Semey (sometimes transliterated as Semi or Semei) is a city in north eastern Kazakhstan, near the border with Siberia. It was known as Semipalatinsk (Семипала́тинск) until 1994; like a number of Kazak cities, the name was changed in the period following Kazakhstan gaining independence in 1991. It is the capital of the Shyghys Qazaqstan Oblysy (formerly called the Semipalatinsk Oblast).
The first settlement was in 1718 when the Russians built a fort beside the river Irtysh, near a ruined Buddhist monastery. The monastery's seven buildings lent the fort (and later the city) the name Semipalatinsk (Russian meaning Seven Chambered City). The fort suffered frequently from flooding caused by the snowmelt swelling the Irtysh, and in 1778 the fort relocated 18 km upstream to less flood-prone ground. The small city grew around this fort.
In 1949 a site on the steppe 150km (100 miles) west of the city was chosen by the Soviet atomic bomb programme to be the location for its weapons testing. The USSR operated the Semipalatinsk Test Site from the first Soviet explosion in 1949 until 1989. 456 nuclear tests, including 340 underground and 116 atmospheric tests were conducted.