The Tashkent Oasis: Russia's Forgotten Colony

In this episode of The Story of Uzbekistan, Lucas and Luna explore the lesser-known story of how Tsarist Russia transformed Tashkent from a medieval Islamic city into a colonial capital. After the Russian conquest in 1865, General Konstantin von Kaufman implemented a policy of indirect rule, preserving Islamic courts and waqf endowments to avoid rebellion. But beneath the surface, the city became a laboratory for colonial experiments: from the construction of a European 'New City' with wide boulevards and parks, to the introduction of Russian education, to the emergence of a class of intermediaries—the 'Sarts.' We trace the rise of the Tashkent City Duma, where a handful of Uzbek merchants and intellectuals began to test the limits of imperial power. The episode also uncovers the story of the 'Tashkent Commission' that surveyed land for cotton cultivation, setting the stage for the monoculture that would devastate the Aral Sea. Through the eyes of travelers like Eugene Schuyler and the diaries of local chroniclers, we see a city caught between tradition and empire—a tension that would explode in the 1916 revolt. A rich, nuanced look at a pivotal era, drawing on Russian, Turkic, and Western sources.

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