Ekibastuz

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Ekibastuz is a town in Pavlodar 'oblysy' (region), northeastern Kazakhstan. It has a population of 127,200 (1999 census). It was the location of a major forced-labor camp of the Gulag system maintained by the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s. It is served by Ekibastuz Airport.

Near Ekibastuz there are two coal fired power plants: GRES-1, with installed capacity of 4000 megawatts, and GRES-2, with an installed capacity of 1000 megawatts. GRES-2 has the tallest chimney in the world (419.7 meters).

From Ekibastuz to Kokshetau runs an overhead powerline designed for a transmission voltage of 1150 kV, the Ekibastuz-Kokshetau powerline.

The history of Ekibastuz starts in the 19th century, when Kosym Pshembayev, native kazakh who was commissioned by the Russian merchantmen to find the mineral resources fields in that region, alighted the coal field in the south-east from Pavlodar. He indicated that place with two big lumps of the salt. From that signification the name of the place takes its origin: "Ekibastuz" means "two lumps of the salt" in kazakh. So, the exploitation of the field stared. The field afterwards was sold to British businessman Urkart. The railway connection was constructed and the village "Ekibastuz" was established at 1899.

The revolution in the Russian Empire, as well as two World Wars distracted the attention of the state from the exploitation of the field. The village was totally deserted. However, in 1948 the first team of the constructors which contained from 50 people only started the building of the future town. The borders of the future open-cast coal fields was also marked at that time.

December of 1954 was the significant period for Ekibastuz, because the first trainload of the coal was loaded. From that time the industrial developing of Ekibastuz started. At 1955 the millionth ton of the coal was producted.

The status of the "town" was given to Ekibastuz on 12 of July,1957 by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh Soviet Socialistic Republic. To that time the population of Ekibastuz was approx. 25,000 people. Nowadays, thee population of Ekibastuz is about 130,000 people

Today Ekibastuz is the biggest open-cast coal field and one of the most perspective open-cast coal regions in the world. It contain more than 13 billion ton of the coal on the area of 62 square kilometers. In other words, there are 74 million ton of the coal per square meter.