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West Turkestan

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"WEST TURKESTAN ( see 27.419). - After the revolution in Russia, Western (or Russian) Turkestan became a member of the Federation of Soviet Republics. It was divided into five provinces: Semiryechia, Syr Dania, Ferghana, Samarkand and Trans-Caspia. The exact position of the native states of Bukhara and Khiva, which were later occupied by the Soviet Government, remained obscure. Each of the five provinces, by the constitution of the Republic, is governed by a provincial Executive Committee or council which sends representatives to Tashkent, the capital, where the Central Executive Committee of the Republic meets. This Committee consists of 75 members, sending representatives to Moscow to the meetings of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Federation of Soviet Republics, but the Turkestan Republic showed itself very little inclined to accept the control which the Central Committee at Moscow endeavoured to maintain. The Turkestan Committee elects a small council, forming a kind of cabinet and having control of the different branches of the administration. The right of voting being confined to members of the Communist party, the Government represented by no means one really elected by universal suffrage but rather a dictatorship of the lower classes. The Russians in Turkestan form only about 5% of the total pop., and since most of the rural Mussulman pop. take no part in the voting, the country is governed to all intents and purposes by men elected by the very small proportion of Russians of the lower classes living in the towns. Figures for the pop. of some of the large towns in 1916 were: - Khokand, 112,000; Namangan, 103,000; Samarkand, 89,000; Tashkent, 201,000. All trade and industry were in 1921 at an absolute standstill owing to Bolshevism.

Great success had attended the cultivation of cotton, and the high prices obtained for the Turkestan article (most of which is grown in Ferghana, where 742,000 acres were cultivated in 1915), coupled with the increase of railways, led to the abandonment of corn in favour of the cultivation of cotton, and, although W. Turkestan is a good wheat-producing country, cereals were actually imported from Russia and Siberia and cotton exported in exchange. Factories for cleaning and baling raw cotton and for extracting cotton oil were set up, and employed a large number of people, mostly in Ferghana. These factories were worked by crude oil from the Baku wells. The total area under cotton in 1916, including that grown in Khiva and Bukhara, was 1,838,215 acres, yielding about 18,000,000 poods or 290,000 tons of raw cotton.

The cultivation of vines had also increased, and wine industries had been initiated, chiefly in Tashkent and Samarkand. A larger product of the vine was in the form of raisins and currants, of which quantities were exported to Russia.

Large quantities of fruits - apples, pears, quinces, peaches, nectarines, apricots, grapes and melons - were exported by special trains to central Europe, where the Turkestan crop was received a short time before the south European supplies ripened.

Minerals remained for the most part unworked, though the profitable coal fields and oil wells in Ferghana were used when disturbances in Trans-Caspia cut Turkestan off from the Baku oil, on which it relies entirely for its industrial life. Mining is hampered by the lack of roads and by the want of machinery.

A very large industry in Bukhara is the export of Astrakhan lamb skins (called locally Karakul). Enormous flocks of these sheep are kept in the deserts around Bukhara. Attempts to breed these sheep in other countries have always resulted in a deterioration in the quality of the skins owing to some peculiarity of climate. Before the World War about i 2 million skins were obtained annually at a cost of 6 to 8 roubles each.

There are practically no branch roads in Turkestan, and the only means of transport in bulk is either by wagon on the few main roads, or by railway. The largest new railway project is the Semiryechenskaya railway. This line was intended to leave the OrenburgTashkent line at Arys (146 versts N. of Tashkent) and go to Vierni, a distance of about goo versts. Actual construction was completed to Burnoi (220 versts) when Bolshevism came to crush all enterprise and initiative. Some work was done E. of Burnoi, but the line was 2 (h+D)2 not laid and no trains ran in 1921 beyond Burnoi. It was intended later to continue this line from Vierni to Semipalatinsk (about goo versts) and join up with the Trans-Siberian line. Important railway lines were constructed from Kagan (the station on the main line io m. S. of Bukhara City) to Karshi and Kerki, whence the line runs up the right bank of the Oxus to Termez on the Afghan border.

A branch runs from Karshi to Kitab, and the intention was to join Kitab to Samarkand. All these lines were destroyed by the Bukharians in 1918 but could presumably be easily repaired. The total length of these railways in Bukhara was about 400 m. and there are, in addition, lines from Andijan to Jalalabad coal-fields, about 45 m., from Khokand to Namangan, about 57 m., and from Fechenko (N. E. of Skobelev) to Sharikhan, about 11 miles. (F. M. B.)