Soviet Central Asia: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 02:40, 1 December 2007
Over view.
Soviet Central Asia is a reference to the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan that were part of the Soviet Union from 1924-1991. For a more expanded analysis of this region see Central Asia.
While most of S.C.A. was either steppe to the north, Kara kurm desert to the west or mountain ranges to the south east, the Furgana vally provided an oasis in the otherwise unforgiving landscape. The Kyrgiz Turugat Pass make passage trough the Tian Shan mountains and over the border into China's north western Xinjiang province. The Kazakhstani Dzungarian Pass dose like wise further to the north.
There are Several major boddies of water scattered around the region.
The Lake Issyk Kull in Kyrgystan,
The Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan,
The Aral Sea,
The Caspian Sea,
The Lake Kara-Kul in Tadjikistan,
The Kara Bogaz Bay / Gol Bay
Source- The Philip's World Factbook (1995 UK edition).
Geography
The Fergana vally
The Fergana Valley or Farghana Valley (Uzbek: Farg‘ona vodiysi, Kyrgyz: Фергана өрөөнү, Tajik: водии Фaрғонa, Russian: Ферганская долина, Persian: دشت فرغانه) is a region in the Tian Shan mountain ranges of Central Asia spreading across eastern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
The Tomb of Ali at Shakhimardan, on the edge of the valley formed the nucleus of an independent khanate, whilst later under Russian rule in the 19th century Ferghana was a province to itself, with large areas of the Pamirs included. It is the most fertile and most densely-populated region in the whole of Central Asia. The most important part of the province is a rich and fertile valley, in an altitude of 1200 to 1500 ft (400 to 500 m), opening towards the southwest. The valley owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which unite in the valley, near Namangan, to form the Syr Darya.The climate of this valley is dry and warm. In March the temperature reaches 20 °C (68 °F), and then rapidly rises to 35 °C (95 °F) in June, July and August. During the five months following April no rain falls, but it begins again in October. Snow and frost, down to -20 °C (-4 °F) occur in December and January. The Tadjik town of Khodzenta is one of many situated in the vally.
[[1]]
The Caspian sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The Soviets had exsploted this sea for conventional weapons testing as well as heavly over-fishing it trough the years.
Lake Balkhash
(Kazakh: Балқаш Көлі [kk] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: Balķaš Kôli (help), also Balkhash from the Russian Озеро Балхаш [ru] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: Ozero Balhaš (help)) is a lake in southeastern Kazakhstan, the second largest in Central Asia after the Aral Sea.Balkhash itself serves as a vital fishery.
The Syr Darya river and the Aral Sea
The Syr Darya river (Kazakh: Сырдария; Tajik: Сирдарё; Uzbek: Sirdaryo; Persian: سيردريا, also transliterated Syrdarya or Sirdaryo) is a river in Central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its Ancient Greek name ὁ Ιαξάρτης. The Greek name is derived from Old Persian, Yakhsha Arta ("Great Pearly"), a reference to the color of the river's water. In medieval Islamic writings, the river is uniformly know as Sayhoun (سيحون) - after one of the four rivers of Paradise. (Amu Darya was likewise known as Jayhoun, the name of another one of the four).
The Aral Sea (Kazakh: Арал Теңізі, Aral Tengizi, Uzbek: Orol dengizi, Russian: Аральскοе мοре), Tajik/Persian "Daryocha-i Khorazm" (Lake Khwarazm) is a landlocked endorheic sea in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to more than 1,500 islands of one hectare or more that dotted its waters.
Along its course, the Syr Darya irrigates the most fertile cotton-growing region in the whole of Central Asia, together with the towns of Kokand, Khujand, Kyzylorda and Turkestan. An extensive system of canals, many built in the 18th century by the Uzbek Khanate of Kokand, spans the regions the river flows through.
Since the 1960s the Aral Sea has been shrinking, as the rivers that feed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were diverted by the Soviet Union for irrigation. The Aral Sea is heavily polluted and most fish stocks have resently died out, largely as the result of Nuclear weapons testing, industrial projects, and fertilizer runoff.
Pamir mountains
Historically and politicaly, the Pamir mountains were considered a strategic trade route between Kashgar and Kokand on the Silk Route and have been subject to numerous territorial conquests. In the 20th Century, they have been the setting for Tajikistan Civil War, border disputes between China and Soviet Union, establishment of US, Russian, and Indian military bases.[[4]]
Former Soviet and Bolshavik states
Turkestan ASSR
Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic) (April 30, 1918 – October 27, 1924) was created from the Turkestan Krai of Imperial Russia. Its capital was Tashkent, population about 5,000,000.
In 1924 it was split into Tajik ASSR (now Tajikistan), Turkmen SSR (now Turkmenistan), Uzbek SSR (now Uzbekistan), Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast (now Kyrgyzstan), and Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast (now Karakalpakstan).
The Bukharan PSR
In March 1918 activists of the Young Bukharan Movement informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharans were ready for the revolution and that the people were awaiting liberation. The Red Army marched to the gates of Bukhara and demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharans. As Russian sources report, the emir responded by murdering the Bolshevik delegation, along with several hundred Russian inhabitants of Bukhara and the surrounding territories. The majority of Bukharans did not support an invasion and the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Bolshevik army fled back to the Soviet stronghold at Tashkent.
However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia wound down, Moscow sent reinforcements to Central Asia. On 2 September 1920, an army of well-disciplined and well equipped Red Army troops under the command of Bolshevik general Mikhail Frunze attacked the city. After four days of fighting, the emir’s citadel (Arc) was destroyed, the red flag was raised from the top of Kalyan Minaret, and the Emir Alim Khan was forced to flee to his base at Dushanbe in Eastern Bukharan, and finally to Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Bukharan People's Republic was proclaimed on 8 October 1920 under Faizullah Khojaev. The overthrow of the Emir was the impetus for the Basmachi Revolt, a conservative anti-communist rebellion. In 1922, most of the territory of the republic was controlled by Basmachi, surrounding the city of Bukhara. Joseph Stalin would later purge and exile many of the local Bukhori people as well as most of the local Jewish community from the former Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.
Prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, the Bukharian Jews were one of the most isolated Jewish communities in the world.
With the establishment of Soviet rule on the territory in 1917, Jewish life seriously deteriorated. Throughout 1920s and 1930s, thousands of Jews, fleeing religious oppression, confiscation of property, summary arrests, and repressions, fled to Palestine.
The Khorezm SSR
The Khorezm SSR only survived until 17 February 1925, when it was divided between Uzbek SSR, Turkmen SSR, and Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast as part of the reorganization of Central Asia by Moscow according to nationalities.
Khorezm People's Soviet Republic (Russian: Хорезмская Народная Советская Республика) was created as the successor to the Khanate of Khiva in February 1920 and officially declared on 26 April 1920. On 20 October 1923, it was transformed into the Khorezm Socialist Soviet Republic (Russian: Хорезмская Социалистическая Советская Республика).
The Kockand Autonomy
Kokand (alternative spellings: Khokand, Khoqand; Uzbek: Quqon; Russian: Коканд; Template:Ta/PA:Куканд/کوکند ;Chagatai: خوقند) is a city in Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It has a population of 192,500 (1999 census estimate). Kokand is 228 km southeast of Tashkent, 115 km west of Andijan, and 88 km west of Fergana. It is nicknamed “City of Winds”, or sometimes “Town of the Boar". It is at an altitude of 409 meters.
Kokand is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes, at the junction of two main routes into the Fergana Valley, one leading northwest over the mountains to Tashkent, and the other west through Khujand. As a result, Kokand is the main transportation junction in the Fergana Valley.
Russian imperial forces under Mikhail Skobelev captured the city in 1876 which then became part of Russian Turkistan. It was the capital of the short-lived (1917–18) anti-Bolshevik Provisional Government of Autonomous Turkistan (also known as Kokand Autonomy). Sourse- The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, Jadidism in Central Asia, Oxford University Press, 2000.
Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast
The Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast (Кара-Киргизская АО) was created on 14 October 1924 within the Russian SFSR from the predominantly Kazakh and Kyrgyz parts of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. On 15 May 1925 it was renamed into the Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast. On 11 February 1926 it was reorganized into the Kyrgyz ASSR. On 5 December 1936 it became the Kyrgyz SSR, one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union.
The Karakalpak AO
Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast was created on February 19, 1925 by separating lands of the ethnic Karakalpaks from the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Khoresm People's Soviet Republic.
Initially located within the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Karakalpak A.O. was transferred to the RSFSR from July 20, 1930 to March 20, 1932, at which time it was elevated to the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ("Karakalpak ASSR"). The Karakalpak ASSR was joined to the Uzbek SSR from December 5, 1936.
Kazakh ASSR
The Kazakh ASSR was an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union. It became the Kazakh SSR on August 26,1920.
Oddly enough, its original name was actually the Kirgiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (not to be confused with Soviet Kirghizia, a Central Asian territory which is now the independent state of Kyrgyzstan). This A.S.S.R. was established on 26 Aug 1920, and was a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.) In 1925 it was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1929 the city of Almaty (Alma-Ata) was designated as the capital of the ASSR.
Tadjik SSR
The Tajik SSR was one of the new states created in Central Asia in 1924 was Uzbekistan, which had the status of a Soviet socialist republic. In 1929 Tajikistan was detached from Uzbekistan and given full status as a Soviet socialist republic. The city of Dushanbe would becom a important regonal hub on the border with Afghanistan.
Kazakh SSR
The Kazakh SSR Established on December 5, 1936. It was initially called Kyrgyz ASSR (Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) and was a part of the Russian SFSR. On April 15-19, 1925, it was renamed Kazakh ASSR and on December 5, 1936 it became a Union Republic of the USSR called Kazakh SSR in the culminating act of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. During the 1950's and 1960's Soviet citizens were urged to settle in the "Virgin Lands" of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The influx of immigrants (mostly Russians and Ukranians, but also some forcibly resettled ethnic minorities, such as the Volga Germans and the Chechens) skewed the ethnic mixture and enabled non-Kazakhs to outnumber natives.
In 1924, the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed along ethnic lines determined by Lenin’s Commissar for Nationalities, Joseph Stalin. The Turkestan ASSR, the Bukharan People's Republic, and the Khorezm People's Republic were abolished and their territories were divided into eventually five separate Soviet Socialist Republics, one of which was the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR). The next year the Uzbek SSR became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union).
Uzbeg SSR
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In 1924 the new national boundaries separating the Uzbek and Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republics cut off the Eastern end of the Ferghana Valley, as well as the slopes surrounding it. This was compounded in 1928 when the Tajik ASSR became a fully-fledged republic, and the area around Khodjend was made a part of it. This blocked the valley's natural outlet and the routes to Samarkand and Bukhara, but none of these borders was of any great significance so long as Soviet rule lasted.
The Uzbek SSR included the Tajik ASSR until 1929, when the Tajik ASSR was upgraded to an equal status. In 1930, the Uzbek SSR capital was relocated from Samarkand to Tashkent. In 1936, the Uzbek SSR was enlarged with the addition of the Karakalpak ASSR taken from the Kazakh SSR in the last stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. Further bits and pieces of territory were transferred several times between the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR after World War II. During the Great purges of Joseph Stalin, many thousands of Chechens, Koreans and Crimean Tartars were exiled to the Uzbeg SSR.
The city of Tashkent began to industrialize in the 1920s and 1930s, but industry increased tremendously during World War II, with the relocation of factories from western Russia to preserve the Soviet industrial capacity from the invading Nazis. The Russian population increased dramatically as well, with evacuees from the war zones increasing the population to well over a million. (The Russian community would eventually comprise nearly half of the total residents of Tashkent.
On April 26 1966, Tashkent was destroyed by a huge earthquake (7.5 on the Richter scale) and over 300,000 were left homeless.
At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tashkent was the fourth largest city in the country and a center of learning in the science and engineering fields.
The State Anthem of the Uzbek SSR (Uzbek: Ўзбекистон ССР давлат мадхияси) was the national anthem of Uzbekistan when it was a republic of the Soviet Union and known as the Uzbek SSR.
Kyrgyz SSR
The Kyrgyz SSR, formally known as the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic (alternative transliteration: Kirghiz), also known as Kirgizia, was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. Established on 14 October 1924 as the Kara-Kyrgyz AO (Autonomous Oblast) of the Russian SFSR, it was transformed into the Kyrgyz ASSR (Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) on 1 February 1926, still being a part of the Russian SFSR. Today it is the independent state of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kyrgyz ASSR) was the both the name of two different national entities within Russian SFSR, in the territories of modern Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
On 5 December 1936 it became a separate constituent republic of the USSR as the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic during the final stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union.
Turkmen SSR
The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen: Türkmienistan Soviet Socialistik Riespublikasy) was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was initially established on August 7 1921 as Turkmen Oblast of the Turkestan ASSR. On May 13 1925 it was transformed into Turkmen SSR and became a separate republic of the USSR. Today it is the independent state of Turkmenistan in Central Asia.
The Communist Party of the Turkmenistan was the ruling communist party of the Turkmen SSR, and a part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1985 it was led by Saparmurat Niyazov, who in 1991 renamed the party to the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, which is no longer a communist party. The current Communist Party of Turkmenistan is illegal. [1]
Anti-Communist rebelions
Gulags
During the Soviet era, Dzhezkazgan was the site of a Gulag labor camp, Kengir, mentioned in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's book, The Gulag Archipelago.Russian actor Oleg Yankovsky is the most famous of the city's natives.
The town of Kengir uprising in there Gulag by both the brutaly abused political prisoners and criminals in 1954.
[[7]] [[8]] [[9]] [[10]] [[11]]
The Basmachi revolt
In 1897 the Railway reached Tashkent, and finally in 1906 a direct rail link with European Russia was opened across the steppe from Orenburg to Tashkent. This led to much larger numbers of Slavic settlers flowing into Turkestan than had hitherto been the case, and their settlement was overseen by a specially created Migration Department in St. Petersburg (Переселенческое Управление). This caused considerable discontent amongst the local population, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Sarts, as these settlers took scarce land and water resources away from them. In 1916 discontent boiled over in the Basmachi Revolt, sparked by a decree conscripting the natives into Labour battalions (they had previously been exempt from military service). Thousands of settlers were killed, and this was matched by Russian reprisals, particularly against the nomadic population. Order had not really been restored by the time the February Revolution took place in 1917. This would usher in a still bloodier chapter in Turkestan's history, as the Bolsheviks of the Tashkent Soviet (made up entirely of Russian soldiers and railway workers, with no Muslim members) launched an attack on the autonomous Jadid government in Kokand early in 1918, which left 14,000 dead. Resistance to the Bolsheviks by the local population (dismissed as 'Basmachi' or 'Banditry' by Soviet historians) continued well into the 1920s.
The Kengir uprising.
During the Soviet era, a prison labour camp of Steplag division of the Gulag system of Kazakhstan was set up adjacent to the village of Kengir in central Kazakhstan. There was a prison revolt in 1954, by victims of the Soviet represion. [[12]]
Industry
Oil and gas
After the Second World War the Soviet Union rapidly industrialized Kazakhstan, and stared prospercting for oil in the whole of Soviet Central Asia. Oil was found in Uzbekistan and both oil and gas were found in Turkmenistan. These fule supply would prove invaluble to the region over the comming years.
The central part of the Fergana valley's geological depression that forms the valley is characterized by block subsidence, originally to depths estimated at 6-7 km, largely filled with sediments that range in age as far as the Permian-Triassic boundary. Some of the sediments are marine carbonates and clays. The faults are upthrusts and overthrusts. Anticlines associated with these faults form traps for petroleum and natural gas, which has been discovered in 52 small fields. [13].
Metallurgey
Kazachstan had started to produce and refine a sizabel amounts of tin and Uranium by the erly 1970's. Vanadium and Cobalt were, and still are also mined in the south of the country. Uranium was also produced in Uzbekistan in the 1970's.
The city of Zhezkazgan was created in 1938 in connection with the exploitation of the rich local copper deposits. In 1973 a large mining and metallurgical complex was constructed to the southeast to smelt the copper that until then had been sent elsewhere for processing. Other metal ores mined and processed locally are manganese, iron and gold.
Today the city is the headquarters of the copper conglomerate Kazakhmys, the city's main employer. The company has subsidiaries in China, Russia and the UK and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Cement
Cement was a major product in both the citys of Chimkent and Dushambe in the south of the region.
Hydro-electrisaty
By the erly 1970's, the Soviets had started to bild some of there hydro-electric power stations in easter Kazakhstan, Kirgystan and Tadjikistan as part of an overall development srategy. The waters of the Ili River and of Lake Balkhash are considered to be of a vital economic importance to Kazakhstan. The Ili river is dammed for hydroelectric power at Kaptchagayskoye, and the river waters are heavily diverted for agricultural irrigation and for industrial purposes.
Cotton
The Soviets bnegan to grow cotton in Usbekistan after the 'Virgin lands' project and the mass use of the isolated and now shrinking Aral Sea for desert irrigation in the erly 1950's. A massive expansion of irrigation canals during the Soviet period, to irrigate cotton fields, wrought ecological carnage to the area, with the river drying up long before reaching the Aral Sea which, as a result, has shrunk to a small remnant of its former size. With millions of people now settled in these cotton areas (and politically repressive post-Soviet regimes in power in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), it is not clear how the situation can be rectified.
Nuclear bomb tests
Some of the USSR's former Nuclear bomb test sites were in Kazakhstan and around the Aral sea.
[[18]]
Kazakhstan gave up it's arsenel in the mid 1990's as did the Ukrainane ByeloRuss.
[[19]] [[20]] [[21]] [[22]] [[23]] [[24]] [[25]] [[26]] [[27]] [[28]] [[29]] [[30]]
The Baikonur Cosmodrome space facilaties
The world famouse Baikonur Cosmodrome was founded in Kazakhstan on June 2, 1955, as a long-range nuclear missile base, but diverged in to space travel.
On June 8, 2005 the Russian Federation Council ratified an agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan extending Russia’s rent term of the spaceport until 2050.
Culture and ethnicaty
Most of the inhabitans were either nomadic Turkic speakers like the Kazakhs or setteled Turkick speekers like the Uzbeks. There were also some setteled farming and urban Iranic communitys like the Tadjiks and Bohkori in the south, and nomadic Mongollic Kyrgiz on the order with China The Slavic community was would grow very rapidly under commnisum and Russians would eventuly become a major ethnic group in the region. The Slavic were belved in Orthodox Christians, while the rest were Sunni Moslims. Variouse nationalatys, such as the Meshketian Turks and Volga Germans would get banished to the region's gulag network.
In Kazah [qɑzɑqtɑr]; Russian: Казахи; the English name 'Kazakh' is transliterated from Russian) are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of Uzbekistan, China, Russia, and Mongolia).
According to Robert G. Gordon, Jr., editor of the Ethnologue: Languages of the World, classifies Kalmyk-Oirat under the Oirat-Khalkha group, since he contends that Kalmyk-Oirat is related to Khalkha Mongolian – the national language of Mongolia. The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed on the other hand by recent genetic studies.[1] Remarkably, 63% of modern Kyrgyz men share Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA) with Tajiks (64%), Ukrainians (54%[citation needed]), Poles and Hungarians (~60%), and even Icelanders (25%). Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA) is believed to be a marker of the Proto-Indo-European language speakers.
The city of Zhezkazgan, also known as Zhezqazghan (Kazakh: Жезқазған - Zhezqazghan, Russian: Джезказган - Dzhezkazgan), is a city in central Kazakhstan, on a reservoir of the Kara-Kengir River. It has a population of 90,000 (1999 census). Its urban area includes the neighbouring mining town of Satpayev, total population 148,700. 55% of the population are Kazakhs, 30% Russians, with smaller minorities of Ukrainians, Germans, Chechens and Koreans.
Dzhezkazgan has an extreme continental climate. The average temperature ranges from 24°C (75°F) in July to -16°C (3°F) in January.
Also see.
The Uzbek city of Samarkand
The Kazakh Kengir river
The Kazakh city of Dzhezkazgan/Zhezkazgan
The Fergana regions of Uzbekistan
The Osh region of Kyrgyzstan
The Turkmenistani city of Ashkabad
The Kazakh city of Aktau
The Mangystau Province of Kazachstan
The Kazakh city of Astana
Mr Saparmurat Niyazov / 'Turkmenbaşı (Turkmenbashi) the Great!' 1st President of Turkmenistan
The region Central Asia
The Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR
The anti-Soviet Basmachi rebels
Links