Rumblings From The Heart Of The Steppe

Zhezkazgan is located in the center of the most desolate region of the Kazakh steppe. It is about equidistant between the larger cities of Karaganda (511km by road ENE) and Kyzylorda (428km SSW). Zhezkazgan and its smaller neighbor Satpaev owe every ounce of their existence to the discovery of copper many years ago. If, as rumored, the copper runs out in the near future and the Kazakhmys corporation leaves, the future looks very bleak. If no economic alternative can be found, Zhezkazgan will suffer from crippling unemployment and will face a mass exodus of its population. In 30 years it is possible that Zhezkazgan will exist only as a ghostly village trapped in the withered shell of a city designed to house up to the 150,000 people of its heydey. Zhezkazgan is currently home to only about 100,000 people; it has already been slowly bleeding population. However, all is not yet lost. Everybody in the city is keenly aware of an ominous future looming just beyond the horizon even if some prefer not to talk about it. Some way, somehow, a solution may be found.



I have a map of Karagandinskaya Oblast – the center of Kazakhstan – which makes Zhezkazgan's isolation even more clear. The Ulytauski region, which includes the entire western quarter of the oblast except for Zhezkazgan and Satpaev, can claim only 16,600 inhabitants spread throughout a handful of tiny villages. You could leave Zhezkazgan in almost any direction and travel for hundreds of miles without seeing any sign of human existance. There's a reason why the Soviets built their Baikonur space facility nearby.

In such isolation, it's become easy to equate life in my city with the rest of country. If that's a mistake in any country, it's doubly so in Kazakhstan. The climate, geography, ethnicity, language of choice, and even some major cultural characteristics can vary wildly from region to region. It's essential to travel – judging Kazakhstan from life in Zhezkazgan or in a village would be just as silly as drawing conclusions about the country from a comfortable perch in Almaty or Astana. That's why I was glad to get out of town and spend a few days in Karaganda.

Karaganda is the capital of our oblast and feels like a whole different world. Regional capitals in Central Asian countries are not often labelled cosmopolitan, but it's all relative. To be fair, Karaganda is the fourth largest city in Kazakhstan. It was built on the back of the coal mining industry and housed an enormous gulag under Stalin's rule, which explains the large numbers of Volga Germans who once lived here (the Kazakh SSR served as the dumping grounds for many internal Soviet – and even Czarist – exiles, but most Germans have left after independence). It's also centrally located in the Kazakh railway, which is the lifeblood of the transportation system here. Because of the complete dearth of human existence in the center of Kazakhstan, there's not always any easy way to navigate across the country. All things considered, Karaganda is where I would want to be based if I had to visit every Peace Corps volunteer in the country bearing in mind there are none in the far west. That's why it was a convenient place for volunteers to reunite, relax, and vent for a little while.

My sitemate Drew and I decided to do it the hard way and took the bus to Karaganda, a decision that required us to ignore the strenuously expressed advice of every local we knew. Despite apparently being the only two people to buy tickets for the 8pm bus and being bumped, the 10pm bus was sold out and crammed. At 5'11” I'm not exactly Gheorghe Muresan, but Kazakh men trend on the shorter side and the seats were built accordingly. There's no limit to how far seats can lean back on the bus, which makes for an unfortunate bus ride when combined with the fact that common courtesy in public settings is a poorly understood concept in this country. The contrast between the enormous hospitality of the home, and the brusque indifference shown on the streets is stunning at times. Needless to stay, we didn't sleep much. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience if only to see the numbing emptiness of the icy road. Bumping along at the most frightening 55mph of my life, the headlights illuminated the wind-whipped snow screaming across the two lanes in strange patterns. Save for a few darkened towns, the only sign of life was the occasional snow rabbit scurrying for safety.



Even though the bus saved us about five hours, we took the train back. It was worth the extra $5.