Karaganda

Karaganda, Kazakhstan - darkometer rating : 4 - A major city in central Kazakhstan which is mostly associated with a) its gulag -related history and b) its coal mining and heavy industry. Both make good reasons for the dark tourist to visit the place. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: the name and pronunciation of the name of the place varies a little: "Karaganda" is the Russian name/spelling, while "Karagandy" is a compromise transliteration of the Kazakh name, which is at least as common in the region, and is more accurately represented as "Qaraghandy". Karaganda was once the second largest city in Kazakhstan , now it has fallen to fourth place, but its population is still significant, at nearly half a million inhabitants. Much of its growth in the 20th century was due to the involuntary influx of ethnic Germans: first during WWII when Stalin had the German minority from the Volga basin exiled to the Karaganda region (as being ethnic German was enough to be considered at least potential "traitors"). Secondly, following WWII, the labour camps of the KarLag gulag system were filled in good part by POW s from Germany . In many cases these had been randomly and largely unjustly accused of being 'werewolves', alleged post-war underground Nazi saboteurs, and initially interned in former concentration camps such as Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, which were turned into "special camps" by the Soviet occupying power in East Germany, before being deported to gulags in Siberia or Kazakhstan. After the KarLag system was disbanded, many ethnic Germans stayed on in the region.