Semey
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| Semey Семей |
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  Semey
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| Coordinates: | |||
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| Country |  Kazakhstan |
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| Province | East Kazakhstan Province | ||
| Founded | 1718 | ||
| Incorporated (city) | 1782 | ||
| Government | |||
| - Akim (mayor) | Meiramkhat Ainabekov | ||
| Area | |||
| - Total | 210 km² (81.1 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2006) | |||
| - Total | 298,100 | ||
| Time zone | BTT (UTC+6) | ||
| Postal code | 071400 | ||
| Area code(s) | +7 7222 | ||
Semey (Kazakh: Семей; also transliterated as Semij or Semei, and known by its former name of Semipalatinsk (Семипалатинск)) is a city in Kazakhstan, in the northeastern province of East Kazakhstan, near the border with Siberia, around 1,000 km north of Almaty, and 700 km southeast of the Russian city of Omsk, along the Irtysh River.
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[edit] History
The first settlement was in 1718 when the Russians built a fort beside the river Irtysh, near a ruined Buddhist monastery. The monastery's seven buildings lent the fort (and later the city) the name Semipalatinsk (Russian meaning Seven Chambered City). The fort suffered frequently from flooding caused by the snowmelt swelling the Irtysh, and in 1778 the fort was relocated 18 km upstream to less flood-prone ground. The small city grew around the fort, largely servicing the river trade between the nomadic peoples of Central Asia and the growing Russian Empire. The construction of the Turkestan-Siberia Railway added to the city's importance, making it a major point of transit between Central Asia and Siberia.
In 1949 a site on the steppe 150 km (100 miles) west of the city was chosen by the Soviet atomic bomb programme to be the location for its weapons testing. For decades Kurchatov -- the secret city at the heart of the test range named for Igor Kurchatov, father of the soviet atomic bomb -- was home to many of the brightest stars of Soviet weapons science. The Soviet Union operated the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) from the first explosion in 1949 until 1989; 456 nuclear tests, including 340 underground and 116 atmospheric tests, were conducted there.
Semey has suffered serious environmental and health effects from the time of its atomic prosperity: nuclear fallout from the atmospheric tests and uncontrolled exposure of the workers, most of whom lived in the city, have given Semey and neighboring villages high rates of cancer, childhood leukemia, impotence, and birth defects.[2]
Modern Semey is a bustling university town with a population nearing 300,000. Its proximity to the border, and the large expatriate scientific community attached to the university and the STS labs, gives Semey a more Russian character than other Kazakh cities.
The oblast (oblysy) of Semipalatinsk has been merged with the bigger East Kazakhstan Province whose capital city is Oskemen.
[edit] Famous residents
- Abay Qunanbayuli, father of modern Kazakh poetry, received his Russian schooling at Semey.
- Writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose exile included five years military service as a corporal in the Seventh Line Battalion at the Semipalatinsk garrison, beginning in 1854. Residents claim the details of particular descriptive passages in Dostoevsky's subsequent books, including his highly acclaimed The Brothers Karamazov, are recognizable as taken from his time in Semey.
- Boxer Wladimir Klitschko, who was born there in 1976.
The city has a museum to commemorate Abay Qunanbayuli, and has both a museum of, and a street named after, Dostoevsky.
[edit] Population
- 1881 17,820
- 1897 26,353
- 1910 34,400
- 1926 56,100
- 1939 109,700
- 1959 149,800
- 1979 270,400
- 1989 317,100
- 1999 269,600
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Semey Net
- Detailed City History (in russian) in Gorodok
- City statistic (in russian) at year 2003
- Photo of Semey
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