KBTU

The design came from a Mosproekt workshop led by Boris Rubanenko, with drawings prepared by Kazgorstroyproekt. Work began in 1938, but three pre-war years produced only a foundation pit. Construction resumed in 1951 and ended in 1957.

The result was a five-storey building of 33,000 square metres: three connected volumes, the Supreme Soviet hall at the centre and a portico of eight columns. It is on the State List of Historical and Cultural Monuments of National Significance, so its exterior cannot be changed.

On 16 December 1991, here in the Round Hall, the Supreme Soviet adopted the Constitutional Law on the State Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Today it is called the Hall of Independence: 650 seats, 480 of them on the ground floor.

The hall was restored in 2018: the seats were replaced and the columns and ceiling repaired. The old deputies' seats were moved to the balconies as a historical artefact, and photographs of those events now run around the walls.

KBTU was established by Government Decree No. 1027 of 3 August 2001, on the basis of a memorandum between the Ministry of Education and Science and the British Council. The oil and gas faculty opened first, and many more schools followed.

By then the building was in poor condition. Scientists at the university's chemistry lab developed a polymer that was used to repair stairs, walls and floors, and the university restored the Soviet system of fountains around the building. So the university literally repaired its own home with its own chemistry.

Old-timers tell of a tunnel under the building that supposedly leads to the first House of Government. The local historian Anna Degtyareva calls this a very popular legend and says she has seen no official information about it. “Judging by the legends, our whole city is tunnels,” she adds.