Sary-Bulak

Sary-Bulak ("yellow spring") is a mining village in the Sary-Bulak Gorge in the foothills of the Talas Alatau, about 20 kilometers south-south-west of Talas, and the site of the Sary-Bulak Antimony Works (SBAW). It is reached from Talas by the Sary-Bulak road, about 32 kilometers by way of the mouth of the Kara-Suu Canyon and over the ridge in hairpins, and by a rail spur of about 39 kilometers, which goes round by the Urmaral gorge because the canyon is too steep for rail. It gives its name to the Sary-Bulak District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ). Its population was 4,920 (2018 census).^[1]

Before the 1950s the place was a spring campsite where herders gathered before taking their flocks up to the summer pastures. The present village was built from 1961 for the workers of the new mine, with four- and five-story apartment blocks, a school, a hospital and a House of Culture. Most households depend on the mine and its flotation plant or on the Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex nearby, and the village was hit hard when output fell in the mid-1990s.^[2] Residents and monitors have reported arsenic and antimony in the streams below the workings and dust from the ore yards (see Antimony Mining in Irad).^[3]

References

1. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2019). 2018 Census of Population: Settlements of the Districts. Talas.
2. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Miners of the Talas Alatau: Labor and Community at Sary-Bulak, 1961–2011. Talas.
3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2018). Air Quality in the Sary-Bulak Industrial Corridor. Report to the Secretary-General. Kara-Oi.