'Military Report on Russian Turkistan or Central Asia' [‎40v] (87/168)

70
Russian
colonisa
tion.
Armenians, Gypsies, Tartars, and Arabs by descent,
though almost entirely merged in the Uzbaks, form other
small groups, in the motley population of lurkistan.
The colonisation of Turkistan by the Russians began
with the gradual expansion towards the south and south
west of the Siberian Cossack settlements. By the middle
of the 19th century, keeping pace with the advance of
the frontiers of the Russian Empire, the Cossacks occu
pied point after point on the Kirghiz Steppes. In 1831,
the town Sergiopol was founded; in 184/, Kopal; in
1854, Yierni; in the following year, Lepsinsk and
Karabulak. Every year fresh settlements sprang up
until 18G7, when the province of Semirechia was formed,
and contained 14 such villages, with a population ot
14,413 souls, which were organised as a new “ Semi
rechia ” Cossack Voisko. This new body of Cossacks
was reinforced and increased by migration from Euro
pean Russia, and in 1901 there were 28 Cossack settle
ments, with a population of 29,323 souls, and 30 colonies
of peasants numbering 38,022 souls.
The colonisation of the Syr Daria province began in
1873. In 1892 more than 1,200 families brought from
various parts of European Russia were settled in existing
or new villages on the post road from Tashkend to the
borders of Semirechia, and in 1901 there were 57
settlements with a population of 18,259 souls.
In the Samarkand province colonisation began in
1896. In 1901 there were nine settlements with a
population of 2,126 souls, all of them being (with one
exception) in the Khojend district in the vicinity of
certain irrigation works undertaken in that neighbourhood
(near where the Syr Daria makes its great bend towards
the north) with a view to bringing the so-called “ Famine
Steppe’’under cultivation. Owing to the non-comple
tion of these works, the state of some of these settlements
is precarious and unsatisfactory.
In Ferghana colonisation was commenced in 1893
by the establishment of twenty Russian families in the
Osh district. In 1901 there tvere five villages, with a
Russian population of 2,835 souls.