Semey , until 2007 known as Semipalatinsk and in 1917–1920 as Alash-kala , is a city in Kazakhstan, in East Kazakhstan Region, and in the Kazakhstani part of Siberia, near the border with Russia, around 1,000 kilometers north of Almaty, and 700 kilometers southeast of the Russian city of Omsk, along the Irtysh River.
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Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country and former Soviet republic, extends from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Altai Mountains at its eastern border with China and Russia. Its largest metropolis, Almaty, is a long-standing trading hub whose landmarks include Ascension Cathedral, a tsarist-era Russian Orthodox church, and the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan, displaying thousands of Kazakh artifacts.

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