Ak-Mechet (also spelt Aq Masjid, Aq Mechet, 'white mosque'). The name comes from the Kazakh for 'Red center'. Uralsk / Oral was founded in 1613 by Cossacks, was originally named Yaitsk, after the Yaik River. The city was put under siege during the Russian Civil War. It has a population of 210,600. It is the capital of the West Kazakhstan Province. Ethnic composition is dominated by Russians (54%), Kazakhs (34%), along with a few Ukrainians and Germans. Kirghizia The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (sometimes spelled Kyrgyz), also known as Kirghizia, was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. Established on 14 October 1924 as the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast of the Russian SFSR, it was transformed into the Kyrgyz ASSR (Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) on 1 February 1926, still being a part of the Russian SFSR. Today it is the independent state of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kyrgyz ASSR) was the name of two different national entities within Russian SFSR, in the territories of modern Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. On 5 December 1936, it became a separate constituent republic of the USSR as the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic during the final stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. Bishkek was the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan and the Kirghiz ASSR, with a population of approximately 900,000 in 2005. In 1862, the Russian Empire destroyed the local fort and began to settle the area with Russian migrants. Over the years many fertile black soil farms were developed by the Tsarists and, later, the process carried on by the USSR. In 1926, the city became the capital of the newly established Kirghiz ASSR and was renamed Frunze after the Bolshevik hero Mikhail Frunze, one of Lenin's close associates who was born in Bishkek, until Kirghiz independence in 1991. Tajikistan The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also named Tajikistan (or by its Russian spelling, Tadzhikistan), was one of the new states created in Central Asia in 1924 was Uzbekistan, which had the status of a Soviet socialist republic. In 1929 Tajikistan was detached from Uzbekistan and given full status as a Soviet socialist republic. The city of Dushanbe would become an important regional hub on the border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan has 3 exclaves, all of them located in the Fergana Valley region where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet. The largest is Vorukh (with an