In 1928, the English capitalist Leslie Urquhart wrote to the Soviet Glavkontsesskom to ask if they would give him the opportunity to mine in the Kirghiz steppes, near Lake Balkhash and beyond.

Ten years later, after two five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik government discovered copper on the Kounrad hills, near Lake Balkhash.

In the same year, on the northern shore of Lake Balkhash, a geological survey from Leningrad arrived which was led by engineer and geologist Michael Rusakov.

Rusakov telegraphed the Committee of Geology in Leningrad that a rich copper porphyry deposit had been discovered in Kounrad, near Lake Balkhash.

In 1932, the sum of 100 million rubles was dedicated to the construction of the copper giant, amounting to one-third of the total capital investments allocated for development of the heavy industry of the republic.

The lives of the inhabitants of Balkhash were affected by the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, and the workers were ordered to send more metal to the front.

Process gases are emitted into the atmosphere without treatment of sulfur dioxide and dust containing heavy metals, such as copper, lead, and arsenic.

According to numerous testimonies of inhabitants of the city, the copper smelting department of the combine emitted a large amount of gas into the atmosphere in the summer of 2004, leading to mass deaths of birds in the area.

There is very little data for the current ecological status of the Lake Balkhash and surrounding area at the moment because the previously conducted routine observations have significantly reduced and almost completely stopped research in the 1990s.