Karaganda (
Kazakh: Қарағанды
Russian: Караганда) is the capital of
Karagandy Province in
Kazakhstan. It is located at
49°53′N, 73°10′E. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind
Almaty,
Astana and
Shymkent, with a population of 446,200 (as of
1 January 2006).
[1] In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic
Germans. Most of the ethnic Germans are descendants of Soviet
Volga Germans who were collectively deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan on Stalin's order when Hitler invaded Poland. Until the 1950s many were interned in labor camps often only due to their heritage. The population of Karaganda fell by 14% from 1989-1999. One hundred thousand people have since emigrated to
Germany.
