Almaty Kazakhstan The modern city was founded in 1854 when the Russians established the military fortification of

Zailiyskoye (renamed Verny in 1855) on the site of the ancient settlement of Almaty, which had been destroyed by the Mongols in the 13 th century. Cossacks, peasant settlers from European Russia,

and Tatar merchants soon established themselves in the vicinity, and in 1867 the fortification became the town of Verny and the administrative centre of newly c reated Semirechye province of the

governorate-general of Turkistan. By 1906 the population had grown to 27,000, two -thirds of whom were Russians and Ukrainians. Soviet rule was established in 1918 .

In 1921 the city was renamed Alma- Ata, for its Kazakh name, Almaty ( literally “Father of

Apples”), alluding to the many apple trees in the locality. The transfer of the Kazakh capital from

Kzyl-Orda ( Kazakh: Qyzylorda) to Alma- Ata in 1929 and the completion of the Turk-Sib Railway in 1930 brought rapid growth, and the population rose from 46, 000 in 1926 to 221, 000 in 1939. A number of

food and light- industrial factories were built, and heavy industry, particularly machine building, developed later on the basis of plants evacuated from European Russia during World War II .