Semey

Semey (?????, sometimes transliterated as Semij or Semei) is a city in north eastern Kazakhstan, near the border with Siberia. It was known as Semipalatinsk (?????????????) until 1994; like a number of Kazak cities, the name was changed in the period following Kazakhstan gaining independence in 1991. It is a city in the Shyghys Qazaqstan oblysy. It is located at {{coor dm|50|26|N|80|16|E|region:KZ_type:city(400,000)}}, around 1000km north of Almaty, and 700km southeast of the Russian city of Omsk, along the Irtysh River.

Famous residents

• Writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose exile included five years military service as a corporal in the Seventh Line Battalion at the Semipalatinsk garrison, beginning in 1854.
• Abai Kunanbaiuli, father of modern Kazakh poetry, received his Russian schooling at Semipalatinsk.
• Boxer Wladimir Klitschko, who was born there in 1976.

The city has built a museum to commemorate Kunanbaev, and has both a museum of, and a street named after, Dostoyevsky.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~