No one seems to like the name Petropavl.
The city, situated in northern Kazakhstan in a peninsula of territory that juts into Russian Siberia, has long lived between two worlds. From monuments to manhole covers, there have long been conflicting stories about who belongs here.
In the Russian telling, the city was founded as a fortress on “empty steppe” in 1752 by Tsarist troops, named for Saints Peter and Paul – in Russian, Petropavlovsk. For over a century, it remained a frontier post that guarded the empire’s edge before the push into Central Asia in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet for Kazakhs, this place was never empty: long before the Cossacks came, nomadic Kazakhs from the Middle Zhuz grazed their herds here along the Ishim River, calling the place Qyzyljar – “the red ridge”.
Manhole covers imprinted with Qyzyljar; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
Since independence, Kazakhstan has restored the names of thousands of cities, towns, and villages across the country in order to give the land a more Kazakh stamp. But Qyzyljar has not returned. Instead, the authorities’ immediate solution has been to Kazakh-ify the Russian name, leaving us with Petropavl.
It’s a fudge that satisfies no one, and the official name is rarely heard on the city streets. In this overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city, most continue to call it “Petropavlovsk,” or even “Piter,” echoing Saint Petersburg’s nickname.
Ethnic Russians
Ethnic Russians now make up just under half the population of the North Kazakhstan region. In individual cities such as Petropavl, the proportion is far higher, although official information is hard to come by. The boundaries of Kazakhstan’s provinces, or oblasts, were gerrymandered in 1997 to soften perceptions of Russian dominance, but a mere walk around the city makes it clear that about two-thirds of the population is not Kazakh.
These numbers and the region’s proximity to Russia have long made it a focus of uneasy attention. When Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin remarked that Kazakhstan had “never had statehood” before Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Dmitri Medvedev called it an “artificial state” in 2022 (although he subsequently claimed to have been hacked).
Other Russian lawmakers have called northern Kazakhstan “a gift from Russia,” while nationalist commentators as far back as Solzhenitsyn have called for Northern Kazakhstan to be “reunited” with Russia.
Dr. Petr Oskolkov, affiliated researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, was part of a team that undertook research on the ethnic Russian population in Kazakhstan in 2020-21, and believes that these fears are overblown.
“Initially, there was a lack of public trust in the prospects of Kazakhstani statehood, especially among Russian-speakers. Nowadays, these doubts are absent,” he told The Times of Central Asia. “Moreover, the overall level of the identification with Kazakhstan, and the quality of life, have both grown significantly since the 1990s, so the idea [of separatism] has lost its main appeal.”
Soviet mosaic; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
Nevertheless, doom-mongers in Astana worry that Petropavlovsk and other cities with large Russian populations could still become a font of potential instability, a kind of Kazakh Donbas. Indeed, in the wake of the Crimea annexation, Kazakh lawmakers expanded the definition of separatism in an attempt to head off such threats before they gained any momentum. Article 170 of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code, which used to punish violent threats to Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity, has, for the past decade, criminalized peaceful calls to join Russia, including videos made online.
This law was most notably employed in March 2023, when several dozen people calling themselves the “People’s Council of the Workers of Petropavlovsk” declared independence, claiming they “did not recognize the collapse of the USSR” and considered Kazakhstan an “oligarchic corporation” rather than a state. Three leaders of the group were sentenced to between 7-9 years in prison.
The Kazakh Perspective
That is not to say there are no Kazakhs in the city.
Overlooking the Ishim River stands the Ablai Khan Museum, a reconstruction of the eighteenth-century residence of the last Kazakh ruler to unite the country’s three zhuz.
Aigul, a student guide, moves through rooms lined with embroidered carpets and painted maps. “We are very proud of Ablai Khan,” she told The Times of Central Asia. “He was a Batyr (warrior), but also a poet.”
From a loudspeaker overheard comes soft folk music, Elim Ai (Our Country), lamenting the defeats of the Kazakhs at the hands of the Dzungars in the 1700s. “Every Kazakh knows this,” said Aigul. “It reminds us that we survived.”
The museum’s existence is a pointed reminder that Kazakhs have been here long before the Peter and Paul Fortress was built.
The Piter & Paul restaurant gives a nod to the city’s heritage; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
The Russian Perspective
For some Kazakh nationalists, a long-term psychological goal has been to “restore” the city’s Kazakh name, Qyzyljar. It received the most momentum in 2010, when a member of Kazakhstan’s parliament, Zharasbay Suleimenov, made an official request to the Prime Minister to rename the city.
The news caused the usually apathetic locals to rapidly organize against the idea. The symbol of their protest was a yellow ribbon; these appeared on fences and lampposts, coats and bags – a spontaneous protest against what many saw as erasure. The campaign succeeded, and Petropavl has remained – for now.
But the name Qyzyljar has been kept alive by other means. It became the name of the football team in 2009, and has also been bestowed on the city’s most prominent hotel, the public water company, and one of Kazakhstan’s most popular vodka brands.
The Qyzylijar Hotel; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
An editor at the city’s flagship newspaper, Petropavlovsk News, told The Times of Central Asia that articles surrounding the city’s name are always bound to generate the greatest number of hits. She points to a recent story where new manhole covers emerged on the city’s newly restored Constitution Street bearing both the names Qyzyljar and Petropavl.
Comments on the video give an idea of the depth of feeling on the issue:
“This is how it starts!” said one user.
“There is nothing in my memory apart from Petropavlovsk, and my memory is good!” said another.
A third put it more provocatively: “Qyzyljar – where’s that?”
Autumn on Constitution Street; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
Exodus
But while each of these cases receives column inches, a far bigger concern is the number of people leaving the region.
“There are so few opportunities here,” Kamila, a master’s student at the University of Toronto, who has returned to visit her family, told TCA. Kamila is ethnically Kazakh, but believes people are leaving the city regardless of ethnicity. “Almost all my classmates have moved, most to Astana or Omsk, but also to Almaty, or abroad. Whether you’re Russian or Kazakh doesn’t really matter. Most of us just want a future.”
Omsk, in particular, just three hours’ drive away, is a draw for both students and workers. This has only increased since the onset of war in Ukraine. With many young Russians mobilized to the front and a simultaneous crackdown on migrant laborers, ethnic Russians from Kazakhstan have found themselves in high demand.
Kazakhstan’s government has long recognized the issue and launched various resettlement programs, giving financial incentives to people from south Kazakhstan to move north. But progress is slow. Many southerners balk at the harsh winters and lack of opportunities in the country’s north. Indeed, last year, one politician called the whole scheme a failure. Northern Kazakhstan’s population is expected to fall by 600,000 by 2050.
Soviet mosaic; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes
A Success Story
Nevertheless, some people have stayed.
Dmitriy Lapitsky is the founder of one of the city’s most renowned success stories: Lapitsky Bakehouse. Like many born and raised here, he moved to Omsk for his education but then decided to return to Petropavl to try his luck in business.
“We already had a bakery,” he told The Times of Central Asia. “But then we decided to collaborate with a local coffee shop, and the chain grew from there.”
Lapitsky now has six establishments across the city, and plans to open a café in Astana.
He feels that Petropavl’s geography has “no effect whatsoever” on the business, although he too admits that staffing can often be an issue.
“This is one of the main problems at the moment, not only in our industry but in others as well. Despite high salaries that can even compete with those in Astana, young people are trying to find their place in big cities like Astana and Almaty, or they leave for Russia,” he said.
But Lapitsky is positive about Petropavl’s future.
“Over the past two years, we’ve seen the city begin to transform; many businessmen have begun to improve their businesses and renovate old buildings. We have a cozy little city; we love it and believe in its prosperity,” he said.
“Our city isn’t about hustle and bustle, it’s about life,” said Lapitsky fondly. “We’re in no rush. Our natural surroundings give us the chance to explore lakes, forests, and more with loved ones, rather than just sit within four walls.”
Indeed, the city is remarkably walkable: the Park of the First President is one of the prettiest in the country, particularly in autumn. Meanwhile, Constitution Street, the pedestrianized central avenue, stretches over a mile through the city center, with low, red-brick houses dotted along its sides.
Standing along this road, opposite the Hotel Qyzyljar, is the Pushkin–Abai monument, where the two poets, one Russian, one Kazakh, stand shoulder to shoulder in bronze.
A symbol of a city that has learned that compromise isn’t always a bad thing.
