Preserving Semey: What’s Happening to The City’s Historic Buildings?

A merchant's mansion, an inn, a 19th-century telegraph building — Semey is full of architectural gems from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But they’re falling into disrepair, often with the silent consent of local authorities — or even at the hands of private owners.

Orda.kz looked into what’s happening to the city’s historical buildings.

In early May, residents of Semey were alarmed by news of yet another historic building being torn down. Public backlash followed, but the city’s architecture department explained that the building didn’t have official historical status and therefore wasn’t protected by the state. However, officials struggled to clarify how or why the land designation had changed.

The people under whom the adjustment of the detailed planning project was carried out no longer work in the akimat. No one can explain how this land ended up zoned for multi-story housing construction. It was purchased by an LLP. In October last year, its land use designation changed. Before that, it was designated for individual housing,said Acting Head of the Architecture Department Stanislav Gorelnikov. 

Demolishing old buildings has become routine in Semey. On December 28, 2024—just one day after Mayor Nurbol Nursagatov resigned — a merchant’s mansion in the city’s central “golden square” was destroyed. Authorities had plans to turn the area into a pedestrian zone for locals and tourists.

The historic building was demolished in just a few nighttime hours.

Its value wasn’t only in its age. The mansion also served as a backdrop for the 1957 Kazakh film “Botagoz,” directed by Shaken Aimanov. Semey’s historic buildings have long served as scenic film sets for local cinema.

Not far from there stands the former telegraph building, which has been more fortunate: it hasn’t been demolished and is officially protected.

Kazakhstan’s first telegraph was opened in Semey in 1873. In 1915, a dedicated building was constructed to house it. At the time, it was a prominent structure and much larger than what remains today. The first street lanterns in the city were installed near it.

Fifty years later, the telegraph moved to a new building, leaving the original structure vacant. It was saved from abandonment by enthusiast Vladimir Lushnikov, a local historian and engineer, who turned it into a communications museum.

He restored the building, installed an independent heating system, and collected exhibits from the 19th and 20th centuries—including telegraph, postal, telephone, and radio equipment. The museum opened in 1989.

This gave the building a new lease of life. It was granted protected status as a 20th-century industrial architecture monument. But after Lushnikov’s death, the museum closed. The exhibits were removed, and the building was locked up.

It stayed that way for over 20 years.

In 2020, on the building’s 105th anniversary, it was stripped of its protected status. Two years later, the roof collapsed. Local historians feared it might be sold and turned into a restaurant or demolished to make way for new development in the city center.

The situation was partially resolved by the former Abay Region Akim, Nurlan Urankhayev. In 2024, the building was added to the interim register of architectural monuments and later handed over to a private owner who began restoration work to preserve its historical appearance.

Then there’s the mansion on Naimanbayev Street—another case of how poorly Semey treats its historic buildings. This 19th-century merchant’s house has faced multiple demolition attempts.

Before the 2020 pandemic, the building was in good shape. It hosted various organizations, including a brokerage firm and even some government offices.

But in 2020, it was vacated and later sold to a private businessman. By 2021, plans to tear it down and build a multi-story residential building in its place were circulating.

That’s when East Kazakhstan Region Akim Danial Akhmetov stepped in.

He also personally informed the new owner of the mansion that demolition was off the table.

Just seven days later, someone tried to demolish the mansion anyway — metal cables were thrown over one corner of the building, pulled by a tractor, and part of the structure collapsed. According to local historians and officials, this happened just days before the mansion was granted state-protected status.

In other words, the effort to protect the building only sped up its destruction, with some clearly hoping to bring it down before doing so became unlawful. Officials promised to investigate the incident, which made headlines across Kazakhstan.

The mansion was officially granted state-protected status two years later, in 2023. In the meantime, it nearly burned down in May 2022 and, according to rumors, was almost dismantled in secret in November of the same year. But even protected status didn’t save it from legal challenges: the mansion’s new owner believed the state’s decision was unlawful and challenged the Akimat in court, demanding the decree be overturned.

In the course of the trial, a demolition act unexpectedly surfaced. The document stated that officials had registered the building for demolition even after knowing it was being added to the list of historical and cultural heritage sites.

The demolition details listed in the June 21, 2022, act do not match the reality. This is confirmed by inspection reports on the mansion’s condition dated November 17, 2022, November 16, 2023, and December 17, 2023, testified Marina Khmeleva, a civil law department specialist at the Abay Region Akimat. 

Ultimately, the building was saved. In January 2024, the court dismissed the businessman’s claim. The mansion remains on the official list of state-protected cultural heritage.

For years, Semey’s local historians have tried to ensure meaningful protection for historic buildings. But so far, their efforts have brought little success.

We understand that we can’t physically monitor every historic building. Owners have learned to act quickly — a bulldozer can knock down a building in one day. Sometimes we just don’t have time to react. We proposed introducing a 'golden square' in our city to stop demolitions and construction in general, because high-rise buildings should be build in the business center. The Old Town and the "golden square" zone should focus on parks, monuments, and public buildings. We even mapped it out. But even this will not solve every problem, because there are many more historic buildings outside the square. Another idea we had was for a commission to review any proposal to demolish a building over 100 years old, so that they do not sign the documents so easily. But that didn’t work either, says Marat Sasanov, head of the Priirtyshye Regional Historians’ Society. 

Local historians maintain their list of 65 buildings in Semey that should be protected. They recall that under former regional Akim Nurlan Urankhayev, there were plans to include all those buildings in the state registry within three years.

Still, after Urankhayev was removed from office, the process came to a halt, and not a single building has since been added. The new akim, Berik Uali, has yet to meet with the historians.

They haven’t given up hope, though. Especially since they remember what President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev once said about Semey’s historical significance:

Semey, which holds a special place in our country’s spiritual development, should be designated as a historical center, since the region, where great thinkers like Abay, Shakarim, and Mukhtar Auezov were born, deserves special recognition. In this regard, we must develop the city’s socio-economic infrastructure and modernize its historical and cultural sites in line with new standards. I instruct the government to take appropriate action,Toqayev said. 

Orda.kz editorial team has prepared a photo collection of the remaining historic buildings that still grace Semey—and will continue to monitor the situation.

Original Author: Ilya Barokhovsky