Aralsk City Tour – Travel from Almaty to Aralsk –
Aralsk (kaz. Aral) is a small city in the south-west of Kazakhstan, located in the Kyzylorda region. It is the administrative center of the Aral district, its population is about 39,000 inhabitants. The city was founded in 1905 on the basis of a small winter camp called ”Altykudyk". Previously, the Aral Sea was a fishing port and a port city on the shore of the Aral Sea, being one of the main suppliers of fish to this region. As a result of the catastrophic reduction of the Aral Sea process started in 1960, the city of Aral was left without access to the sea.
How to get there
The city of Aralsk is located in the north-east of the Aral Sea in the big Saryshyganak ridge, in the desert belt, Aral district, Irgiz – Aralsk – Aiteke-Bi road. GPS coordinates: 46°47'0"N 61°40'0"E
History
The Aral district was founded in 1929. At first, it consisted of Kamystybasskaya and Aral volosts. Since March 29, 1938, the city of Aralsk, it became a working settlement, and then a city. A fishing flotilla, a fish processing plant, a ship repair plant, a glass-blowing plant, a creamery and a sewing factory, a secondary school, a cultural center, a cinema, a museum of local lore, a district hospital, a newspaper printing house, a hotel, a restaurant, and catering establishments worked in the city. The Orenburg–Tashkent– Kyzylorda–Aktobe highway passes through Aralsk.
In 1921, the leader of the October Revolution, V. I. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), sent a famous appeal-a letter to fishermen with a request to help the population affected by famine due to drought in the Volga region and central regions of Russia. In response to this appeal, fishermen of the Aral Sea sent 14 wagons of fish to Russia. The leader of the Bolshevik Party, V. I. Lenin, highly appreciated this noble deed to the fishermen lathe.
In the 1930s, 17 fish collective farms, 5 fish factories, and more than 20 livestock collective farms were organized in the district. Residents of the district showed an example of Immortal courage, noble spirit during the Great Patriotic War. More than 11 thousand people left the district for the war, 6038 of them did not return, remained on the battlefields. In 2005, a monument to defenders of the Fatherland from the city of Aralsk was erected on the central square of the city of Aralsk.
Famous people from the Aral region
Two Heroes of the Soviet Union, 16 Heroes of Socialist Labor left the district. This is the birthplace of the jeweler Kulmambetov Kudaibergen Tagzhanovich, a world-famous artist whose works are in famous museums in Europe and other countries, a member of the Union of Artists of Kazakhstan, the Union of Artisans of Kazakhstan. In addition, world-famous figures were born in the Aral region: statesman Shapak Artykbayev, People's writer Abdizhamil Nurpeisov, writer-poet Zeynolla Shukurov, the first head of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan Uzakbai Karamanov, scientist-professor Nazhmadin Kunkozhaev.
The Aral Sea and the city of Aralsk
The Aral Sea, or Aral, is a lake in Central Asia, which is located on the territory of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan). The Aral Sea is located between the main deserts of Central Asia (Karakum, Kyzylkum and the Ustyurt plateau) and has a total catchment area of 1.8 million square kilometers. The watershed is divided between the following countries: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. The Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world until the middle of the last century, but today it has lost more than 90% of its water volume due to human activity, excessive exploitation of the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for irrigation of fields is the main cause of drying up.
Aralsk (Aral) in the Kyzylorda region
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