Resting places near the city of Balkhash. What to see in the city of Balkhash? Local prints and newspapers

It appeared in Kazakhstan in the 30s of the last century near the lake of the same name, famous for its unique structure. Lake Balkhash is famous for the fact that, due to its special shape and location, half of the water in it is practically fresh, and the other half is brackish.

Although tourism around Balkhash is only developing, here you can meet tourists from different corners planets. Someone is in a hurry to rest here by rail, most of them are mastering highways.

The entrance to the city is symbolic: through the overpass bridge over the railway, before entering which everyone will definitely pay attention to the huge carp monuments along the edges of the bridge. Locals affectionately call their fish Nurlan and Yerlan. 🙂

Entrance to the city of Balkhash - bridge with carp

Crossing the Balkhash bridge, speed lovers should not run into trouble and slow down. A surprise awaits the reckless driver - the police post is not visible, but a police car suddenly appears magically along the course. An unpleasant situation that can be avoided simply by observing the speed limit and not overshadowing your first acquaintance with the city.

Before entering the city (up to the bridge), you can refuel the car and at the same time realize that you have arrived in a really hot summer, and possibly a very warm autumn or winter.

Summer Balkhash is greenery, a variety of flowers, fruits for every taste, fountains and a lake inviting coolness.

You can stay in Balkhash in a hotel - it is near the center. There are more modest options, but you need to worry about them in advance - rent an apartment in the city (also in the center) in a couple of months. This option is much more economical and the amenities are slightly expanded in terms of providing a washing machine, a kitchen with all kinds of electrical appliances for use - you can quickly cook breakfast or dinner if you are late. Refrigerator, TV, air conditioning and furniture with bedding are also included in the apartment rental. It is also convenient that you receive the keys to the apartment and no one bothers you during your stay. You can resolve any issues that arise with the owner by phone. Prices for apartments for rent start at 6-8 euros per night and can be found on classifieds websites.

Balkhash has the most attractive places Is a lake, bazaar and fountains.

The lake is just a stone's throw away - right from the city center, after walking a couple of blocks, you get to the embankment. She has changed: the city is preparing to become tourist center... The beach is organized - it is crowded here during the day. The water beckons and blows cool, bringing joy to adults and children especially.

As a rule, everyone goes to the beach after visiting the bazaar. There is an abundance of fruits, soft drinks, and in addition, swimming equipment is available in different shapes and colors. A separate topic is delicious Balkhash fish, of which there is a great variety in the bazaar.

Fountains attract people both during the day and in the evening. During the day, of course, it is a little sultry, but this does not bother the children, they ride cars, bicycles around the square around the fountains.

Fountains of the city of Balkhash

In the evening, fountains with music and light. Life around the fountains does not subside: you can hear children's laughter, the quiet rustle of leaves, the breath of the wind and the voices of guests from the benches.

In Balkhash there is a place to walk, as an option: visit the pier and watch the fishermen.

All local residents here are certainly fishermen "from young to old." You can catch not only fish with a fishing rod, but also crayfish. Usually adult fishermen give them to children to catch.

Near the lake there is a monument to the first builders of Balkhash. At night, the monument glows with a soft light.

On one of the streets there is a monument to the repressed - the people of Balkhash were also affected by this fate.

In the city center, there are many different small shops and boutiques with very affordable prices. Balkhash has a bright and colorful house of culture - once having been here at a holiday, you will remember it for a lifetime.

Balkhash is a cozy city with friendly locals. It is always a pleasure to visit any of the many cafes offering both national and classic cuisine. It is worth noting that the portions here, as in all cities of Kazakhstan, are large, therefore, before ordering a dish, it is better to inquire about the size of the portion and, if necessary, divide it in half. It is difficult for children to overpower a whole portion.

In the near future, the city of Balkhash will become resort area, but for now it is just an oasis of life in the Kazakh steppes, which few people are aware of. We can say, a pristine little corner of paradise on Earth.

Video about the city of Balkhash:

sharply continental

Official language Population Agglomeration

about 90,000 people

National composition Confessional composition

muslims, Orthodox, Catholics

Names of residents Timezone Telephone code Zip codes Car code Official site

(Russian)

Awards

K: Settlements founded in 1932

Balkhash (kaz. Balkash) is a city of regional subordination in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan (until May 1997 in the Dzhezkazgan region). The city is located on the northern coast of Lake Balkhash, near the Bertys Bay, in the southern part of the Central Kazakhstan Upland.

The birth and development of the city was the result of the discovery of rich deposits of copper ore in 1928.

History

from June 13, 2015 akim of the city of Balkhash - Alexander Minvalievich Agliulin.

The following settlements are subordinate to the Balkhash city administration: Balkhash, Sayak (3669 people), Gulshat and Chubar-Tyubek (625 people). In May 1997, the city of Balkhash was administratively included in the Karaganda region, due to changes in the borders of the latter. Before that, the city was part of the Dzhezkazgan region.

Population

City population with subordinates settlements is 75 662 people (January 1, 2012). In 2013, by the decision of the city maslikhat, the Konyrat settlement was included in the city as the Konyrat microdistrict. The population of the city increased by 3162 people.

kazakhs - 50 739 people. (65.05%)
russians - 21 901 people (28.08%)
koreans - 1,128 people. (1.45%)
germans - 1,039 people. (1.33%)
tatars - 887 people. (1.14%)
ukrainians - 813 people. (1.04%)
chechens - 147 people (0.19%)
uzbeks - 144 people. (0.18%)
belarusians - 121 people (0.16%)
azerbaijanis - 115 people. (0.15%)
others - 968 people. (1.24%)
In total - 78,002 people. (100.00%)

IN last years the number of the Russian-speaking population has sharply decreased and vice versa, the number of Kazakhs who come mainly from rural areas has increased. In the early 1990s, attempts were made to attract from China and Mongolia the descendants of Kazakhs who left the country during the Civil War of 1918-1921. Due to the crisis in the economy of Kazakhstan, most of these Kazakhs returned to their former places of residence.

Climate

The climate in the city is sharply continental.

Average annual temperature - +6.3 C °
Average annual temperature (2013) - +7.9 С °
Average annual wind speed - 4.2 m / s
Average annual air humidity - 62%

Balkhash climate
Index	Jan.	Feb	March	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Absolute maximum, ° C	3,9	6,1	24,5	32,5	34,4	37,6	40,9	39,5	37,6	27,2	17,4	7,5	40,9
Average maximum, ° C	−8,7	−6,7	1,7	14,3	22,1	27,9	29,6	28,1	21,7	12,9	3	−5,2	11,7
Average temperature, ° C	−13,3	−12,1	−3,6	8,3	16,4	22,3	24,2	22,4	15,6	7,1	−1,8	−9,7	6,3
Average minimum, ° C	−17,6	−16,8	−8,2	3,1	10,7	16,3	18,5	16,3	9,3	2	−5,7	−13,7	1,2
Absolute minimum, ° C	−40,1	−40,2	−30,8	−14,2	−5,5	4	6,9	3,7	−4,7	−14,8	−32,7	−41,2	−41,2
Precipitation rate, mm	13	11	12	10	15	12	14	9	3	9	16	13	137
A source:

Gallery

Balkhash townBeach.jpg

City beach (part)

Agybay batyr monument in Balkhash.jpg

Monument to Agybai Batyr

Balkhash copper smelting complex.jpg

PO "Balkhashtsvetmet"

Balkhash, Old site.jpg

Old playground

Balkhash Lake pier.jpg

Balkhash old factory.JPG

View of the lake and the old site

Balqash-pamjatnik.jpg

Monument to victims of repressions in Balkhash

Lake Balkhash, 2008.jpg

Economy

Balkhash is one of the most important centers of non-ferrous metallurgy in Kazakhstan. The city-forming enterprise is the mining and metallurgical plant. There are also fish and meat industry enterprises.

Media

List of TV channels in public free use:

Orken-Media (scheduled broadcast from 17:00 to midnight)

Cable TV in the pay network Balkhash TV

List of radio stations broadcasting in the city and the surrounding area:

There is also the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC of the Moscow Patriarchate) in the city; as of 2012, the temple is expanding, new office premises are being added. The Catholic Church is also active.

People associated with the city

Yuri Valentinovich Lonchakov - cosmonaut
Chebukina, Elena Vasilievna - Honored Master of Sports of the USSR in volleyball, Olympic champion, world champion, multiple champion of Europe, USSR.
Zhirov, Vasily Valerievich - boxer, IBF champion in the first heavy weight. Olympic champion
Sergey Vladilenovich Ponomarenko - figure skater, Olympic champion in 1992. Repeated world and European champion. Honored Master of Sports of the USSR.
Horuzhaya Vera Vasilievna is a famous member of the Komsomol, the hero of the Second World War One of the most famous first builders of the copper giant on Balkhash, who arrived at a shock construction site in the direction of the USSR leadership.

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An excerpt characterizing Balkhash (city)

- They did not know how to take Murat alive in the morning and come to the place on time: now there is nothing to do! - he answered another.
When Kutuzov was informed that in the rear of the French, where, according to the reports of the Cossacks, there was no one before, there were now two battalions of Poles, he glanced back at Ermolov (he had not spoken to him since yesterday).
- Here they ask for an offensive, offer various projects, and as soon as you get down to business, nothing is ready, and the forewarned enemy takes his own measures.
Yermolov narrowed his eyes and smiled slightly upon hearing these words. He realized that for him the storm had passed and that Kutuzov would limit himself to this hint.
“It’s on my account that he is amusing himself,” Yermolov said quietly, pushing Raevsky, who was standing beside him, with his knee.
Shortly thereafter, Ermolov moved forward to Kutuzov and respectfully reported:
- Time is not lost, Your Grace, the enemy has not left. If you order to advance? Otherwise, the guards won't even see the smoke.
Kutuzov said nothing, but when it was reported to him that Murat's troops were retreating, he ordered an offensive; but every hundred steps he stopped for three quarters of an hour.
The whole battle consisted only of what Orlov Denisov's Cossacks did; the rest of the troops only in vain lost several hundred people.
As a result of this battle, Kutuzov received a diamond sign, Bennigsen also diamonds and one hundred thousand rubles, others, according to ranks, respectively, received a lot of pleasant things, and after this battle, new movements were made at the headquarters.
"This is how we always do, everything is reversed!" - Russian officers and generals said after the Battle of Tarutino, - just as they say now, making it feel that someone stupid is doing this, inside out, but we would not have done that. But people who say this either do not know the case they are talking about or are deliberately deceiving themselves. Every battle - Tarutinskoye, Borodinskoye, Austerlitskoye - every battle is not fought in the way its stewards assumed. This is an essential condition.
An innumerable number of free forces (for nowhere is a person freer than during a battle, where it is about life and death) affects the direction of the battle, and this direction can never be known ahead and never coincides with the direction of any one force.
If many, simultaneously and variously directed forces act on some body, then the direction of movement of this body cannot coincide with any of the forces; but there will always be an average, shortest direction, that which in mechanics is expressed by the diagonal of the parallelogram of forces.
If in the descriptions of historians, especially French ones, we find that their wars and battles are carried out according to a certain plan ahead, then the only conclusion we can draw from this is that these descriptions are not correct.
The Tarutino battle, obviously, did not achieve the goal that Tol had in mind: in order to bring the troops into the matter according to disposition, and that which Count Orlov could have; to take Murat prisoner, or the goal of instantly exterminating the entire corps, which Bennigsen and other persons could have, or the goal of an officer who wanted to get involved and distinguish himself, or a Cossack who wanted to acquire more booty than he had acquired, etc. But , if the goal was what really happened, and what was then a common desire for all Russian people (the expulsion of the French from Russia and the extermination of their army), then it will be quite clear that the Tarutino battle, precisely because of its incongruities, was the same what was needed during that period of the campaign. It is difficult and impossible to think of any outcome of this battle, more expedient than the one it had. With the slightest tension, with the greatest confusion and with the most insignificant loss, the greatest results were gained in the whole campaign, the transition from retreat to the offensive was made, the weakness of the French was exposed, and the impetus was given that was just waiting for the Napoleonic army to begin the flight.

Napoleon enters Moscow after a brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there can be no doubt of victory, since the battlefield remains with the French. The Russians retreat and surrender the capital. Moscow, filled with provisions, weapons, shells and untold riches, is in the hands of Napoleon. The Russian army, twice as weak as the French, did not make a single attack during the month. Napoleon's position is the most brilliant. In order to pile on the remnants of the Russian army with double forces and exterminate it, in order to pronounce a favorable peace or, in case of refusal, to make a threatening movement to Petersburg, in order even, in case of failure, to return to Smolensk or Vilna , or stay in Moscow - in a word, in order to maintain the brilliant position in which the French army was at that time, it would seem, no special genius is needed. To do this, it was necessary to do the simplest and easiest thing: to prevent the troops from plundering, to prepare winter clothes that would be enough for the whole army in Moscow, and correctly collect the provisions that were in Moscow for more than six months (according to the testimony of French historians) for the entire army. Napoleon, this most brilliant of geniuses and who had the power to control the army, according to historians, did nothing of this.
He not only did nothing of this, but, on the contrary, used his power to choose from all the paths of activity that seemed to him that was the stupidest and most pernicious of all. Of all that Napoleon could do: winter in Moscow, go to Petersburg, go to Nizhny Novgorod, go back, north or south, the way that Kutuzov later went - well, no matter what you think of, it is more stupid and more destructive than what Napoleon did, that is, to remain in Moscow until October, leaving the troops to plunder the city, then, hesitating, leave or not to leave the garrison, to leave Moscow, to approach Kutuzov, not to start a battle, to go to the right, to reach Maly Yaroslavets, again without experiencing an accident to break through, to go not along the road that Kutuzov took, but to go back to Mozhaisk and along the devastated The Smolensk road - nothing more stupid than this, more pernicious for the army could be invented, as the consequences showed. Let the most skilful strategists come up with, imagining that Napoleon's goal was to destroy his army, come up with another series of actions, which would, with the same certainty and independence from everything that the Russian troops did, would completely destroy the whole the French army, like what Napoleon did.
The genius Napoleon did it. But to say that Napoleon ruined his army because he wanted to, or because he was very stupid, would be just as unfair as to say that Napoleon brought his troops to Moscow because he wanted it, and because that he was very clever and brilliant.
In both cases, his personal activity, which did not have more power than the personal activity of each soldier, only coincided with the laws by which the phenomenon took place.
It is completely false (only because the consequences did not justify Napoleon's activities) that historians present to us the strength of Napoleon as weakened in Moscow. He, just as before, as well as after, in the 13th year, he used all his skill and strength to do the best for himself and his army. Napoleon's activities during this time are no less amazing than in Egypt, Italy, Austria and Prussia. We do not know for sure about the extent to which Napoleon's genius was real in Egypt, where for forty centuries they looked at his greatness, because all these great feats are described to us only by the French. We cannot correctly judge his genius in Austria and Prussia, since information about his activities there must be drawn from French and German sources; and the incomprehensible surrender of corps without battles and fortresses without a siege should persuade the Germans to recognize genius as the only explanation for the war that was waged in Germany. But there is no reason for us to recognize his genius in order to hide our shame, thank God. We paid to have the right to simply and directly look at the case, and we will not give up this right.
His work in Moscow is as amazing and brilliant as elsewhere. Orders after orders and plans after plans come from him from the time of his entry into Moscow until his exit from it. The absence of residents and deputation and the very fire of Moscow do not bother him. He does not lose sight of neither the good of his army, nor the actions of the enemy, nor the good of the peoples of Russia, nor the management of the valleys of Paris, nor diplomatic considerations about the upcoming conditions of peace.

Militarily, immediately upon entering Moscow, Napoleon strictly orders General Sebastiani to follow the movements of the Russian army, sends corps along different roads and orders Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he diligently orders the strengthening of the Kremlin; then he makes an ingenious plan for a future campaign across the entire map of Russia. With regard to diplomacy, Napoleon calls on the robbed and ragged captain Yakovlev, who does not know how to get out of Moscow, expounds to him in detail all his policy and his generosity and, writing a letter to Emperor Alexander, in which he considers it his duty to inform his friend and brother that Rostopchin made a bad order in Moscow, he sent Yakovlev to Petersburg. Having set out in the same detail his views and generosity before Tutolmin, he sends this old man to Petersburg for negotiations.
In legal matters, immediately after the fires, it was ordered to find the perpetrators and execute them. And the villain Rostopchin was punished by the order to burn down his houses.
Administratively, Moscow was granted a constitution, a municipality was established and the following was promulgated:
“Residents of Moscow!
Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King wants to stop them. Scary examples have taught you how he punishes disobedience and crime. Stringent measures have been taken to end the confusion and restore general security. The paternal administration, elected from among you, will be your municipality or city government. It will care about you, about your needs, about your benefit. Members of this are distinguished by a red ribbon, which will be worn over the shoulder, and the head of the city will have a white belt over it. But, excluding the time of their office, they will have only a red ribbon around their left arm.
The city police are established according to the previous position, and through their activity a better order exists. The government appointed two general commissars, or chiefs of police, and twenty commissars, or private bailiffs, appointed in all parts of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will wear around their left arm. Some churches of various denominations are open, and divine services are unhindered in them. Your fellow citizens return daily to their homes, and orders have been given to find help and protection in them, followed by misfortune. These are the means that the government has used to restore order and alleviate your situation; but in order to achieve this, you need to combine your efforts with him, so that, if possible, you forget, if possible, your misfortunes, which you endured, surrendered to the hope of a less cruel fate, were sure that an inevitable and shameful death awaits those who dare to your persons and your remaining property, and in the end they did not doubt that they would be preserved, for this is the will of the greatest and fairest of all monarchs. Soldiers and inhabitants, no matter what nation you are! Restore public trust, the source of happiness for the state, live like brothers, give each other help and patronage, unite to refute the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civilian authorities, and soon your tears will stop flowing. "
With regard to the food supplies of the troops, Napoleon ordered all the troops to take turns to go to Moscow a la maraude [looting] to procure food for themselves, so that the army would be provided for the future.
Religiously, Napoleon ordered ramener les popes [to bring back the priests] and resume ministry in the churches.
In commercial terms and for the food of the army, the following was hung everywhere:
The proclamation
“You, calm Moscow residents, artisans and working people, whom misfortune has removed from the city, and you, scattered farmers, whom unfounded fear still holds in the fields, listen! Silence returns to this very capital, and order is restored in it. Your fellow countrymen come out boldly from their shelters, seeing that they are respected. Any violence committed against them and their property is immediately punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects them and among you he does not regard anyone for his enemies, except for those who disobey his commands. He wants to end your misery and return you to your courts and your families. Conform to his charitable intentions and come to us without any danger. Residents! Return to your homes with confidence: you will soon find ways to meet your needs! Craftsmen and hardworking artisans! Come back to your handicrafts: houses, shops, security guards are waiting for you, and for your work you will receive your due! And you, finally, peasants, come out of the woods, where you hid from horror, return without fear to your huts, in the exact assurance that you will find protection. The storehouses are established in the city, where the peasants can bring their surplus stocks and land plants. The government took the following measures to ensure their free sale: 1) From this date, peasants, farmers and those living in the vicinity of Moscow can safely bring their supplies to the city, of whatever kind, in two designated storage facilities, that is, on Mokhovaya and Okhotny Ryad. 2) These foodstuffs will be bought from them at such a price to which the buyer and seller agree between themselves; but if the seller does not receive the fair price he demanded, then he will be free to take them back to his village, in which no one under any pretext can hinder him. 3) Every Sunday and Wednesday is scheduled weekly for big trading days; why a sufficient number of troops will be stationed on Tuesdays and Saturdays on all the major roads, just enough from the city to defend those transports. 4) Such measures will be taken so that the peasants with their carts and horses will not be hindered on the way back. 5) Immediately the funds will be used to restore normal trading. Citizens of cities and villages, and you, workers and artisans, whatever nation you are! You are called upon to fulfill the paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to contribute with him to the general well-being. Bring respect and trust at his feet and do not hesitate to join us! "
With regard to raising the spirit of the army and the people, reviews were constantly made, awards were handed out. The emperor rode on horseback through the streets and consoled the inhabitants; and, in spite of all the preoccupation with state affairs, he himself visited the theaters established by his order.
With regard to charity, the best valor of the crowned heads, Napoleon also did everything that depended on him. At charitable institutions, he ordered to inscribe Maison de ma mere [House of my mother], combining by this act a tender filial feeling with the greatness of the monarch's virtue. He visited Orphanage and, having allowed the orphans he had saved to kiss his white hands, he graciously talked with Tutolmin. Then, according to the eloquent presentation of Thiers, he ordered to distribute the salaries of his troops with the Russians, made by him, counterfeit money. Relevant l "emploi de ces moyens par un acte digue de lui et de l" armee Francaise, il fit distribuer des secours aux incendies. Mais les vivres etant trop precieux pour etre donnes a des etrangers la plupart ennemis, Napoleon aima mieux leur fournir de l "argent afin qu" ils se fournissent au dehors, et il leur fit distribuer des roubles papiers. [Exalting the use of these measures in an action worthy of him and the French army, he ordered the distribution of benefits to the burned out. But since food supplies were too expensive to give to the people of a foreign land and for the most part hostile, Napoleon thought it best to give them money so that they could get their food on the side; and he ordered them to be endowed with paper rubles.]
Regarding the discipline of the army, orders were incessantly issued to impose strict penalties for non-performance of duty and to stop robbery.

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But the strange thing is, all these orders, worries and plans, which were not at all worse than others issued in similar cases, did not touch the essence of the matter, but, like the hands of the dial in a clock, separated from the mechanism, turned arbitrarily and aimlessly, without grabbing the wheels.
Militarily, the ingenious campaign plan that Thiers speaks of; que son genie n "avait jamais rien imagine de plus profond, de plus habile et de plus admirable [his genius never invented anything deeper, more skillful and more surprising] and about which Thiers, entering into a polemic with Mr. Fen, proves that the drawing up of this ingenious plan should be attributed not to the 4th, but to the 15th of October, this plan was never and could not be carried out, because it had nothing close to reality. The strengthening of the Kremlin, for which it was necessary to tear down la Mosquee [the mosque] (as Napoleon called the Church of St. Basil the Blessed) turned out to be completely useless. The laying of mines under the Kremlin only facilitated the fulfillment of the emperor's desire when leaving Moscow for the Kremlin to be blown up, that is, to beat the floor on which the child was killed. army, which so worried Napoleon, presented an unheard-of phenomenon.The French commanders lost the sixty thousandth Russian army, and only, according to Thiers, art and, it seems, also the genius of Murat managed to find, like a pin, this sixty thousandth Russian army.

Balkhash is like Baikal, only in Central Asia. The same irregular crescent shape, the same dissimilarity of lands on different sides of the lake, the same aspirated "sea" in the terminology of local residents. Balkhash is also famous for the fact that these are actually two lakes - its western half is fresh, and the eastern half is salty. Like Baikal, Balkhash has its own "poisoner", and a much more severe one - the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine, a full cycle copper plant, the second largest in the former USSR after Norilsk. The copper mines of Balkhash, scattered along the northern coast for 250 kilometers, from Kounrad to Sayak, were opened in 1928 by Mikhail Rusakov, and the combine and the city under him were built by prisoners in 1931-37, having been handed over on a turnkey basis. They did not particularly bother with the name: the city was called Balkhash and in 1973 was included in the copper Zhezkazgan region, where it was almost equal to the regional center (100 thousand against 122 thousand). Nowadays 70 thousand people live here (31% are Russians), but despite the loss of a third of the population, Balkhash seemed to me one of the most comfortable and prosperous in Kazakhstan.

About the city, lake and suburbs - another part of the journey through the Great Steppe. And starting from this post instead of "I" will be "we" - a day earlier, in Karaganda, I was joined by d_a_r_k_i_y_a who left Moscow 10 days later than me.

From Karaganda to Balkhash goes night Train, and either we were lucky, or it is always the case here, but the train turned out to be surprisingly civil, approximately at the level of the fast non-branded trains of Russian Railways - and after the Arkalyk and Zhezkazgan clunkers it was the height of comfort! Another day through Balkhash is the Karaganda-Semipalatinsk train, once a week there is a train from Zhezkazgan, but you cannot get to Alma-Ata without a change. Waking up in the morning and leaving the compartment, I saw a green geometric plane outside the window - this is the edge of Betpak-Dala, or the Hungry Steppe. It was not possible to shoot much through the prohibitively dirty windows - here is just a shot with some kind of dull stop (was it not here that Buranny Edigey worked?). There is a problem with the station architecture in Kazakhstan (except for the Tashkent railway) - in principle, it exists only in big cities, during the entire trip I have not seen a single beautiful, but simply remarkable station at small stations:

Half an hour before arrival, the Balkhash people begin to peer into the steppe, waiting for the pipes to appear. This is how the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine looks from the side of the road, and they say that when the wind blows on the city, it smells of sulfur here. On our arrival, unfortunately or fortunately, the wind carried copper fumes to the steppe:

If in Zhezkazgan the railway runs along the southern outskirts, in Balkhash - along the northern. Moreover, within the city there are two stations at once. First - Balkhash-1, aka Old Balkhash - the station of the late 1950s, behind it is a quarter of three-story stalinkas, possibly even pre-war (I could not photograph). The train stops here for 20 minutes:

As I understand it, Balkhash-1 is mainly a freight station, and Old Balkhash serves as a town for railway workers:

Halfway between the two stations - the entrance to the city from the highway, the main national highway Alma-Ata - Astana. The entrance is along an overpass above the railway, the beginning of which is marked by two charming fish, nicknamed by the people Erlan and Nurlan:

And finally, Balkhash-2 station, completely and completely passenger, with a huge and repulsively ugly station of the 1980s. I would venture to suggest that this is the largest station in the Karaganda region, in addition equipped with a high platform. Why exactly here, given the insignificance of traffic, I don’t presume:

The center is about two kilometers from here. For some reason I remembered that the bus station should be near the station, and we went there on foot - the first step was to find out the bus schedule to Sary-Shagan, from where we had a train to Alma-Ata in the evening. We asked for directions from a Kazakh peasant who was passing by, he thought and thought, and then suddenly greeted another peasant who was passing by, clearly a friend, and asked him to accompany us. In 20 minutes of travel, he managed to tell a lot about the vicissitudes of life in Kazakhstan - in general, in the prosperous Balkhash the people are much more nostalgic for the Union than in many much poorer cities. But only when we approached the station and said goodbye to the peasant, we discovered that he was not going here and deviated from the route specifically to see us off.
This is how the microdistricts named after Mukhamedzhanov and Shashubai, located between the station and the bus station, look like (unlike Zhezkazgan and Arkalyk, microdistricts here are not numbered, but nominal) - a Soviet city under the White Sun of the Desert:

A small and very civilian bus station stands opposite the Central Market, and there we learned that there will be three passing buses to Sary-Shagan (about 16, 18 and 21), it will take an hour and a half, tickets upon arrival. From there, minibuses went to the nearest villages - for example, to Kounrad with a giant quarry, or to Shashubai on a peninsula in the middle of a lake. I saw enough of the industry, and we decided to go to Shashubai ... therefore, everything that I will show next, in fact, we examined in the reverse order.
The bazaar separates the bus station from central square Independence, which is adorned by the monument to Agybai-batyr:

For all the medievalness of his appearance, Agybai Konyrbayuly is a character from the 19th century, a comrade-in-arms of Kenesary Khan, with whom he fought against the Russians, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz for the restoration of Kazakh independence, and continued the war for several years after the death of Kenesary - until 1849. When it became clear that the Russians could not be defeated, and most of the Kazakhs did not really want to, he gave up military affairs and, having received something like an amnesty from the tsarist authorities, until 1885 he quietly lived in the distant steppe. Monuments to "fighters against tsarism" in Kazakhstan are quite rare - from the places where I have been, only Uralsk and Atyrau are remembered offhand. Agybai is also immortalized here because he was born on Balkhash and spent his old age.

The square is bordered by Karamende-bi street (you should know who it is), behind which Sotsgorod begins. Opposite the monument to Agybai, Karl Marx Boulevard descends to the lake:

Sotsgorod in the "Malenkovsky" version of Stalinism on Balkhash is colorful. In the quarters on both sides of Marx Boulevard, it is quite monumental and with oriental motives characteristic of Kazakhstan:

And on other streets and courtyards, it is as if you are returning to the 1960s:

It's not even the landscape (the streets are pretty neglected here), but the atmosphere itself - everything is somehow simple, simple, understandable, understandable. As in those dusty books about Soviet pioneers. I am unable to convey this in the photograph - but this feeling became the brightest in Balkhash-city (i.e., not counting the lake):

There are also many artifacts preserved here, which, however, you get used to very quickly in Kazakhstan:

And a characteristic feature of local architecture is such wooden canopies:

Now let's return to Marx Boulevard - its length is about a kilometer, and the high number of storeys, monumentality and well-groomed make it feel like we are in a big city:

The boulevard goes down to Lenin Street (toponymy in Kazakhstan, with the almost complete eradication of the Ilyich monuments, in most cities remained Soviet), behind which there is a really huge Palace of Metallurgists named after Khamzin:

Notable for very good sculptures - pay attention, by the way, to the clearly Kazakh appearance:

Behind the palace is a fairly neglected park, a monument to Mikhal Rusakov, a T-34 tank ...

Victory Memorial (where for some reason we forgot to go) ...

And finally - Balkhash! It is difficult to describe in words the delight that you feel on the shore of the water receding to the horizon after two weeks of wandering across the steppes and deserts, where most of the rivers can be wade, and the "big" Tobol and Ishim are already the Moskva rivers. Here Balkhash is even a larger sea than Baikal in Siberia, rich in water.

From the pier to the right, the pipes of the BMMC are clearly visible, spewing dense smoke, and the lonely rock of Chechenka is not a dump, as it might seem, but an outlier:

Better to look to the left. The dense "sea green" is not a photoshop or a photographic defect, Balkhash is really like this:

From here you can clearly see a rock with ruins of something, a broken pipe and a metal "torch", which I noticed on the way to Shashubai:

And on the way from Shashubai, Darkia and I decided to climb it. It is about 3 kilometers from the center to it, so it is better to go by bus. By the road - this is the sign:

Here the story is more interesting than it seems - initially, in 1931, the village of Pribalkhash arose here, and an experimental processing plant was working on a hill near the lake - its pipe is visible from afar. The copper ore of the Balkhash deposits had a rather specific composition, and here they were looking for a way to extract the metal from it in the most productive way, having received a decent result only by 1935. In parallel, a plant was being built on the other side of the bay, which started operating at full capacity in 1937-38. The need for an enrichment plant disappeared, the inhabitants of the Pribalkhashsky district moved to a social city - so only a pipe and foundations on the slope remained from the factory:

Memorial, on the other hand, opened in 1978, and now is a rather miserable sight. Particularly impressive is the staircase, the steps of which are at a tangible angle to the horizon - that is, apparently it was supported by metal supports, which were then plundered, and now it simply lies on the slope. The feeling of climbing on it is very strange:

But the view from there is amazing! Nowhere else, except perhaps the Katun River in Altai, have I seen water of such a pleasant color. Balkhash just caresses the eye:

Let's look at the city from right to left. Here is the center - DK Metallurgov and the pier. Boats are fishing, departmental and pleasure boats, there has been no passenger navigation on Balkhash for a very long time:

But the late Soviet Balkhash complete with a lake and the smoke of the plant reminds Mariupol a lot:

And finally, the Balkhash mining and metallurgical plant itself, stretched along the peninsula for 4 kilometers. A rather rare case is a full-cycle copper plant (and as you know, the copper production cycle is very complicated), and I think it is the largest plant in all of Kazakhstan. About a third of all investments in the industry of the Kazakh SSR were allocated for its construction in the 1930s:

Chechen Mountain. Most of the plant is rather squat workshops, so it is difficult to assess its true scale from afar, it is best seen on the map, surpassing the city itself:

Another feature: if in Russia the largest copper deposits are mainly copper-nickel, then on Balkhash - copper-molybdenum. And molybdenum is, firstly, an irreplaceable metal, secondly, very expensive (about $ 32 thousand per ton), and thirdly, in the former USSR it is in short supply - more than half of the reserves and production are in the USA. In the Soviet Union, the largest molybdenum deposit was in Armenia, here production was established in 1942 - like manganese in Zhezdy, not from a good life: the Nazis cut off the railway to the Caucasus.

In general, there is a lot of everything in copper ore - lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel, arsenic ... Copper metallurgy is the dirtiest industry (examples are Nickel, Karabash), and here it can be seen with the naked eye:

So we'd better not look at the plant anymore. To the left is the Tooth Peninsula. Although Balkhash is located on the Bertys bay between two larger peninsulas, locals know only it as a "peninsula".

And what kind of hill in the distance, I never figured it out:

At the exit from the Bertys Bay there is a long and low Green Island:

We ourselves are at the beginning of a large peninsula on east side bay Bertys. There is its end - the village of Rembaza is located on the cape, where buses run every 2-3 hours, but we went to Shashubai - it is also on this peninsula, but (relative to the frame) to the left, and faces the open lake:

And here we are on the shore - a wave is splashing, seagulls are screaming ... Behind is a dusty steppe. Now I regret that I did not taste the water - I was afraid of some kind of infection. As already mentioned, in fact, Balkhash is two lakes that are separated by the Saryesik peninsula and the Uzun-Aral strait: Western Balkhash is 58% of the area, Eastern - 54% of the volume. Balkhash separates the endless steppes of Sary-Arka and Betpak-Dala on the one hand - and Semirechye on the other, and as the name implies, all rivers flow into it from the south. In the east, these are small Ayagoz, Lepsy, Aksu and Karatal, and in the west - the huge Ili by Kazakh standards. But nothing follows from Balkhash - this is the largest in the world closed lake... To some extent, the Uzun-Aral is also a river, along which water from the fresh Western Balkhash continuously flows into the salty Eastern Balkhash, which leaves only in the form of steam. So, why about "taste the taste" - although it is indicated everywhere that Western Balkhash is fresh, the locals told us in the evening that the water here is salty. In general, with an area of \u200b\u200b18 thousand square kilometers (almost half the size of Lake Baikal) and a length of 604 kilometers, Balkhash is the 13th largest lake on the Earth and the 2nd in the former USSR (after Lake Baikal, as well as the untimely dried Aral Sea, which used to be larger than both). But the depth did not come out - no more than 26 meters, and on average 5-6 meters.

We walked a little around Shashubai - a dusty aul or a suburb with extremely annoying dogs and quite urban, but no less extremely curious inhabitants:

For some reason we decided to walk along the lake, stumbled upon a small industrial zone and began to try to bypass it, for which we climbed straight along the red coastal rocks:

At some point it became clear that there was no further going, but almost a staircase led upward. We crawled out into some kind of closed area, a wasteland behind barbed wire, and I remembered a well-known folk omen that driving tied up in the trunk at night is a big trouble. However, apparently, the industrial zone is abandoned, and the thorn is a relic:

48.

(this and the next photo are by Darkia)

We passed another hill - and we got this view, calm and majestic. We found a secluded rock and talked for a long time. I didn't want to leave: a moist warm wind, the splash and shine of waves - peace ...

And the landscapes here are completely different than even near Zhezkazgan. This is already real Central Asia, dusty and hot semi-desert. On which we went back to the city, on the way we filmed a characteristic Kazakh cemetery, about which there was a separate post. This is how the city looks from the steppe, and the plant here seems nothing more than an eerie mirage:

And in the city we went to the bazaar, bought kurt and shubat there. Kurt are small balls of hard and dry salted cottage cheese, very satisfying, and therefore a favorite food of nomads. Shubat is even cooler than kumis, a fermented milk drink made from camel milk. The barmaid girl, before pouring, shook the 10-liter can properly (a good shubat should be foamy), and when she turned the lid, there was a natural explosion: the lid ricocheted away through the entire room, and the girl was tangibly hit on the hand. After that we joked about the bottle of shubat: "Don't drop it - it will explode!" By bus, we went to the Sary-Shagan station, from where, completely unscheduled, we got to Priozersk - the "capital" of the Sary-Shagan missile range. But more on that in the next part.

My other posts about Kazakhstan -

Balkhash is like Baikal, only in Central Asia. The same irregular crescent shape, the same dissimilarity of lands on different sides of the lake, the same aspirated "sea" in terminology local residents... Balkhash is also famous for the fact that these are actually two lakes - its western half is fresh, and the eastern half is salty. Like Baikal, Balkhash has its own "poisoner", and a much more severe one - the Balkhash mining and metallurgical plant, a full-cycle copper plant, the second largest in the former USSR after Norilsk. The copper mines of Balkhash, scattered along the northern coast for 250 kilometers, from Kounrad to Sayak, were opened in 1928 by Mikhail Rusakov, and the combine and the city under him were built by prisoners in 1931-37, having been handed over on a turnkey basis. They did not particularly bother with the name: the city was called Balkhash and in 1973 was included in the copper Zhezkazgan region, where it was almost equal to the regional center (100 thousand against 122 thousand). Nowadays 70 thousand people live here (31% are Russians), but despite the loss of a third of the population, Balkhash seemed to me one of the most comfortable and prosperous in Kazakhstan.

There is a night train from Karaganda to Balkhash, and either we were lucky, or it is always the case here, but the train turned out to be surprisingly civil, about the level of the fast non-branded trains of the Russian Railways - and after the Arkalyk and Zhezkazgan clunkers, it was the height of comfort! Another day through Balkhash is the Karaganda-Semipalatinsk train, once a week there is a train from Zhezkazgan, but you cannot get to Alma-Ata without a change. Waking up in the morning and leaving the compartment, I saw a green geometric plane outside the window - this is the edge of Betpak-Dala, or the Hungry Steppe. It was not possible to shoot much through the prohibitively dirty windows - here is just a shot with some kind of dull stop (was it not here that Buranny Edigey worked?). There is a problem with the station architecture in Kazakhstan (except for the Tashkent railway) - in principle, it exists only in big cities, during the entire trip I have not seen a single beautiful, but simply remarkable station at small stations:

Half an hour before arrival, the Balkhash people begin to peer into the steppe, waiting for the pipes to appear. This is how the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine looks from the side of the road, and they say that when the wind blows on the city, it smells of sulfur. On our arrival, unfortunately or fortunately, the wind carried copper fumes to the steppe:

As I understand it, Balkhash-1 is mainly a freight station, and Old Balkhash serves as a town for railway workers:

A small and very civilized bus station stands opposite Central Market, and there we learned that there will be three passing buses to Sary-Shagan (about 16, 18 and 21), it will take an hour and a half, tickets upon arrival. From there, minibuses went to the nearest villages - for example, to Kounrad with a giant quarry, or to Shashubai on a peninsula in the middle of a lake. I saw enough of the industry, and we decided to go to Shashubai ... therefore, everything that I will show next, in fact, we examined in the reverse order.
The bazaar separates the bus station from the central Independence Square, which is decorated with a monument to Agybai-batyr:

For all the medievalness of his appearance, Agybai Konyrbayuly is a character from the 19th century, a comrade-in-arms of Kenesary Khan, with whom he fought against the Russians, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz for the restoration of Kazakh independence, and continued the war for several years after the death of Kenesary - until 1849. When it became clear that the Russians could not be defeated, and most of the Kazakhs did not really want to, he gave up military affairs and, having received something like an amnesty from the tsarist authorities, until 1885 he quietly lived in the distant steppe. Monuments to "fighters against tsarism" in Kazakhstan are quite rare - from the places where I have been, only and are immediately recalled. Agybai is also immortalized here because he was born on Balkhash and spent his old age.