Peculiarities of East Kazakhstan urban area formation in the 19th and the early 20th century (the case of cities of Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk)

The modern period of development of Kazakhstan is characterized by the growth of urban population and rapid urbanization. Today, the development of urban areas in the Republic passes largely due to the ethnic ratio of the Kazakhs and the Russians. Ethnic differentiation of the urban population has been formed for the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, which was determined by the basic functions of towns (industrial, commercial, cultural). Thus, the impact of the trends, inherent in the past, on the logic of contemporary urbanization processes updates the historical retrospective study of the formation and development of urban areas. The aim of the given paper is to perform a comparative analysis of ethnic, social, and economic peculiarities of formation of the cities of Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with this, the author takes into account urbanization trends in the structure of the Kazakh ethnic group and analyzes the changes in urban visual space. The basic sources of the research are archive data, such as, the State archive of the Omsk region, the State archive of the Novosibirsk Region, the Russian State historical archive, the State archive of the Tomsk region. The author also uses «Russian Empire’s Complete Code of Laws», reviews of the Semipalatinsk region for 1883, 1906, 1907, the First general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897, and current statistics. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Semipalatinsk was a major trading center of the region, which affected the ethnic inhomogeneity and significant representation of the Kazakhs. Ust-Kamenogorsk had been performing a defensive role for a long time, which was reflected in the predominance of the Russian ethnos in it. The functions of cities and ethnic ratio had a significant impact on the transformations in a social structure, architecture, urban planning, the name of streets, squares and other city facilities. In connection with the mentioned above, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Kazakhs urbanization trends appeared only in Semipalatinsk. The author comes to the following conclusion. Peculiarities of formation and development of Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk in the past have had an influence on the contemporary scenarios of urban area development. Semipalatinsk urbanization can be attributed to «the east», i. e. it is based on traditional values. Ust-Kamenogorsk demonstrates a «European» scenario of the city development.