Taldykorgan

The city began as a Russian and Ukrainian settlers' village called Gavrilovka, founded in the second half of the 19th century on the Karatal river in newly annexed Zhetysu, on ground that Kazakh herders had long used for winter pasture. Water was the making of it: channels drawn from the river turned the surrounding steppe into gardens, orchards and fields of grain and sugar beet, and the village became a farming and trading point on the routes between the Ili valley and the Dzungarian passes.

Soviet rule renamed it Taldy-Kurgan and made it an administrative centre. It was granted town status during the Second World War, when evacuated people and industry arrived from the west, and in 1944 it became the capital of a new Taldy-Kurgan Region, which brought institutes, a theatre, sanatoria and factories processing the food grown around it. Streets were laid out wide and planted with poplars and elms, and the irrigation channels were kept running along them, a habit of the Zhetysu towns.

The region was abolished in 1997 and merged into Almaty Region, and the city lost much of its administrative weight for a few years before becoming the seat of Almaty Region in 2001, when the regional government moved out of Almaty itself. In 2022 the country's provinces were redrawn again and Taldykorgan became the capital of a re-created Jetisu Region, with Konaev taking over as the seat of Almaty Region. Each change has brought building work, offices and population to the city.

Taldykorgan's identity is bound to Zhetysu, the "land of seven rivers", and to the poet and writer Ilyas Zhansugurov, born in this district, who was killed in the purges of 1938 and is now commemorated in the city's university, its street names and its monuments. Regional literature, sung poetry and the dombra are taken seriously, and the university and theatre give the city a cultural life larger than its size suggests.

The population is predominantly Kazakh, and village traditions are close at hand: extended families, large weddings held over several days, the seniority of elders at the table, and a strong attachment to horses, whether for riding, racing or food. Russian, Uyghur, Korean and Tatar families, settled here through the migrations and deportations of the Soviet period, remain part of the city's mix, and Russian is heard alongside Kazakh in the streets.

Everyday manners are those of the south-east generally: guests are fed immediately and repeatedly, tea is served in small amounts so that it stays hot and the cup is refilled often, and shoes come off at the door. Islam is practised in a moderate, locally rooted form, with Ramadan and the two Eids widely observed. Summer weekends are spent out of town — at the river, in the mountain gorges towards Tekeli, or at family plots — and the apple and melon harvest in early autumn is a season of visiting and gifts.

More than 170,000 people live in Taldykorgan, and the city's role as a regional capital shapes its working day: government offices, courts, the regional hospital, schools and the university employ a large share of residents, alongside food processing, light manufacturing, construction and trade. Battery production and agricultural processing have long been part of the local industry, and the surrounding districts grow sugar beet, grain, maize, fruit and vegetables under irrigation, with cattle, sheep and horses on the pastures beyond.

Most people live in flats in the microdistricts or in houses with gardens in the older streets, and the pattern of the day is early and practical, with work starting soon after dawn in summer and the middle of the day avoided in the heat. Evenings belong to the parks and the riverbank, where families walk, eat shashlyk and let children play; in winter life moves indoors and the city becomes quiet.

The pressures are familiar across provincial Kazakhstan: young people leaving for Almaty or Astana, dependence on public sector wages, and infrastructure stretched by the population growth that came with the return of regional government in 2022. Water management is a constant concern in a district that depends on mountain rivers, and the canals along the streets are maintained as much for the trees as for tradition.

The city eats the food of Zhetysu: meat and dairy from the pastures, fruit and vegetables from the irrigated valley, and noodles and dumplings from the wider Central Asian repertoire. Beshbarmak, boiled meat and broth served over wide sheets of pasta with onion, is the dish for guests and celebrations, and kazy, horsemeat sausage, is set out on the table at weddings and holidays. Kuyrdak, a fry of liver, heart and potatoes, and sorpa, a clear meat broth, are everyday comfort food.

Lagman, hand-pulled noodles under stir-fried meat and peppers, comes from the region's Uyghur kitchens and is the standard cheap lunch, alongside manty, large steamed dumplings, and samsa baked against the wall of a clay oven. Korean salads, above all morkovcha, spiced grated carrot, are sold by the ladle at the bazaar, a legacy of the Korean families deported to Kazakhstan in 1937.

The valley's produce is the city's pride. Apples, apricots, grapes, tomatoes and melons fill the market in summer and autumn, honey comes down from the mountain valleys, and dried fruit and nuts are sold in bulk. Dairy appears in every form: ayran, kurt, irimshik, and in the warm months kymyz from mares and shubat from camels, sold at roadside stands. Tea, black and with milk, is drunk all day and served with baursak, small squares of fried dough, butter and jam.