During Soviet times the volume of production of salt in Kyzylorda oblast of Kazakhstan reached 600,000 tons annually, ensuring the needs of all 15 republics of the USSR.

Today the region produces about 250,000 tons of salt that is used only for the needs of domestic market. Salt reserves in this area are about 11 million tons, enough to continue production for the next 40-50 years. Photos by voxpopuli.kz

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Tags: Aralsk city · Kzyl-Orda oblast · salt

March 25, 2012 the Proton Breeze M rocket successfully launched the Intelsat 22 satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome located in Kazakhstan. The satellite, weighing 6199 kg, was released into supersynchronous transfer orbit at 65,000 km apogee.

The Proton Breeze M vehicle is built by Khrunichev State Research and Space Production Center of Moscow. Proton has a heritage of 374 missions since its maiden flight in 1965.

Tags: Baikonur city · cosmodrome · launch · space rocket

Kazakhstan is the world leader in production of natural sponges the chairman of the Board of “Kaznex Invest” Erlan Arinov said at press conference in Almaty. According to him “Kazakhstan sponges are in great demand, especially in Russia and Europe”.

Kazakhstan sponge products are made from natural material – the fruits of loofah, grown in Uzbekistan, where natural conditions and hot sun make an unusual fiber structure of loofah – unique skin care product.

For several decades a lot of countries use Kazakhstan sponges made from Central Asia loofah. The growing trend in environmental issues, shortage of natural products shows that numerous people suffer from allergies using synthetic sponges. Kazakhstan natural sponges do not cause any allergy or skin irritation.

Tags: loofah sponges

Great photos of the plants located in Pavlodar city. The places are looking like real hell on earth. The photos were captured by Stepanov Slava.

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Tags: Pavlodar city · plants

A lot of information about Kazakhstan in one video.

Tags: Encyclopedia

A mine of such a capacity was constructed for the first time in the world in Ekibastuz coal field (Ekibastuz city). Due to this fact “Bogatyr” was included into the Guinness Book of Records in 1980 (over 1 billion tons of coal was mined within the whole period of exploitation). 50 million tons is mined a year. The pictures were captured by Stepanov Slava (all the photos are clickable).

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Tags: coal mine · Ekibastuz city

The following video report was captured by ABC Australia on the shores of Aral Sea and in Aralsk city. The story is about the present and the possible future of Aral Sea that almost disappeared during the Soviet times.

Tags: Aral Sea · Aralsk city