Dzhezkazgan, also known as Zhezqazghan, is a city in central Kazakhstan, on a reservoir of the Kara-Kengir River. It has a population of 90,000 (1999 census). Its urban area includes the neighbouring mining town of Satpayev, total population 148,700. 55% of the population are Kazakhs, 30% Russians, with smaller minorities of Ukrainians, Germans, Chechens and Koreans.
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, iron and gold.
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 UK and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
During the Soviet era, Dzhezkazgan was the site of a Gulag labor camp, Kengir, mentioned in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's book, The Gulag Archipelago.
Russian actor Oleg Yankovsky is the most famous of the city's natives.
Dzhezkazgan has an extreme continental climate. The average temperature ranges from 24°C (75°F) in July to -16°C (3°F) in January.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome lies 400 km to the south west and, by tradition, every cosmonaut plants a tree in Zhezkazgan's Sejfulin-Boulevard to mark his safe return from space.
The city is linked by rail to Karaganda, and by air to Almaty. |
