Talk:Kyzylorda
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Why Kyzylorda is a growing area
- The UNODC's Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (2008, p. 23) notes illicit cultivation in "Kiziklarda" and "Shimkent" in 2007. "Kiziklarda" is read as Kyzylorda.
- The interior ministry reports cultivation in the province by name: "Indian" and "Dutch" cannabis actively cultivated in Kyzylorda Region since 2014 (Bizmedia.kz, 2024); 37 plantations in 2015 (Lada.kz, 2015); 48 of 62 plantations in 2020 (Zakon.kz, 2020); 18 of 20 in 2021 (Kazinform, 2021). The regional prosecutor's office reported a rise from 15 to 84 plantations since 2012 (Kazinform, 2018).
- The press names plantations or yard crops in all seven districts of the province (Aral, Kazaly, Karmakshy, Zhalagash, Syrdariya, Shieli and Zhanakorgan) and in Kyzylorda city, from 2009 to 2025.
- The area is drawn on the whole province because the ministry and the prosecutor report the province as a whole and the sites lie in all its districts.
- No source read reports wild cannabis gathered in the province. Every report is of sown cannabis.
The name
The bare name goes to the growing area. The province is Kyzylorda Region. A page on the city would be titled Kyzylorda (city). Qyzylorda is the Kazakh form and Kzyl-Orda the Soviet spelling. Кызылординка (kyzylordinka) is a name for the drug, not the place, and is not used in the title.
Growing status
The status is Active. The sources report sown plantations every few years from 2009 to 2025, and 12 plantations found by helicopter in the first 20 days of the 2026 operation. No source says that growing has ended.
Extent and border
- The border is a proxy: Kyzylorda Region as mapped in OpenStreetMap (relation 215727), about 227,000 km², the figure in the infobox. It takes in the leased Baikonur territory, which lies inside the province.
- Most of the province is not under cannabis. The plantations reported run from tens of plants in yards to a few thousand plants; the province's total for the 2015 operation is more than 50 hectares.
- The infobox point (45.19, 63.63) is the centre of the province. The border is not drawn from accession or news points.
- Two plantations in the press are not placed in the province. A plantation of 3,000 plants in the Kristall tract, "300 km from Aralsk" (Azattyq Rýhy, 1 November 2019), names no province, and 300 kilometres from Aral could lie in Kyzylorda, Aktobe or Karaganda Region. The helicopter case of August 2020 "on the border of Karaganda and Kyzylorda regions" (Azattyq Rýhy, 20 August 2020) was in Karaganda Region by the ministry's later account (Zakon.kz, 9 November 2020), though its growers were from Kyzylorda.
Growing region
The area has no parent growing region. No source read treats the Syr Darya lowland, or Kyzylorda together with Turkestan Region, as one cannabis landscape; the ministry groups Kyzylorda with Turkestan, Karaganda, Ulytau, Aktobe and Jambyl regions in different years.
Accessions
One herbarium sheet lies inside the border: Nazarov 13038 (1930), gathered in a grove near an aul on the right bank of the Syr Darya near Terenozek in May 1930. It is not attached to the area. The label records a plant in a grove and says nothing of cultivation, and the sheet is classed as feral.
Sources
- Before 2000: no older source found says hemp was grown in the province. The Brockhaus and Efron and Granat encyclopaedia entries for the Perovsk and Kazalinsk districts of the Syr-Darya oblast name grain crops and no hemp, and so does the Small Brockhaus entry for the whole oblast. The кендырь (kendyr) that Brockhaus and Efron puts on the banks of the Syr Darya at Kazalinsk is a dogbane, Apocynum, not hemp. The hobby compilation Конопляная энциклопедия (Vidi) speaks of stands "around the city of Kyzyl-Orda"; it cites no source and is not used. The Resettlement Administration surveys, Masalsky's Туркестанский край (1913) and the Flora of Kazakhstan were not read.
- Zakon.kz (7 September 2015): the ministry's figure of 49 plantations covers Kyzylorda, South Kazakhstan and Jambyl regions for August 2015 only. Lada.kz (17 October 2015) gives 37 plantations for Kyzylorda Region over the whole operation. The two figures are not added together. The Zakon.kz report also gives "800 кв.м" for four plantations with 7,200 plants near Prudkhoz and Tasboget, a figure left out as doubtful.
- Tengrinews.kz (24 May 2018): the senators give 342 people convicted of growing prohibited plants in three years, and then 162 for South Kazakhstan, 104 for Kyzylorda and 110 for Jambyl, which sum to more than 342. Only the Kyzylorda figure is used.
- Tengrinews.kz (14 June 2018): the interior minister Kalmukhanbet Kasymov said that 154 plantations had been found in three years, without saying whether in Kyzylorda Region or in the southern regions as a whole. It is not used.
- NewTimes.kz (9 October 2023) names the third region of the 65 plantations as область Ұлытау; Zakon.kz (9 October 2023), from the same ministry release, prints Алатауской. The overflights of the same operation covered Ulytau Region, and the NewTimes form is used.
- Caravan (17 October 2014): the name кызылординка and its value to dealers come from the journalist's question, which Ibrayev confirmed; the page attributes them so.
- The National (14 September 2009): an interior ministry official said that cultivated strains from India were first registered in "southern Kazakhstan" in 1926 and harvested for fibre until 1950. The article is about the Chu valley and does not name the province. It is not used.