Kazahstan
Our Homeland – Kazakstan.
Republik of Kazakstan is situated in the very
centre of the Eurasian continent.
Area: 2.720.000 sg. km (i.e. the country is the 9th
largest in the world). Common border with Russia, China, Uzbekistan,
Kyrghyzstan and Turkmenistan.
Climate is sharply continental. Average winter
temperature in January from - 1°C - 5°C (south) to -20°C (North). In summer the
temperature varies from +18°C to +30°C.
Natural zones: forest-steppes and steppes,
deserts and semi-deserts.
Landscape: the overwhelming portion of the
territory is occupied with plains, plateaus, low hills, low lands with only 10
% of its territory accounting for the mountains of Tien Shan, Tarbagatay and
Altay.
Main waterways are Yertys, Syrdaria, Oral, Ishim,
Tobol, Ili, Shu, Caspian and Aral Seas, lakes Balkhash, Alakol, Tenghiz and
Sasykkol.
Mineral resources: Kazakstani entrails harbour
over a half of world chromium reserves with lead, zink, copper, silver and gold
into the bargain. Kazakstan ranks first in the world as to tungsten reserves,
second – in phosphorus ores, third – in manganese, fourth – in lead and
molybdenum and eighth – in iron ores.
The Constitution
defines the state system as a form of presidential republic considering it the
most flexible version in conditions of today. The President ensures coordinated
performance of all the branches of state power and accountability of power
bodies to the people. Parliament of the Republic is the supreme representative
authority in the country: it performs legislative functions. Executive power is
assumed by the Government of the country. The country recognizes ideological and
political pluralism. All public associations enjoy equal rights in the fase of
the Law. National currency of the Republic – tenghe.
Ethnically the more than 17-million strong
population of Kazakstan is rather diverse. Along with the two major groups,
Kazaks and Russians, there reside over 100 other nationalities. Among them are
Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Germans, Uzbeks, Tatars, Uigurs, Azerbaijanians, and
many others. The people of Kazakstan has every reason to be proud of political
stability in the state and of traditionally friendly inter-ethnic relations.
State language of the Republic is Kazak. Russian
enjoys the status of the official language.
Economically, Kazakstan is divided into five
major regions: Central, North, South, West and East ones. Astana remains the
capital of the country. Until then both Astana and Almaty are the seats of the
President's residencies.
Industry – the Basis of the Economy.
Tremendous is the contribution made by
industrial enterprises into building of the gross national product of the
Republic of Kazakstan. Major industries in the Republic are production of
mineral wealth, chemistry, power engineering and metallurgy. No less significant
branches as machine-building, light-and food industries.
The produce of mining-and-smelting works enjoys
fine demand abroad which makes it major source of hard currency influx. At
present they have elaborated programmes of rarional development of mining
basis, of reconstruction and updating of dressing and such other smelting works.
Besides there have been launched new industries to put out produce of supreme
commodity readiness.
East Kazakstan is to host a titanium-producing
industry of its own which is expected to put out slags, sponge titanium,
metallic titanium, rolled products, titanium white.
Export deliveries of industrial products
manufactured in Kazakstan are effected to more than a hundred foreign
countries.
Agriculture
Kazakstan – is one of
the leading grain producers in the world. In grain-growing regions they
cultivate mainly strong and durum varieties of wheat with high content of gluten.
Worth noting is that these are the very grades which enjoy high demand in the
world market.
Kazakstan is the country where they sow rice,
buckwheat, rape, soy-beans, oats, cultivate cotton, sugar -beet, and a great
many fruit and vegetables.
Predominant in northern regions is dairy
cattle-rearing and swine-breeding while the economy of southern areas is dominated
by beef cattle husbandry, sheep-breeding, horse-rearing and camel-breeding with
beef cattle husbandry and horse-rearing in the West and East of the country.
In many regions of the Republic, particularly in
desert and semi-desert ones, major branches of agricultural production that
determine ways and living standards of the ethnic population are sheep-breeding,
horse-rearing and camel-breeding. As to sheep-breeding it is practiced mostly
along the following lines: fine-fleeced, semi-finefleeced, meat-and-fat and
lamb-fur ones.
Nature.
All
across the 1800 km-long “vertical line” that separates southern and northern
confines of Kazakstan one landscape zone replaces another: forest-and-steppe,
steppe, semi-desert and desert ones. In the West the territory of Kazakstan
shares its border with the Caspian Sea, in the East it is the Altay taiga that
lines the Republic and high peaks of Tien-Shan constitute the border .of the
country in the South. Three major rivers – Yertys, Tobol and Ishim flow into
the Arctic Ocean while the rest of the streams either fall into land-locked
reservoirs (Caspian and Aral seas, the lake of Balkhash) or just get lost in
the vast steppe or desert ranges.
In Kazakstan there grow over 6000 species of
plants and on its vast space one can come across almost 500 species of birds,
animals (178 spcs), reptiles (49 spcs), amphibia (12 spcs), fish (107 spcs) .
The host of the invertebrate is ever greater: insects only number some 30000
species.
The Usturt plateau situated between the Caspian and Aral seas is a slightly
desert-like plain, here and there grown with wormwood and unprepossessing
shrubs of Russian thistle. Only in wide-spread drainless depressions there
occur shrubs of black saxaul. Steep ledges (chinks) add immensely to the
inimitable beauty of the landscape.
Particularly picturesque is the Western chink
whose height attains 340 m: its eroded precipice would, time and again, take
quite fanciful forms. The area is inhabited by such rare animals as Usturt
moufflon or urial, ratel from the family of martens, long-needled hedge-hog
and a good many species of wild cats: karakal, barkhan cat and the famous
cheetah. No small is the number of slim gazelles-zhairans, beautiful bustards
(or Jacks) and such other birds of desert.
Slopes of Northern Tien-Shan are covered with
fir-woods while those of the West are grown with scarce archa trees eventually
intermingled with hish-grass waterless valleys. Here the gorges are grown with
apple-trees and other nut-and-fruit trees. High up in the sky one can see
mountainous peaks covered with permafrost snows and glaciers.
It's only here that one can come across a
frightful snow leopard (irbis), Tien-Shan brown bear, Siberian stag. The “feathered
world” is represented by the famous bearded vulture whose wing-span is up to
over 3 m, a Himalaiyan ular or mountain turkey-hen, a snow griffon-vulture, a golden
eagle , an Alpine finch and fairy-like blue bird-Alpine jackdaw…
If you happen to visit taiga-grown mountains of
the Altay you might come across a giant of an elik, a handsome Siberian stag,
our smallest deep- a musk-deep (“kabyrga”), the famous sable and gracefully
handsome chipmunk.
Only here one can find a wood-grouse, a
hazel-grouse, a willow grouse and a ptarmigan. Small wonder that the national
authorities have turned the Alpine lake Markakol in South Altay into a special
reserve to protect the local flora and fauna. The lake hosts a good many
waterfowl whereas its banks and the woods serve a fine nestling place for such
rare birds as fish-hawk and black stork. As to the Alpine heights they are
inhabited by an exceedingly rare birg species – the Altay ular.
Steppes of Kazakstan are no second in beauty to
other landscape zones. They gain particular fascination because of sweet-and
salt-water lakes which attract thousands of waterfowl represented by dozens of
species of ducks, geese, gulls, herons, sandpipers, roseate terns.