The article explores the problem of the influence of epidemics on the state of trade between Russia and the East and of navigation in the Caspian Sea basin in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, as well as the views of Astrakhan Gubernia authorities and practical steps that were taken in Astrakhan to ease the quarantine regime for merchants and shipowners in order to develop Russia’s foreign trade.
During the spring of 1915, at the height of Russia’s grueling battles on the fields of World War I, there was another event unfolding in the remote southern borderlands of the Romanov Empire that at first glance might seem insignificant. On Easter night, March 22, 1915, Turkmen armed militias besieged the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, which had been a de facto protectorate of the Russian Empire since 1873. At the head of the Turkmen detachments was a certain Muhammet-Kurban Serdar, who later became widely known as Junaid Khan. For the first time since the Russian conquest, the Turkmen groups of Khorezm dared to attack the capital of the khanate, threatening Isfandiiar Khan, who ruled “at the gracious pleasure of the Great White Tsar” (1910–1918). Previously, the presence of the Russian garrison at the fort of Petro-Aleksandrovsk, the administrative center of the Amu Darya Department (ADO), was enough to protect the power of the Khivan ruler from challenges by his subjects. The memory of the cruel “lessons” that were taught to the wayward Turkmen tribes during the conquest of the khanate in 1873 and 1876 helped the representatives of the colonial administration to keep the Turkmen leaders subservient simply through “indoctrination.” This time, too, the intervention of the new head of the ADO, Colonel V. P. Kolosovskii, who sent a Cossack sotnia to Khiva, was sufficient to restore order. According to a participant in this small expedition, “the authority of the Russians in Khiva was so great that the arrival of a detachment to Khiva was sufficient to restore the peace.” The siege was lifted, and the Turkmen militias returned to their nomad camps. Despite the bloodless resolution of the crisis, this episode marked the beginning of much more dramatic events. Less than a year later, the
The surrounding natural environment, the nature of service, and the way that war was conducted in the Caucasus—everything helped inculcate a spirit of independence and personal courage in the soldier along with those fighting traits that set him apart. . . . He had to know in advance what to do if the enemy suddenly appeared nearby with sword drawn, or how to take cover from a shot if he saw a rifle sticking out into a forest clearing. . . . He knew how to fend for himself if he was left a day or two without provisions. In general, whether with a full belly or an empty one, dodging a bullet or taking one, resting by the fireside on straw on a cold winter night or tossing and turning on the bare snow, his fate depended solely on him, and in his case necessity was the mother of invention. And he would never stop adapting to his circumstances throughout the entire year. 1
