Zhezkazgan & Satpaev - Things to Do & 'a Map'

Kazakhstan country map credit/courtesy of University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (www.lib.utexas.edu)

Zhezkazgan (a.k.a. Dzhezkazgan, Zhezqazghan, Jezkazgan, etc) ... is a pleasant town located in the middle of Kazakhstan, on a reservoir of the Kara-Kengir river, in the Karaganda region. Pronounced like "Jez-kez-gon", or Zhez ("Jez" for short), it’s in the steppe; a sort of desert-like, arid (though "gravel" instead of “sand” comes to mind). Climate varies here throughout the year; it does get pretty warm (we can vouch for that) and have been told it gets rather cold as well in the winter. From what we could find out, the population is somewhere in the range of 100,000. It’s my understanding (based on some research done once we returned) that it “officially” became a town in the mid to late 1950’s, though there was at least a ‘settlement’ there by 1938 because the area is very rich in copper deposits. Minerals and the mining of those minerals is key to the development of this community.

It's not what you would call a tourist destination, but we found people here to be nice and friendly, sometimes curious about our presence. We were able to find the things we needed for ourselves and the kids, and for what we needed we were able to get around easily. Knowing a bit of Russian helped.

The company Kazakhmys is pretty key to Zhezkazgan (and near by Satpaev), a primary employer of the city; a number of facilities in Zhez have been sponsored by the company, often referred to as simply ‘the corporation’ among locals. There is mining and processing/smelting of copper and other minerals in the area.

We enjoyed walking around, getting a sense of how people lived. It seems to us that most people live in apartments, though there are neighborhoods with homes as well. Air conditioning is not commonly found in the apartments, so you see most apartment buildings have benches where neighbors can sit out front and talk. We found people often in the park (particularly the one with a fountain and statue of Satpaev) on warm early evenings. On Saturday mornings, more often than not we would see people out sweeping the sand off the sidewalks, a general weekly clean up effort. Given the arid climate in this area, that made a lot of sense. One would see women walking hand in hand - friends walking together, sometimes a younger woman with an older woman - in friendship and support. This appears to be somewhat practical at times too, given the areas of rougher walkways. I don't recall ever seeing a man and woman walking hand-in-hand, but suspect this is part of the "don't display affection in public" characteristic. People do not typically smile at one another as a form of acknowledgement when walking down the street either - one of the reasons I think we were obviously "not from here". This always seemed a bit akward to me, but we found the people were nice.

Things to do while you're here in Zhez ...

- Walk by the lake/reservoir ... in the photos here you can see the Amusement Park in town (open in the summer months) and some early morning kayaking practice.

- as the sun begins to set, it casts shadows on the "hills" along this reservoir of the Kara-Kengir river.

- shop the stores, open market

The open market, I believe is also referred to as the Green Market, is a really interesting place to explore. It was generally a reasonably priced source for a couple extra shirts/tops, paper, pencils, toys and miscellaneous things for the kids, etc. I got a kick out of looking at all the different foods, gardening supplies and such. (This is such a dry climate I would think gardening would be very difficult.) We did not find there was much negotiating for price - we tried a couple times, but it didn't seem to work (well we didn't get a better price ;-)) We found that a calculator is great to have in places like this - just give the shop person the calculator to enter the price they are asking.

- A flower vendor on one of the streets near the orphange, and flowers and vegetables market in town.





- This photo on the left is of one of the grocery stores we frequented; this one is called 'so-mat-di' (I think that's how it was pronounced). We were able to get fruits, vegetables, cheese, bread (good bread!) here, packets of oatmeal, munchies (a Russian version of Pringles), ramen noodle and cup-of-soup type things. Also baby foods, a variation of cheerios, yogurt, bottled water (brand 'tasay') both with and without gas. We did haul a lot of water around, using bottled water pretty exclusively.
- On one of the main streets near the open market, across from the "Dana" grocery store, another interesting place to by foods.


- look for mosaics through out town (ok, we found this interesting,the ones we found were space exploration themed)







- go to the gym (ask your translator or coordinator about this)
- check out the museum in town, lots of information on the mining history of Zhezkazgan and surrounding area

- see the Russian Orthodox Church (our translator took us in here, did not feel right taking any photos though) and the Mosque (do not know if you can get in to visit this, we only saw it from a distance) not far from the Samsung Hotel.

- English Movie night (it was Monday when we were there, sponsored by Peace Corp/English Club)
- check out the restaurants (see restaurant section in blog)
- in the summer, visit the amusement park

- Meander through town, walk the "promonade" and relax in the public park (popular spot to hang out and cool off on warm summer evenings)

- the insulated pipes you see here are seen throughout town; it's how heat is distributed in the colder months of the year.

- check out the monuments around town... a World War II memorial







- A Mig on display, and the "astro star" (I made up that name) monument, also can see a series of 'space' themed displays

- Statue of K. I. Satpaev

- ask about concert (there is a University there, may have something you could attend)

About our "map": While we were in Zhezkazgan, we really had hoped to find a map. We talked to our translator about it, and we did end eventually up getting a 'booklet' type map (all in Russian). It wasn't quite what we were looking for, so we have a first sketch of what we had drawn in our notebook. Please note, IT IS NOT TO SCALE :-) If you are interested in a copy please let me know and I'll email it to you - it's a pdf, and I can't figure out how to attach a pdf here on the blog. For anyone who travels to Zhezkazgan, we'd certainly be interested in getting corrections/clarifications.

Things to see in Satpaev
Satpaev (a.ka. Satpayev) , is a community neighboring Zhez, we estimate about 13 km away, on well worn (may I say bumpy) road. It was named after Kanysh Imantayevitch Satpayev, a very prominent Kazakh geologist who devoted much time to the study, exploration and development of the copper deposits in this area of the country (one of the world's largest?)

- the new (building completed recently) of a new mosque near center of town, and the Russian Orthodox Church across the street from the mosque (yes, they are across the street from one another, pretty neat, I thought)

- there is a large, new Sports complex here; we did not get a chance to see it, but it is supposed to be very nice
- see 'the Square'