…by Wikipedia? Turns out there was a fire at a drug rehab center (with video) in Taldykorgan, the political capital of Almaty province in Kazakhstan. This might sound confusing if you’re on the cusp of knowing lots and too much about Kazakhstan. As in, “Hey, didn’t Almaty used to be the capital? Shouldn’t it be the capital of its own province?” Well, you’re right, it DID used to be the capital, and it SHOULD be the capital of its own province. What you’re forgetting is that, rather unlike the US, the Soviet Union generally did not break down into states and state capitals. Rather, there were states, and the capitals were their own thing. This was done for many reasons, one of which would be to keep city people from complaining about their tax dollars going to educate the rubes, and to keep the rural people from complaining about their tax dollars going to medicate all the drug addicts and prostitutes.
There are all kinds of problems with those last two statements, but I’ll let them stand. The point is that the CITY of Almaty is its own capital, while the province of Almaty is separate, with its central offices in Taldykorgan. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, it was only in 2001 that Almaty became its own province, or metropolitan city. During the Soviet Union, Taldykorgan and Almaty (Alma-ata at that time) were united and separated several times.
In any event, Taldykorgan might not be internationally famous, but Kazakhstan only has a finite number of large cities, and Taldy is definitely one of them. However, why is a large fire in Taldy news? It is tragic, but I have to admit that I wasn’t considering blogging about it until I saw it on Wikipedia’s front page. I’ve talked with a Wikipedia editor who suggested that the English language Wikipedia keeps its Top Story section as international-news-heavy as it possibly can, probably to offset the navel-gazing nature of wikipedians. I say this in full disclosure of the fact that I’ve done a limited amount of work on Wikipedia myself.
This post was written by...
Michael Hancock-Parmer – author of 158 posts on Registan.net.
Michael earned an MA in Central Eurasian Studies in 2011 and remains a student at Indiana University pursuing a dual PhD in Russian History and Central Eurasian Studies. He served 6 months in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan in 2005. After the events in Andijan and the subsequent closure of the program, he served 2 years in southern Kazakhstan, returning to the Midwest in 2007. His general area of interest is on post-Timur Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, centered on the Syr Darya river valley.
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