power plant on fire
http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/03/emp-radiation-from-nuclear-space.html.
Karaganda was often used as the punchline in a popular joke in the former
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. Karaganda is fairly isolated in a vast area of uninhabited
steppeIn physical geography, a steppe is a biome region characterised by grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude...
, and is thought by many to be "the middle of nowhere". When used in the
locative caseLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
(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: "Where is it?" "In Karaganda!"
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
- Kaisha Atakhanova
Kaisha Atakhanova is a biologist from Karaganda, Kazakhstan, specializing in the genetic effects of nuclear radiation. She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005 for "leading" a quasi-campaign to prevent nuclear waste from being commercially imported into the Republic of...
(biologist)
- Sary-Arka Airport
Sary-Arka Airport is the airport in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. It is located 20 kilometers south of the city.- History :...