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The Zharkulak mine is located at an altitude of 2920 meters above sea level, located at the mouth of the Karasai River on the right bank of the Keskentas River, on the northern slope of the Terskey Alatau ridge in the Narynkol district of the Almaty region.
In the mountains of the Central Tien Shan, on the northern slope of the Terskey Alatau ridge, not far from the borders with the Kiatay People's Republic and Kyrgyzstan, there is a unique Zharkulak-Danarchin gold ore cluster, which includes more than a dozen quartz-vein deposits.
The largest of them is Zharkulak. Gold reserves in local ores are about 10 tons. The utility and living quarters of the mine are located on the right bank of the Keskentas River. From here, to the western steep slope of the gorge at a height of 2523 meters above sea level, a serpentine road with a length of 4.3 kilometers was laid.
A dizzying serpentine road leads to the mines from which the gold-bearing rock was transported through a metal chute for primary processing. At other deposits of the gold ore cluster, only preliminary exploration was carried out, which showed large reserves of gold at very high grades.
A characteristic feature of all these deposits is the presence of nuggets weighing up to 2 grams in their ores. In the 90s of the last century, the deposits were developed by prospectors of private gold mining companies, but the work was soon stopped due to the difficult accessibility in the highlands.
By the way, in the vicinity of Almaty, in the Medeo tract, two rich gold deposits are known, which are not developed by industry only because they lie on the territory of the Ile-Alatau National Natural Park, protected by the state.
And relatively recently, a huge silver-ore province of Valerianovskaya, located in the Kostanay region, was opened in Kazakhstan. There are high concentrations of silver in the rocks and iron ores that make up the Kostanay belt, which is generally characterized by a general "contamination" with silver.
Geographic coordinates of the Zharkulak mine: N42 ° 24'08.91 "E80 ° 08'27.48

Authority:
Professor geological mineral sciences, associate professor KANTU Mikhail Kazantsev. Material was prepared by Victoria Kozina. "AIF newspaper of Kazakhstan", No. 3, 2013.
Alexander Petrov

Photos by
Sergei Mikhalkov and Alexander Petrov.