Karaganda or Qaraghandy ( ), more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda (, until 1993), is the capital of Karaganda Region in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty (Alma-Ata), Astana and Shymkent. Population:
In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic Germans. Most of the ethnic Germans were Soviet Volga Germans who were collectively deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan on Stalin's order when Hitler invaded Soviet-annexed eastern Poland and the Soviet Union proper in 1941. Until the 1950s, many of these deportees were interned in labor camps, often simply because they were of German descent.