Semey

[sem-ey; Russ. syi-mey]

Semey or Semipalatinsk, city (1993 est. pop. 342,000), capital of Semey region, NE Kazakhstan, on the Irtysh River and the Turkistan-Siberia RR. It is a river port, rail terminus, and commercial center, with large freight depots for river and rail transport. Semey has a giant meatpacking combine; other industries include food processing, metal working, wool processing, and the manufacture of building materials. The name Semipalatinsk [seven palaces] derives from the seven-halled Buddhist temple found nearby. Beginning as a fort in 1718, the city was finally established on its present site in 1778 after flooding by the Irtysh necessitated periodic movement of the fort. During the 19th cent. the city was a center for trade between Russians and the Kyrgyz, Bukharans, and Chinese; it also lay on the caravan route from Mongolia to Europe. Dostoyevsky was exiled here from 1854 to 1859.

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Semey

formerly (until 1991) Semipalatinsk

Port city (pop., 1999: 269,600) on the Irtysh (Ertis) River, eastern Kazakhstan. It was founded as a Russian fort in 1718 and was moved to its present site in 1778, at the junction of caravan trails; before 1917 more than 11,000 camels passed through the city annually. In the early 20th century it was connected by rail to Siberia and other parts of Central Asia. It has one of the largest meat-packing plants in Kazakhstan. Its name was changed after Kazakhstan attained independence in 1991.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Semey

Semey (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.

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.

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.

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.