Zhanybek

The dry steppe around Zhanybek lies between the Volga and Ural rivers, north of the Caspian Sea. Before the settlement was founded, Nogai, Kalmyk and Kazakh communities used this country for seasonal grazing. After many Kalmyks departed eastwards in 1771, Kazakh pastoralists increasingly crossed the Ural. In 1801 Sultan Bokey received Russian permission to lead families of the Junior Zhuz into the interfluve, forming the Inner Horde. The new horde's herds moved through a landscape of grassland and scattered salt lakes.