History of Tashkent The Tashkent oasis lies

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 History of Tashkent 
The Tashkent oasis lies 
on the Chirchik river, within 
sight of the foothills of the 
western Tian Shan. Mountain 
meltwater feeds the river, in 
turn feeding the Syr Darya on 
whose middle reaches once lay 
the principality of Chach. In ancient times, this area contained 
Beitian, probably the summer "capital" of the Kangju 
confederacy. An oasis on the Chirchik River, Tashkent began its 
life as a staging post for Silk Road merchants, missionaries and 
mercenaries en route between the Tian Shan Mountains in the east 
and the Kytylkum Desert to the west. 
Archaeologists battling myth and legend call its first capital 
Kanka, a square citadel founded between the fifth and third 
centuries ВС, eight kilometres from the Syr Darya. Tashkent’s 
earliest incarnation might have been as the settlement of Ming-
Uruk (Thousand Apricot Trees) in the 2nd or 1st century BC. The 
archaeological site of Kanka, 80km southwest of the modern city, 
was already thriving in the 4th century bc, so much so that it can 

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be identified even in ancient Greek sources (recorded there as 
Antihiey Zayaksartskoy). It was the capital of the principality of 
Chach and, for the next thousand years, its citadel flourished as 
the ccntrepiece of a network of more than 30 towns, 50 irrigation 
canals and numerous caravanserais. 
In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times the town and the 
province were known as "Chach". The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi 
also refers to the city as Chach. Later the town came to be known 
as 
Chachkand/Chashkand, 
meaning 
"Chach 
City". 
The 
principality of Chach, whose main town had a square citadel built 
around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some 8 kilometres south of the 
Syr Darya River. 

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By the seventh century AD, after the Sakas, Sassanians and 
Hephthalites, prominence shifted to the fertile Chirchik valley, 
focus of trade between Sogdian settlers and Turkic nomads. Over 
50 irrigation canals nurtured more than 30 towns as Chach 
blossomed into an exporter of cattle, horses, gold, silver and 
precious stones. The seventh century remains of the ruler's fortress 
were found at Mingur-yuk, 'thousand apricot orchard', now deep 
in the Russian quarter of Tashkent. In 751, invading Chinese 
troops executed the prince of Chach, provoking the Arab invaders 
to crush them at Talas. Thereby the supremacy of Islam was 
established and Chinese hopes of Central Asian hegemony were 
terminated. By the time the Arabs took it in AD 751 it was a 
major caravan crossroads. 
Under Samanid rule (ad819-ad999) in the ninth century the capital 
became known as Binkath, Arab pronunciation turned Chach to 
Shash and city walls fortified its mosques. Merchants rested their 

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caravans here after the hazardous journey from China over steppe 
and mountain, before continuing to Samarkand and Bukhara. Arab 
visitors described a verdant place of vineyards, bazaars and 
craftsmen. Karakhanid rule from the late tenth century maintained 
such prosperity and bequeathed a new, Turkish name: Tashkent, 
'stone village'. 
Tashkent became a wealthy and cosmopolitan city on the back of 
the trade passing through between Kashgar, Samarkand and 
Bukhara. Its wealth made it an inevitable target for looters, 
however: the city was sacked in 1214 by the Khwarazmian ruler 
Ala ad-Din Muhammad, and then again just five years later by 
Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde. Tashkent was utterly 
destroyed, and it would not recover until the time of Timur in the 
mid 15th century. The city's oldest remaining buildings (found in 

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the Sheikhantaur Mausoleum Complex) date from this period, but 
it was still not a time of stability: Tashkent fell time and again to 
violent invaders - Kazakhs and Kalmyks, Persians and Uzbeks, 
Mongols and Oirots. They frequently levelled parts of the city, 
resulting in a fragmented architectural legacy from the period. 
The history of modern Tashkent really starts in the late 18th 
century, again with a rise in trade, but this time from tsarist 
Russia. By the 18th century growing trade with Russia had 
expanded Tashkent into four quarters with a common bazaar. 
Behind crenellated walls, 25 km long wall with 11 gates (of which 
not a trace remains today), lived a wealthy population of over 
100,000 people served by some 300 mosques. In 1780, Yunus 
Khodja, the chief of the Sheikhantaur quarter, ended internal strife 
by conquering the other three, Kukcha, Sibzar and Besh-Agach 
(the names survive today). He repelled Kazakh attacks, but his son 
lost Tashkent to the Khan of Kokand in 1809. Drawn by the city's 
wealth and size, the Khan of Kokand annexed Tashkent in 1809, 
adding it to his ample territories in the East. When the Russians 

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advanced on Kokand 60 years later, Tashkent was still the jewel in 
Kokand's crown, and therefore the first major target for General 
Chernyayev and his troops. 
Major General Mikhail Chernaiev's first assault was beaten off, 
but the threat of the Bukharan emir stealing this prize and the 
prospect of Great Game glory back in St Petersburg persuaded 
him to try again in May 1865. Ignoring orders not to attack, he 
advanced his force of 1,900 men against the city's 30,000 
defenders. On the night of 14 June, the Russians crept up to one of 
12 city gates. Felt wrapping deadened the noise of gun wheels. 
Just before dawn, a diversionary attack lent the main party time 
enough to scale ladders and use a secret passage to open the gate 
from inside. Chaplain Malov led the charge, holding his Orthodox 
cross out high (and winning a military cross for valour). After two 
days of fighting, city elders chose surrender to save Tashkent from 
destruction by superior firepower. Chernaiev had lost only 25 
men. For his daring, locals christened him Shir-Naib, Lion 
Viceroy. More importantly, Tsar Alexander's reaction was 
favourable. Chernaiev's disobedience had secured with little cost a 
key foothold in the imperial underbelly and British protests could 
be ignored. To avoid further rushes of blood, Chernaiev was soon 
recalled. 

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Kokand became a vassal state of Russia, and in 1867 General 
Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann became its first governor 
general. He constructed a military cantonment across the Ankhor 
Canal from Tashkent's Old City, and this became the centre of the 
city's Russian community. The newly installed Governor was to 
gradually widen the imperial net around the other Central Asian 
khanates. His grand palace stood at the heart of the canal- and 
poplar-lined Russian town with the radial layout of St Petersburg, 
founded to the east of the old, mud-bricked districts. Initially the 
population comprised military men, merchants and the occasional 
diplomat or spy (the number of which would increase 
exponentially with the Great Game) but the arrival of the Trans-
Caspian railway in 1889 brought with it railway workers and their 
families who, a long way from home and with little money, 
decided to settle in Tashkent. Tashkent also became the tsarists’ 
(and later the Soviets’) main centre for espionage in Asia, during 
the protracted imperial rivalry with Britain known as the Great 
Game. 
The American diplomat Schuyler, visiting Tashkent in 1873, 
observed a clique- ridden, military society: "the officers have little 
resource but gambling and drinking, and in many instances young 
men have utterly ruined themselves, some even having to be sent 
out of the country-and a man must be bad to be exiled from 
Tashkent." 

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Electric trams connecting old and new Tashkent greeted English 
writer Stephen Graham in 1914. He delighted in this "fresh,