ABSTRACT
One cannot properly understand the most recent changes in the economy and society of post-Soviet Central Asia without an awareness of the historical background. That historical development can be most conveniently divided into three main periods: prerevolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet. By the beginning of the twentieth century, only two cities in Kazakhstan had a population exceeding 20,000 inhabitants—Semipalatinsk and the future capital of the country, then called Vernyi. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the military and economic requirements of the Russian Empire gave some impetus to development in this region. The industrialization of Soviet Central Asia has been uneven and not guided by a long-term strategy. The formation of the economic structure of Kazakhstan, as part of the national economic complex of the USSR, was in fact driven by the demand of the industrial branches in the Urals and in Russia for various raw materials and foodstuffs.
