Akhat Kulenov, ?Golden Man? of Kazakhstan

UST-KAMENOGORSK. February 12. KAZINFORM /Lyudmila Malko/ Akhat Kulenov's name will stay forever in the history of not only our country; his name is also widely known outside the country. The legendary Kazakh engineer-metallurgist within his life had entered the foreign authors? annals of high technologies when creative engineering team headed by him developed a conceptually new method for processing of lead-containing raw.

This famous so called ?KIVTSET-Process? which came from the test platform of Ust-Kamenogorsk lead-zinc plant (UK LZP) and All-Soviet Union Scientific Research Institute of Non-ferrous Metals to the European metallurgic arena brought Akhat Kulenov international fame in 80s of the past century. Akhat Kulenov was a professor, corresponding member of the Kazakh Engineering Academy of Science, and honored innovator of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, laureate of the state prize of the USSR, author of 95 inventions, 36 innovative proposals and 130 research works. The Ust-Kamenogorsk metallurgist-manager of the UK LZP was handed out the Gold Star of the highest degree of the Republic of Kazakhstan ? ?Halyk Kakharmany? (Hero of People) in 1994. Famous metallurgist celebrated his 75th anniversary on April, 18 in 2007 and 8 months later he died in December, 2007. He began to work after graduating from the Kazakh Ore-Mining and Smelting Institute in 1956 and devoted over 40 years of his life to the Ust-Kamenogorsk plant. Kulenov built new hydrometallurgical complex where he introduced a new technology on biological leaching of gold from refractory ore with the help of bacteria. The fate of Akhat Kulenov, innovator, man of great vital power, keen header, emotional, hot and at the same time pragmatic, who could guess demands of tomorrow, was full of a number of great events with the scale coinciding with his symbolic figure in the history. Charity boy of Kaskelen orphanage, son of the deputy of the People?s Commissariat of Kazakhstan repressed in 1937, Akhat Kulenov had devoted exactly half a century to metallurgy. He started his career with the position of an ordinary worker of the Ust-Kamenogorsk plant and became a chief engineer, and then the director of the plant. In 1971 Kulenov was appointed the chief engineer, in 1981 he became director and then in 1992 he became the president of ?UK LZP? JSC. Very few people know that the first gold bullion of young Kazakhstan cast on January, 27, in 1992 at the Ust-Kamenogorsk plant where Kulenov was the president was his embodied idea which he implemented with his factory workers. ? I recollect one of our last meetings in 2007 when I prepared an anniversary material on the occasion of the Day of the Republic where Akhat Salemkhatovich told the story of the "beginning" of sovereign Kazakhstani gold. The idea of Kulenov?s idea was creation of the closed cycle on gold and silver manufacture that would allow Kazakhstan to announce itself a sustainable manufacturer of gold and enter into the rank of suppliers of this precious metal to the London stock exchange. In his home Ust-Kamenogorsk he will be always remembered not only because he is its Honorable citizen. The name of Metallurg village built on a picturesque left bank is ?Kulenovka? and its official name - "Metallurg" did not come to stay at all. Akhat Salemkhatovich embodied many ideas during his life which would be enough for the biography of several people. Having deserved sincere respect of people, Akhat Kulenov was repeatedly chosen the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and KazSSR, and then the deputy of the Senate of the Kazakh Parliament. The name of Akhat Kulenov was entered into the history of Kazakhstan with gold letters in direct and figurative sense.