Oral, Kazakhstan
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Oral (formerly Russian Uralsk) is a city in northwestern Kazakhstan on the Ural River close to the Russian border. It had a population of approximately 200,000 inhabitants in 1989.
Oral, founded in 1622 by Cossacks, was originally named Yaitsk, after the Yaik river, the name of the Ural river at the time. Because the Yaik Cossacks (Ural Cossacks) sided with the insurrectionists during the rebellions of Stenka Razin and Pugachev, Empress Catherine II declared on 15 January 1775 that the Yaik river would henceforth be renamed the Ural river and Yaitsk would be known as Uralsk. The inhabitants of the city fought against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Uralsk was renamed Oral after the independence of Kazakhstan in 1991.