Qaragandy (Kazakhstan)
Qaragandy is a mid-sized industrial city in central Kazakhstan. It has a particular urban tissue: various parts of the city grew sporadically, following the development of coal mines. As a result, the city is divided into six major areas that are connected by transport arteries, and the entire city is also divided by a railway line, which separates the industrial zones from the living districts.
"Staryi gorod" ("old city") is a calm and picturesque area of Qaragandy. It has old trees, many green areas, and narrow streets. When one walks in staryi gorod, one discovers a few beautiful two- and four-storey blocks, such as the one in this picture. Despite the discordant note of stuck-on air conditioners and antennae – an act of unilateral egoism by the owners, which caricatures the monumentality of the sculptural facades – they maintain stately and dignified appearance, referring to Soviet neo-classicist architecture of the late 1930s, while the ornaments on the façades relate to Central Asia. Solid, brick-layered fences with elegant arches connect these blocks and create a cosy atmosphere inside the inner areas. When one looks at these buildings in today's Qaragandy, Balkhash, Zheskazgan, and other cities in Central Kazakhstan, one notices first and foremost their handsome appearance, high ceilings, ample windows, comfortable floor plans. People rarely know or ask when and by whom they were built. Yet, the history of these buildings' creation is crucial for understanding the post-WWII history of Kazakhstan and Central Asia in its political and transnational dimensions. Many of these buildings were constructed by Japanese prisoners of war, who remained in Central Kazakhstan from the early 1940s and until 1949, when they were repatriated to Japan.
According to the available data, Kazakhstan hosted 35.902 Japanese war prisoners on its territory (RGVA, f. 24p, op. 27, d.14). Japanese POWs totalled about 60% of the 59,873 foreign war prisoners who were kept in Kazakhstan between 1946 and 1949. In 1948, the Spassk prisoners' camp of Karlag hosted 13,461 Japanese war prisoners. There were other camps too, but Spassk was by far the largest. Japanese prisoners laboured at construction sites, in metal and coal mines, at copper-smelting works – hence, they participated in the industrial breakthrough of Kazakhstan and Central Asia after WWII. The work conditions were harsh. Food ratios improved with time but they were always meagre, and directly depended on the quantity of mined or produced material by single workers. Moreover, beyond the normal 12-hour workload outside the camp and walking long distances to and from the workplaces, prisoners were often forced to work inside the camps. Among Japanese prisoners dystrophy was not a rare disease, and some of them died of tuberculosis, pneumonia, and typhoid fever. There was a lack of qualified doctors and other specialists. The safety engineering and accident prevention were almost non-existent. The medical records from 1948, for example, demonstrate that most hospitalizations (3,488 out of 10,380) were due to traumas and urgent need for surgery (GAKO, f. 410, op. 5, d. 45).
Most Japanese war prisoners were repatriated from the Soviet Union by 1949. A tiny number of those who did not want to the leave the Union, or those who were imprisoned for crimes, remained. The fruits of their post-war labour, however, are still inscribed in the urban and industrial landscape of now post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It must not be forgotten.
Nariman Shelekpayev, European University at St. Petersburg