Lake Balkhash is one of the unique lakes on the world map. It has neither surface water flow nor underground drainage. In fact, such reservoirs are salty. But this lake is salty and fresh at the same time. It is unique in that its water area is divided into two zones: western and eastern. Along its entire length, rivers flow into it, replenishing it with water.
In the first, shallow water, the water is fresh, in the second, deeper, it is salty. This body of water ranks 2nd after the Caspian in terms of the size of non-drying salt lakes and ranks 14th as the largest salty and freshwater lake in the world. This interesting place on the map of Kazakhstan attracts tourists from many countries, including Russia. Travelers go to local hotels and motels to find respite from the stuffiness of the city.
An old legend
There is a legend about the origin of the lake. Once upon a time, an imperious and powerful khan named Balkhash picked up and adopted a little girl, calling her Ili.
Over the years she grew up to be a beauty. When the time came to marry her off, a tournament was held, and a poor man named Karatal won it. Balkhash did not want to give his daughter as a wife to a poor man, and the young people decided to run away. Giving chase, Balkhash used evil magic to separate the lovers, turning them into two halves of the lake.
If you look at the map, Lake Balkhash is located in the southeastern part of Kazakhstan in the Balkhash-Alakol water basin. The basin of the reservoir has the shape of a crescent, into which the rivers flow, and is divided into two zones, connected by an isthmus, the depth of which is small. The length of the coastline, very winding, indented by bays and bays, reaches 2500 km. The average depth in Lake Balkhash is 5.8 m.
In the north and west the shores are rocky, in the south the coast is sandy. The rivers flowing into Balkhash ensure replenishment of the water balance. The map shows the large Ili River, which also flows into the lake, the main source running from the glaciers of the Tien Shan to where Lake Balkhash is located.
The weather here is determined by the climate. The area adjacent to the lake has a desert climate, summer temperatures are about +30°C, the water warms up to +28°C, and in winter it can reach -15°C. Wind, a fairly dry climate and high temperatures cause rapid evaporation of water.
Lake Balkhash has a rich and diverse flora and fauna, which attracts travelers here.
Endorheic Lake Balkhash - water world
Types of recreation
Recreation opportunities on Lake Balkhash are varied. This is due to the very comfortable weather on Lake Balkhash, as well as the fact that it is quite warm and well heated.
Here you can choose different holidays. This is an active and passive pastime in a sanatorium, hotel, recreation center on Lake Balkhash. Only having been here once, you can see how beautiful this lake is, how comfortable the weather is here.
There are many sandy beaches along the shores. The air temperature and depth of the reservoir allow organizing a swimming season from May to September. Comfortable water temperature, optimal depth, and wonderful weather throughout the beach season attract hundreds of tourists here on vacation.
Recreation areas of Lake Balkhash are located along almost the entire coastline. Vacationers can enjoy boat or yacht trips, scooter riding, swimming and surfing, diving and spearfishing. You can take a horse or camel ride.
Recreation centers and hotels invite the most daring travelers to helicopter excursions, where Lake Balkhash will appear from above, and tourists will see how beautiful it is. For a 3.5 hour flight you will have to pay about 35 thousand rubles.
Winter holidays can also become unforgettable. The weather in winter is mild, the air temperature at this time rarely drops below 15°C, which allows you to go to different leisure areas: skiing along the shore of a frozen reservoir, snowmobiling, and windsurfing on ice is also popular.
This extraordinary fresh and at the same time salty lake gives such entertainment to the traveler.
Angler's paradise
Fishing on Lake Balkhash is good, as there is a rich fauna here, providing fishermen with exciting hours of leisure. There are special places with accommodation provided for fishing, and you can also rent the necessary equipment. Once alone with a fishing rod, even a beginner will be rewarded with a good catch.
Fishermen come here for the most famous fish of Lake Balkhash - roach. It is lured in all sorts of ways: with a worm, corn, maggot. They fish with a fishing rod and donka.
Also during the season (spring and July-September) Lake Balkhash is rich in crucian carp, carp, catfish, and asp. There are also snakeheads here. This is a very scary-looking fish, but very tasty. Those who like to fish in Balkhash should also know about marinka fish, or kara-balyk. It is poisonous, or rather its caviar, milt, and black films on its abdomen. And Marinka’s meat is very fatty and tasty. Recreation areas also offer underwater fishing.
Fishing on Lake Balkhash
The calm, peaceful atmosphere on the banks of Balkhash or the river flowing into it and the rich catch call hundreds of fishermen from Russia here every year. Both an avid fisherman and an amateur will get a good rest here.
Where to stay on Lake Balkhash
Travelers have a wide choice of places to stay while relaxing on the lake. These include recreation centers, sanatoriums, and the private sector.
The most affordable option is tourist centers and holiday homes in villages located on the coastline. This:
- Torangylyk,
- Chubar-Tubek,
- Repair base,
- Shubartubek and many others.
Living conditions here are modest. The room is located in a wooden house without amenities. Shower, toilet, washbasin are shared. The price in such a house is 150 rubles per day per person.
A higher standard of accommodation awaits tourists at the hotel. For example, the Doszhan Hotel offers everything you need for comfort; there is also satellite TV, a beach, sports grounds, and a gym. A room for two in such a hotel will cost 500-1000 rubles.
The most comfortable accommodation can be found in the Riva Lepsy recreation area. There are all the amenities, three meals a day, mud treatments, peeling, massage. Guests can enjoy water skiing, billiards, and dancing. There is a children's playground with inflatable pools. The price ranges from 600 rubles to 2000 for two, depending on the season.
If you are interested in the life of local residents, you can stay for a vacation in private housing in small towns and villages located on the coast and not far from it. Tourists are always welcome here. You can rent a small room in the owner’s house, a whole house or a yurt. It will cost from 200 rubles per person per day.
Treatment on Balkhash
Lake Balkhash is ready to provide not only relaxation, but also treatment, which is facilitated by good weather throughout almost the entire year. Sanatoriums have been built here. The treatment is based on the strengthening properties of salt water, as well as mud rich in minerals and hydrogen sulfide. Added to this is the clean air of the steppe, enriched with mineral salts. Such treatment can be obtained in sanatoriums on Lake Balkhash.
One of the most famous sanatoriums is “Balkhash”. Located in the city of Priozersk, it offers mud therapy and balneotherapy. Treatment in this sanatorium, located one hundred meters from the lake, can be successfully combined with a beach holiday. The sanatorium has three buildings for the services of vacationers: sleeping, sports, and medical.
There are many health procedures in the sanatorium, ranging from hydrotherapy and inhalations to massage and various special examinations. There are procedures included in the price of the tour, and children's treatment is also possible. The cost of a tour, depending on the category, ranges from 29,000 to 49,000 rubles.
The Balkhash dispensary is also widely known among tourists. This sanatorium receives many visitors every year, as the rest here is also comfortable. The cost of the tour is from 27,000 rubles.
Video: Disaster on Lake Balkhash
When describing Lake Balkhash, the word “unique” is often used. This is how nature ordered it. For example, the peculiarity of the place where Lake Balkhash is located is that it is divided by the waters of the strait into 2 parts:
- in the eastern part of the lake the water has a salty composition;
- in the west, the water has an almost fresh chemical composition.
Of the largest lakes on the planet, Balkhash ranks 13th. And among salty, never-drying lakes, it is second in area after the Caspian Sea. Until recently, the lake was third on this list. But the Aral Sea is rapidly drying up. Answering the question: “Where is Lake Balkhash?”, it should be said that this is the territory of 3 regions of Kazakhstan:
- Karaganda:
- Almaty;
- Zhambylskaya.
History of the name of Lake Balkhash
Balkhash is translated as “bumps in the swamp”. There is a legend that the rich magician Balkhash doted on his daughter Ili. He chose the most courageous, strong, rich and handsome hero as the beauty’s husband. They sent a cry around the world.
The sons of the Chinese emperor and the Mongol khan arrived, bringing countless herds of horses and caravans of camels loaded with gold and silver. And the bride liked a young man named Karatal, who was a poor and rootless shepherd.
The shepherd won all the competitions. The angry Balkhash drove him away. But the lovers ran away from their father. The magician cursed the shepherd and his daughter and turned the young people into rivers. And in order to prevent the rivers from uniting, a huge lake was spread between the lovers.
Where is Lake Balkhash located on the map
Answering the question: “Where is Lake Balkhash on the map,” it should be said that these territories are called East Kazakhstan. Here are some characteristics of the lake:
Ecological danger to the lake
It should be said that a modern mining metallurgy plant was built in Balkhash. The emissions from this enterprise cause serious environmental damage to the lake. The public of Kazakhstan is actively fighting for the future of this national natural shrine. Various events, including international ones, are being carried out to protect this unique natural site.
The lake has excellent recreational potential. The unique landscape, fishing, hunting - all this attracts numerous tourists here. There are several modern and comfortable boarding houses open on the shore for recreation and treatment.
The climate in the area of Lake Balkhash is desert, sharply continental. In July it is hot here, up to +30 °C, in winter it gets cold down to –15 °C. The lake warms up well in the summer, up to +28 °C; in December-January the temperature of the reservoir is about zero. In November, Balkhash freezes, and the ice remains on the lake until early April. There is very little precipitation: the monthly average does not exceed 11-12 mm. The wettest month for this region is May, when up to 16 mm of precipitation can fall.
Geography and general information
The area of the lake is about 17,000 square meters. km, it ranks second in size in Central Asia after the Aral Sea.
The northern shores of the reservoir are rocky and high, while the southern shores are low and sandy, covered with reed thickets. The winding coastline is indented with bays and bays. The average depth of Balkhash is about 6 meters, the maximum is 26 meters. The width of the lake is from 74 km in the western part and up to 3 km at the narrowest point in the eastern half. There are few islands in the reservoir, the largest of them are Basaral and Tasaral.
The lands of the Balkhash region are deserts and steppes, covered with stones, clay and rubble. However, some plants have adapted to survive in difficult conditions. About 60 species of rare plants that have no roots and grow directly from the water serve as a unique decoration of the lake.
The main source feeding Balkhash is the Ili River, which originates in the glaciers of the Tien Shan and flows into the reservoir from the western side. From the east, the lake is replenished by the less full-flowing rivers Karatal, Aksu, Lepsy and others.
Balkhash has no drains; the water level in the lake fluctuates significantly at different times of the year and depends on the amount of snow in the mountains and the intensity of evaporation from the surface of the reservoir.
On the northern coast of the lake is the city of Balkhash, founded in the 20s of the last century.
The Kazakh people created a beautiful legend about the origin of the lake. The sorcerer Balkhash was looking for the strongest and richest groom for his daughter Or. Many worthy suitors fought for the beauty's hand, but her heart was given to the poor shepherd Karatal. Not wanting to marry a rich but unloved man, Or she ran away from her father with Karatal. An evil sorcerer bewitched the young people, and they turned into two rivers rushing towards each other. But, not wanting the lovers to unite, even being rivers, Balkhash turned into a huge lake between them.
Lake Balkhash never ceases to amaze with its mystery - scientists still cannot explain the geographical paradox of the appearance of a semi-freshwater, drainless reservoir among the steppes, in an area of dry climate and low precipitation.
Rest on Lake Balkhash
The numerous sandy beaches of Lake Balkhash are perfect for a beach holiday. You can swim in the reservoir from late May to mid-September.
VacationersRich flora and fauna provide exciting leisure time for fishermen and hunters.
You can sit with a fishing rod in specially designated places at fishing bases in the Balkhash region, which provide guests with accommodation and the necessary equipment. Not a single fisherman, even a beginner, will leave without a good catch. The best time for fishing is spring and July-September. In April, the spawning run of the famous Balkhash roach begins. As soon as the lake warms up, crucian carp, carp, catfish and asp wake up. In total, the reservoir is home to more than 20 species of commercial fish. If you are lucky, your bait may catch a snakehead - a fearsome-looking predatory fish, very tasty and without a specific smell.
Be careful - the local fish marinka (kara-balyk) is primarily poisonous; its caviar and milt should not be eaten. Before cooking, the marinka must be thoroughly gutted and the black abdominal membranes carefully removed. The fish meat is fatty and very tasty.
It is allowed to hunt duck, goose, black grouse, hare, wolf, fox and pheasant in the Balkhash region. The hunting season opens in mid-September, when there are a lot of waterfowl on the lake. Specially trained individuals help to catch the bird, luring their wild counterparts. But shooters need to be careful - there are several species of birds on the lake, hunting which is prohibited, because They are listed in the Red Book: pink and Dalmatian pelicans, white-tailed eagle, whooper swan, spoonbill. For those who want to get a bigger trophy, wild boar hunting is offered, open from October to the end of December. Specially trained dogs track the beast and drive it out of the impenetrable reed thickets. From January it is allowed to shoot foxes, wolves and hare.
Recently, spearfishing has become popular, for which a special gun and a mask with a snorkel are quite sufficient.
Vacationers will enjoy a varied and exciting recreation on the water: boating, yachting, scootering, swimming, surfing and diving. Sports competitions in kayaking and fishing are often held on Balkhash, in which anyone who is confident in their abilities can take part.
If you come to the lake in winter, then skiing, windsurfing on ice, and snowmobiling await you.
Horseback and camel rides around the reservoir will be unforgettable.
If you want to admire the beauty of Lake Balkhash from above, you can take part in a helicopter excursion. Flight prices range from 26 to 38 thousand rubles for a 3.5 hour flight, depending on the type of aircraft. You can sign up for an excursion at recreation centers and hotels.
What to see
The picturesque Bektau-Ata tract is a natural landmark in the outskirts of Balkhash, rising above the Kazakh steppes 70 km from the lake. Bizarre rocks alternate with deep gorges. Many cliffs have names: “Mushroom”, “Turtle”, “Trunk”. The aborigines consider the surrounding area to be holy land. In one of the gorges there is a mysterious Ausliye cave with clean water, which locals consider healing.
Around Lake Balkhash there are many archaeological sites protected by the state and open to the public. Ancient mounds and sites give an idea of the life and customs of the ancient settlers. The most impressive sights: the Aktasty and Klysh mounds, groups of mounds near the Karasu wintering area and in the Ken Dara gorge, the Dermen and Dongal sites, the Aydagarly cave. A place of pilgrimage for tourists is an example of the cult architecture of the Mazar Ak Beket of the 18th century. Mazar is a construction on burial sites in the form of a round yurt.
Vacationers interested in the culture and history of the local people can visit the Local History Museum of the city of Balkhash.
Accommodation
In the villages of Torangylyk, Rembaza, Shubartubek, Lepsy and Chyubar-Tubek there are tourist centers and holiday homes offering guests varying degrees of comfort. At the bases, conditions are more ascetic; here you will be offered small rooms in wooden houses without amenities. The washbasin, shower and toilet in such recreation areas are common and located separately. Accommodation prices start from 150 rubles per day per person.
The Doszhan Hotel, located in Shubartubuk, offers a higher level of service. The rooms have everything you need, as well as satellite TV and upholstered furniture. The hotel has its own beach, gym, tennis court, volleyball and basketball courts. The room will cost from 500 to 1000 rubles for a double room. The price includes breakfast.
The Riva Lepsy recreation area in the village of Lepsy offers the most comfortable accommodation - the rooms of the complex are equipped with amenities, three meals a day are provided. In addition, guests can enjoy oriental mud treatments, massages and peelings. Entertainment: water skiing, billiards, open-air cinema, disco. For children, the complex has a separate playground and inflatable pools. A stay at Riva Lepsy costs from 600 to 2000 rubles for a double room, depending on the category and time of year.
For those wishing to improve their health, the Balkhash sanatorium in the city of Priozersk offers mud therapy, balneotherapy and climatotherapy.
There are many towns and villages along the shores of the lake, which are happy to provide shelter to travelers. You can rent housing for any period. The choice of apartments offered is wide - from a modest room in the master's home to a separate house. The cost of accommodation starts from 200 rubles per person per night. Connoisseurs of local color can stay in yurt camps on the coast of Balkhash.
How to get there
Fly from Astana to Karaganda, from where Zhezkagan Air operates flights to the city of Balkhash three times a week.
You can get from Astana to Balkhash by train, which will take you a day, or by bus, which will take you 10 hours.
Most bases and hotels are located 6-12 km from the city; you can get here by taxi or bus.
For motor tourists, there are parking lots in all settlements.
Lake Balkhash is one of the natural attractions of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is rightfully considered the property of all the people. It is located in the eastern part of the country on the territory of three regions: Almaty, Karaganda and Zhambyl. On the northern side of the reservoir there is the Kazakh small hills, on the western side - Betpak-Dala, and on the southern side there are the Chu-Ili mountains, the sands of Saryesik-Atyrau and Taukum.
Balkhash is a semi-freshwater closed lake. This never-drying salt lake is second only to the Caspian Sea in size. In the list of the largest lakes in the world, Balkhash is located in an honorable thirteenth place.
The lake is divided into two parts by a narrow strait. Surprising is the fact that the water in these two parts differs in chemical composition. In the western part of the strait, the lake water is almost fresh, and in the eastern part it is salty.
The shape of the lake strongly resembles a crescent. Its length is about 600 km and its width is from 9 to 74 km. The total area of Balkhash reaches 16.4 thousand square meters. km. The following rivers flow into the lake: Ili, Aksu, Lepsy, Karatal and Ayaguz. Translated from the Tatar language, the name of the lake “Balkhsh” is translated as “swampy, tussock-covered area.”
Until the 1970s, when the Kapchagai hydroelectric power station dam was built on the Ili River, which formed the Kapchagai reservoir, the lake was famous for the purity of its water and the richness of its fauna. When the reservoir was filled, the water balance of the lake was disrupted. The water level dropped by more than 2 m.
Today the lake is home to such species of fish as asp, roach, bream, crucian carp, perch, asp, catfish, carp and pike perch. The shores of Balkhash are excellent for hunting. Here you can hunt greylag geese and ducks, mallards and coots. Hares, foxes, wolves and pheasants are also found.
Lake Balkhash is famous as a popular place for recreation and water sports - kayaking and canoeing, sailing and sport fishing.
Balkhash is like Baikal, only in Central Asia. The same shape of an irregular crescent, the same dissimilarity of the lands on different sides of the lake, the same aspirated “sea” in the terminology of the local residents. Balkhash is also famous for the fact that these are actually two lakes - the western half is fresh, and the eastern half is salty. Like Baikal, Balkhash has its own “poisoner”, and a much more severe one - the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine, a full-cycle copper plant, the second largest in the former USSR after Norilsk. The copper mines of Balkhash, scattered along the northern coast for 250 kilometers, from Kounrad to Sayak, were discovered in 1928 by Mikhail Rusakov, and the plant and the city with it were built by prisoners in 1931-37, delivered on a turnkey basis. They didn’t particularly bother with the name: the city was named Balkhash and in 1973 was included in the copper Zhezkazgan region, where it was almost equal to the regional center (100 thousand versus 122 thousand). Nowadays 70 thousand people live here (31% Russians), but despite the loss of a third of the population, Balkhash seemed to me one of the most comfortable and prosperous in Kazakhstan.
About the city, lake and suburbs - the next part of the journey through the Great Steppe. And starting from this post, instead of “I” there will be “we” - a day earlier, in Karaganda, she joined me darkiya_v , who left Moscow 10 days later than me.
There is a night train from Karaganda to Balkhash, and either we were lucky, or it’s always like this here, but the train turned out to be surprisingly civil, approximately at the level of fast non-branded Russian Railways trains - and after the Arkalyk and Zhezkazgan clunkers, it was the height of comfort! The Karaganda-Semipalatinsk train passes through Balkhash every other day, a train runs from Zhezkazgan once a week, but you can’t get to Alma-Ata without a transfer. Waking up in the morning and leaving the compartment, I saw a green geometric plane outside the window - this is the edge of Betpak-Dala, or the Hungry Steppe. It was not possible to shoot much through the extremely dirty windows - here is just a shot of some remote station (wasn’t Buranny Edigei working here?). There is a problem with station architecture in Kazakhstan (except for the Tashkent Railway) - in principle, it only exists in big cities; during the entire trip I did not see a single, not even beautiful, but simply remarkable station at small stations:
Half an hour before arrival, the Balkhash residents begin to peer into the steppe, waiting for the pipes to appear. This is what the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Plant looks like from the road, and they say when the wind blows on the city, it smells of sulfur. On our visit, unfortunately or fortunately, the wind carried copper fumes into the steppe:
If in Zhezkazgan the railway runs along the southern outskirts, in Balkhash - along the northern. Moreover, there are two stations within the city limits. First - Balkhash-1, also known as Old Balkhash - a station from the late 1950s, followed by a block of three-story Stalin buildings, perhaps even pre-war ones (I couldn’t take pictures). Here the train stops for 20 minutes:
As I understand it, Balkhash-1 is mainly a freight station, and Old Balkhash serves as a town for railway workers:
Halfway between the two stations is the entrance to the city from the highway, the main national highway Alma-Ata - Astana. Entry is via an overpass over the railway, the beginning of which is marked by two charming fish, popularly nicknamed Erlan and Nurlan:
And finally the Balkhash-2 station, entirely for passengers, with a huge and repulsively ugly station from the 1980s. I would venture to guess - this is the largest station in the Karaganda region, in addition, equipped with a high platform. Why exactly here, given the insignificance of traffic, I don’t dare to guess:
The center is about two kilometers from here. For some reason I remembered that the bus station should be next to the station, and we went there on foot - the first thing we needed to do was find out the bus schedule for Sary-Shagan, from where we had a train to Alma-Ata in the evening. We asked for directions from a Kazakh peasant passing by, he thought and thought, and then suddenly greeted another peasant passing by, obviously a friend, and asked him to accompany us. During the 20-minute journey, he managed to tell a lot about the vicissitudes of life in Kazakhstan - in general, in prosperous Balkhash, people are much more nostalgic for the Union than in many much poorer cities. But only when we approached the station and said goodbye to the peasant, we discovered that he was not coming here and had deviated from the route specifically to see us off.
This is what the Mukhamedzhanov and Shashubai microdistricts located between the station and the bus station look like (unlike Zhezkazgan and Arkalyk, the microdistricts here are not numbered, but named) - a Soviet city under the White Sun of the desert:
A small and very civilized bus station stands opposite the Central Market, and there we learned that there will be three passing buses to Sary-Shagan (about 16, 18 and 21), the ride takes an hour and a half, tickets are available upon arrival. From there, minibuses went to the nearest villages - for example, to Kounrad with a giant quarry, or to Shashubai on a peninsula in the middle of the lake. I had seen enough of the industry, and we decided to go to Shashubai... so everything that I will show below, in fact, we examined in reverse order.
The bazaar separates the bus station from the central Independence Square, which is decorated with a monument to Agybay Batyr:
Despite his medieval appearance, Agybai Konyrbayuly is a character from the 19th century, a comrade-in-arms of Kenesary Khan, with whom he fought against the Russians, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz for the restoration of Kazakh independence, and continued the war for several years after Kenesary’s death - until 1849. When it became clear that the Russians could not be defeated, and most of the Kazakhs did not really want to, he abandoned military affairs and, having received something like an amnesty from the tsarist authorities, lived quietly in the distant steppe until 1885. Monuments to “fighters against tsarism” in Kazakhstan are quite rare - from the places where I have been, I can only remember offhand. Agybay is immortalized here also because he was born on Balkhash and spent his old age.
The square is bounded by Karamende-bi Street (I wish I knew who it is), behind which Social City begins. Opposite the monument to Agybay, Karl Marx Boulevard descends to the lake:
The social city in the “Malenkovsky” version of Stalinism on Balkhash is colorful. In the blocks on both sides of Marx Boulevard - it is quite monumental and with oriental motifs characteristic of Kazakhstan:
And on other streets and courtyards you seem to be returning to the 1960s:
It's not even a matter of the landscape (the streets here are pretty shabby), but the atmosphere itself - everything here is somehow simple, simple, understandable, understandable. Just like in those dusty books about Soviet pioneers. I am not able to convey this in a photograph - but this feeling became the most vivid in Balkhash-city (i.e., not counting the lake):
There are also many artifacts preserved here, which, however, you get used to very quickly in Kazakhstan:
And a characteristic feature of local architecture is these wooden canopies:
Now let's return to Marx Boulevard - its length is about a kilometer, and its high number of storeys, monumentality and well-groomed appearance gives the feeling that we are in a big city:
The boulevard descends to Lenin Street (toponymy in Kazakhstan, with the almost complete eradication of Ilyich monuments, remained Soviet in most cities), behind which is the really huge Palace of Metallurgists named after Khamzin:
Distinguished by very good sculptures - pay attention, by the way, to the clearly Kazakh appearance:
Behind the palace there is a rather neglected park, a monument to Michal Rusakov, a T-34 tank...
Victory Memorial (where for some reason we forgot to go)...
And finally - Balkhash! It is difficult to describe in words the delight that you experience on the shore of the water going to the horizon after two weeks of wandering through the steppes and deserts, where most of the rivers can be forded, and the “big” Tobol and Ishim are already Moscow rivers. Here Balkhash is an even larger sea than Baikal in water-rich Siberia.
From the pier to the right you can clearly see the BGMK chimneys spewing out dense smoke, and the lonely Chechenka rock is not a dump, as it might seem, but a remnant:
It's better to look to the left. The thick “sea green color” is not photoshop or a shooting defect, Balkhash really is like this:
From here you can clearly see a rock with the ruins of something, a broken pipe and a metal “torch”, which I noticed on the road to Shashubai:
And on the way from Shashubai, Darkiya and I decided to climb it. It is about 3 kilometers from the center, so it is better to go by bus. There is a sign near the road:
The history here is more interesting than it seems - initially, in 1931, the village of Pribalkhashsky arose here, and an experimental processing plant worked on a hill near the lake - its pipe is visible from afar. The copper ore of the Balkhash deposits had a rather specific composition, and here they were looking for a way to extract the metal from it most productively, obtaining a decent result only by 1935. At the same time, a plant was built on the other side of the bay, which reached full capacity in 1937-38. There was no longer a need for an enrichment plant, the inhabitants of Pribalkhash moved to the socialist city - so all that remained of the factory was a pipe and foundations on a slope:
The memorial opened in 1978, and now it is a rather pitiful sight. Particularly impressive is the staircase, the steps of which are at a noticeable angle to the horizon - that is, apparently it was supported on metal supports, which were then stolen, and now just lie on the slope. The feeling of climbing it is very strange:
But the view from there is amazing! Nowhere else, except perhaps the river, have I seen water of such a pleasant color. Balkhash simply caresses the eye:
Let's look at the city from right to left. Here is the center - the Metallurgists Palace of Culture and the pier. Boats - fishing, departmental and pleasure boats; there has been no passenger navigation on Balkhash for a very long time:
But late-Soviet Balkhash, complete with a lake and smoke from the plant, is very reminiscent of:
And finally, the Balkhash Mining and Metallurgical Combine itself, stretched along the peninsula for 4 kilometers. A rather rare case is a full-cycle copper plant (and as you know, the copper production cycle is very complex), and I think it’s the largest plant in all of Kazakhstan. About a third of all investments in the industry of the Kazakh SSR were allocated for its construction in the 1930s:
Chechen Mountain. Most of the plant are rather squat workshops, so it is difficult to assess its true scale from afar; it is best visible on the map, surpassing the city itself in size:
Another feature: if in Russia the largest copper deposits are mainly copper-nickel, then in Balkhash they are copper-molybdenum. And molybdenum is a metal, firstly, irreplaceable, secondly, very expensive (about $32 thousand per ton), and thirdly, in short supply in the former USSR - more than half of reserves and production are in the USA. In the Soviet Union, the largest molybdenum deposit was in Armenia, where production was established in 1942 - just like, not because of a good life: the Nazis cut off the railway to the Caucasus.
In general, there is a lot of everything in copper ore - lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel, arsenic... Copper metallurgy is the dirtiest industry (examples -,), and here it is visible to the naked eye:
So we’d better not look at the plant anymore. To the left is the Zub Peninsula. Although Balkhash stands on Bertys Bay between two larger peninsulas, locals only know it as a “peninsula”.
I still haven’t figured out what that hill is in the distance:
At the exit from Bertys Bay there is a long and low Green Island:
We ourselves are at the beginning of a large peninsula on the eastern side of Bertys Bay. There is its tip - on the cape there is the village of Rembaza, where buses go every 2-3 hours, but we went to Shashubai - it is also on this peninsula, but (relative to the frame) to the left, and faces the open lake:
And here we are on the shore - the waves are splashing, the seagulls are screaming... Behind us is the dusty steppe. Now I regret that I did not taste the water - I was afraid of some kind of infection. As already mentioned, in fact, Balkhash is two lakes that are separated by the Saryesik Peninsula and the Uzun-Aral Strait: Western Balkhash is 58% of the area, Eastern Balkhash is 54% of the volume. Balkhash divides the endless steppes of Sary-Arka and Betpak-Dala on the one hand and Semirechye on the other, and as the name implies, all the rivers flow into it from the south. In the east these are small Ayagoz, Lepsy, Aksu and Karatal, and in the west - huge by Kazakh standards Ili. But nothing flows out of Balkhash - it is the world's largest closed lake. To some extent, the Uzun-Aral is also a river through which water from the fresh Western Balkhash continuously flows into the salty Eastern Balkhash, which it leaves only in the form of steam. So, why talk about “taste it” - although everywhere it is indicated that Western Balkhash is fresh, the locals already in the evening told us that the water here is salty. In general, with an area of 18 thousand square kilometers (almost half the size of Baikal) and a length of 604 kilometers, Balkhash is the 13th largest lake on Earth and the 2nd in the former USSR (after Baikal, as well as the untimely dried up Aral Sea, which used to be larger than both of them). But it wasn’t deep - no more than 26 meters, but on average 5-6 meters.
We walked a little around Shashubai - a dusty village or suburb with extremely annoying dogs and quite urban, but no less extremely curious residents:
For some reason we decided to walk along the lake, came across a small industrial area and began to try to get around it, for which we climbed straight along the red coastal rocks:
At some point it became clear that we couldn’t go any further, but there was almost a staircase leading up. We climbed out into some closed area, a vacant lot behind barbed wire, and I remembered a well-known folk saying that driving tied up in the trunk at night means big trouble. However, apparently, the industrial zone is abandoned, and the thorn is a relic:
48.
(this and the following photos are by Darkia)
We passed another hill - and this view opened up to us, calm and majestic. We found a secluded rock and talked for a long time. I didn’t want to leave: the damp warm wind, the splash and shine of the waves - peace...
And the landscapes here are completely different than even near Zhezkazgan. This is the real Central Asia, a dusty and hot semi-desert. Along which we walked back to the city, along the way we photographed a characteristic Kazakh cemetery, about which there was a separate post. This is what the city looks like from the steppe, and the plant here seems like nothing more than an eerie mirage:
And in the city we went to the bazaar and bought a kurt and shubat there. Kurt are small balls of hard and dry salted cottage cheese, very filling, and therefore were the favorite food of nomads. Shubat is even cooler than kumiss, a fermented milk drink made from camel milk. The barmaid girl, before pouring, shook the 10-liter jar properly (a good shubat should be foamy), and when she turned the lid, there was a natural explosion: the lid ricocheted off across the entire room, and the girl was noticeably hit in the hand. Afterwards we joked about the bottle of shubat: “Don’t drop it, it will explode!” We went by bus to the Sary-Shagan station, from where, completely unplanned, we got to Priozersk - the “capital” of the Sary-Shagan missile test site. But more on this in the next part.
My other posts about Kazakhstan -
