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Concept
Oskemen
Summary
Oskemen (Өскемен ) or Ust-Kamenogorsk (Усть-Каменого́рск) is the administrative center of East Kazakhstan Region of Kazakhstan. Population:
The city has two official names. In the Kazakh language, its name is Өскемен/Öskemen and in the Russian language it is known as Усть-Каменогорск. Both names appear on the seal of the city.
The city was founded in 1720 at the confluence of the Irtysh and Ulba rivers as a fort and trading post named Ust-Kamennaya. It was established according to the order of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great, who sent a military expedition headed by major Ivan Vasilievich Likharev in the search of Yarkenda gold. Likharev’s expedition directed up the Irtysh River to Zaysan Lake. There, at the confluence of the Ulba and the Irtysh rivers the new fortress was laid – the Ust-Kamennaya Fortress. The Ust-Kamennaya Fortress appeared on the map of the Russian Empire, the very southern end of the Irtysh line. In 1868 the city became the capital of the Semipalatinsk Oblast. It was the site of Georgy Malenkov's 30-year internal exile, during which he managed a local hydroelectric plant.
One of the main industrial enterprises, the Ulba Metal Works (UMW) which produced and still produces uranium products, was kept entirely secret despite it employing thousands of workers. An explosion at the UMW's beryllium production line in 1990 led to the diffusion of a highly toxic beryllium-containing "cloud" over the city. The health effects of this incident are not entirely known, partly because the incident was kept secret by the Soviet authorities.
In 2017, the Ulba Metallurgical Plant was inaugurated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the home of the Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) bank - which serves as a supply mechanism of last resort for IAEA member states. The LEU bank is a physical stock of 90 metric tons of LEU hexaflouride, enough uranium to power a large city for three years. The facility was wholly funded by IAEA member states and other contributions for a total of $150 million.
Official source
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