Karaganda Miners' Tools

About the Miners' Tools

Karaganda is a major city in central Kazakhstan, founded on one of the largest coal basins in the world. The crossed pickaxe and hammer of the miner have long been the city's unofficial crest, a reminder that Karaganda was built from the work of the shaft and the seam. Generations of miners descended into the Karaganda Basin to pull coal that powered half of the Soviet Union, and their tools remain a proud emblem of a city whose identity is inseparable from the earth beneath it.