Karaganda is the Russian name of Karagandy City, the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. With a total population of 471,800 in January 2010, this is the fourth most populous and most important city in Kazakhstan, next to Almaty, Astana and Shymkent. It used to be the second most populous after Almaty but more than a hundred thousand residents moved to Germany. Most residents are ethnic Germans, descendants of the Soviet Volga Germans that were forcibly deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan by Stalin.
The name of the city was derived from the caragana bushes that thrived in the area. The city today is actually located several …