The first Rusʹ traders and soldiers began to appear on the northwestern edge of modern
Kazakhstan territory in the early 16th century, when
Cossacks established the forts that later became the cities of
Oral (Uralʹsk, est. 1520) and
Atyrau (Gurʹyev).
Ural,
Siberian and later
Orenburg Cossack Hosts gradually established themselves in parts of northern Kazakhstan. In 1710s and 1720s Siberian Cossacks founded
Oskemen (Ust-Kamennaya),
Semey (Semipalatinsk) and
Pavlodar (Fort Koryakovskiy) as border forts and trading posts. Russian imperial authorities followed and were able to seize Kazakh territory because the local
khanates were preoccupied by a war with
Kalmyks (
Oirats,
Dzungars). Kazakhs were increasingly caught in the middle between the Kalmyks and the Russians. In 1730
Abul Khayr, one of the khans of the Lesser Horde, sought Russian assistance against the stronger Kalmyks, and the Russians in exchange for help gained permanent control of the Lesser Horde as a result of his decision. The Russians conquered the Middle Horde by 1798, but the Great Horde managed to remain independent until the 1820s, when the expanding
Kokand Khanate to the south forced the Great Horde khans to choose Russian protection, which seemed to them the lesser of two evils. In 1824, Siberian Cossacks from
Omsk founded a fortress on the upper
Ishim River named Akmolinsk, which is known today as
Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. In the same year they founded the fort of
Kokshetau. in which ethnic Russians are the largest group as of 2024 In the 1850s, the construction of Russian forts began in southern Kazakhstan including
Fort Shevchenko (Fort Alexandrovsky),
Kyzylorda (Fort Petrovsky),
Kazaly (Kazalinsk) and
Almaty (Verniy). In 1863, the
Russian Empire created two administrative districts, the
Governor-Generalships in
Central Asia of
Russian Turkestan (the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh steppes and
Zhetysu (Semirechye) region) and that of the
Steppe (modern eastern and northern Kazakhstan including the lands of the
Siberian and
Semiryechensk Cossask Hosts) with their capital at
Omsk. The north-west of Kazakhstan was at the time part of
Orenburg Governorate. First Governor-General
Gerasim Kolpakovsky of the Steppe region (and all his future successors) was also
ataman of Siberian Cossacks symbolizing the important role the Cossacks played in the Russian colonization of Kazakh territories. In 1869 Russian settlers founded the town of
Aktobe (Aktyubinsk), in 1879
Kostanay. In the 1860s General
Mikhail Chernyayev conquered the only towns that existed in Kazakhstan before the Russian conquest
Hazrat-e Turkestan,
Taraz and
Shymkent that belonged to the
Khanate of Kokand. Christianity spread in the predominantly Muslim region together with Russian colonists: the
Russian Orthodox Church established a Central Asian bishopric in 1871 with its
bishop first residing in
Verniy and after 1916 in
Tashkent. In the 1890s, many non-Cossack Russian settlers migrated into the fertile lands of northern and eastern Kazakhstan. In 1906 the
Trans-Aral Railway between
Orenburg and
Tashkent was completed, further facilitating Russian and Ukrainian migration to Central Asia. Between 1906 and 1912, more than half a million Ukrainian and Russian farms were started in Kazakhstan as part of the reforms of the Russian minister of the interior
Petr Stolypin. By 1917 there were close to a million slavs in Kazakhstan, about 30% of the total population. Analysis of data on migrants who arrived during the Stolypin agrarian reform (1906-1912) on the territory of Kazakhstan shows that 83.1% of the settlers were from Ukraine, the rest came from the southern regions of Russia (16.8%). ==Soviet period==