Founding and growth The territory of the modern-day
Aktobe Region has seen the rise and fall of many
Central Asian cultures and empires. The region figured prominently in the history of the
Kazakh "
Little Horde". The Kazakh warlord
Eset Batyr based his campaigns against the
Dzungars from this area. His mausoleum is located to the south of Aktobe city.
Abulkhair Khan (1693–1748) was also based in this region. In March 1869, a Russian military fort with a garrison of 300 was built at the confluence of the
Kargala and
Ilek rivers, along the
Orenburg -
Kazalinsk caravan route. From that period onward,
Slavic settlers began to migrate to the region in order to farm, and very soon, neighbourhoods were built around the fort. In 1874 the fort was expanded in size, and streets were laid out to and from the fort's gate. In 1891 the settlement was labelled a district city, and officially named Aktyubinsk. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the settlement rapidly expanded in size. While the 1889 population was listed as 2,600, by 1909 the population had increased more than four times to 10,716 official residents. The physical characteristics of the city had developed as well, and by the turn of the century the city had two churches, a seminary, a
Tatar mosque, a Russian-
Kyrgyz boys' school and girls' school, a clinic, a bank, a post office, a city park, a cinema and two mills. The
Trans-Aral Railway was extended through the city in 1901. In the years leading up to World War I, industry began to develop in the town, including the construction of an electric factory, a brick factory, and the establishment of an annual trade fair. The city was affected by the
Russian Revolution of 1905, and strikes and riots took place between 1905 and 1907.
Bolshevik revolutionaries were very active in the city, according to official Soviet histories. On January 8, 1918, the Bolsheviks moved to seize control of the local
Soviet, and by January 21, 1918, the Bolsheviks had secured the city under their control.
Russian Civil War With its location on the Trans-Aral Railway, Aktyubinsk was a strategic point, much contested between the
Red Army and their
White opponents during the
Russian Civil War. Kazakh and Russian inhabitants of Aktyubinsk and its environs actively supported both sides in the conflict. In mid-1918, elements of the Bolshevik First Orenburg and Twenty-eighth Regiments, commanded by
Georgy Zinoviev, were effectively besieged in Aktyubinsk by forces commanded by
Ataman Dutov. Dutov, commanding approximately 10,000 rifles, 5,000 sabres, and 500
jigits (warriors) of the
Alash Orda movement's newly formed Second Kazakh Mounted Regiment, attacked the city in October, 1918. The attack only reached as far as the village of
Ak Bulak. In the autumn of 1918,
Mikhail Frunze's
Fifth Army and
Mikhail Tukhachevsky's
First Army were ordered to break through and clear the railway, in order to allow Red Army forces to link up with Bolsheviks along the
Syr Darya. White pressure on Aktyubinsk was relieved by Frunze's capture of
Uralsk,
Orenburg and
Orsk in early 1919, but by April Dutov and
Admiral Kolchak were able to launch a combined counteroffensive. Aktyubinsk finally fell to the Whites on April 18, 1919, once again severing Bolshevik rail links to Central Asia. In this offensive, the Whites also managed to capture and execute
Amankeldı İmanov, a Kazakh military leader who had been operating in the Aktyubinsk region with the support of Bolsheviks in Moscow. By June 1919, Frunze had received reinforcements and had moved back on to the offensive. On September 10, Aktyubinsk was secured by the Fifth Army after an eight-day battle. 20,000 of Kolchak's troops were captured, along with the easternmost part of the city. From this point, Bolshevik forces were able to control the railway to Tashkent. An All-Kazakhstan Conference of Soviet Workers was held in the city on March 13, 1920. This was the first of a series of regional organizing conferences held by the Bolsheviks that ultimately led to the creation of the
Kirgiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - the entity that would ultimately develop into the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.
Modern history In 1932, Aktyubinsk was named capital city of Aktyubinsk Region. The city developed extensively during
World War II as a result of the evacuation and reconstruction of factories from Ukraine and from Moscow, including a worker's cooperative, a
ferroalloy factory, and an X-ray factory.
Chromium also began to be mined and processed in the region. In the 1960s, an extensive expansion of the city was undertaken by Soviet authorities, resulting in the construction of a city center and a sports stadium. The city's society and economy have dramatically changed since Kazakhstan's independence in 1991. Older heavy industries have declined and been replaced in importance with the energy sector. The city has continued to expand with new construction and with many Kazakh immigrants moving to the city from the surrounding countryside. In 1999, the official name was changed from Aktyubinsk to
Aktobe by presidential decree, as part of a nationwide effort to support the Kazakh language. On May 17, 2011, Aktobe was the site of one of Kazakhstan's first terrorist attacks, when a suicide bomber
blew himself up in the headquarters of the local national security services, injuring two people. Some analysts have interpreted this as a sign of increasing instability in the oil-rich, but socially unequal, region. Further
attacks by suspected Islamist militants occurred on June 5–6, 2016. ==Geography==