Jezkazgan

From Kazakhstan Encyclopedia

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Jezkazgan or Zhezkazgan (Template:Lang-kz / Jezqazğan/ جەزقازعان), formerly known as Dzhezkazgan (Template:Lang-ru, until 1992), is a city in Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan, on a reservoir of the Kara-Kengir River. Population: Template:Kz-census2009 Template:Kz-census1999 Its urban area includes the neighbouring mining town of Satpayev, for a total city population of 148,700.

55% of Jezkagan population are Kazakhs, 30% Russians, with smaller minorities of Ukrainians, Germans, Chechens and Koreans.

Geography and climate

Jezkazgan is situated in the very heart of the Kazakh upland, far away from a big river. It has an extremely continental semi-arid climate (BSk); rain is frequent but never heavy and monthly rainfall has never reached Template:Convert. The average temperature ranges from Template:Convert in July to Template:Convert in January, whilst extremes ranges from Template:Convert in June 1988 to Template:Convert in February 1951.

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History

The city was created in 1938 in connection with the exploitation of the rich local copper deposits. In 1973 a large mining and metallurgical complex was constructed to the southeast to smelt the copper that until then had been sent elsewhere for processing. Other metal ores mined and processed locally are manganese and iron.

During the Soviet era, Jezkazgan was the site of a Gulag labor camp, Kengir, mentioned in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago, and Alexander Dolgun's "An American In The Gulag", and the period of forced resettlement of Koreans from the Russian Far East here.

Industry

Today the city is the headquarters of the copper conglomerate Kazakhmys, the city's main employer. The company has subsidiaries in China, Russia and the United Kingdom and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. There is a power station, Kazakhmys Power Plant with generation capacity of 207 MW and a 220 metres tall main chimney.

Transport

Although Jezkazgan is centrally located in the country, it has limited connections to the other regions by rail. There is a rail line to the regional capital city Karaganda. In addition, after opening the branch Zheskasgan-Beineu, Zheskazgan is on the strategic line of the railway corridor passes along the route, "China's border port of Aktau-Baku-Georgia-Europe" opened on August 22 2014[1]

Jezkazgan is connected by road to the cities Karaganda (by class-B European route E018), Kyzylorda and Arkalyk (both by the European route E123). The city is accessible by air via Zhezkazgan Airport.

Spacecraft landings

Soyuz spacecraft returning cosmonauts from outer space land in the remote flat countryside surrounding Jezkazgan. The Baikonur Cosmodrome lies Template:Convert to the southwest and, by tradition, every cosmonaut plants a tree on Jezkazgan's Seyfullin-Boulevard to mark his or her safe return from space.Template:Citation needed

Persons associated with Jezkazgan

References

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External links

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