File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎478r] (603/1080)

193. — Cis-Frontier.
. Bandargaz.— News letters, dated 31st July and 4th August, afford the follow
ing information :—•
(i) Passengers arriving by the mail steamer of 29th July, brought gold and
silver articles with them for sale. The Persian Customs officer prevented such
sale a,nd purchased everything for himself at low prices. The local traders re
sented this, closed their shops and sent telegrams of complaint to the authorities
concerned. These telegrams the Persian telegraph master refused to accept unless
tTey bore the seals of the senders as well as their signatures. It is supposed this
act was by arrangement with the Customs official.
{ii) A ship chartered by the Tsentro Soyuz arrived at Mashad-i-Sar with a
cargo of glassware and sugar (of newspaper Iran).
(in) The postal Censor stopped delivery of numbers 936 and 937 recently.
(iv) On account of the unrest created by Turkmen, the inhabitants of Karasu
have come into Bandargaz.
(v) An arrival from Baku states that the Bolsheviks have shot 17 women and
several hundreds of men. One man was strangled and thrown into a river with
stones about his legs. His wife employed a man to bring up the corpse from the
bed of the river for burial. The diver found many other corpses of people who
had been similarly done away with.
(vi) A partizan band is operating against the railway line between Baku and
Rostov. The precise section is not given.
(vii) The situation in Mazanderan and Astarabad is normal.
(vni) According to a Tehran paper, Shahzada Amir Azam has been appointed
Governor of Astarabad.
Bujnurd.— News letters, dated 6th and 9th July, convey the following infor
mation
A detachment of 30 men with 2 machine guns has arrived naked and starving
at Qara Qala. Including officials the total garrison of that place is now about 50.
They do not hestitate to beg bread of the Turkmen.
Although communication and trade with Persia are forbidden, a certain amount
of traffic in the necessities of life is permitted but for which a permit is required.
The well known Sergei Sherbakov who commands a small detachment of Turk
men frontiersmen, murdered his wife in the frontier post of Kohna Kesar. An order
for his arrest was issued from Askhabad. He repaired thither and managed to
persuade the authorities he had killed the woman for anti-Bolshevism. He will
be exonerated and rewarded.
The news received of conditions in Transcaspia is of a most desperate nature.
People are driving their herds to Persia and selling them for anything they can get.
For instance, sheep and goats are being bartered for a pood of wheat at the frontier
and large cattle sold for one to two tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. in Bujnurd.
On the 5th August a detachment of 350 men and 3 machine guns arrived at
Kohna Kesar. According to the remarks of some of the men, as many more are
expected. Their object has not been discovered but they say themselves they
have come to operate against the Yomuds.
Thus, on a line 25 to 30 versts from Kohna Kesar to Duzli Teppe, or 60 versts
to Qara Qala inclusively, 550 men and 9 machine guns have been distributed
in place of the previous 100 men scattered over five posts. The force consists
of Sarts, Qirqis, Tatars, and Persians whose one topic of conversation is Persian
bread.. They are amazed at the abundance of it in Persia. It is suspected that
the object for which this force has come is to seize the harvest of the Jelgaran
defile under the pretext that that locality, although in Persian territory, belonged
once by purchase to the Russian General Dozdrovski.
The new arrivals have already established a post between Kohna Kesar and
Duzli Teppe on the summit of a hill in Persian territory from which vantage point