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Uzbekistan
Arrival of the Russians
The following period was one of weakness and disruption, with
continuous invasions from Iran and from the north. In this period,
a new group, the Russians, began to appear on the Central Asian
scene. As Russian merchants began to expand into the grasslands
of present-day Kazakstan, they built strong trade relations with
their counterparts in Tashkent and, to some extent, in Khiva.
For the Russians, this trade was not rich enough to replace the
former transcontinental trade, but it made the Russians aware
of the potential of Central Asia. Russian attention also was drawn
by the sale of increasingly large numbers of Russian slaves to
the Central Asians by Kazak and Turkmen tribes. Russians kidnapped
by nomads in the border regions and Russian sailors shipwrecked
on the shores of the Caspian Sea usually ended up in the slave
markets of Bukhoro or Khiva. Beginning in the eighteenth century,
this situation evoked increasing Russian hostility toward the
Central Asian khanates.
Meanwhile, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
new dynasties led the khanates to a period of recovery. Those
dynasties were the Qongrats in Khiva, the Manghits in Bukhoro,
and the Mins in Quqon. These new dynasties established centralized
states with standing armies and new irrigation works. But their
rise coincided with the ascendance of Russian power in the Kazak
steppes and the establishment of a British position in Afghanistan.
By the early nineteenth century, the region was caught between
these two powerful European competitors, each of which tried to
add Central Asia to its empire in what came to be known as the
Great Game. The Central Asians, who did not realize the dangerous
position they were in, continued to waste their strength in wars
among themselves and in pointless campaigns of conquest.
Data as of March 1996
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