Karabulak is a city in the Republic of Ingushetia of the Russian Federation. A city of republican significance, which forms the eponymous municipal formation, the city of Karabulak, with the status of an urban district as the only settlement in its composition.
Some authors trace the toponym “Karabulak” to the Turkic kara - “black”, and bulak - “source”, “spring”. Thus, the name of the city can be translated as "black source". According to another version, the name of the village of Karabulak at the time of its foundation contained a reference to the ethnonym "Karabulaki" - one of the names of the Orstkhoy people.
The
city is located in the central part of the Republic of Ingushetia,
on the left bank of the Sunzha River, 9 km west of the center of the
Sunzha region - the city of Sunzha and 22 km north-east of the city
of Magas (distance by road).
The nearest settlements: in the
east - the village of Troitskaya, in the south - the village of
Yandare, in the west - the village of Plievo. In the south and west,
the territory of the urban district borders on the Nazran district,
in the east - on the Sunzha district, in the north - on the Malgobek
district. The city of Karabulak is located in the southern part of
the urban district.
To the south of Karabulak passes the
federal highway P217 "Kavkaz", to the north the railway line of the
North Caucasian railway (the Beslan-Sleptsovskaya section), on the
northern outskirts of the city there is a railway siding
Karabulaksky.
To the south of Karabulak, behind the road, the
Lesisty Range rises (the village of Yandare is located, in fact, in
several intermontane valleys and on the slopes). The Sunzhensky
ridge (mountain Karabulak, 723 m) stretches several kilometers to
the north. In the southeastern outskirts of the city, the Sunzha
River joins the Assa-Sunzha Canal.
The lands of the urban
district stretch far to the north of the city, thus capturing, in
addition to the Sunzha valley, a part of the Sunzha ridge and, north
of it, a part of the Alkhanchurt valley. The northernmost section of
the urban district border is the section of the southern bank of the
Alkhanchurt Canal.
The climate is moderately cold and humid (Köppen Dfa). Winters are mild and short. Summer is hot and long. Average annual precipitation is 663 mm.
The date of foundation of the Terek Cossack village of
Karabulakskaya is 1859. The construction of the village began at the
end of 1858, and it was originally supposed to call it
Eldyrkhanovskaya.
The Eldyrkhanovsky guard post, near which
the village arose and which was originally supposed to give the
village its name, already existed at least by 1847.
Since
1860, the Karabulak region was part of the Tersk region (since 1888
- in the Sunzha department). As of 1874, there were 227 households
in the village with 1454 inhabitants, there was an Orthodox church
and a school, and there were oil wells. According to the ESBE
(1895), 1986 people lived in the village, there was a church, 2
schools (one of them is an Old Believer), 4 smithies, 4 mills.
In August 1917, there were clashes between the Ingush and
Cossacks of the villages of Karabulakskaya, Troitskaya and
Sleptsovskaya. The conflict was caused, in turn, by the clashes
between the Ingush and soldiers returning from the fronts of the
First World War, which took place in Vladikavkaz on July 6-7.
Despite the fact that already on September 15 a "truce" was
concluded between the parties, these events actually became a
prologue to bloody battles between the Ingush and the inhabitants of
the Cossack villages during the events of the Civil War in the
Caucasus.
In 1920-1929, the village was part of the Sunzha
Cossack District, then - a part of the Chechen Autonomous Region,
the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic, the Grozny Region, and again - the
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
By the
decree of the Presidium of the Armed Forces of the Chechen-Ingush
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of November 29, 1962, the
village of Karabulakskaya of the Sunzhensky District was assigned to
the category of workers' settlements with the assignment of the name
- the working settlement of Karabulak.
During the Soviet
period, there is a gradual change in the ethnic composition of the
village's population - the number of Ingush increases and the number
of Russians decreases.
In 1991, an aggravation of the
ethnopolitical situation took place in the Sunzha region of the
Chechen-Ingush ASSR. In May 1990, on the basis of the organizing
committee "Cossack Sunzha", the Sunzha department of the revived
Terek Cossack army was formed under the leadership of Ataman A. I.
Podkolzin. However, in April 1991, A.I. Podkolzin was killed in
Karabulak, which resulted in rallies of the Russian-speaking
population, who spoke out with demands for security. At the same
time, there were several bloody clashes between local Cossacks and
Ingush - in March in Karabulak and at the end of April in the
village of Troitskaya (the conflict in Troitskaya had a special
resonance in the republic). There is a point of view that it was the
events of the spring of 1991 in the Sunzhensky region that marked
the beginning of the mass departure of Russians from Ingushetia.
In 1995, Karabulak received the status of a city. A separate
urban district (with the status of a municipal formation of the
district level) on the basis of the city of Karabulak was formed
only in 2009.
In 2006-2008, in a number of settlements of Ingushetia (the city
of Karabulak, the villages of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, Troitskaya and
Nesterovskaya, the city of Nazran, the village of Yandare), a series
of crimes were committed against Russian-speaking citizens
(explosive devices, arson, shelling and murders). This series
culminated in the events of summer-autumn 2007, when several
high-profile murders, terrorist acts and other crimes were committed
against Russians, Koreans, Gypsies, and Armenians. In particular, in
Karabulak on August 30, 2007, there was a resonant murder of the
family of the Russian teacher V. Draganchuk (3 dead), the second
attack on Russian teachers after the murder of the family of teacher
L. Teryokhina in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in July of the
same year (3 also killed). In October 2007, the Russian families of
the Kortikovs and Nemovs were shot in Karabulak (3 dead, 1 wounded).
This series of crimes attracted significant public attention and led
to a new wave of Russian outflows from the republic.
In the
city, the Islamist bandit underground, operating in the North
Caucasus, showed its activity. In particular, some objects in the
city were attacked during the militants' attack on Ingushetia in
June 2004. As part of a series of terrorist attacks in March-April
2010, a major terrorist act was also committed in Karabulak.
Railway transport is represented by the Karabulaksky
junction, which is located on a single-track dead-end line running
from Beslan station. The previous large station is Nazran, the next
one is Sleptsovskaya (it is the final one on this branch, since the
railway line in the direction of Grozny was destroyed and
dismantled). Thus, movement by rail is possible only from the
direction of Nazran. The junction is closed for passenger traffic
(due to its absence on this section of the road, in principle), only
freight traffic is carried out. The Karabulaksky junction has the
most extensive network of access roads among all railway stations in
Ingushetia. The bulk of the oil produced in the republic and
transported by rail passes through the Karabulak junction.
Regular passenger road transport is carried out by transit buses and
taxis. The main load is borne by the transit routes Nazran-Sunzha
and Nazran-Grozny. The transportations are carried out by the State
Unitary Enterprise "Ingushavtotrans" and private entrepreneurs.
Also, transportation is carried out by departmental transport.