Turkestan (growing area)
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| Turkestan | |
|---|---|
| Türkistan, South Kazakhstan | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Kazakhstan |
| Province/State | Turkestan Region, Shymkent |
| Coordinates | 43.22, 68.45 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 117,000 km² |
| Terrain | Steppe and sand desert along the middle Syr Darya, the Karatau range and its foothills, irrigated farmland and villages; approximately Turkestan Region with the city of Shymkent |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2020–2024 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Turkestan is a cannabis growing area in Kazakhstan, in Turkestan Region and the city of Shymkent. Cannabis is sown there on plots in the steppe, in the mountains, in the thickets along the Syr Darya and in house yards. A report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted illicit cultivation in "Shimkent" in 2007.[1] The region was called South Kazakhstan Region until 19 June 2018, when a presidential decree renamed it, moved its centre from Shymkent to the city of Turkestan and made Shymkent a city of republican significance.[2]
Geography
In 2009 police found a plantation in the Kyzylkum steppe in Otrar district, where two men from Almaty and Kyzylorda regions were growing cannabis; 237 plants and eight sacks of marijuana, about 50 kilograms, were found there, with a shotgun in a hut.[3] In 2022 a police patrol from the air found a plantation hidden in the dense riverside thickets, the tugai, on the bank of the Syr Darya, some way from the nearest village: 760 plants, almost a tonne, had already been cut and 123 were still growing. The suspects were three residents of Shymkent.[4] In 2025 police found more than 900 cannabis plants and about 260 opium poppies, some 700 kilograms in all, on a plantation in hard-to-reach mountains in Sozak district and arrested three men: two from Kyzylorda Region and one from Shymkent.[5]
Cultivation
Cannabis is also grown in house yards and gardens. In the Мак-2012 (Poppy-2012) campaign the police of South Kazakhstan Region recorded eight cases of cultivation and seized 77 plants, among them eight in a yard in Saryagash district. That year they also took about 90 plants from a man of Shymkent who had sown cannabis in the yard of his own house.[6] In 2019 police took eight plants from a house in the town of Turkestan, one from a house in Keles district and 47 from a house in Tolebi district, whose owner said that he grew cannabis for his own use.[7] In Ordabasy district they found eight plants in a house in 2019[8] and more than 170 on a fenced plot in a yard in 2020.[9] In May 2020 a man of Sastobe in Tulkubas district grew 11 plants in buckets in his garden for his own needs; from the start of that year to May the police of the region seized about 6,000 drug plants.[10]
In 2023 police took 609 cultivated plants, about 16 kilograms, from the yard of a house in Sauran district.[11] In 2024 they found 281 plants in the yard of a man of 51 in Sayram district.[12] In 2026 a man of Shymkent was found to grow about 130 plants hidden among farm crops at his house, where he also made hashish and marijuana; 330 kilograms were seized in all.[13]
Eradication
In 2015 the interior ministry reported attempts to cultivate drug plants in Kyzylorda, South Kazakhstan and Jambyl regions, most of them in Kyzylorda.[14] Sultan Kusetov, head of its department against the drug trade, said that after the measures in the Chu Valley traffickers had tried to grow cannabis themselves in Kyzylorda, Karaganda and South Kazakhstan regions.[15] In 2019 one aim of the ministry's summer operation was to find cultivation in Kyzylorda, South Kazakhstan and Jambyl regions.[16] Senators who wrote to the interior minister in 2018 counted 162 people convicted in South Kazakhstan of growing prohibited plants in the previous three years.[17]
The national operation Қарасора destroyed 62 plantations of cultivated cannabis in Turkestan, Kyzylorda and Karaganda regions in 2020, 48 of them in Kyzylorda.[18] In 2021 one of its 20 plantations was in Turkestan Region; helicopters searched Kyzylorda Region and the neighbouring districts of Aktobe, Karaganda and Turkestan regions.[19] In 2023 it destroyed 65 plantations in Kyzylorda, Turkestan and Ulytau regions, with more than 70,000 plants.[20] The ministry said in 2024 that growers had begun to look for hard-to-reach land with a hot, dry climate, which they believed lay beyond the police and the air searches. It named among such places Turkestan, Almaty, Jetisu and Ulytau regions and the west of the country.[21]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia (April 2008). Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (PDF) (Report). Paris Pact Initiative. p. 23.
- ↑ О некоторых вопросах административно-территориального устройства Республики Казахстан(Указ Президента Республики Казахстан No. 702), 19 June 2018.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Пылаева, Т. (8 October 2009). "В Южно-Казахстанской области уничтожена плантация конопли". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Доброта, Л. (5 September 2022). "Конопля и с воздуха видна". Казахстанская правда (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Гуляева, Е. (7 August 2025). "Полицейские накрыли крупную наркоплантацию в Туркестанской области". Inbusiness.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Никитина, Т. (3 July 2012). "Женщина заявила в полицию на своего супруга, вырастившего коноплю". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Оразбекова, А. (11 September 2019). "В Туркестанской области задержали подозреваемых в незаконном посеве конопли". NewTimes.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Ликвидировали посев конопли и задержали наркосбытчика туркестанские полицейские". Kazinform (in русский). 25 September 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Коноплей засеял свой участок у дома житель Туркестанской области". Azattyq Rýhy (in русский). 22 May 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Коноплю заботливо выращивал в саду житель Туркестанской области". Azattyq Rýhy (in русский). 20 May 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Лазарева, А. (8 August 2023). "Более 600 кустов конопли изъяли полицейские у жителя Туркестанской области". NewTimes.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Малгаждарова, И. (30 July 2024). "Почти 300 кустов конопли выращивал у себя во дворе житель Туркестана". NewTimes.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Пак, А. (26 June 2026). "В Шымкенте ликвидирована наркоплантация". Bizmedia.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "В Кызылординской, ЮКО и Жамбылской обл пытались культивировать наркосодержащие растения". Zakon.kz (in русский). 7 September 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Крупные плантации индийской конопли обнаружены в Кызылординской области". Lada.kz (in русский). 17 October 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Крупная наркоплантация выявлена в Кызылординской области". Zakon.kz (in русский). 25 June 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Сатаева, А. (24 May 2018). "Депутаты обеспокоены индийской коноплей в Кызылординской области". Tengrinews.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Стативкина, А. (9 November 2020). "Три ОПГ ликвидировали в Казахстане". Zakon.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "20 наркоплантаций уничтожили в Казахстане". Kazinform (in русский). 29 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Рахимова, А. (9 October 2023). "За наркодилерами в Казахстане следят из космоса". NewTimes.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Макаров, А. (19 August 2024). "Министерство внутренних дел Казахстана представило многолетние данные". Bizmedia.kz (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.