ARKALYK, Kazakhstan Arkalyk, a town of fewer than 30,000 people in the central belt of Kazakhstan, wears its mining heritage proudly. By the municipal museum, a hunk of bauxite stands atop a plinth, close to the excavator bucket that tore it out of the ground in 1964.
After winter storms, brick-red mineral dust still speckles the snow-covered streets. Waste material from the mine, built largely by locally held prisoners of the former Soviet Union, rises out of the steppe surrounding the town like earthen fortifications.
