Turtkul

(until 1920, Petro-Aleksandrovsk), a city under ASSR jurisdiction and administrative center of Turtkul’ Raion, Kara-Kalpak ASSR, of which it was the capital prior to 1939. Population, 22,000 (1975). Turtkul’ was moved to a new site in 1949 owing to the undermining of the right bank of the Amu Darya River. It is now situated on the right bank of the Amu Darya, 35 km east of the Urgench railroad station on the Char-dzhou-Makat line; the city is located 170 km southeast of Nukus.

Turtkul’, which was founded in 1873, was at one time the administrative center of the Amu Darya division of Syr Darya Oblast. It has a cotton-ginning plant and plants for the manufacture of reinforced-concrete products and asphalt concrete. The city has an agricultural technicum and a branch of the Nukus Medical School.