History of Central Asia

Tsarist rule 
Yet the Russians, whether intentionally or not, became agents of change throughout the 
area in much the same way as any other colonial power. The regional economy was 
gradually realigned to meet the Russian need for raw materials and new markets. This 
required the construction of 
railroads
: by 1888 the Trans-Caspian Railroad had 
reached 
Samarkand
; between 1899 and 1905 the Orenburg-Tashkent Railroad was 
completed; the Turkistan-Siberian Railroad came later, begun just before 
World War 
I
 and not completed until 1930. In 
Tashkent
 and Samarkand new European suburbs 
were laid out at a distance from the walled native cities, but, as in the case of the newly 
established garrison towns, such islands of European life required local services and 
supplies. Nor did the Russians wholly ignore the welfare of their new subjects. An effort 
was made, halfheartedly at first, to put down the 
indigenous
 
slave trade
, irrigation 
projects were initiated, and bilingual 
elementary education
 was cautiously introduced. 
As elsewhere in colonial 
Asia
, the work of Russian scholars studying the literature, 
history, and antiquities of the Central Asian peoples aroused on the part of a 
numerically small but influential Russian-educated elite, especially among the Kazakhs, 
nostalgic awareness of a colourful past and a sense of national, or cultural, identity. 
Of the major ethnic groups in Central Asia—Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Tajiks, and 
Kyrgyz—the Kazakhs were the first to respond to the impact of Russian 
culture
. Their 
early contacts with their new masters had in the main been carried out through 
intermediaries—Kazan Tatars, who, paradoxically, had contributed to strengthening the 
Kazakhs’ awareness of being part of a greater 
Muslim world
 
community
 and their sense 
of being a “nation” rather than a welter of tribes and clans. Moreover, through the 
Tatars they were exposed to current 
Pan-Turkic
 and 
Pan-Islamic
 
propaganda
. In the 
1870s the Russians countered Tatar influence by establishing bilingual Russian-Kazakh 
schools, from which emerged a Westernized elite of considerable distinction.