Kazakhstan. Alga - ghost town Bashny.Net

City Alga - an open wound on Aktobe region map. The once large and prosperous city, gremevshego throughout the Soviet Union, now ekes out a miserable existence. With the collapse of the Union, to stop funding the main plant: workers cut and mill was surrounded by a fence. Live arteries feeding the whole city was severed, and then no one suspected that forever ...



Known Alga was due to the chemical plant. Actually, this plant became the main enterprise. The best experts from all Soviet republics were sent here to work in the 40s



Getting Started in 1939, the factory for some couple of months became the largest industrial enterprise in the field, and then in the whole of the Kazakh SSR. By the way - this is the firstborn of the chemical industry in Kazakhstan



Today the former greatness of the plant resemble industrial music just creepy landscapes



Following the mass unemployment Alqui swept wave of crimes. Were recorded even cases of cannibalism. City plunged into depression and despair. Residents threw their apartments and left whole families. Today in the town there are about 15 thousand people instead of 40,000 former



After nearly twenty years in Alga, little has changed. From the plant almost nothing left - the local population literally pilfered it piece by piece on the nonferrous metal. Cultural Park littered with debris and abandoned houses remained standing in his place



On the streets not crowded. Everyone who can work, have moved to work in Aktobe or go to watch


In the city there were only those who could not find work. But those are not sitting idle. From early morning on the main street Alga can see vendors selling mainly seeds and knitted socks



Pensioner Anastasia Romanenko worked at the plant for forty years. On that terrible time when the plant was closed and people were out of work, she was hard to remember. "Together with the closure of the plant, turned off the light and heating. People had a 30-degree frost build fires on the street, to heat water and cook food "




Retired Viktor Kovalev lives in Alga with his wife for more than forty years


Boy Victor Panteleevich loved tinkering improvised various crafts. This interest in handy algintsu hungry post-perestroika times



Homemade windmill has helped Kovalev family survive. Wind power mill performs several functions - lots of grain and used as sandpaper. But most importantly - from wind power is being supplied



Mill - not only of the inventions Alga da Vinci. From the frame and cab prewar GAZ-MM, dashing retired for three years brought the car



This is a real attraction algintsev! Auto has already managed to "light up" in the parade and even play in a film about the Great Patriotic War. "Despite the fact that such a machine in the field, with the taxes we fight and inspection is required," - complains pensioner. "Alginets" as Victor calls his car Panteleevich, primarily driven machine. If you need something to bring all run to help Kovalev. "Alginets" - well done! So many times we rescued! "


Despite his advanced age, Victor Panteleevich full of ideas. Latest invention pensioner - mechanical chopper. "Weeding ordinary hoe - back can be overstrained. And here all the petrol runs - including a forward and with a song! "



Home life pensioner also equips himself



Artem Osipov, who graduated from Aktobe journalism, lives in Alga. Artem mom, like many algintsy working in shifts. The very man caring for a sick grandmother


Communication with the outside world young people support via the Internet. True, the connection speed is small - only 1, 5 kbit / s



In the revival of Alga Artem does not believe. "Young people are drinking every day, because there are no prospects. There is no one to raise the city "



Former music teacher Andrey Ivanik lives on disability benefits. This twenty thousand tenge. "The money is small, but you can live. Others get even less "



Music lessons Andrei Bogdanovich does not stop. At home studio collected over several years, the musician composes his own songs. A little sad, and sad - all of them are devoted to native Alga



In addition to the infamous chemical plant, Alqui still know as the place where he studied Soviet cosmonaut Viktor Patsaev (Photo from the personal archive of Galina Patsaeva)



Sister astronaut writer Galina Patsaeva, has written three books about her brother, lives in Aktobe, but childhood, like his brother, held in Alga. "We were living in Alga before the war, when the plant was built. City only grew, but the population, remember, grew rapidly ... "



Currently, few people remember the famous cosmonaut who tragically died while landing on the ground. The only recollection - a museum in a local school, which also destroyed and looted after the restructuring



Alga future remains extremely ghostly. At the entrance to the city stands rainbow poster saying about the strength and prosperity of Kazakhstan. Here are just algintsam from this is not easier ...