East Kazakhstan is the territory which connects South Siberia and the Altai region with Semirechie and Middle Asia. Because of its geographical position it has always played a very important role in the historical development of the tribes and people of the steppe belt of Western Asia. Its history is long. Archeological researchers testify to the archeological fact that the region has been settled since great antiquity. Traces of prehistoric habitations are still found in Altai.

The first traces of a man can be dated to the Middle Stone Age. The first inhabitants of the upper Irtysh were ancient hunters for mammoths, rhinoceroses, and bison. The most important and progressive trade for the andronovskij tribes was mining and metallurgy. They mined about 10,000 tons of bronze per year. Even this small quantity made East Kazakhstan one of the largest centers of metallurgy in Middle Asia and Eastern Europe.
In the eighth century B.C.E there was a very important change in the life of the tribes living in the territory of the region. They adopted a nomadic lifestyle. Since such time the epoque of saki-very powerful tribes-began.

Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries there grew cities and towns on the banks of the Irtysh. The Great Silk Road, which crossed the territory of the region, was of considerable importance to the development of the material culture of the tribes. In the fifteenth century all the Kazakh tribes united into the Kazakh State. The first part of the eighteenth century historically was called "the years of the great disaster." It was a time when the Kazakh people suffered with the Jungarian aggression (Jungarians were the neighbor tribes living in the territory which is now modern China and Mongolia). The other neighbor of the Kazakh tribes was the Russian State, which by that time became interested in relations with the Kazakh State and the states of Middle Asia. It was then that the Kazakh leaders appealed to the Russian czars for protection and support. From thence the long history of Kazakh-Russian relations and friendship began.

In 1718, Vasilij Cheredovoi, an envoy of the Russian tzar Peter the Great, founded the fortress Semipalatnaya (today called Semipalatinsk) over the ruins of a Jungarian monastery-fortress. In 1720, a mayor of the army of Peter the Great founded the fortress Ust-Kamenogorsk (the present day city.) For many decades Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk were the main centers of trade for the region. The trade routes from Russia to Middle Asia, China and Mongolia all crossed here.

The first colonists of the region were Cossacks (not to be confused with Kazakhs) who were the stronghold of the power of the Russian Empire spreading over this territory. Cossacks are a special social group of Russian origin; most of them were indentured servants though ran away in order to win their freedom.

On the basis of the decree of the Senate of 1760 and 1762, the Russian government exiled peasants from the Russian provinces, including convicts and political prisoners. At the end of the nineteenth century when the Great Siberian Railroad had been constructed a mass migration started. Little by little the migrants from Russia's central provinces settled on the banks of the Irtysh and in the Belagach steppe. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Kazakhs gradually abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and began to settle in the developing towns and cities.

The treasures of the Altai defined the intense development of the mining industry. The most famous deposits of polymetal ores were exploited in the nineteenth century, among them the Ziryanovsk deposit, the Ridder deposit, and the Belousov deposit.

The treasures, the landscapes, the vegetable kingdom and the fauna have attracted the attention of many famous Russian and foreign scientists for the last three centuries. Among them, S.P.Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii, N.Przhevalskii, G.Potanin, A.Gumboldt, G.Spasskii, and A.Brem.

The history of East Kazakhstan is in close connection with the history of the former USSR and Russia. It went through the revolutions of 1905-1907, 1917, through the Civil War, and Stalin's repression between 1930 and the 1950s. During the Great Patriotic War, East-Kazakhstan supplied the battlefront with lead, cooper, cadmium, tin, metal antimony and other metals, which were extremely needed to produce ammunition and arms. Production of non-ferrous metals production grew 250 percent in those years. Together with other republics of the Soviet Union the region fought against fascism and built up socialism.

During the period from 1947 to 1989, about 500 nuclear explosions were carried out in the the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing area. While searching for the place for nuclear testing area. In 1947, the decision was made to settle it in the Kazakhstan steppe near Semipalatinsk. The regionwas spacious, not large in population, and a long distance from the center of the country; but at the same time, the full-flowing Irtysh river, railways, motor roads and an airport were close by. The explosions caused great damage to the health of many thousands people as well as to the environment. In 1991, due to the efforts of the international movement "Nevada-Semipalatinsk," this nuclear testing area was closed. By the President's Decree of 1997, the Semipalatinsk region was eliminated and included into the structure of the East Kazakhstan region.
Since 1991, Kazakhstan has been an independent state and East Kazakhstan takes an active part in its political, social and economic life.

 

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