Jon-Aryk

Jon-Aryk ("ridge canal") is a village in the Chu District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), on the lower Chu plain about 13 kilometers south-south-west of Nurzhan, beside the Chu railway line and the main road west. Its population was 1,320 (2018 census).^[1] It was founded in the winter of 1937–38 by Koryo-saram families deported from the Soviet Far East, who dug the canal along a low ridge after which the village is named and brought paddy rice to the area. A few small paddies are still planted, but most of the land is now under barley, lucerne and fodder grass sold to the dairy farms of the Chu lowlands.^[2]

References

1. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2019). 2018 Census of Population: Settlements of the Districts. Talas.
2. ^ Kim, Viktor (2007). Rice and Exile: The Koryo-saram of the Lower Chu, 1937–1992. Nurzhan: Koryo-saram Cultural Association.