Karaganda is located in the central part of the Great Steppe of Kazakhstan. It is one of the largest single-industry towns of the former USSR, rich in monuments of Soviet architecture and partly retaining the visual atmosphere of a socialist city, lost these days even in the recognized capital of Kazakhstani modernism - Alma-Ata. In addition, in post-Soviet folklore, this is one of the most popular locations, so do not deny yourself the pleasure of answering "in Karaganda!" to the question "where have you been?" The Karaganda region, the center of which is Karaganda, is distinguished by the diversity of the national composition of the population. First of all, this is due to the fact that in the Soviet years, Karaganda was not only a place of exile, but also one of the coal mining centers of the country, where specialists from all over the Union flocked. As a result, about a dozen "non-native" nationalities now live here, of which, in addition to Russians and Ukrainians and Belarusians culturally dissolved in the Russian community, one can especially note the Germans, whose 30-thousand Karaganda community is the largest German community in Kazakhstan and has a strong influence on the politics, culture and economy of the city. Kazakhs in the region make up slightly more than half of the population, but in Karaganda itself their share is not so large (about 45%), even taking into account the strong outflow of the non-Kazakh population in the 1990s and 2000s and the state-sponsored resettlement of ethnic Kazakhs to the city, including from abroad. As a result, from a national point of view, Karaganda can be called a "Russian city with a German slant": here almost everyone speaks Russian fluently and even many Kazakhs use it in everyday life more often than their native language.
Since the Middle Ages, several nomadic Kazakh clans lived in the
steppes of central Kazakhstan. According to legend, in 1833, a local boy
from the village of Maikudyk discovered an open coal seam, so from 1856,
geological surveys and open-pit coal mining were carried out here at the
instigation of the Petropavlovsk merchant Ushakov. In 1904, the
successful deposit was bought by the son of the President of France,
Jean-Claude Jarno, and then repeatedly changed hands, eventually
securing ownership in 1907 for English industrialists. In 1906, 62
families from the central Russian and Ukrainian provinces were resettled
in these places under the Stolypin agrarian reform, founding the village
of Mikhailovka, and later several more settlements. In 1908, a
40-kilometer narrow-gauge railway Karaganda - Spassk appeared. During
the civil war, mining was almost completely curtailed and this forced
English companies to leave Karaganda in 1920, all developments were
mothballed. Coal mining was resumed in 1929. At the same time, the
construction of residential microdistricts in Maikuduk and Prishakhtinsk
began for the arriving workers and specialists. At the same time, one of
the largest camps of the GULAG system, KarLag, began operating near the
city, conceived to provide food for the developing coal-industrial
basin. At first, mainly dispossessed peasants were exiled here, but soon
enough, representatives of the cultural and scientific intelligentsia
began to be sent to Karaganda. Already at the beginning of 1931, about
15 thousand people lived here, so the mining settlement was transformed
into a workers' settlement, with a separate workers' council. Karaganda
continued to grow extremely rapidly and by the end of the year it had
reached the mark of 70 thousand residents, so the Kazakh Central
Executive Committee issued a decree on assigning it city status. The
status was approved by the Presidium of the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee only on February 10, 1934, more than 2 years later,
when the population of Karaganda exceeded 100 thousand. At this time,
the first construction boom unfolded in the city, the first brick
buildings appeared in the Old City, many of which were designed by
Leningrad and Moscow architects, a tram appeared in the city. In 1937,
construction began on the New City south of the Old City, near the
village of Mikhailovka. Three years later, it was decided to move the
center there and to dig up the Old City with mines - it turned out that
the largest coal mines were located right under it. True, almost
immediately, due to the beginning of the war, the construction was
stopped. In 1938, the camp system was supplemented by another facility:
the Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland (or, for
short, ALZHIR) was opened. Since the late 1930s, Karaganda has become
one of the places where a large number of people were sent based on
their nationality: Greeks, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Koreans,
Germans and many others were exiled here. In the second half of the
1940s, several camps for Japanese and German prisoners of war who
participated in the construction of the city also appeared here.
The 1950s were marked, on the one hand, by the continuation of the
construction of the New City: it was then that the pearls of Karaganda's
Stalinist Empire style appeared. On the other hand, there was a massive
reduction in the camp system and the release of prisoners. Linguists
attribute the appearance of the catchphrase "Where, where... In
Karaganda!" to approximately this period, which sounded like an answer
to the question "Where were you during the Great Patriotic War?" and the
like. At the same time, many of the prisoners and exiled settlers,
including members of the intelligentsia, remained in Karaganda, which,
coupled with the continued development of the city as a mining center,
gave a powerful impetus to the development of local culture. In the
1950s-1970s, several theater groups were formed here, local branches of
the Writers' Union and the Artists' Union were opened, and architectural
and construction bureaus appeared: "Karaganda Grazhdanproekt" and
"Karaganda Promstroyproekt", which were engaged in the design of civil
and industrial buildings, respectively, and largely determined the
architectural and planning appearance of the city. At the same time, the
development of virgin lands began, the center of which, along with
Tselinograd, also became Karaganda. This gave another wave of influx of
non-Kazakh (mainly Russian and Ukrainian, less often Belarusian and
Lithuanian) population to Karaganda and the surrounding areas, which
also settled in previously uninhabited territories.
By the
collapse of the Soviet Union, Karaganda was the second most populous
city in Kazakhstan after Alma-Ata, but since the 1990s it has been
rapidly losing ground, giving way to the rapidly growing Astana and
Shymkent in the early 2000s, and in 2019 to Aktobe, thus falling to
fifth place. This was due to the rapid outflow of non-titular population
from the newly independent republics, which hit many “international”
single-industry towns in the republics hard after the collapse of the
USSR, such as Tkvarcheli in Abkhazia, Khujand in Tajikistan, Sillamae in
Estonia and many others.
Karaganda is located in the northern part of the Great Steppes of
Kazakhstan and is the center of the Karaganda region. The landscape of
Karaganda is mostly flat, in the vicinity there are several dozen small
mountain ranges, the largest of which are Ku, Karkaraly and Kent,
150-250 kilometers to the east of the city. The city is located in a
relatively arid region, of the large bodies of water here are mainly
reservoirs and ponds on the site of flooded open workings, so there are
few places to swim here.
Currently, Karaganda itself has two main
areas: the Center (aka "New City" or simply "City"), where the majority
of attractions, the largest shopping centers, railway and bus stations
are located; and the South-East - a residential area consisting of panel
high-rise buildings and a number of new buildings, where most of the
city's population lives. These two areas are separated by an industrial
zone located along the railway and a private development called
Kirzavod. From the west, these areas are adjoined by the settlements of
Fyodorovka and Mikhailovka, which were once separate settlements, and
are now part of the city, while retaining most of the blocks of private
and low-rise buildings and giving way to panel houses only in the blocks
adjacent to the Center. To the north of the Center is the Old City - the
place where the center of Karaganda was until the 1950s. Alas, at the
moment it has been almost completely demolished, and what has not been
demolished is abandoned and falling into disrepair. In addition, there
are several coal mines here and if you are not interested in the coal
mining industry, there is nothing to do here. But the presence of the
Old City made it possible to legally include three more microdistricts
into Karaganda, which are essentially separate cities - Prishakhtinsk,
Sortirovka and Maikuduk. All three were built during the Soviet era and
are of virtually no interest to travelers, serving as sleeping areas of
this metropolis that is quite spread out across the map.
Most of modern Karaganda was built up since the late 1940s, so there
are no very old buildings from the period of "classical" architecture.
Nevertheless, the local buildings have their own charm: the backbone of
the 1950s buildings in the late Soviet period was supplemented by many
interesting works of local modernist architects. Of course, in terms of
the number of modernist buildings, Karaganda is far from Alma-Ata, St.
Petersburg or Moscow, but if the first suffered greatly from the latest
reconstructions, and the last two have an impressive collection of
architecture from other periods, obscuring modernism, then Karaganda has
remained a kind of modernist reserve, definitely worth a visit for those
who are hooked by this style.
One of the "calling cards" of
Karaganda can well be considered the Soviet signs on the roofs of
buildings: if in most cities of the former Soviet Union they are most
often destroyed, and the few remaining are in a deplorable state, then
here almost all of them remained intact, and some were even repaired. In
addition to this, the city has several mosaics, which are also
maintained in decent condition by local authorities.
1 Palace of
Culture of Miners, Bukhar Zhyrau Ave., 32 (bus stop "Palace of Culture
of Miners" buses 1, 26, 33, 41, 43, 44, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107, 121, 122,
127, 145 and 165). ☎ +7 (7212) 41-01-95 (ticket office). Mon–Fri
9:00–18:00; lunch break 13:00–14:00. The Palace of Culture building is
the main monument of Stalinist Empire style in Karaganda, founded in
1940 and built for 12 years: the implementation of the complex and
expensive project had to be interrupted during the Great Patriotic War.
The symmetrical three-volume composition of the building is decorated on
the façade with octagonal columns, extending from the wall and
complemented by socialist realist statues on top. The interior
decoration is more reminiscent of the palaces of ancient rulers: the
ticket hall is separated from the foyer by an openwork ganch wall with
silhouettes of dancers, the stairs are finished with marble and have
bronze railings, carpets hang on the walls, and the ceiling is painted.
2 "House-accordion", st. Ermekova, 52 (bus stops "Vokzal", "TD Yuzhny"
or "45 quarter" buses 1, 26, 33, 41, 43, 44, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107, 121,
122, 127, 145 and 165). Although the 13-entrance building is one of the
largest in Karaganda, it does not stand out for this. On the roof of the
"accordion" part of the building is the inscription "Karaganda exemplary
order high culture", which is one of the last examples of such
propaganda preserved from Soviet times. The inscription is located near
the station, which made it a popular object for photography - it is much
more original than the typical "I love ..." designs, but allows you to
clearly identify the place in the photo.
3 Trading house "Dream",
avenue Nurken Abadirov, 26 (bus stop "Magazin Mechta", buses 40, 53 and
55). A typical 9-storey block residential building with retail space on
the 1st floor. Of interest is the bilingual sign of the fabric store
"Dream", which was here until the 90s, and the mosaic panel "Family" on
the end wall on the eastern side.
4 "1000 melochey", avenue Nurken
Abadirov, 15 (bus stop "1000 melochey", buses 40, 53, 55 and 118). A
store of various household goods, dating back to Soviet times, is
located on the first floor of a 9-story residential building, designed
by an original local architectural bureau (there are three such
buildings in the city, all located nearby). This building stands out
because a sign was erected for the store on the roof, which has survived
to this day.
5 Yubileiny supermarket, Nurken Abdirov Avenue, 38 (bus
stop "Yubileiny store", buses 7, 49 and 53). Another residential
building with an original design - in addition to the Soviet store sign
on the roof, the end of the building is decorated with a mosaic panel
"Man in Space".
6 Karaganda consumer services center (Trading house
"Asem"), Avenue. Bukhar-Zhyrau, 55 (bus stop "TD Abzal/TSUM", buses 1,
33, 41, 43, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107, 121, 122, 127, 145, 165 and 500A). ☎ +7
(7212) 42‒52‒57. Mon–Sat 10:00–20:00; Sun 11:00–19:00. By 1980, the
shortage of public services facilities had become an acute problem in
Karaganda. The fact is that the miners' salaries were higher than the
average for the republic, and therefore Karaganda residents spent even
more in such establishments than in the capital: 30 rubles per person
per month versus 24 rubles in Alma-Ata. Therefore, a new building was
added to the existing two-story building, mostly also two-story, but
with an eight-story superstructure designed in the form of a ship.
Moreover, unlike the capital, there was even a hall for fashion shows!
Nowadays, the two-story part is finished with a ventilated facade,
surrounded by similar faceless commercial buildings and divided into
small establishments, but the "ship of the steppe" still towers over the
city.
In addition, Karaganda has several noteworthy religious
buildings. And if the local mosques do not stand out much against the
general Kazakhstan background, then the presence of Catholic churches is
at least unusual for a country divided between Islam and Orthodoxy.
7 Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary of Fatima, 32 Shakhterov
Ave. (bus stop “12 Months”, buses 5, 19, 41, 43, 49, 53, 56 and 70).
Mon–Sat 8:00–19:00; Sun 11:00–18:00. The Catholic cathedral, built in
the 2000s, is the largest such structure in Kazakhstan, built with the
direct blessing of the Holy See in the Vatican. It was built in the
neo-Gothic style, extremely rare for Kazakhstan; a Sunday school
building in the collegiate Gothic style was added to the church. The
interior of the cathedral is extremely rich: the hall with 18 columns is
decorated with sculptures, and stained glass windows are installed in
the windows. Entrance is free during the church's opening hours, but
outside of service hours you can only get into a kind of "dressing room"
fenced off with bars, which, however, do not interfere with viewing the
interior. The cathedral is practically a must-see — without it, the
impression of Karaganda will be incomplete.
8 Basilica of St. Joseph,
Maikuduk, Yntymak Street, 24 (bus stop "Polyclinic (Karl Marx Street)"
buses 5, 26, 40, 43, 44, 53, 56 and 69). ☎ +7 (7212) 37-13-74. 10:00 -
19:00. Maikuduk is a district of compact residence of the German
community of Karaganda since the 1930s. Around the same time, various
exiled priests attempted to create a Catholic parish here, which
encountered active opposition from the Soviet authorities. In 1977, on a
wave of relaxations in relation to religious organizations, the Catholic
community of Karaganda was registered and began building a church on the
territory acquired for this purpose. The consecration of the basilica
took place in June 1980, in 2011 the building underwent major repairs
and was completed with a second floor and a bell tower, planned in the
original project, but not permitted for construction by the Soviet
authorities. The parish is still active today, and the basilica, at the
junction of neo-Gothic and Soviet modernism, has had the status of the
cathedral of the Karaganda Apostolic Administration since 1991.
As a model socialist city, in addition to its architectural content,
Karaganda has an impressive number of various sculptures and other
monuments that vividly tell about the history and cultural background of
the city: here are both the monuments to Pushkin and Gogol, which are
practically standard for Russian cities, a monument to space exploration
and memorials to the Great Patriotic War, inherited from the Soviet era,
as well as more modern sculptures of Kazakh cultural figures,
politicians and heroes. The most numerous minorities of the region were
not neglected either: Germans and Koreans; they paid tribute to the love
of the city's residents for the theater by erecting monuments to
Stanislavsky and Seifullin in front of the theaters named after them. In
addition, in the city and its environs there are several memorials in
memory of miners who died in major accidents in the mines. It is
interesting that a significant part of the city's sculptures were made
by two local sculptors - Yuri Gummel and Anatoly Bilyk. This is typical
most often for small settlements with a couple of monuments, while
Karaganda is huge, and the number of monuments is several dozen.
9 Sculptural group "Miner's Glory", Bukhar Zhyrau Avenue (opposite the
Palace of Miners' Culture, bus stop "Palace of Miners' Culture" bus. 1,
26, 33, 41, 43, 44, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107, 121, 122, 127, 145 and 165).
Socialist realist monument, erected in 1974 in honor of the extraction
of 2 million tons of coal in the Karaganda basin. Since its
installation, the monument, depicting two miners holding a piece of coal
over their heads, has become one of the symbols of the city, replicated
in the official press and souvenirs. Fountains are installed on both
sides of the monument, which, together with the fountains in front of
the Palace of Culture, create a single urban ensemble.
10 Monument to
Viktor Tsoi, Narmanbet Tolepov Street (in front of house 6, bus stop
"Stadium" buses 45, 55 and 73). The monument was installed in 2017 on
the initiative of the Kazakh-Korean Friendship Foundation according to
the design of the young sculptor Dmitry Bykov. The monument has an
original idea: to see the musician's face in the circle of a solar
eclipse (the same as on the cover of the album "A Star Called the Sun"),
you need to choose a certain angle - otherwise the viewer will see the
image crooked.
11 Monument to Heinrich Vogeler, Yerubayev Street (in
front of house 22). Heinrich Vogeler is an artist, one of the
representatives of Art Nouveau, popular in Germany at the beginning of
the 20th century. He was a member of the Communist Party of Germany,
worked in the USSR. Due to the National Socialists coming to power, he
was forced to remain in the Soviet Union, where he continued to paint.
In 1941, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, as a German, he
was deported to the Karaganda region, where he died in 1942, the exact
place of his burial is unknown. In 1999, a bust of the artist was
installed in front of the building of the German Cultural Center.
12 Lenin Monument, Abay Street (in the park behind house 61/1, the
Lenin Cinema). The monumental granite block sculpture is the largest
granite monument to Lenin in the former USSR, weighing more than 200
tons. It was created under the supervision of the German-Soviet sculptor
Yuri Gummel, who received the State Prize for this, and was installed in
1970 at the intersection of Sovetsky Prospekt (now Bukhar-Zhyrau) and
40th Anniversary of Kazakhstan Street (now Alikhanov). After Kazakhstan
gained independence, the monument experienced several acts of vandalism,
but survived, largely due to the efforts of local communists. In 2010,
the monument was sawn up and moved to its current location, and a stele
was built on the old one in honor of the 20th anniversary of
Kazakhstan's independence.
13. Monument to Nurken Abdirov, Bukhar-Zhyrau
Avenue (Nurken Abdirov Avenue Boulevard). Nurken Abdirov was a Soviet
pilot who, in 1943, repeated the feat of Gastello and directed a damaged
plane into a cluster of enemy armored vehicles. He was awarded the title
Hero of the Soviet Union and various honors, one of which was the
installation of a monument in Karaganda in 1958. It is quite unusually
executed: the pilot is depicted at the moment of directing a burning
plane into the ground. At the same time, the sculptors gave him a pose
more typical of breaking in a wild horse: with his right hand he holds
the steering wheel, engulfed in flames, and holds his left hand in the
air, as if balancing on the back of a wild stallion. In the 1980s, the
typical cylindrical granite pedestal was replaced with an inclined one
made of marble, which vividly complemented the picture of a diving
plane.
14 Monument to the Conquerors of Space, Lenin Street
(Shalkyma Square, from Yerubayev Street). A relatively young, but quite
original monument, erected in 2011 in honor of the 50th anniversary of
the first manned flight into space. In the center of the composition
stands a sculpture of Yuri Gagarin in a spacesuit, surrounded by the
orbits of the planets, and next to it, like a dominant shifted to the
right, rises the trail of a rocket, taking off towards the star crowning
the composition.
15 Arman railway station (Karaganda children's railway), Michurin
street, 1/5 (bus stop "Meduchilische" buses 7, 33, 41, 121 and 165). In
1956, another trend of the Soviet era reached Karaganda - a children's
railway was opened in the city, for which 1800 meters of track were laid
with two turning triangles and wooden stations in the Stalinist Empire
style at the Komsomolskaya and Pionerskaya stations. In the 80s, the
road grew due to the construction of a loop after Pionerskaya with a
station near the zoo, but after that the road gradually began to
decline: in the 1990s, Pionerskaya was closed, traffic stopped several
times, and in 2001 the road was removed from the balance sheet of
Kazakhstan Railways. From that moment on, the railway operated very
sporadically, as an attraction, and no training of young railway workers
was conducted on it. In 2022, another renaissance of the Children's
Railway took place: in the spring, children's training was resumed on
the railway, and by summer the railway itself was decorated in the style
of the Hogwarts Express from the Harry Potter books. For this, the
surviving Stalinist station of Arman station (former Komsomolskaya) was
repaired and decorated, and the diesel locomotive and carriages were
repainted in the appropriate style. How long it will operate in this
form is unknown, but for now the road has extremely good prospects.
16 Steam locomotive-monument El-692, Prishakhtinsk, ul. Iskry, 26
(Depot of Rasporyaditelnaya station). An ordinary steam
locomotive-monument, of which there are hundreds, if not for one “but”:
El-692 is the oldest surviving steam locomotive in Kazakhstan, built in
1917 at the Lugansk Steam Locomotive Plant. Access to the locomotive is
free, although no transport even comes close. So getting to the monument
will not be an easy task.
17 BMP-2 monument, Mikhailovka, Saken
Seifullin Avenue (in line with Zhanibekov Street). Infantry fighting
vehicle installed on a pedestal in front of the headquarters of the
military district of the Karaganda region.
1 Local History Museum, 38 Yerubayev St. ☎ +7 (7212) 56-59-89. Daily
9:00–18:00. The largest museum in the Karaganda region with an
exhibition on the history of the city from ancient times to the present
day.
2 S. Seifullin Kazakh Drama Theater, 25 Bukhar Zhyrau Ave. (bus
stop "Dietstolovaya" buses 1, 26, 43 and 44). ☎ +7 (7212) 41-39-89.
Mon–Fri 11:00–19:00; Sat–Sun 11:00–17:00. One of the oldest drama
theatres in Kazakhstan, founded in 1932. Performances are staged only in
Kazakh, but the hall has screens that broadcast Russian subtitles.
3 Karaganda Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy, Bukhar Zhyrau Ave.,
32/2 (bus stop “Palace of Culture of Miners”, buses 1, 26, 33, 41, 43,
44, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107,121, 122, 127, 145 and 165). ☎ +7 (7212)
41-01-37. The theatre moved to Karaganda from Temirtau, for which
purpose a separate building with 2 halls was added to the back of the
Miners' Community Centre in 1980. In addition to the main troupe, which
stages operettas, vaudevilles, musicals and even opera, there is a
symphony orchestra, choir and ballet troupe. The theatre uses the
Community Centre hall for some productions. Performances are staged
mainly in Russian, but the repertoire also includes Kazakh-language
works by local authors.
4 Stanislavsky Russian Drama Theatre, Mira
Blvd., 19/1.
5 Wild Beach, Naturalist dacha community, southern
shore of the Fyodorovskoye Reservoir (bus stop "Mashinostroitel", bus
10D). An unimproved, but at the same time the least crowded beach on the
Fyodorovskoye Reservoir.
6 City beach, Naturalist summer cottage
area, south-eastern shore of the Fyodorovskoye Reservoir (bus stop
"Yacht Club", buses 10D and 11D). Official city beach. It does not have
any special amenities, except that the municipal services regularly
clean up the garbage here. To the north along the shore of the reservoir
there are several beach clubs with closed beaches in a fenced area.
7 TsPKiO Beach, Central Park of Culture and Leisure, northern shore of
Bolshoe Lake (bus stop "Dvorets Kultury Gornyakov", bus 1, 26, 33, 41,
43, 44, 45, 55, 70, 73, 107,121, 122, 127, 145 and 165). The most
central city beach. Quite small, but well-equipped: there are two
lifeguard posts at its different ends.
8 Karaganda Zoo, Ermekova
St., 111 (bus stop "Akademiya MVD", bus 146). ☎ +7 (7212) 44-17-42. in
summer 9:00 - 19:00; in winter 9:00 - 17:00. The oldest zoo in the
republic and once one of the largest is now in disrepair: out of 44
hectares of territory, only 9 are used, the rest are built up with
private houses and even pharmaceutical production. . the enclosures for
animals are cramped, and there are only 185 species of animals. But in
general, you can spend time here looking at servals or monkeys. Not long
ago, there was a botanical garden nearby, but now a significant part of
its territory is built up with rich mansions, and the rest is
inaccessible to visitors.
By plane
Mostly domestic flights fly to Karaganda: there are
regular flights to Almaty, Kyzylorda, Ust-Kamennogorsk, Zhezkazgan and
Turkestan. International flights are much worse here - planes fly only
to Antalya and Moscow. To get here from other places, it is easier to
fly to Astana and then get to Karaganda by land. On the other hand, the
Karaganda airport can be a good help if you need to get between Astana
and Almaty - the prices for flights here are 2 or even 3 times lower
than in the capital.
Sary-Arka Airport (m/t495 from the
Yugo-Vostok bus station (every hour), or bus 500A from the railway
station (every two hours)). ☎ +7 (7212) 42‒85‒09 — information service.
International airport built in the 80s 15 kilometers from the city. The
airport terminal can rightfully be considered one of the masterpieces of
late modernism, and one of the latest in all of Kazakhstan — the
two-level terminal was opened only in 1996. There are few flights here,
and therefore it is quite deserted inside — the only establishments here
are a coffee shop and a couple of shops in the departure area.
By
train
Karaganda is located on the railway line that connects not only
the two largest cities of the country — Astana and Almaty, but also the
north and south of Kazakhstan. Therefore, from here you can go to any
point in it, both by regular train and high-speed "Talgo". In addition,
you can go short distances by electric train, which here costs pennies,
even compared to inexpensive long-distance trains. You can also use them
to travel between remote parts of the city.
Karaganda-Passazhirskaya Station, Privokzalnaya pl., 1 (bus stop
"Vokzal" buses 1, 19, 26, 33, 40 and 44). 24 hours. The central railway
station of the city, located in the center, within walking distance of
the main attractions. The station building itself was built in the 1950s
according to the design of the Leningrad bureau "Lengiprotrans", and the
bas-reliefs were made by local sculptor Petr Antonenko. At the station,
in addition to 24-hour ticket offices, there are coffee to go and fresh
newspapers. All passing trains stop here.
Karaganda-Sortirovochnaya Station, Sortirovka, st. Makarenko, 75 (bus
stops "Vokzal Sortirovka", bus 42 and "Railway Administration", bus 26,
27, 42 and 118). 24 hours. The station is on the northern outskirts of
Karaganda, where some of the passing trains stop. It is interesting
because the station has two equal stations with ticket offices and
waiting rooms on opposite sides of the tracks, connected by an overpass.
It is usually unsuitable for getting into the city, since it is located
far from the center, but you can sometimes leave from it if there are no
tickets left from the central station.
By car
From the capital
- Astana 2.5-3.5 hours on the M36 highway. Karaganda is a hub of central
Kazakhstan. Zhezkazgan is 500 kilometers to the west, Balkhash is almost
400 to the south. The Karkaraly Mountains are 3-3.5 hours to the east.
You can also go to Pavlodar, Ekibastuz, Almaty.
The M36 highway
is not bad, in 2024 along its entire length from Astana to Almaty a
motorway is being built with 2 lanes in each direction with a speed
limit of 100-120 km/h, about 40% of the sections have already been
completed. The road to Zhezkazgan and Karkaraly is worse and has only
one lane in each direction, and the quality of the asphalt pavement in
some places leaves much to be desired.
By bus
Bus station
"Karaganda", Passenger street, 3. 24 hours. The largest bus station in
the city, adjacent to the railway station. In addition to 24-hour ticket
offices, there is also a 24-hour cafe. From here you can go to any city
in Kazakhstan and even to neighboring countries, both officially, with a
bus ticket, and using the services of private cabbies, who are on duty
at the entrance in abundance and shout out their destination cities. The
prices may be higher or lower than those of the bus.
Yugo-Vostok Bus
Station, 41 Mukanova St. (Bus stop "Yugo-Vostok Bus Station" buses 7,
10D, 16, 19, 33, 41, 45, 49, 53, 56, 60D, 70, 73, 118 and 145). The bus
station where it was planned to create the city's second bus station,
for which a large building was being built nearby. Alas, at the final
stage of construction, the developer went bankrupt and the construction
site was abandoned, and buses (mostly suburban) continue to use the
former trolleybus loop. Nevertheless, it is from here that minibus 495
goes to the airport (and bus 500A, going there from the station, makes a
stop here). There are no ticket offices, waiting rooms or cafeterias
here.
Karaganda has a fairly well-developed network of bus routes, the
current map of which can be found in mapping services. Also, transport
routes are indicated on signs on the buses themselves in Russian and
Kazakh. At the most popular stops (mainly in the center and in the
South-East) there are electronic boards informing about the arrival of
the nearest transport. The fare for 2024 is 100 tenge when paying with
the transport smart card ОҢАЙ! (also valid in Almaty); when paying in
cash, the price is twice as high, all buses have conductors. The largest
stops from which you can go to any part of the city are the "Palace of
Culture of Miners", the stop hub near the railway station ("Vokzal", "TD
Yuzhny" and "45th quarter"), "Bus Station Yugo-Vostok" and "Polyclinic
(Karl Marx Street)" in Maikuduk. For planning routes around the city, it
is most convenient to use 2GIS, Yandex is slightly behind in terms of
map quality. Google Maps is not functional here, as in all of
Kazakhstan. Bus route numbers are divided into one- and two-digit
(intracity), 100-number routes (suburban, including Maikuduk, Sortirovka
and Prishakhtinsk) and intercity buses of 400 and 500 numbers. The basis
of the route network are two express buses that do not stop at every
stop: 118, running from the South-East through the center and Maikuduk
to Sortirovka, and 145 - from the South-East through the center to
Prishakhtinsk. The bus network is supplemented by minibuses. At the same
time, bus routes are often not obvious, as they wind through residential
areas: it happens that a bus with a station on the route sign, traveling
along the avenue towards the station, goes in the direction from this
very station. It is worth clarifying such questions in mapping services
or with conductors. It is also necessary to keep in mind that most
routes stop running after 10 pm and the only way to go somewhere in the
evening is a taxi.
Among Karaganda taxis, aggregators rule the
roost, the most popular of which are Yandex.Taxi and Maxim. The price of
trips around the city varies between 500 and 2500 tenge, depending on
the distance. At the same time, unlike most of the country, for taxi
drivers in Karaganda there are rules on the maximum age of the car, so
cars from the 1980s-1990s, so popular in Kazakhstan, will not arrive to
your order.
The city (Bukhar-Zhyrau Ave., former Sovetsky) has the following
shopping centers: TSUM and Tair.
1 Abzal Shopping Center,
Bukhar-Zhyrau Ave., 50a (bus stop TD Abzal/TSUM, buses 1, 33, 41, 43,
45, 55, 70, 73, 107, 121, 122, 127, 145, 165 and 500A). ☎ +7 (7212)
40-01-12, +7 (777) 321-88-05. Daily 10:00–20:00. A shopping center
designed for visitors with an above-average income, which is why the
building is designed according to a rather original project with a
spire, and in the lobby there is a fountain with live fish, on the bench
in front of which you can pleasantly while away the time. In addition to
several boutiques of the upper price category, here you can find a
grocery supermarket that opens an hour earlier than the rest of the
complex, a chain electronics store and a dozen small retail outlets, one
of which even sells souvenirs with views of Karaganda.
2 Shopping
and entertainment center "City Mall", Bukhar-Zhyrau Avenue, 59/2 (bus
stop "45 quarter" buses 1, 33, 40, 41, 43, 45, 53, 70, 73, 107, 118,
121, 122, 127, 145 and 165). ☎ +7 (778) 107‒02‒77. Daily 10:00 – 20:00.
A standard shopping center containing various stores, several food
outlets and a cinema on the top floor.
Hotel "Karaganda", Bukhar-Zhyrau street, 66. The railway station is
not far from the hotel. In the hotel building there are air and railway
ticket offices, a post office.
Hotel "Chaika"
Hotel "Dostar-Alem"
Karaganda is a great illustration of the phrase "don't confuse
tourism with emigration." In general, the city is quite safe, there are
no shootings or robberies on the streets in broad daylight, and if basic
safety rules are followed, nothing threatens a tourist here. But it is
worth remembering that in the vicinity of the city, as a legacy of the
GULAG system, there is a very high concentration of penitentiary
institutions: the number and size of them in the vicinity of the city is
such that many Kazakhstanis call Karaganda "the city of prisoners." In
principle, it is easier to meet a former prisoner or just a
representative of the criminal environment here than in many other
places (according to statistics, every eighth Karaganda family has a
criminal), local authorities have repeatedly recognized the problem of
criminalization of Karaganda, but no measures other than installing
video surveillance on the main streets by 2024 have been adopted.
Several thousand crimes are recorded here every year, about 30% of which
are street crimes, and the city traditionally leads in various
anti-ratings. In this regard, it is recommended to refrain from visiting
outlying areas (Sortirovka, eastern Maikuduk, Prishakhtinsk) at night,
as well as minimize contacts with strangers, especially if they did not
occur on your initiative, and avoid dialogues "according to concepts".
industrial suburb of Temirtau, much smaller in size, but unlike it, it
has retained its own tram system, one of three operating in 2022 in
Kazakhstan. Continuing the journey in this direction, you can visit the
capital of the country - Astana.
About 200 kilometers to the east
is Karkaralinsk - a small town surrounded on almost all sides by the
national park of the same name, occupying the territory of the two
largest mountain ranges of the region: Karkaraly and Kent.