Kazakhstan

Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, or Beg, is a Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of variously sized areas in the numerous Turkic kingdoms, emirates, sultanates and empires in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Europe, and the Middle East, such as the Ottomans, Timurids or the various khanates and emirates in Central Asia and the Eurasian Steppe. The feminine equivalent title was begum. The regions or provinces where "beys" ruled or which they administered were called beylik, roughly meaning "governorate" or "region" (the equivalent of a county, duchy, grand duchy or principality in Europe, depending on the size and importance of the beylik). However the exact scope of power handed to the beys varied with each country, thus there was no clear-cut system, rigidly applied to all countries defining all the possible power and prestige that came along with the title.

Today, the word is still used formally as a social title for men, similar to the way the titles "sir" and "mister" are used in the English language. Additionally, it is widely used in the naming customs of Central Asia, namely in countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Notably, the ethnic designation of Uzbeks comes from the name of Öz Beg Khan of the Golden Horde, being an example of the usage of this word in personal names and even names of whole ethnic groups. The general rule is that the honorific is used with first names and not with surnames or last names.

The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating the largest contiguous empire in history, the Mongol Empire (1206–1368), which by 1260 covered a significant portion of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastation as one of the deadliest episodes in history.

At its height, the Mongol Empire included modern-day Mongolia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Siberia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and most of European Russia.

Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating", while short-track speed skating is known as "short track". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of competitive ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track skating". Long track speed skating takes place on a 400m ice track, while short track takes place on a 111m track.

An international federation was founded in 1892, the first for any winter sport. The sport enjoys large popularity in the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea. There are top international rinks in a number of other countries, including Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Belarus and Poland. A World Cup circuit is held with events in those countries plus two events in the Thialf ice hall in Heerenveen, Netherlands.

The Batumi Seaport (Georgian: ბათუმის საზღვაო პორტი, romanized: batumis sazghvao p'ort'i) is a Georgian seaport. It is the largest container, ferry and general cargo seaport in Georgia. Located in the city of Batumi, on the south-east coast of the Black Sea. The port is also used as a major transit port for oil refining in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Batumi Port has the ability to meet customer requirements for various cargo, ships and passengers. The port has five terminals: oil terminal, dry cargo terminal, container terminal, railway-ferry crossing and passenger terminal. These terminals are equipped with appropriate cranes, which facilitates the timely and quality processing of cargo and meet the requirements of the port's customers.

Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians. It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union. Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.

Russian has over 253 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe, the most spoken Slavic language, and the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia. It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers. Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station, one of the six official languages of the United Nations, as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet.

Ural (Russian: Урал, from Bashkir: Урал, romanized: Ural) is a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains. It is considered a part of the Eurasian Steppe, extending approximately from the North to the South; from the Arctic Ocean to the end of the Ural River near Orsk city. The border between Europe and Asia runs along the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains. Ural mostly lies within Russia but also includes a small part of Northwestern Kazakhstan. This is historical, not an official entity, with borders overlapping its Western Volga and Eastern Siberia neighboring regions. At some point in the past, parts of the currently existing Ural region were considered a gateway to Siberia, or even Siberia itself, and were combined with the Volga administrative the divisions. Today, there are two official namesake entities: the Ural Federal District and the Ural economic region. While the latter follows the historical borders, the former is a political product; the District omits Western Ural and includes Western Siberia instead.

The historical center of the Ural is Cherdyn, which is now a small town in Perm Krai.Perm was an administrative center of the gubernia with the same name by 1797. Most of the territory of historical and modern Ural was included in Perm Gubernia. The administrative center of Urals was moved to Sverdlovsk (nowadays Yekaterinburg) after the Russian Revolution and Civil War. In the present, the Ural economic region does not have an administrative and informal capital, whereas Yekaterinburg is the administrative center of the Ural Federal District.

The Tobol (Russian: Тобол, Kazakh: Тобыл) is a river in Western Siberia (in Kazakhstan and Russia) and the main (left) tributary of the Irtysh. Its length is 1,591 km (989 mi), and the area of its drainage basin is 426,000 km (164,000 sq mi).

Orenburg (Russian: Оренбу́рг, pronounced [ɐrʲɪnˈburk]), formerly known as Chkalov (1938–1957), is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies in Eastern Europe, near the boundary of Europe and Asia, along the banks of the Ural River, being approximately 1,480 kilometers (920 mi) southeast of Moscow.

Orenburg is close to the border with Kazakhstan. It was the capital of the Kazakh ASSR from 1920 to 1925.

Oral (Kazakh: Орал, pronounced [woˈrɑɫ] ), also known as Uralsk (Russian: Уральск, IPA: [ʊˈralʲsk]), is a city in northwestern Kazakhstan, at the confluence of the Ural and Chagan rivers close to the Russian border. As it is located on the western bank of the Ural river, Uralsk is considered geographically in Europe. It is the capital of the West Kazakhstan Region. The ethnic composition is majority Kazakh (71%), followed by the second-largest ethnic group Russians (25%). Population: 271,900 (2009 census results); 194,905 (1999 census results).

Atyrau (UK: /ˌætɪˈraʊ, -ˈrɔː/, US: /ˌɑːtɪˈraʊ, -ˈrɔː/; Kazakh: Атырау, pronounced [ɑtəˈrɑw] ; Russian: Атырау), known until 1991 as Guryev (Russian: Гурьев), is a city in Kazakhstan and the capital of Atyrau Region. Atyrau is a transcontinental city, at the mouth of the Ural River on the Caspian Sea, between Europe and Asia, 2,700 kilometres (1,700 miles) west of Almaty and 351 kilometres (218 miles) east of the Russian city of Astrakhan.

Atyrau is famous for its oil and gas industries. It has a population of 355,117 as of 2020. It is predominantly made up of Kazakhs, the minorities being Russians, Koreans, Tatars and Uzbeks.