Kazakhs

“ As my colleagues are aware, the Taliban are actively supporting an Islamic extremist insurgency in the Fergana Valley, where the borders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan converge. It is conceivable that the Taliban's ultimate objective is Kazakhstan, the largest country in the region, rich in oil and minerals. ”

“ Economy - overview: Kazakhstan, the largest of the former Soviet republics in territory, excluding Russia, possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves as well as plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also is a large agricultural - livestock and grain - producer. Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources and also on a growing machine-building sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some defense items. ”

“ Kazakhstan is working rapidly with China and Russia to delimit its large open borders to control population migration, illegal activities, and trade; signed bilateral agreement with Russia delimiting the Caspian Sea seabed, but littoral states are far from any multilateral agreement on dividing the waters and seabed regimes - Iran insists on division of Caspian Sea into five equal sectors while Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan have generally agreed upon equidistant seabed boundaries ”

“ Geography Kazakhstan Location: Central Asia, northwest of China; a small portion west of the Ural River in eastern-most Europe Geographic coordinates: 48 00 N, 68 00 E Map references: Asia Area: total: 2,717,300 sq km
water: 47,500 sq km
land: 2,669,800 sq km Area - comparative: slightly less than four times the size of Texas Land boundaries: total: 12,012 km
border countries: China 1,533 km, Kyrgyzstan 1,051 km, Russia 6,846 km, Turkmenistan 379 km, Uzbekistan 2,203 km Coastline: 0 km (landlocked) ”

“ Russia leases approximately 6,000 sq km of territory enclosing the Baykonur Cosmodrome; in January 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia extended the lease to 2050
People Kazakhstan Population: 15,143,704 (July 2004 est.) Age structure: 0-14 years: 24.4% (male 1,884,369; female 1,807,585)
15-64 years: 68% (male 5,028,455; female 5,268,726)
65 years and over: 7.6% (male 404,940; female 749,629) (2004 est.) Median age: total: 28.3 years
male: 26.6 years
female: 30 years (2004 est.) Population growth rate: 0.26% (2004 est.) Birth rate: 15.52 births/1,000 population (2004 est.) ”

“ The Kazaks are an honest and trustworthy people, but heavy, sluggish, sullen and unfriendly. Even the hospitality enjoined by the Koran is displayed only towards the orthodox Sunnite sect. So essentially nomadic are all the tribes that they cannot adopt a settled life without losing the very sentiment of their nationality, and becoming rapidly absorbed in the Slav population. They dwell exclusively in semicircular tents consisting of a light wooden framework, and red cloth or felt covering, with an opening above for light and ventilation. ”

“ At the equal distance of 2,000 miles from the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal seas, a ridge of mountains is conspicuous, the centre, and perhaps the summit, of Asia, which, in the language of different nations has been styled Imaus, and Caf, and Altai, and the Golden Mountains, and the Girdle of the Earth. The sides of the hills were productive of minerals; and the iron-forges, for the purpose of war, were exercised by the Turks, the most despised portion of the slaves of the great khan of the Geougen. ”

“ The camp life of the Kazaks seems almost unendurable to Europeans in winter, when they are confined altogether to the tent, and exposed to endless discomforts. In summer the day is spent mostly in sleep or drinking koumiss, followed at night by feasting and the recital of tales, varied with songs accompanied by the music of the flute and balalaika. ”

“ But horsemanship is the great amusement of all true Kazaks, who may almost be said to be born in the saddle. Hence, though excellent riders, they are bad walkers. Though hardy and long-lived, they are uncleanly in their habits and often decimated by small-pox and Siberian plague. They have no fixed meals, and live mainly on mutton and goat and horse flesh, and instead of bread use the so-called balamyk, a mess of flour fried in dripping and diluted in water. ”

“ It had traversed an unexplored continent, creating, as it moved along, homes for the workmen, schools for their technical instruction, churches, hospitals, inns, stores; converting a wilderness, in fact, into a semi-civilization at the rate of a mile a day for nine years! And whereas in the days of the Mongol subjection it required four years for the Grand Princes to go from Moscow to Saraï, near Pekin, to prostrate themselves before the Great Khan, many perishing by the way from fatigue and exposure, the journey from Moscow to Pekin may now be accomplished in two weeks. ”

“ The manners of the hordes of Chingiz Khan and his successors were very like the manners of the old Huns, and they also brought their flocks with them, and lived on roast sheep and roast horse and koumis as the majority of the dwellers of Central Asia seem to have ever lived.
The splendour of the successors of Chingiz Khan decayed, and Russia and the East gasped and waited till Asia produced another monster—a new conqueror of the world. ”

“ It is the wandering spirit that is the foundation of the Empire. In Central Asia the officials complain that the people who come are not like those who remain behind in Russia; they are the most restless of all Russians. They have wandered thus far, but they have no wish to settle down even now. They take up land, build villages, till the soil, but sure enough after a few [136] years they are itching to move on farther. The majority of colonists are people who have come not direct from Russia, but from some less remote farm or homestead in Turkestan, Seven Rivers Land, or Siberia. ”

“ Here the Russians first met them in the 17th century, and by the aid of the Kazaks exterminated all those east of the Irtish, driving the rest farther west and south-westwards. Most of them took refuge with their kinsmen, the Kara-Kirghiz nomad highlanders, whose homes, at least since the 13th century, have been the Ala-tau range, the Issyk-kul basin, the Tekes, Chu and Talass river valleys, the Tian-shan range, the uplands draining both to the Tarim and to the Jaxartes and Oxus, including Khokand, Karateghin and Shignan southwards to the Pamir table-land, visited by them in summer. ”

“ The friendship of English and Russians in Central Asia must mean a larger, stronger life for both Empires. And the development of Asia can mean much to the home Russians; they, as we, are inclined to take their own land and their capital cities as the only places of interest in the world. Already, reading some of the Moscow and Petersburg newspapers, you may alter Kipling’s phrase and ask: “What do they know of Russia who only Moscow know?”
Tashkent is the capital of Russian Central Asia, and is a well-built city extending over an enormous area. ”

“ We may boast with perfect truth that the thirty-five years during which Central Asia has enjoyed the blessings of a firm and civilised rule have been years of sustained progress, of daily-increasing strength in the bonds of attachment and goodwill which unite these subject peoples to the inhabitants of other Russian provinces. As compared with India, our territories in that part of the world are still poor and sparsely populated; but there has been a considerable increase in the country’s wealth since the conquest of Turkestān in 1863. ”

“ This region is made up of those spaces lying north of the Great Wall of China, that largest fence ever reared by man to ward off an enemy, and farther west by the greatest barrier raised upon [2] earth through creation, and also used by man as a line of defense, a fortress of refuge, that unique mountain system extending from Eastern China to Persia, and then, with a break, to the Caspian. From the Caspian westward the immense space is bounded by the Caucasus and the Black Sea, till it reaches the Danube and the mountains just north of that river. ”

“ It has long been suspected that a marked change in natural conditions must have taken place during historic times throughout considerable areas in Central Asia. The present comparatively arid condition of Mongolia, for example, is in striking contrast to what it must have been in the era preceding the Mongolian invasion of Western Asia in the thirteenth century, and travellers who have followed the route of Alexander's army, on its return from India through Afghanistan and Persia, have noted the difference in the character of the country at the present day. ”

“ The domestic animals, daily pursuits and industries of the Kazaks differ but slightly from those of the Kara-Kirghiz. Some of the wealthy steppe nomads own as many as 20,000 of the large fat-tailed sheep. Goats are kept chiefly as guides for these flocks; and the horses, though small, are hardy, swift, light-footed and capable of covering from 50 to 60 miles at a stretch. Amongst the Kazaks there are a few workers in silver, copper and iron, the chief arts besides, being skin dressing, wool spinning and dyeing, carpet and felt weaving. ”

“ The Kirghiz proper, who call themselves Kazaks, or “riders,” roam from Lake Balkash to the Volga, over the vast level steppes, where they dwell in skin tents and support themselves by breeding camels, horses, oxen, sheep and goats. They live in the saddle, and were formerly a warlike people, who once could put 400,000 fighting men in the field. They are divided into four hordes—Great, Middle or Kipchak, Little, and Inner. They are all now under Russian dominion. ”

“ The Kara-Kirghiz are governed by the “manaps,” or tribal rulers, who enjoy almost unlimited authority, and may even sell or kill their subjects. In religious matters they differ little from the Kazaks, whose practices are described below. Although generally recognizing Russian sovereignty since 1864, they pay no taxes.
The Kazaks.—Though not unknown to them, the term Kirghiz is never used by the steppe nomads, who always call themselves simply Kazaks, commonly interpreted as riders. ”

“ The city is adorned with bronze statues of Tsar Alexander II., set up facing the kreml in 1895, and of the poet G. R. Derzhavin (1743–1816) ; also with a monument commemorating the capture of Kazañ by Ivan the Terrible. The central parts of the city consist principally of small one-storeyed houses, surrounded by gardens, and are inhabited chiefly by Russians, while some 20,000 Tatars dwell in the suburbs. Kazañ is, further, the intellectual centre of the Russian Mahommedans, who have here their more important schools and their printing-presses. ”

“ Here we may feel what the Children of Israel were, the Egyptians, the Syrians, [45] the Persians, the Turks, the Russians. We see the destiny of Rome, the destiny of the Church of Christ, of Christianity, of barbarism.
Not that there are many pure or clear types of historical races in Central Asia to-day. The land has been a running ground for fierce tribes coming out of China and Manchuria, coming from the mysterious and vague regions of the Pamir and Thibet. The Kirghiz to-day exhibit every shade of difference between the Mongol and the Turk. ”

“ Most of them were well-established settlements, for this territory is Siberia, and not what is called Russian Central Asia. It has been in Russian hands a long while, and only the fact that Russia is so vast, and there is so much room for the overflow of population, explains the backwardness of the colonisation of the Altai. Russia has never had [221] any enemies worth the name here, and has very little to fear unless the Chinese ever turn bellicose. The only people who stood in her way were the mild nomads, the Kalmeeks and the Kirghiz. ”

“ The second-class travelers are not so comfortably treated, and besides, they have to bring their victuals with them, unless they prefer to take their meals at the stations. There are not many, however, who travel the complete journey between the Caspian and the eastern provinces of China—that is to say about six thousand kilometres. Most of them go to the principal towns and villages of Russian Turkestan, which have been reached by the Transcaspian Railway for some years, and which up to the Chinese frontier has a length of over 1,360 miles. ”

“ Under China, Kuldja contained two millions of people, and under Russia its population has not increased from the very small number to which Mahomedan violence had reduced it. China proved herself to be a thoughtful and considerate ruler ; Russia can in this matter be only compared to a thoughtless and improvident one.
Before passing on to those other Russian explorers whose scene of activity lies still further to the east, we may summarise what M. de Ujfalvy has written upon the subject of Central Asia as a field for sports- men. ”

“ In 1881 and the following years, Russia, whilst completing her conquests, and improving her communications in the south-western part of Central Asia, became involved in somewhat prolonged hostilities with the Tekke-Turcomans, ending in their subjugation, and in the occupation of the long, desolate strip of country extending eastwards from the Caspian, which had hitherto been independent. A railway was gradually constructed from the vicinity of Kras-novodsk, on the Caspian, towards Samarcand. Merv, formerly a city of importance, but of late a mere village in the desert, was also occupied. ”

“ Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay three days at Kazán and to put up at a hotel.
For those three days I wandered about the city, attended everywhere by my keeper. The veiled faces of the Tatar women, the high cheekbones of their husbands, the mosques of true believers standing side by side with the churches of the Orthodox faith—it all reminds one of Asia and the East. At Vladímir or Nizhni the neighbourhood of Moscow is felt; but one feels far from Moscow at Kazán. ”