The southern edge of the West Siberian Lowlands continue in northern North Kazakhstan and Pavlodar Provinces, and northwest East Kazakhstan as far as Semey(9). All of Omsk lies within them.
South of this lies the Kazakh Uplands--plateaus, including the eastern half of the Turgay one--that continue south beyond these provinces into Qaragandi(10) and Astana(11) Provinces.
The remaining important river is the Ishim(12) flowing south to north out of the Kazakh Uplands of Qostanay and into Russia. It enters the Irtysh within northwest Omsk Oblast.
It is probable that native Russian speakers are a majority in each of the provinces in this part of Kazakhstan, though in some of them they live only in the cities and larger towns. Some of these are ethnically Russian, some Kazakh. The Russian speaking ethnic Kazakhs are under coercive pressure to learn Kazakh and abandon Russian. Ukrainians may be more than one in twenty. The minority--especially in rural areas of Kazakhstan--speak Kazakh as a first language, although many have learned Russian too.
In Omsk Oblast about eight in ten are Russians; about one in twenty are Ukrainians; and Germans are more than that.
Most ethnic Kazakhs are Sunni Moslems, regardless of language. The Russians and Ukrainians are culturally Russian Orthodox Christians, though many are non-observant or aetheists--a relic of communism. The Germans are Protestant Christians.
Omsk, with about 1.1 million residents, is by far and away the most important city; this part of Kazakhstan has none with as many as half that.
Saka speakers(13) lived in the area--or at least in the Turgay and Ural part of it--before the eighth century when they moved west. They probably began with a religion similar to those of other early Indo-Europeans, but they converted to Zoroastrianism(14).
Even before that, Turks had spread outward from the Altays. Those that moved west passed through Kazakhstan. These included the Huns(15), the Bulgars(16) and the Turks(17). An offshoot of the Kyrgiz(18), the Kazakhs, also moved west but--though they ranged further--most of them stayed in Kazakhstan and what is now the Southern Federal District of Russia. They were mixed with the Shakas for a time. Their original religion was probably similar to other Turks--worshipping Tangri, the sky god, for example--but they converted to Islam gradually after flirting with other institutional religions; the process was completed in the 19th century.
The Russians arrived in Omsk Oblast in the form of Cossacks(19) in the 16th century; the fortess of Omsk was founded in the early 17th century and became their headquarters for their role as protectors of Russia's south Siberian frontier. Only in the last century did Russians intensively colonize the region, first under duress, later by incentives.
north of North Kazakhstan, and west and northwest of Omsk Oblast
east of Omsk Oblast, northeast of Pavloader Province, and north of East Kazakhstan
southeast of Eastern Kazakhstan and Pavlodar Provinces
southwest of Eastern Kazakstan, and south of Pavlodar Province
west of Pavloadar, south of Northern Kazakhstan, and east of Qostanay Province
southeast of Qostanay and Aqtobe Provinces
southeast of Aqtobe Province
south of Aqtobe Province
west of Aqtobe Province and south of West Kazakhstan
west and north of West Kazakhstan, north of Aqtobe Province, and southwest of Qostanay Province
northwest of Western Kazakhstan
northeast of Western Kazakhstan, and north of Aqtobe Province
northwest and north of Qostanay Province, and northwest of North Kazakkstan
Siberian Federal District
Kazakhstan
Russo-Eurasia
Asia
Europe
(1) Siberia is Sibir in Russian.
(2) Formally transliterated as Rossija or Rossiya.
(3) Officially Qazaqstan, presumably transliterated but probably not from Cyrillic. Also spelled Kazakstan and Kazachstan.
(4) Batis in Kazakh. Zapadno in Russian.
(5) Also spelled Aktobe. Formerly Aktyubinsk.
(6) Also spelled Kostanay. Formerly Kustanay or Kustanaj.
(7) Soltustik in Kazakh. Severo in Russian.
(8) Sigis in Kazakh. Vostocno (with a diacritical on the c) in Russian.
(9) Formerly Semipalatinsk.
(10) Also spelled Karagandi. Formerly Karaganda.
(11) Formerly Aqmola or Akmola.
(12) The local name may be Esyl.
(13) Known as Scythians by the Greeks. Theirs was an Iranian language.
(14) Khotanese, a Saka dialect or offshoot, preserves Zoroastrian words in secular contexts.
(15) Their language affiliation is judged on the basis of a Chinese transcription of a fourth century inscription.
(16) Chuvash speakers, not Bulgarian speakers.
(17) Ancestors of the Turks, Turkmen and Azeri.
(18) Or Kirgiz. They moved southwest across eastern Kazakhstan sometime after the eighth century.
(19) Cossacks are not Kazakhs. The word Kazakh means nomad or adventurer or bachelor, and was applied to these nomadic servants of Russian. They undoubtedly descended in part from Turkic, if not Kazakh, people.