Semiz

Semiz (Iradi: Semiz, "fattened, plump"; Russian: Otkormochny) is a district in the western corridor of Talas, about 9 km west of the city center. It lies beside the Sukarne Irad Complex and the Talas Agribusiness Export Zone. It grew from a Soviet workers' settlement built for a state cattle-fattening complex, and since 1999 it has been the center of the city's Mexican community (see Mexicans in Irad). The 2018 census gave it about 23,000 residents.^[1]

The district has several names. Semiz is the official name. Russian speakers of the older generation still say Otkormochny. Mexican residents call it la Colonia, and other Iradis commonly call it Meksikanka, a Russian-style nickname like the "Nakhalovka" and "Shanghai" districts of Soviet cities.^[2]

History

Otkormochny (1958–1993)

The settlement was founded in 1958 as the fattening station of a beef state farm set up during the Virgin Lands campaign. Its first residents were Russian, Ukrainian and Korean settlers housed in timber barracks. Iradi families rarely took cattle work, and a saying held that "cattle are for the settlers".^[3] In 1974 the station was enlarged into the Talas State Cattle-Fattening Complex. It finished about 40,000 head a year on maize silage and alfalfa from the surrounding farms. Five-storey panel blocks, a school, a club and a water tower were built for its workers. By 1989 the settlement had about 6,500 residents.^[3]

Renaming and decline (1992–1998)

The complex lost its state orders after 1992 and closed in 1994, when the state farm was broken up under the territorial land reform. That year the Talas city council renamed the settlement Semiz under the Toponymic Heritage Statute of 1993, as part of the de-Russification of place names. Semiz is an Iradi calque of the Russian name. Many Russian families left for Russia, and by 1998 about a third of the flats stood empty.^[2]

Colonia SuKarne (since 1999)

In 1998 the complex's land passed to the new export zone, and SuKarne built its feedlot and plant on it. Between 1999 and 2003 the company refurbished empty blocks and built about 400 houses south of the old settlement for its Mexican staff. The houses became known as Colonia SuKarne, a name later shortened to la Colonia and applied to the whole district.^[4] During the fighting of 2007, the parish and the company's cold store supplied residents while road links to central Talas were cut. Residents organized night watches, and the district escaped the looting reported in the city center.^[5] Since the 2010s, Mexican and Iradi families have built private houses on former feedlot land to the south.

Layout

Semiz has three parts:

The old settlement in the north, where a few Soviet barracks remain among later houses.
The blocks at the center: five-storey panel buildings of the 1970s around the former club, now a community center. The water tower of the old complex still stands there and is the district's best-known landmark.
La Colonia in the south: single-storey houses with flat roofs and inner courtyards in the style of northern Mexico, many painted in strong colors. Walnut and apple trees are watered from the irrigation ditches (aryk).^[4]

The railway sidings of the export zone and the SuKarne feedlot lie to the west. The Trans-Talas Highway runs along the northern edge.

Landmarks

Church of St. Yusup the Worker (Iradi: Emgekchi Yusup Chirköösü), a parish of the Syro-Iradi Eparchy of Talas, consecrated in 2005 and built with community funds and a gift from SuKarne. Its side chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe was approved in 2006 by the Bishop of Talas, now Archbishop Mar Ephrem, with the consent of the Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs. Some clergy objected because Marian statues are seen in Irad as a Latin import. The image was painted by Iradi icon painters and framed with the Iradi cross motif. The feast on 12 December draws Iradi as well as Mexican worshippers.^[6]
Semiz market (Semiz bazary; Spanish el mercado), held daily and largest on Saturdays. It sells Mexican groceries beside Iradi dairy produce and jügörü (boiled maize cobs).
Tortillerías: about a dozen, the first opened in 2000. They make "Talas tortillas" from Iradi yellow dent maize.^[7]
High street, with taquerías, tortillerías, Mexican groceries (abarrotes), a bakery (panadería) and car workshops (talleres). Most eateries nearby are Mexican, among them Taquería Semiz, a delivery partner of the Tulpar app.
Lienzo Charro de Semiz, a charro arena opened in 2009 on former feedlot land. Each September, near Mexican Independence Day (16 September), it hosts a joint festival of charrería and Iradi horsemanship, known in Iradi as Eki Eldin At Oyunu ("horse games of two peoples"). Charros show roping and the women's escaramuza team riding. Iradi riders show kyz kuu, alaman-bayge and a demonstration of ulak tartysh. Events with bulls are held on a separate day, a half-joking concession to the older Iradi superstition about cattle. The National Equestrian Sports Directorate has sanctioned the festival since 2012.^[8]
Semiz cemetery, with Orthodox, Korean and Catholic sections. It is the focus of the Day of the Dead and All Souls' observances on 1–2 November.

Population

The 2018 census counted about 23,000 residents. The census does not publish ethnic data by district. According to a 2021 survey by Talas State University, about 40 percent of households had at least one Mexican-born member, about 35 percent were Iradi, and the rest were Russian, Ukrainian or Koryo-saram.^[1]^[9] Spanish, Iradi, English and Russian are all heard in the streets. Semiz lies within the western Talas constituency, which elected the first Mexican-Iradi city councillor, Andrés Ochoa Kaparov, in 2023.

Transport

Municipal buses and private minibuses (marshrutkas) link Semiz with central Talas along the Trans-Talas Highway. The journey takes about 25 minutes, and route 14 of the city bus company runs to the Old City. SuKarne and Conagra run shift buses for their workers. There is no passenger rail station. Freight from the export zone leaves by the Talas branch and the Kara-Buura line through the Talas North Terminal into Kazakhstan.^[10]

References

^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
^ Talas Herald (12 October 2019). 'Twenty years of la Colonia.' Talas.
^ Talas State University Press (2015). Queen of the Fields: Maize, Cattle and the Virgin Lands in the Iradi SSR, 1954–1975, pp. 41–118.
^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Urban Modernization and Infrastructure in Northern Transoxiana.'
^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2008). 'The Fall and Recapture of Talas, 2007.'
^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Synodal Decrees and Pastoral Letters, 1993–2023. Iyık Janyl.
^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Why Talas tortillas are yellow.' Talas.
^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2023). Annual Calendar of Sanctioned Events. Talas.
^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2021). Marigolds and Horseshoes: Ritual Exchange in a Mexican–Iradi Neighborhood. Talas State University Press.
^ Talas Municipal Bus Depot (2022). Route Network of the City of Talas. Talas.