An amazing document was discovered by scientists - Professor of Historical Sciences N. Nazarshoev and Associate Professor of Historical Sciences A. Gafurov - while working in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (the former archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU). The inventory, printed on a typewriter, with a volume of 48 sheets, listed the material values ​​of the Emir of Bukhara.
The Kherson Museum refused to sell the unique saber, even for 100 thousand dollars. The Damascus steel saber with a hilt and a silver scabbard, decorated with the most skillful engraving of Kubachi jewelers, was made in the nineteenth century personally for the Emir of Bukhara Seyid Khan.

An amazing document was discovered by scientists - Professor of Historical Sciences N. Nazarshoev and Associate Professor of Historical Sciences A. Gafurov - while working in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (the former archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU). The inventory, printed on a typewriter, with a volume of 48 sheets, listed the material values ​​of the Emir of Bukhara.

Emir of Bukhara Mir-Seid-Abdul-Ahad surrounded by Russian officers

Emir of Bukhara and his retinue in Moscow in 1896. Photograph of the State Historical Museum.

Almost every year, articles by writers, publicists, scientists and just history buffs appear in the media and on the Internet, in which they express hypotheses and assumptions about the location of the gold of the Mangyt dynasty. This topic has been relevant since the overthrow of the last Emir of Bukhara, Said Mir Alimkhan. Moreover, the authors of the articles try, as a rule, to ascribe as much wealth as possible to the emir. But everyone, as a rule, writes that before his flight from Bukhara, he took out 10 tons of gold in advance in the amount of 150 million Russian rubles at that time, which today is equivalent to 70 million US dollars.

All this treasure is said to have been hidden somewhere in the caves of the Gissar Range. At the same time, according to one version, Said Alimkhan got rid of unnecessary witnesses according to the classical scenario: the drovers who knew about the valuable cargo were destroyed by the emir's confidant, dervish Davron, and his henchmen. Then the latter were killed by the personal bodyguard of the emir Karapush with guards, and soon Karapush himself, who reported to the emir on the successful completion of the operation and dedicated the treasure to the secrets of the burial of the treasure, was strangled the same night in the bedchamber of the palace by the personal executioner of the emir. The guardsmen also disappeared - they were also killed.

In 20-30s. groups of armed horsemen, numbering tens or even hundreds of people, penetrated the territory of Tajikistan in order to search for treasure. However, all these attacks were in vain. The search for the treasure continued illegally in subsequent years. But the treasure was never found.

So there was still a treasure immured in the Gissar Range? Having asked this question, the authors of this article decided to conduct their own investigation. And we started with the search for archival documents that could lift the veil of secrecy.

In the course of our work in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (the former archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU), we discovered an interesting document. Printed on a typewriter, with a volume of 48 sheets, it described the material values ​​of the Emir of Bukhara.

So…

December 22, 1920, i.e. almost four months after the emir was overthrown, members of the State Commission for Accounting for the Values ​​of the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic (BNSR) Khairulla Mukhitdinov and Khol-Khodja Suleymankhojaev took the train to Tashkent and deposited the valuables belonging to the People's Commissariat of Finance of the Turkestan ASSR emir of Bukhara.

After the delivery of the valuable cargo, the State Commission drew up the corresponding Act in two copies, one of which was transferred to the Commissariat of Finance of the Turkestan Republic, and the second to the Nazirat of Finance of the BNSR.

The valuables that were indicated in the Act had 1193 serial numbers (No. 743 is repeated twice), packed in chests and bags. At autopsy, they were clogged with precious stones, money, gold, silver, copper, clothing. Of all this treasure, we will list only what, in our opinion, is of undoubted interest.

Fig.3. 1 - Order of Noble Bukhara, gold; 2 - the same order of the lowest degree, silver (GIM); 3 - gold badge of the same order (?); 4-5 - Order of the Crown of the State of Bukhara; 6-8 - medals for diligence and merit (6 - gold; 7-8 - silver and bronze, from the collection of the State Historical Museum).

Precious stones were represented by diamonds, diamonds, pearls, coral. Of these: 53 large diamonds (weight not specified), 39 large diamonds (138 carats), more than 400 medium-sized diamonds (450 carats), 500 smaller than medium-sized diamonds (410 carats), small diamonds (43 carats). Total gems: 1041 carats, excluding 53 large diamonds.

Most precious stones are encrusted in gold items: 1 sultan with diamonds and pearls, 4 crowns, 3 pairs of earrings, 8 brooches, 26 rings, 26 ladies' watches, 37 orders, 11 bracelets, 53 cigarette cases, 14 belts with plaques, 7 stars (with 5 large and medium diamonds and 30 small ones), 43 women's mirrors, Order of the White Eagle with 13 diamonds, pectoral portrait of Sad Alimkhan with 10 large and 20 small diamonds, plaque with 59 diamonds, Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called with 20 diamonds, 2 orders Vladimir I degree with 20 diamonds and two trailers with 10 diamonds, 5 orders of Stanislav I degree with 13 diamonds, the Order of Alexander Nevsky with diamonds, the Danish Cross with 14 diamonds, the Serbian Eagle with 5 diamonds, the badge "For 25 years of service" with 6 diamonds, 3 silver Persian stars with diamonds, 18 silver checkers with stones and enamel, silver buckle with 21 diamonds.

In addition, there were jewelry made of coral beads with a total weight of 12 pounds (1 lb. \u003d 0.409 kg), pearl beads framed in gold - 35 lbs.

Gold is presented in the form of various decorations - 14 pounds (1p. \u003d 16 kg), placers - 10 pounds and 4 f. scrap with a total weight of 4p. and 2 f., 262 ingots - 12p. and 15 f., Russian coins of various denominations for a total of 247,600 rubles, Bukhara coins for a total of 10,036 rubles, foreign coins (1 f.). In general, the mass of gold in jewelry, placers, scrap, ingots, coins, orders amounted to 688, 424 kg.

Silver is presented in the form of various items and kitchen utensils: vases, caskets, brothers, samovars, trays, buckets, jugs, teapots, glass holders, glasses, plates, coffee pots, decanters, tablespoons, dessert and teaspoons, forks, knives. As well as a music box, various women's jewelry with stones (it is not specified whether they are precious or not), table calendars, a spyglass, Bukhara orders and medals, saucers, figurines, candlesticks, bowlers, bracelets, plaques, cigarette cases, rinsers, watches floor clocks, table clocks, a chessboard with figures, tureens, milk jugs, glasses, cups, albums, mugs, sugar bowls, women's hats, rings with stones, scabbards, necklaces, most of which were covered with enamel of different colors, horse harnesses with plaques.

But most of all silver was presented in the form of ingots and coins in 632 chests and 2364 bags with a total weight of 6417 points and 8 pounds, which corresponds to about 102.7 tons.

Paper money was packed in 26 chests: Russian Nikolaev for a total of 2010,111 rubles, Russian Kerensky - 923,450 rubles, Bukhara - 4,579,980 till.

Manufactory was located in 180 large chests: 63 fur robes, 46 cloth robes, 105 silk, 92 velvet, 300 brocade, 568 paper, 14 different fur skins, 1 coat with a collar, 10 carpets, 8 felt mats, 13 rugs , 47 pieces of cloth, 2897 pieces of silk, 52 pieces of velvet, 74 pieces of brocade, 78 pieces of wool, 1156 pieces of paper material, 415 turbans, 596 different blankets, 278 trousers, 1004 shirts, 436 tablecloths, 1228 scarves, 746 skullcaps, 660 pair of shoes.

Copper money and tableware were packed in 8 chests, with a total weight of 33 sts and 12 lbs.

There is an appendix to the Act, according to which all gold items and precious stones have undergone an expert assessment to determine their quality and weight. The estimate was given by the jeweler Danilson. However, interestingly, the weight of the gems, gold and silver identified by Danilson is an underestimate compared to that given in the Act itself.

We also did our calculations. According to our data, according to the Act and at today's exchange rate, the price of Emir's gold (1 troy ounce, or 31.1 grams = $ 832), if it is completely converted into scrap (688, 424 kg), is more than 18 million US dollars. For all silver, if it is also converted into scrap (102.7 tons), over 51 million dollars could be given on world markets today (1 gram = $2). For 1,041 carats of diamonds at Sotheby's or Christie's trading auctions, you can get about 34 million dollars (1 carat = $32.5 thousand).

In general, the cost of only this part of the treasury of the Mangits' treasures in total is about 103 million dollars, which is at least a third more than the calculations of the searchers for the emir's treasure.

However, we are powerless to estimate the cost of 53 large diamonds (weight not specified), coral and pearl beads with a total weight of more than 19.2 kg.

As for diamonds, they are the hardest, most beautiful and most expensive of all gems. In the four "highest" stones (diamond, sapphire, emerald, ruby), he is in first place. Diamonds have always been insanely highly valued not only for their beauty and rarity, but also for the mystical properties that they supposedly possessed. The most expensive diamonds are 1/1, that is, no color, no defects. From ancient times, the name for such stones "diamonds of pure water" came from. to distinguish a natural crystal from a fake, it was thrown into clean water, and it was lost in it. Consequently, in our opinion, only the diamonds of the Emir of Bukhara in their value could surpass all other values ​​of the treasury.

Is it possible to appreciate gold jewelry with precious stones at all, because they all have great artistic value. What is the Russian Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called. In 2006, at the Sotheby's auction, 428 thousand dollars were given for this order. Or the one-of-a-kind chest portrait of Said Alimkhan framed with 10 large and 20 small diamonds.

And all this valuable cargo from Bukhara was delivered to Tashkent. And he, no doubt, was part of the treasury of Said Alimkhan. However, these data do not answer the question: is this the full state of the emir or only a part of it? The fact is that the entire treasury of the Emirate of Bukhara consisted, according to various estimates, of 30-35 million till, which corresponded to approximately 90-105 million Russian rubles. And adventure lovers estimate 10 tons of gold at the rate of 1920 at 150 million Russian rubles. It turns out that they overestimated the state of the emir by 1.5 times. Why such a discrepancy?

Let's try to understand this issue. Returning to the beginning of our story, we know that, according to some authors, the emir took out and hid in the mountains his entire treasury - 10 tons of gold. Could he do it, involving a couple of dozen people for this operation. It seems not. Firstly, in order to take out such a load, at least a hundred horses are needed, not counting the cavalry guards. And this is a whole caravan. Unnoticed, he could not have gone a short distance, not to mention the fact that the cargo was hidden in the spurs of the Hissar mountains.

Secondly, having returned to Bukhara, the emir, having destroyed all the witnesses, for some reason did not tell his relatives about where the treasure was hidden. But he had to do this in case of overthrow or even worse - murder. After all, the sons were supposed to succeed him on the throne, and they needed the sovereign's treasury. The emir could not understand this.

Thirdly, having fled to Gissar after the overthrow, the emir began to recruit the local population into the army. But in order to fully arm everyone, he did not have enough funds. To do this, he imposed additional requisitions on the inhabitants of Eastern Bukhara, but managed to arm only a third of his new army.

Fourthly, Alimkhan did not leave hope for help from abroad. So, in a letter to the King of Great Britain on October 12, 1920, he wrote that he hoped for the support of His Majesty and was waiting for help from him in the amount of 100 thousand pounds sterling, 20 thousand rifles with ammunition, 30 guns with shells, 10 airplanes and 2 thousand British soldiers. -Indian army. However, England, which did not want to go into a direct aggravation with the Bolsheviks, fearing that they could continue their offensive and establish Soviet power in Afghanistan, did not begin to assist the emir.

Fifth, Said Alimkhan did not try, as some people think, to smuggle his allegedly hidden gold reserves in the Gissar mountains to Afghanistan, because. he did not trust any of his kurbashi, not even Enver Pasha and Ibrahimbek. In addition, even if the emir entrusted them with this mission, it would be doomed to failure, since such a caravan could not be imperceptibly passed through Soviet territory, moreover, it could not be transported through the Pyanj. To do this, it was necessary to prepare a large-scale military operation. But for its implementation, as history has shown, the emir had neither the strength nor the means.

Sixth, if the emir still had treasures hidden, he could try to take them out in the 20-30s with the help of foreign countries and international organizations. But in this case, he made no attempt. There are several intercepted letters of Said Alimkhan addressed to foreign political figures, but in none of them does he mention the presence of a golden cache.

Seventh, the lack of cash did not allow the Emir of Bukhara to provide material assistance to his kurbashi. So, after the Supreme Kurbashi Ibrahimbek was detained on the territory of Tajikistan, during interrogation on July 5, 1931 in Tashkent, with undisguised indignation, he admitted that in December 1930 he wrote to Emir Alimkhan: “Seven years (meaning the period 1920-1926 - author .) on your orders, I fought against the Soviet government with my own means and forces, constantly receiving all sorts of promises of help, but I did not wait for their fulfillment.

Thus, all of the above leads to the conclusion that the emir's gold weighing 10 tons, as we think, did not exist. At the same time, Said Alimkhan, of course, had his own treasury, which he managed to take out of Bukhara. After all, it is no coincidence that during the flight from Bukhara, he was accompanied by guardsmen numbering at least a thousand people. However, as you know, you can’t take much on horseback. The emir could not attract camels for this purpose, since, although they are lifting, they are very slow-moving. And the emir needed a mobile group so that in case of a chase he would not have to leave the caravan. The financial resources and jewelry exported by him, I think, this is 15-20 percent of the total part of the treasury, Said Alimkhan needed for the most necessary expenses: monetary allowance for the guards, purchases of weapons, maintenance of his administrative apparatus and the newly recruited harem, etc.

In addition, one should not discount the argument that the emir did not think of leaving Bukhara for a long time and was waiting for an opportunity to take revenge for the defeat. After all, it is no coincidence that in Eastern Bukhara he announced mobilization and applied with a memorandum to the League of Nations on the forced declaration of war on the Bolsheviks.

But time worked against Said Alimkhan. The Bolsheviks, having taken power in Bukhara, also seized most of the remaining treasury of the Mangit dynasty. These treasures were transferred to the People's Commissariat for Finance of the Turkestan ASSR.

We failed to trace the further fate of the treasury of the Emir of Bukhara, delivered to Tashkent. However, it is not difficult to guess that the jewels were soon sent to Moscow. The civil war in Russia was still going on, and in order to supply the Red Army with everything necessary, the treasures of the Emir of Bukhara came in very handy. To do this, precious stones were removed from gold jewelry, and the latter were melted into metal. Thus, things that were of high artistic and historical value were lost forever. Although individual rare copies could have been “lost” during transportation, and are now stored in some collections, the owners of which, for personal security, usually remain incognito.

TREASURES OF THE EMIR OF BUKHARA

Penjikent is an ancient city located in the mountains of Tajikistan. Bukhara is very close, not far away is the border with Kyrgyzstan, and the deserts of Turkmenistan are within easy reach. All these lands until 1920 were part of the Emirate of Bukhara. In the bottomless cellars of Ark, the fortress that reigns over the city, innumerable riches have accumulated over hundreds of years. Each of the three million subjects of the emir had to pay taxes to the treasury. But most of the gold came to the treasury from the emir's mines on the banks of the Zeravshan. During the year, more than thirty million gold tilpas entered the underground vaults of the Bukhara fortress. And the expenses of the emirate for the same period amounted to only three million - mainly for the army and the purchase of weapons. The difference remained in the emir's treasury.
In August 1920, hard times came for the emirate. The events in Russia stirred up the masses. An uprising was being prepared. Reconnaissance airplanes with red stars on their wings appeared more and more often in the sky over Bukhara. And once even a four-engine Ilya Muromets flew in - the Red Army was approaching. It was necessary not only to carry off the legs, but also to take out the wealth accumulated by the Mangyt dynasty ...

DESCENDANT OF THE OLD GENUS

The first time I met Masoud was in Panjakent almost twenty years ago. He was engaged in excavations of the ancient settlement here. From him I learned what was the further fate of the Bukhara treasures ...
- Emir Sid Alimkhan had a trusted person - dervish Davron. Once he was brought to the palace at night so that extra eyes would not see. In the chambers of the ruler, in addition to the lord himself, the dervish met another person - the emir's bodyguard, Colonel Tksobo Kalapush. Nizametdin, the head of the emir's artillery, was also there. But his emir hid in the next room. Unseen, he heard the entire conversation.
Decided how to save the treasure. There was so much gold that a caravan would need about a hundred pack horses, each of which could carry khurjins with five pounds of gold each. The total value of the emir's property exceeded 150 million gold rubles at the prices of that time.
Where to drive the caravan? To Kashgar? There is an English consulate, which was led by an old acquaintance of the emir - the consul Mr. Esserton. But the dervish Davron had already visited Kashgar, and the news he brought was disappointing. The Emir's letter simply frightened the consul. What is the English Consulate in Kashgar? A small house in a shady garden on the outskirts of Urumqi. All his guards are the British flag and several sepoys armed with rifles. And all around are gangs of bandits terrorizing Kashgar, an uprising in Xinjiang, a war in Turkestan, general instability. To accept a caravan of gold under such conditions means to bring misfortune to your quiet abode.
Esserton was a professional diplomat and made, as it seemed to him, a wise decision: let the authorities think and decide. In Delhi, to the palace of the Viceroy of India, a cipher outlining the situation left.
But there were also officials in Delhi. And they also perfectly understood all the risk and all the responsibility associated with such a case. If they agree, it will turn out that the British government guarantees the safety of the emir's treasury. What if the bandits get it? We will have to pay the entire cost of the lost to the emir at the expense of the British Empire. No, the Viceroy of India could not take such a risk. Therefore, the English consul wrote to the emir a letter composed in the most refined terms. In it, he swore ardent friendship and wished all the best, only at the end - with great regret - he noticed that he would not be able to accept and keep the treasury of the ruler of Bukhara.
Now those gathered in the palace that night had to decide whether to send the caravan to Iran or to Afghanistan. It was dangerous to go with such a caravan to Iran, to Mashhad - the situation in Transcaspia remained tense. They made a different decision. In the first ten days of September 1920, at night, a caravan of several hundred horses and camels loaded with the treasures of Bukhara, water and food supplies moved south. The guards were emir's guards, commanded by Taxobo Kalapush. Dervish Davron rode next to him, stirrup in stirrup.
At the town of Guzar, we turned sharply to the left and, at Langar itself, we plunged into the foothills of the Pamirs.
The caravan split up. Armed guards led by Kalapush, pack animals with supplies and water remained in the valley. Camels and horses loaded with gold, and their accompanying drovers, went deep into one of the mountain crevices. Davron and two more dervishes rode ahead.
A day has passed since the departure of Davron and his companions, then the second. Alarmed, Kalapush picked up his men and followed the trail of the caravan. Having traveled several kilometers along a narrow winding cleft, the horsemen found several corpses. These were the riders. And after some time they stumbled upon Davron himself and two of his companions. All three were wounded. Davron told what happened. One of the drivers found out that he was in saddlebags and packs, and informed his comrades. They decided to kill Davron and his companions and take possession of the treasure. There was a fight, but Davron and his friends managed to fight back. Despite their wounds, they hid the packs of gold in an inconspicuous cave. Kalapush examined her and was pleased. Trusting no one, the emir's bodyguard blocked the entrance to the cave with stones and drove the horses and camels back into the valley.
The dervishes had their wounds bandaged and put on horseback. Now only they and Kalapush knew where the Emir's valuables were hidden. When the mountains were left behind, Davron felt very bad and wanted to go to his native village - it was almost on the road. Kalapush generously agreed, but in the morning, when the hour of prayer came, the three figures did not rise from the ground. Davron and his dervish friends stayed there forever. Faithful Kalapush carried out the emir's secret order: no one should know the secrets of the treasure.
“You know so well what happened in these parts eighty years ago,” I told Massoud. - Where?
“I am from these places. And Davron was one of my ancestors. This story has been passed down in our family from generation to generation. As a boy, I heard it and then swore to myself that I would find this treasure, although it brought so much misfortune to our family.

FATE TREASURE

“As an archaeologist, I could search without arousing anyone's suspicions,” Massoud continued. I'll tell you what happened next...
On the fourth day the caravan returned to Bukhara. In Karaulbazar, the tired riders were joyfully greeted by topchubashi Nieametdin and his warriors. After pilaf and green tea, we went to bed in order to arrive early in sacred Bukhara. However, in the morning the horses were saddled only by the soldiers of the emir's artillery commander. All of Calapush's companions - except for himself - were killed.
Emir graciously met his bodyguard. He asked in detail about the road, about how they found a secret place, how they hid the treasure and masked the cache. The ruler was especially interested in whether there were any living witnesses left. “No,” answered Kalapush, “now on earth only two know the secret: the master and I. But Vladyka has no doubts about my fidelity…”
Of course, the emir did not doubt ... that the secret known to two was not half a secret. And on the same night, Kalapush, caressed by the emir, was strangled by the palace executioner.
Only two days had passed since the day of his death, horses began to be saddled in the palace stables - the emir decided to flee. No one even mentioned his former bodyguard. Now Nizametdin, the chief of artillery, rode next to the emir.
A day later, somewhere in the steppe, a shot rang out from the Emir's retinue. Topchubashi collapsed to the ground. There was no one left, except the former ruler of sacred Bukhara, who would know something about the caravan with gold.
With a detachment of a hundred sabers, he crossed the border into Afghanistan. Of the entire multi-million dollar treasure, he had only two horses, loaded with saddlebags with gold bars and precious stones.
Years passed. The emir lived in Kabul, but the treasure left behind by Panj kept him awake. Throughout the twenties, Basmachi gangs penetrated the territory of Central Asia almost every month. Many of them rushed to the area where the treasure was hidden. But the Basmachi were not lucky. After destroying crops and killing several activists, they returned to Afghanistan. However, the emir did not calm down. In 1930, a gang of Ibrahim-bek crossed the border. He had five hundred sabers with him. But, captured, he was executed, his severed head was sent in 1931 to Moscow, to the Cheka.
The surviving members of the defeated Ibrahim-bek gang continued to search for the treasure. Someone decided that relatives of Davron or Kalapush should know the secret place. And they began to die. After torture, almost all of Davron's brothers and sisters were killed. The village, where the relatives of Kalapush lived, was burned, all its inhabitants were massacred.
“Davron was a relative of my grandfather,” Masud admitted to me recently. I learned the whole story from him. And now there are people who are interested in my searches. At first (I was younger then and more naive) a certain Timur Pulatov from Bukhara rubbed around me. He climbed out of his skin, trying to help in my search. And he ended up stealing several schemes of already passed routes and fled with them, oddly enough, to Moscow. I recently met him on the street. You know this company that sits on the sidewalks in oriental robes, begging for alms. So their leader is Pulatov, nicknamed "Donkey Count" ...
After the theft, I began to divide my circuits into several parts and hide them in different places. The main thing, of course, I keep in my head. After all, the area where the treasure is hidden occupies only 100 square kilometers. For two decades I have studied it in great detail.
- Did you find it?
Massoud is mysteriously silent. Then he says:
“You know, ten tons of gold is hard to find, but it was also hard to hide it. There was little time left for this. Deeply hidden. This means that sensitive devices will detect. And I already have them. Only times are turbulent. It's dangerous to go there now...
This man went through a difficult life, obsessed with his passion. He almost succeeded, but at the very threshold he is forced to stop. Only I'm sure - not for long.

Nikolai Plisko.Penjikent - Moscow.
"Labor-7", No. 242/23.12.1999.

Kherson Museum refused to sell a unique saber, even for 100 thousand dollars

The renewal of the exposition for the 120th anniversary of the Kherson Museum of Local Lore ended with a surprise for scientists. Having seized the moment when collective excursions were not planned, a tall man crossed the threshold of the museum. He leisurely walked around all the halls, got to the exhibition of weapons of all times and peoples, and really stuck his eyes to one of the glass shelves. For a while, the visitor, who turned out to be a wealthy Ukrainian collector, stared at the blade behind the glass. And then he said bluntly to the stunned caretaker: "I'm buying this saber for a hundred thousand dollars."
The museum, of course, always needs money. However, his employees flatly refused the generous offer. And not at all because the subject of bargaining was more expensive (although in fact it is so). It's just that the mysterious blade managed to be in the hands of the eastern ruler and immediately the legendary outstanding military leaders, and in its history there was a place for both exploits and crimes.

As it turned out, the rarity that attracted the collector came to Kherson straight from ... Central Asia. A Damascus steel saber with a hilt and a silver scabbard, decorated with the most skillful engraving of Kubachi jewelers, was made back in the nineteenth century personally for the Emir of Bukhara Abdul-Ahad Khan (Here the author is mistaken, we are talking about the son of Abdul-Ahad Khan - Alim Khan e.

Everyone knows how many wives the Emir of Bukhara had, what kind of harem he had?
Everyone remembers what he ate in everyday life? Well, yes, they cooked a type of basma at the court, but he didn’t eat anything - he only drank well-boiled broth from meat and a large number of vegetables - this is instead of a vitamin, for appetite, for warming up. Because at least once a week he ate for real, like a man. Yes, and the Emir of Bukhara also ate pilaf, but not as cooked, not as for diggers and porters, but created according to all the rules of the art of cooking, using the best technologies and without mercy for the work of cooks. In order for the emir to eat better, more work is needed in the kitchen - this is an immutable rule of good cuisine!

Anyone who has cooked pilaf at least ten times knows that there are no two identical pilafs, even if cooked from the same products and using the same technology. But not only is the set of products in pilaf not constant, not only do pilaf cooking technologies differ radically in different cities and countries, but pilaf also changes over time! Yes, I know for sure that a hundred years ago pilaf was different, but what can I say - pilaf managed to change even in my memory! Maybe that's why pilaf is a completely endless and extremely interesting topic. And it is not necessary to talk about pilaf with chefs. Sometimes, the story of an ordinary eater can also lead to thoughts, serve as a pretext for research and finds.
A friend of mine told me that in the early 80s of the twentieth century he was lucky to taste pilaf from the hands of an old man who, according to rumors, served as a cook for the last emir of Bukhara.
I must say, my friend, although he was not a lover of cooking directly, he understood food very well. Therefore, his assessment of “such a delicious pilaf that I have never tried anywhere else” intrigued me and I began to ask about the details - what was that pilaf?
- Well, what was there? What did he put in the plov?
- Yes, as always: rice, meat, carrots, onions, well, they always add raisins in Bukhara ...
- But what is that pilaf remembered for?
- You see, in that pilaf it was as if everything was together, but the taste of each product was felt separately. The taste of meat - separately, carrots - separately, and even the onion felt as if it had been fried right now and added to pilaf.
- Wait, how did he do it, this plov? How is it in Ferghana, was it mixed, or in layers, like in Samarkand?
No, he had everything in layers, I tell you, at the bottom there is a layer of rice, then carrots and onions, and then meat at the very top. But very tasty!
- And the rice is not dry, as sometimes happens in Samarkand pilaf?
- No, the rice was very tasty.
What kind of rice did he take?
- Well, not a dev-zira, they had some kind of white one there.
- And remained white on the platter?
- And on the platter was completely white.
I thought about that pilaf, tried a variety of recipes, according to which pilaf is cooked today, but every time I realized that this was absolutely not the result that my friend was talking about.
The hint, the key to unraveling that pilaf, came across to me in an unexpected place - from the memoirs of the Russian officer Philip Efremov, who visited Bukhara at the end of the 18th century. Ensign Efremov wrote:
“In all the places there, food is mostly boiled in water. Brynch, i.e., Sorochinskoye millet, as it ripens in half of cooking, is taken out of the boiler, strained, doused with cold water. Having boiled beef or mutton, they will put it in an empty cauldron, then they will chop up carrots and onions, mix with raisins and saffron; put on beef and then put Sorochinsky millet. Having melted the sheep's fat, they will pour millet on top of Sorochinsk; they will cover it with a lid so that the spirit does not go out; over the free heat, when it rises, they put it in dishes; dishes are called tobacco. One dish is eaten by two people with their hands, not with spoons. Dishes other than earthenware and muravleny do not have, and the nobles have only pale yellow. They say that from the other there is filthy and sinful ... "
The main discovery was that rice for pilaf was boiled separately, according to the principle of folding pilaf, and the meat was cooked first and only then sent to the cauldron.
But the hint belonged to the end of the 18th century. However, the plov, the secret of which I was looking for, was being prepared precisely during the twentieth century. Most likely, it changed over the course of the 19th century and from a folding one gradually became completely “Uzbek”, that is, cooked immediately in one common cauldron for all the ingredients. After all, the author of books on Uzbek cuisine, Karim Makhmudov, who worked relatively recently, only thirty or forty years ago, still mentions Khorezm pilaf from discarded rice, noting, however, that by the 60s of the 20th century it had been forgotten in all regions of Uzbekistan, except for Khorezm itself.

To this day, meat for cooking pilaf is boiled in the disappearing pilaf "safok", however, carrots are also pre-boiled there. And I was convinced that there is a sense in this action, because in this way the carrot is fried much less and manifests itself in pilaf much brighter, which, in my opinion, is very good. Only, if there is time or free dishes, then it is better to boil the carrots separately from the meat, but in the presence of lamb fat. This will allow you to add spices to carrots that are not typical for modern Uzbek pilaf, but harmoniously combined with carrots - star anise, cloves, allspice and cinnamon. One could go even more drastic and add sugar to the carrots to enrich their carrot flavor, but I realize that this step will seem overly bold to most readers.
The meat itself is best boiled in a vacuum package along with onions, salt, aromatic herbs and black pepper. If there is no vacuum sealer, then you can remember that not so long ago, meat was wrapped in muslin and tied with twine before being lowered into a pot of boiling water.

When the carrots are three-quarters ready, that is, they will still retain some elasticity, but they will no longer crunch, take them out and cut them like regular pilaf.

Cut fresh onions and fry in a sufficient amount of vegetable oil (but do not blush!) In a separate bowl.

Transfer the onion to a cauldron, in which the pilaf will be cooked at the last stage, and leave the oil in the same bowl.

Cut the boiled meat into pieces, if necessary, salt and season with spices, fry in the same oil where the onion was fried and put on top of the onion in the main cauldron. Add a little broth, or meat juice, released during cooking in a vacuum bag.

Fry the carrots in the same oil, seasoning with cumin and often, but very carefully, so as not to mash into porridge, stirring.

Transfer the carrots to the cauldron over the meat and sprinkle with raisins.

Boil rice in a large amount of rapidly boiling and well-salted water, put it in a colander, let the water drain and lay on top of the carrots. Cover the cauldron with a tight lid.
First put the cauldron on medium heat, and when the lid is heated, reduce to a minimum, and put the cauldron on the divider.

When all the excess moisture has evaporated from the rice, that is, after 25-30 minutes, pour the rice with melted butter or fat melted from the fat tail.

Crush the saffron with salt in advance and pour boiling water over it to infuse. Pour the saffron infusion over the rice in rings so that not all the rice is colored, but only a part.

If the cauldron is not large, then lay out the pilaf, turning the cauldron onto a large dish. If cooked in a large cauldron, then serve pilaf in layers.

A.G. Nedvetsky
RULERS OF BUKHARA

The article was supplemented by the site "Library of Khurshid Davron" ("Khurshid Davron kutubkhonasi"

Bukhara is the pearl of the East, one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in Central Asia. The fate of many outstanding scientists and thinkers, poets and craftsmen of bygone centuries is connected with the name of this city. This is the city where many masterpieces of Muslim architecture were created and preserved.

One of the Bukhara proverbs says: “All over the world, light descends from heaven, and only in Bukhara does it ascend from the earth.” The people of Bukhara say this because thousands of righteous people and Muslim saints are buried in the land of this sacred city. For centuries, Noble Bukhara remained one of the main centers of Islam in Central Asia, the center of Muslim theology, and its rulers called themselves "emirs of the faithful."

In the last century of its existence, the Bukhara Khanate was ruled by rulers from the Uzbek Mangyt dynasty. Today we know very little about the last Bukhara emirs. After the establishment of Soviet power in Central Asia, many pages of the history of the states that existed there were forgotten. In many modern books devoted to the history of the Bukhara Khanate in the last century, sometimes the names of the emirs who ruled there are not even mentioned. And even more so, contemporaries do not imagine what the last rulers of Noble Bukhara looked like, the highest dignitaries of the khanate, the beks who ruled various regions.

Today, thanks to research conducted in the archives of Russia and Uzbekistan, and unique photographs found there, taken at the end of the last century, we have the opportunity to reveal one of the little-known pages in the history of this state.

EMIR'S FAMILY

Mir-Muzaffar ad-Din Bahadur Khan, Emir of Bukhara, ruled in 1860-1885 The fourth emir from the Mangyt dynasty, the son of emir Nasrallah, was born in the early 1920s. last century (in 1821 or 1824). Muzaffar spent his young years in the city of Karshi. According to the Hungarian traveler G. Vamberi, "already early he was distinguished by diligence in his studies, as well as brilliant abilities." However, as Vamberi wrote, “Despite this, Muzaffar ad-Din was already early a prick in the eye for his father, who ... was always afraid in the face of his offspring of a dangerous rival to the throne. The ghost of a conspiracy always rose before him from Karshi, and in order to get rid of this constant nightmare, he appointed his son as governor in Kermin, in order to better look after him in the immediate vicinity. Having become the governor of Kermine at the age of 20, Muzaffar remained in this position for 19 years, until the death of his father, living "in contented alienation and disgrace." Surprisingly, the future emir never met his father - Nasrallah never called in Kermin and did not call his son to Bukhara.

Having received a message about the death of his father (Nasrallah died in Bukhara on October 20, 1860, having been ill for about a year), Muzaffar arrived in the capital, where he took part in the funeral of the emir. A few months later, he went to Samarkand, where on the famous gray (kok tash) a ritual of lifting on a felt mat was performed, symbolizing the entry into the kingdom. There he took the oath from his governors-beks and officials of the khanate.

For a quarter of a century of Muzaffar ad-Din's reign, many different events took place in the history of Bukhara, and assessing the personality of the emir, his contemporaries gave him very different, sometimes directly opposite, characteristics. So, for example, the historian Mirza Abd al-Azim al-Sami believed that Muzaffar "showed a commendable course of action and showed good character", and the classic of Tajik literature Ahmad Donish believed that the emir "was by nature stupid and limited", that he “stupid and bloodthirsty”, “libertine and bloodthirsty tyrant”. Another author noted that the emir "was distinguished by isolation and religiosity."
A very expressive portrait of the emir in his notes was drawn by V. Krestovsky, a Russian officer who met Muzaffar in 1883: “The emir’s face retained the remnants of its former beauty ... He has a small black beard, thin eyebrows, a thin he, probably out of habit more, leaves slightly squinted, and only occasionally, throwing up his eyes at someone, reveals them to their full size. In general, the expression of this person is very friendly. .. The beard of the emir, according to the Persian fashion, is somewhat tinted, casting into the light either a reddish, or even a lilac-brown color.

As the nephew of the emir Mir-Seyid-Ahad-khan, who lived in Tashkent, told one of the Russian authors, Muzaffar "was a great admirer of female beauty." In addition to four legal wives, he also had an extensive harem, consisting of 150-200 women. His eldest wife was the daughter of the Shakhrisyabz bek Daniyar-atalyk, but he had no children from her.
In 1883, Muzaffar ad-Din was awarded the Russian Order of St. Anne, 1st class, adorned with diamonds, in response to the award to Emperor Alexander III of the Order of the Rising Star of Bukhara. The award was delivered to Bukhara by a special embassy headed by Major General Prince Wittgenstein.

In August 1885, the emir, who made an annual detour of his possessions, became infected in Karshi, as they then wrote, with an “epidemic high-grade fever”, Muzaffar, interrupting his trip, returned to Bukhara and stayed at his country residence Shirbudun, where he spent almost two months. The disease almost passed, but on September 28 it suddenly resumed with renewed vigor. The closest courtiers of the emir - Astanakul-bek-biy and Muhammadi-biy kushbegi - decided to transport the patient to the Bukhara citadel - Ark. And it was in Ark, 40 minutes before dawn on October 31, 1885, that Muzaffar ad-Din died.

The emir was buried at the Imam Imly cemetery near Bukhara, in the Mangyt family mausoleum (this mausoleum has survived to this day).

Sayyid Abd al-Ahad Bahadur Khan, Emir of Bukhara, ruled in 1885-1910 Emir Abd al-Ahad was born on March 26, 1859 (according to other sources - in 1857) in Kermin. The emir's mother, a Persian slave named Shamshat, was distinguished, according to contemporaries, by a rare mind and was the beloved wife of Emir Muzaffar. She died in Kermin in 1879, living with her son, whom she had hardly left since his appointment as bek in this city. In addition to her son, she had another daughter, Saliha, whom Emir Muzaffar married to his nephew Amanullah. From the age of 14 (according to other sources ~ from 18) Abd al-Ahad was the bey of Kermine. According to Russian travelers who visited him, he led a rather simple lifestyle. In 1882, he had only one wife, and he kept a harem more for show. The young Abd al-Ahad was a big fan of riding and was considered one of the best riders of the khanate. His favorite pastimes were stallion taming, falconry, and riding a kok-buri (goat-fighting). However, in 1882, the future emir fell seriously ill - he had a guinea worm in his leg - and was forced to leave his practice of this sport. After that, for several years he suffered from a "disease of the legs", which usually worsened at the end of winter, until in 1892 he was helped by Russian doctors.

Emir of Bukhara Seyid Abdul-Ahad Khan. 1895 engraving

The Emir was quite well educated, he spoke Persian and a little Russian and Arabic.
In 1882, by the will of his father, Abd al-Ahad was sent to Moscow, where he was officially recognized as the heir to the throne of Bukhara, about which Emperor Alexander III then notified Emir Muzaffar in writing. On a trip to Russia, the future emir was accompanied by his father's courtier Astanakul-bek-biy kuli kushbegi. In October 1885, having learned about the death of his father, Abd al-Ahad left Kermine and, accompanied by 1000 horsemen, went to Bukhara. On the way, in the town of Malik, he met with the representative of the Russian authorities, Lieutenant General Annenkov, who assured him of Russia's support in the event of any political complications due to possible claims of other sons of Muzaffar to the throne of Bukhara. Before entering Bukhara, the emir visited the Bahauddin mazar, where he performed a prayer. On the same day, he attended his father's funeral. On November 4, 1885, the ceremony of raising the emir on a felt mat took place in the Bukhara Ark - he officially ascended the throne. Thus began the long reign of the penultimate emir of Noble Bukhara, which was marked by many important events and changes in the life of the khanate.

The first years of his reign, the emir lived in the capital. In the city itself, he spent no more than six months, usually leaving for several months in Shakhrisyabz and Karshi in winter, and living in Kermin in June and July. Returning to Bukhara, Abd al-Ahad usually stopped not at the Ark, but at his country palace, Shirbudun. In 1894, having quarreled with the Bukhara clergy, the emir settled in Kermin and never returned to Bukhara until his death.

Emir loved to travel. Having visited Russia for the first time in 1882, he then repeatedly visited Moscow and St. Petersburg: in 1893 he brought his son Alim Khan to the capital of the Russian Empire, in 1896 he came to the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II. Here is how the St. Petersburg “Motherland” (1893. No. 3, p. 88, 91-92, 105-106.) tells about this: “Showered by the graces of His Majesty the Sovereign Emperor and now visiting St. -Abdul-Akhat-Khan is an extremely personable, beautifully built brunette, with a very expressive face and a large, jet-black, bushy beard.

The emir brought with him a lot of valuable materials, jewelry and horses for gifts, and the cost of everything brought, part of which arrived back in the summer, is estimated at 2 million rubles.

Seid-Abdul-Ahad-khan was last in St. Petersburg shortly before his death and solemnly celebrated there the twenty-fifth anniversary of his stay on the throne of Bukhara. In addition, he visited Kyiv, Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Baku, Tiflis, Batum, Sevastopol, Bakhchisarai. Almost every summer, Abd al-Ahad rested in the Caucasus, on Mineralnye Vody, or in the Crimea, in Yalta, where he built a palace for himself (in Soviet times there was a sanatorium "Uzbekistan").

This is how the Crimean newspapers described Seyid-Abdul-Ahad-Khan: “The Emir is taller than average, he looks no more than 45 years old. Very well built. Has a pleasant chest baritone voice; big black eyes shine from under his snow-white turban, and his chin is decorated with a small full beard. Good rider. Possesses extraordinary physical strength…”

The Emir of Bukhara was very fond of rewarding even for minor services or just a person he liked. It is not surprising that when he regularly began to run into Yalta, many prominent citizens were able to sparkle with the orders of the Golden Star of Bukhara, which the emir generously handed out. One of the most curious stories associated with such an award occurred in the Yusupov family. They often visited the Emir of Bukhara in Yalta, and he visited them several times in Koreiz. During one of these visits, a representative of the younger generation, Felix Yusupov, decided to demonstrate a Parisian novelty for pranks: cigars were served on a dish, and when the emir and his retinue began to smoke them, the tobacco suddenly caught fire and ... began to shoot firework stars. The scandal was terrible - not only because the distinguished guest was in a ridiculous position, at first both the guests and the family, who did not know about the draw, decided that an attempt had been made on the ruler of Bukhara. But a few days later, the Emir of Bukhara himself celebrated reconciliation with Yusupov Jr. ... awarding him with an order with diamonds and rubies.
The ruler of Bukhara often visited Livadia when the imperial family came there, as well as in Suuk-Su, with Olga Mikhailovna Solovieva. This place of magical beauty (now it is part of the children's camp "Artek"), the Emir of Bukhara was simply subdued. He even wanted to buy it and offered the hostess 4 million rubles for the dacha - huge money for those times, but Olga Solovyova did not agree to part with Suku-Su.

It is not surprising that, having fallen in love with the southern coast of Crimea, the Emir of Bukhara decided to build his own palace here. He managed to buy a plot in Yalta, where a garden was laid out and a magnificent building was built (later it became one of the buildings of the sanatorium for the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet). Interestingly, at first it was planned to give an order for construction to the famous Nikolai Krasnov, thanks to whom the South Coast was decorated with many architectural gems. In the funds of the Alupka Palace-Museum, two sketches and estimates for them, made by Krasnov for the Emir of Bukhara, have been preserved. One is an Italian villa, the second is an oriental palace with lancet windows and oriental ornaments. But either the Bukhara ruler did not like both options, or he wanted to support the city architect of Yalta Tarasov, whom he knew well, but the latter began to build the palace. The building with domes, towers and pavilions really adorned Yalta, the emir himself called the estate "Dilkiso", which means "charming" in translation. It survived both its illustrious lord and the chaos of the Civil War, in which many estates did not survive, the Nazis burned it down during the retreat in 1944, but nevertheless this memory of the Emir of Bukhara was preserved in Yalta.
Becoming a seasonal resident of Yalta, Seid-Abdul-Ahad-khan immediately became interested in the social life of the city: he was a member of the Society for Assistance to Inadequate Pupils and Students of Yalta Gymnasiums, donated money to the Society for Assistance to Poor Tatars of the South Shore, was interested in preserving the antiquities of Crimea, was several times participant of livestock exhibitions. The fact is that the high position did not prevent the Emir of Bukhara from being an expert in sheep breeding, his herds of astrakhan sheep were the best in his homeland, he personally traded astrakhan, supplying about a third of the products to the world market.
In 1910, with his own money, he built a city free hospital for visiting patients. It was a very generous gift to the city, in a large two-story house there were laboratories, rooms for employees, surgical and gynecological rooms, a reception room for a hundred people. On the eve of the opening of the hospital, he once again paid a visit to the family of Nicholas II in Livadia to ask the highest permission to name the hospital after Tsarevich Alexei. For many years, the Emir of Bukhara was a kind of symbol of generosity for Yalta, for his services to the city he was elected an honorary citizen and even one of the streets was named after him.
By the way, many other cities, not only in the Crimea, had something to thank the Emir of Bukhara for - in St. Petersburg, for example, he built the Cathedral Mosque, which cost him half a million rubles. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Seid-Abdul-Ahad-Khan donated one million gold rubles for the construction of a warship, which was called the Emir of Bukhara. The life of this ship was turbulent, but short-lived: during the revolution, the crew went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, then fought in the Caspian Sea (by that time it was renamed Yakov Sverdlov) and in 1925 was cut into metal.

Under Emir Abd al-Ahad, torture was abolished in the khanate and the death penalty was limited, and the most cruel types of them (for example, when a convict was thrown from the highest Kalyan minaret in Bukhara) were prohibited. Under him, industrial mining of copper, iron, gold was started in the khanate, railways and telegraph lines were laid, trade was actively developing. The emir himself actively participated in the trade in karakul, occupying third place in the world market in terms of the volume of trade operations with this valuable raw material. According to some information, about 27 million gold rubles were kept on the emir's personal accounts in the Russian state bank, and about 7 million more in private commercial banks in Russia.

Emir of Bukhara Seyid Abdul-Ahad Khan at the celebration of laying the foundation of a mosque in St. Petersburg on February 3, 1910. Next to the emir is the head of the Muslim clergy, Akhun G. Bayazitov. Photograph by K. Bull

Abd al-Ahad paid much attention to the armed forces of his khanate. Even in his youth, being the Bek of Kermine, he personally engaged in the drill of his garrison and kept the Kermine fortress in excellent condition, which was noted by the Russian officers who visited him. During one of these visits, the emir wished to see the construction of the Cossack convoy that accompanied the Russian embassy, ​​meaning to adopt the Russian experience. Returning from a trip to Russia in 1893, in Ashgabat, the emir saw the Turkmen militia, trained by the Russians, and in no way inferior in training to the Cossacks. It was then, in his own words, that he came up with the idea of ​​the need to reorganize the Bukhara army, which he carried out two years later. And in the future, the emir did a lot to improve the military training and armament of his troops: for example, bypassing the decisions of the Russian government, which imposed restrictions on the supply of small arms to Bukhara, the emir bought rifles for his soldiers through Russian merchants.

All Russian authors who wrote about the emir noted his active charitable work. For example, in 1892, the emir donated 100,000 rubles for disaster victims in various regions of the Russian Empire, and in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, allocated 1 million rubles for the needs of the Russian fleet. Abd al-Ahad provided material assistance to the 5th Orenburg Cossack regiment, of which he was the chief, and once presented several ancient gold coins for the collection of the Turkestan archaeological circle. Emir was an honorary member of the Turkestan charitable society. In a special place for the emir was the concern for the affairs of the Muslim faith. So, the possessions transferred by him to the waqf in favor of the shrines of Mecca and Medina brought up to 20 thousand rubles of annual income, and in the early 30s. Abd al-Ahad donated several thousand rubles in gold for the construction of the Hijaz railway (at the same time, his closest courtiers allocated 150 thousand rubles for the same purpose). Under him, the number of ulema in Bukhara increased from 500 to 1,500 people, and income from special waqfs was intended for their maintenance.

Finally, the emir played an absolutely exceptional role in the construction of a Muslim mosque in St. Petersburg - the largest mosque in Europe. -Abd al-Ahad not only obtained permission from the tsarist government to build a mosque, but also donated 350,000 rubles for the purchase of a land plot for construction and another 100,000 for the construction itself. In addition, he organized a fundraiser for this purpose among the Bukhara merchants (more than 200 thousand rubles were collected in total).
As if responding to the courtesy and attention of the Emir of Bukhara, the authorities of St. Petersburg and Russian Muslims even timed the date of laying the foundation of the mosque to the 25th anniversary of the reign of Abdul-Ahad Khan. This is what the St. Petersburg popular magazine Niva tells us (No. 8, 1910).

“On the third of February, the Muslims living in our capital had a big holiday: on this day, the solemn laying of the first mosque took place. There are several thousand Tatars and other non-Muslims in St. Petersburg, but until now they did not have their own Temple and were forced to rent private premises. For many years they dreamed of a mosque, but they did not have the opportunity to realize this dream, there were no funds to purchase the necessary plot of land and build a decent building. The all-Russian subscription (collection of donations. - editorial note) opened some time ago, although it provided the Muslims of St. Petersburg with some funds for this, but still not enough. And only the generous gift of the Emir of Bukhara, who arrived in St. Petersburg, immediately moved things forward and gave the St. Petersburg Mohammedans the opportunity to create a temple befitting the capital for themselves.

The laying of the mosque took place in the presence of the Emir of Bukhara and was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of his reign. A plot of land along Kronversky Prospekt, near the Trinity Bridge, was chosen as the site for the construction of the mosque, and on the day of the celebration a special tent with an entrance portico in the East Asian style was erected here. The tent, the portico, and the whole place were decorated with flags. The foundation of the mosque had already been erected earlier, and on it was prepared (under a special canopy) a place for the official laying, where lay the traditional hammer and spade, a silver mortgage board and white marble bricks. All around were placed special shields with Arabic inscriptions from the Koran.
Almost the entire Muslim world of the capital gathered for the celebration of the laying of the mosque. (...) The celebration began with prayers and the speech of Akhun Bayazitov. In his speech, Bayazitov said. Incidentally, the following: "The Qur'an says:" God is beautiful and loves beauty. Our mosque will be beautiful and will serve as the glory of architecture and the beauty of the city. There is no such mosque as there will be in St. Petersburg either in Paris or London. The mosque is beautiful, there is no need for it to shine with more than just external beauty, and we must pray to Allah that this mosque reproduce us in spiritual and moral beauty.”

At the end of the akhun's speech, the Emir of Bukhara went up to the place where the stone was laid and laid the first stone. After that, the reception of deputations began from the Muslim parishes of the capital, from Kronstadt, Moscow, from the Caucasus, etc. And then in the office of the building there was a breakfast with toasts and speeches, and lemonade was served instead of champagne. The emir proclaimed the first toast in Russian for the Sovereign Emperor - and in response, “Hurrah” burst out ... ".

As the publication wrote, the emir was completely happy and very pleased with the way he was received by the population of St. Petersburg. Leaving, he declared that "on this joyful day for him, as a Muslim, he donates 5,000 rubles for the poor of the capital."

Cathedral Mosque of St. Petersburg, modern view

Another rather unexpected touch to the portrait of the Emir is that Abd al-Ahad was seriously fond of poetry. He was not only a great admirer of belles-lettres, but also compiled a "Divan" of his own poems, in which he described the events and moods he experienced, especially during his trips to Russia. The emir wrote poetry under the pseudonym Ojiz (weak, helpless).

The Emir of Bukhara had the Russian court rank of adjutant general, was a cavalry general of the Russian service, the chief ataman of the Terek Cossack troops, and the chief of the 5th Orenburg Cossack regiment. He bore the title of "Highness" and was awarded all Russian orders up to and including the highest imperial order of St. Andrew the First-Called with a chain, as well as the Order of the Italian Crown of the 1st degree, the French Orders of the Legion of Honor and the Grand Officer's Cross and others.

Contemporaries assessed the personality and activities of Zmir Abd al-Ahad differently. Most Russian authors called him "a sincere friend of Russia", "cautious and thoughtful politics". However, there were those who believed that “those features of softness that Russians attribute to him, who do not know what he really is, are completely alien to his character, which is in many ways extremely cruel and does not tolerate any contradictions and innovations.”

Emir died on the night of December 22-23, 1910 in Kermin, possibly from kidney disease. Some authors believed that the death of the emir was brought closer by worries about the bloody clashes that occurred in Bukhara between Shiites and Sunnis in 1910. Abd al-Ahad had four sons. Two of them - Sayyid Mir-Hussein (born in 1888 or 1884) and Sayyid Mir-Abdallah, whom the emir intended to send to study in St. Petersburg in 1888 - died in 1889 from diphtheria (or malaria ). The youngest son, Seyid Mir-Ibrahim, was born in 1903. The fourth son, Mir-Alim-khan, became the last emir of Bukhara.

Seyid Mir-Alim-khan (Tyurya-jan), Emir of Bukhara, ruled in 1910 - 1920. The second son of Emir Abd al-Ahad Mir-Alim was born on January 3, 1880 (according to other sources - in 1879). We don't know much about his childhood years.
In January 1893, Mir-Alim, together with his father, arrived in St. Petersburg, where an agreement was reached that the young Bukhara "prince" would be assigned to study in the Nikolaev Cadet Corps. The Emir personally visited the corps, "where he met with the commanding officials of this higher military educational institution and for some time talked with them about the education" of Mir-Alim.

At the same time, Alexander III, the Russian emperor, officially approved Mir-Alim as the heir to the throne of Bukhara. After receiving a paper about this from the Minister of War, the emir left for a trip around the country, and Mir-Alim remained in St. Petersburg under the supervision of his "uncle" Osman-bek guard-begi and the teacher appointed by the emperor, Colonel Demin.
When assigned to the corps, the emperor promised the emir that Mir-Alim would receive education in strict accordance with the norms of Islam. Alexander personally outlined the training program for the heir to the throne of Bukhara. However, in the future, the emir wished that his son's education be completed according to an accelerated program by the summer of 1896 and that it be limited to the study of the Russian language and traditional subjects. Abd al-Ahad did not want Tyurya-Dzhan to become particularly involved in the achievements of civilization and, in particular, to study astronomy and electricity.

At the age of fifteen, he took the post of governor of Nasef, having stayed in it for twelve years. He ruled the northern province of Carmina for the next two years, until the death of his father in 1910. In 1910, Emperor Nicholas II granted the Khan the title of Highness. In 1911 he was promoted to the retinue of His Imperial Majesty major general.

He ascended the throne in 1910. The beginning of the reign was promising: he announced that he did not accept gifts, and categorically forbade officials and officials to take bribes from the people and use taxes for personal gain. However, over time, the situation has changed. As a result of the intrigues, the supporters of the reforms lost and were sent to Moscow and Kazan, and Alim Khan continued to rule in the traditional style, strengthening the dynasty.
Among the famous people who were surrounded by the emir until the spring of 1917 was one of the first Uzbek generals of the tsarist army of Russia, Mir Khaidar Mirbadalev.

With the money of the Emir of Bukhara in St. Petersburg, the House of the Emir of Bukhara was built. On December 30, 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant general in the Terek Cossack army and appointed adjutant general.
He was awarded the orders of St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Vladimir (in the given color photograph on the emir's robe, the star of this order with the motto "Benefit, honor and glory" is clearly visible).

Unlike his father, Mir-Alim was honored with the most derogatory characteristics of his contemporaries. Some authors said that he was “a completely colorless person, without any high demands”, others even argued that the last Mangyts emir “was so unpleasant in his habits and vices ... that the correct collection of material on his life is rather the work of psychopathologists” .

On September 1, 1920, Emir Mir-Alim was overthrown from the throne as a result of the occupation of Bukhara by the Red Army. The emir fled first to mountainous Bukhara, where he tried to organize resistance to the new government, and then to Afghanistan. For almost 10 years, the deposed emir led the armed resistance on the territory of the former khanate from Afghanistan. Mir-Alim died in Kabul.

Numerous offspring (about 300 people) are scattered around the world: they live in the USA, Turkey, Germany, Afghanistan and other states[.

One of the sons of the Emir of Bukhara Shahmurad (he took the surname Olimov) renounced his father in 1929. He served in the Red Army, participated in the Great Patriotic War (in which he lost his leg), in the 1960s he taught at the Frunze Military Academy

The son of the Emir of Bukhara Said Alimkhan, Major General Shakhmurad Olimov

BROTHERS OF EMIR ABD AL-AHAD

Now it is almost impossible to say exactly how many children Emir Muzaffar al-Din, the father of Abd al-Ahad, had in total. We managed to find data on eleven of his sons, but it is known that he had several more sons who died during his lifetime, about whom nothing is known today.

The eldest son of the emir, Seyid Abd al-Malik Mirza Katta-Tyurya (1848-1909), was born from one of the four legal wives of the emir, the Persian Hasa-Zumrat, and was married to the daughter of the Afghan king Shir-Ali-khan. In the 60s. of the last century, he held the position of Bek Guzar. In 1868, after the defeat of the emir's troops near Samarkand (this was the largest battle with the Russians), he tried to seize his father's throne in Bukhara, but was defeated and fled first to Karshi, where he had many supporters, and then, in December 1868 ., to Khiva. After that, he lived for some time in Kashgaria, in the fortress of Yangi-Hisar (1873), then in Kabul (1880), and finally settled in India, where he lived on an English account. Abd al-Malik was considered a serious contender for the throne of Bukhara until the accession of Emir Abd al-Ahad. Katta-Tyurya died in 1909 in Peshawar.

The second son, Seyid Nur ad-Din-khan (1851-1878), in 1867-1868 was the Bek of Karshi, and then was appointed the ruler of Chardzhuy. Muzaffar wanted to make this smart and talented young man the heir to the throne, but he unexpectedly died.

Sayyid Mir-Abd al-Mumin (1852-1898 or 1894) in 1869 replaced his older brother Nur ad-Din as the Bek of Karshi, and then from 1871 to 1886 he was the governor of the large bekdom of Hisar. After the accession of the emir, Abd al-Ahad began to intrigue against him, for which in July 1886, by a special decree of the emir, he was transferred to Baysun, where he lived with his family in a fortress under the supervision of the emir's agents. He was only nominally a bek—in fact, officials appointed by the emir ruled the vilayet—and in fact he was a prisoner of the emir. In 1891, the representative of the Bukhara government, Astanakul-biy, told the Russian political agent P. Lessar that Abd al-Mumin was going to flee to Afghanistan, and on another occasion, that the latter had lost his mind. However, according to Lessar, these rumors were spread by the emir, who did not like his brother, specifically in order to deal with Abd al-Mumin (they even talked about a possible execution). The Emir feared that his brother might have fled to Russian possessions, where he would be out of reach for him.

Finally, in 1891, Abd al-Mumin was summoned to Bukhara and settled in Ark, where he was kept under house arrest until his death. The children of Abd al-Mumin continued to live without a break in Ark until 1920. The personal seals of his son Ii'matullah are kept in the funds of the Bukhara local history museum in Ark.

Emir Muzaffar's favorite son was Seyid Abd al-Fattah Mirza (1856/57 - 1869). In 1869 he was sent by the emir to an honorary embassy in St. Petersburg. The embassy, ​​headed by the brother of the Emir's wife Abu al-Kasim-biy and whose secretary was the writer Ahmad Donish, carried gifts to the Russian emperor. Abd al-Fattah stayed in St. Petersburg from the beginning of November until December 10 and was received by Emperor Alexander II.

Muzaffar ad-Din intended to ask the emperor to approve Abd al-Fattah as heir to the throne of Bukhara, but this young prince also died unexpectedly.

Sayyid Mir-Abd as-Samat (beginning of the 60s -?), the sixth son of Muzaffar (the fifth was Abd al-Ahad), in 1880 was the Bey of Chirakchi. He was given by his father under the full supervision of a local judge - qadi for immodest behavior and extravagance. A Russian officer V. Krestovsky, who visited him in 1882, was confronted by "a thin young man of about 20 years old, still beardless and beardless, and very similar to his younger brother Seyid Mir-Mansur." Krestovsky noted that "the emir did not like him for his frankness, and even when he was in Shakhrisyabz, he did not stop by Chirakchi." Emir Abd al-Ahad did not favor his brother either. On the night of September 4, 1886, Mir-Abd al-Samat was arrested and sent to Bukhara. In the future, he lived in the capital, in the Khoja Gafur quarter under "house arrest".

Seyyid Muhammad Mir-Siddiq Khan (Khishmat) was the Bey of Karshi since 1871. After the death of Nur ad-Din in 1878, Muzaffar ad-Din appointed him as the Bey of Charjui. In 1885, after the accession of Abd al-Ahad, Mir-Siddiq Khan, like the other brothers of the emir, fell into disgrace: he was deprived of his post and recalled from Charjuy. The Bukhara dignitary Muhammad Sharif inak told the Russian political agent Charykov that Emir Muzaffar also wanted to recall Siddik Khan for his depraved behavior. In 1885, he was arrested, then released, but was eventually placed in the Bukhara Ark, where he spent many years in home confinement. In recent years he lived in Bukhara in the Raugangaron quarter, and in 1920 he emigrated to Afghanistan.

After leaving the political arena, Mir-Siddiq Khan devoted himself to literary activity. Being a rather mediocre poet, he was at the same time a major connoisseur of literature, the author of several unfinished tazkire. About 30 manuscripts of his works are stored in the archives of the Institute of Oriental Studies of Uzbekistan.

Another brother of Abd al-Ahad, Seyid Mir-Akram-khan, was the only son of Muzaffar who did not lose his post after the accession of Abd al-Ahad. Appointed as Bey of Guzar under Muzaffar, he remained in this post at least until 1908. The fact that one of the daughters of Abd al-Ahad was married to the nephew of the son of Mir Akram Khan speaks of the emir's benevolence towards this brother.

Seyid Mir-Mansur (1863-March 1918), the ninth son of Muzaffar, from the second half of the 70s. of the last century he lived in Russia, in St. Petersburg, where he studied in the Corps of Pages. Together with him in the capital of the Russian Empire was his tutor Mirza Abd al-Vasi toksaba: during these years, Petersburgers often met a young Bukhara "prince" walking with his tutor in the garden of the Mikhailovsky Palace.

Upon entering the corps, Mir-Mansur received as a gift a gold watch with the monogram of Emperor Alexander II, which he kept until his last day. According to the highest order of December 15, 1876, the tsarist government allocated 500 rubles a year for the maintenance of Mir-Mansur and his tutor, of which 310 rubles were given personally to Mirza Abd al-Vasi to pay for the apartment and current expenses. According to teachers, Mir-Mansur studied "decently" and had good behavior - "his success in the sciences is very favorable." When he was in the 3rd grade, he was exempted from learning the German language, which was difficult for him. The freed time was devoted to intensive study of other European languages, as well as the native language and Muslim religious literature.

In the summer of 1881, Mir-Mansur went on vacation to the Crimea and Odessa, in September 1882 he visited his father in Bukhara, from where he returned in December with gifts from the emir.

In the last years of his stay in the Corps of Pages, the teacher at Mir-Mansur was Mirza Nasrallah-biy toksaba, who, according to contemporaries, spoke Russian very well.

On April 13, 1886, after graduating from the Corps of Pages, Mir-Mansur was promoted to cornet and assigned to the 3rd Sumy Dragoon Regiment in Moscow. In addition to the usual officer maintenance, Mir-Mansur also annually received 2,400 rubles from Emir Abd al-Ahad. In 1892, Mir-Mansur had the rank of lieutenant. Together with the officers of the Sumy regiment in December 1892, he arranged a picnic in honor of Emir Abd al-Ahad, who was passing through Moscow. In 1895, Mir-Mansur was already a staff captain, and in 1899 he retired from the regiment in the same rank. The tsarist government paid off his debts and gave him a lifetime pension.

After that, Mir-Mansur continued to live in Russia for several years. He was married to Princess Sofya Ivanovna Tsereteli, they had several children. The eldest son, Nikolai Mikhailovich Tsereteli (born around 1890) in the twenties was one of the leading actors of the Tairov Chamber Theater in Moscow, the main partner of the famous actress Alisa Koonen. In 1906, together with his father, he came to Bukhara, where he visited his grandmother. The second son of Mir-Mansur was a military man. He was in the Russian military service, was awarded several Russian orders. He died in March 1918 during the assault on Kermine. In addition, Mir-Mansur also had a daughter and younger sons Georgy and Valery, the younger daughter Tamara.

After returning to Bukhara, Mir-Mansur was appointed bek of Kermine. In March 1918, during the so-called Kolesov events, when units of the Tashkent Socialist Army captured Kermine, defeating the Bek's five thousandth detachment, Mir-Mansur was mortally wounded and captured along with his wife, three young children and their teacher.

Mir-Mansur was buried in Katta-Kurgan with the assistance of Emir Mir-Alim Khan. All the property of his family (starting from orders, expensive weapons, family jewels and ending with Marx's Capital, which belonged to the children's teacher) was plundered. In September 1918, S.I. Tsereteli, the widow of Mir-Mansur, received from the Bukhara government 200 thousand rubles (for the upbringing of three young children) as compensation for the damage suffered, and another 100 thousand rubles for furnishing.

Very little is known about the last two brothers of Abd al-Ahad. The first of them, Seyid Mir Azim Khan, lived in the Bukhara Ark at the beginning of the 20th century, having no right to leave it. The second, Seyid Mir-Nasir Khan (born around 1869), was also kept in Ark under "house arrest". Emir Alim Khan married his daughter to his son, Arab Khan. However, no one was let out of Ark. Nasir Khan lived in Ark until 1920. During the years of the Bukhara People's Republic, he was a member of the Historical Society of Bukhara. He wrote the essay "History of the Bukhara Ark", written in 1921. In 1922 Nasir Khan left for Afghanistan.

COURTIES

Muhammad Sharif inak (c.1837-1888) was one of the highest dignitaries of the Bukhara Khanate. Under Emir Muzaffar, he served as chief zakatchi (“minister of finance”) and governor of Bukhara. He was the son of one of the closest dignitaries of Muzaffar Mulla Muhammadi-bey and a former slave of the emir.

Fourth from the right - Muhammad Sharif inak. Photo by Orde, late 1880s.

Mulla Muhammadi-biy (1811 or 1813-1889), a Persian by birth, went from a slave (he was bought by Emir Nasrallah) to the head of the Bukhara administration: he held the post of kushbegi (“prime minister”). Until the last hour, he was next to the dying emir Muzaffar, took part in the rite of raising the new emir, Abd al-Ahad, on a felt mat. Muhammadi-biy continued to hold the post of kushbegi under Abd al-Ahad until his death.
After the opening of the Russian Imperial Political Agency in Bukhara, Muhammad Sharif inak, while continuing to be the chief Zakyatchi, was responsible for communication between the Bukhara government and the political agent. The political agent of Russia, Charykov, spoke of him very flatteringly.

In 1888, Muhammad Sharif, by order of the emir, came to the official Gaib Nazar to confiscate his property for some misconduct, but was killed by the last shot from a revolver. His murderer, according to ancient custom, was handed over to the relatives and servants of the murdered man and put to death by them after long tortures.

Under Emir Abd al-Ahad, important government posts were also held by the sons of Muhammad Sharif: Astanakul-biy, Mir-Haydarkul-bek-biy and Latif-bek. Khaidarkul-bek-biy dadha in 1888 was appointed bek of Charzhui. During the departure of his elder brother Astanakul-biy with the emir to Russia in 1893, he replaced him as the chief zakyatchi. In 1902, together with the emir, he traveled to St. Petersburg. Khaydarkul remained at the post of governor of Chardzhui until at least 1902. Then he acted as a hazinachi (state treasurer). In the event of his absence from Bukhara, his younger brother Latif-bek replaced him in this post.

Astanakul-biy dadha - one of the most famous dignitaries of Bukhara during the time of Emir Abd al-Ahad, the grandson of the kushbegi Mulla Muhammadi-biy and the son of Muhammad Sharif. As early as 1882, Astanakul-biy was the Bey of Karshi. V. Krestovsky, who visited him in Karshi, wrote that he was then about 20 years old, he was “a very young man, not only very handsome, but also of pleasant appearance, with a small dark beard, a healthy matte complexion, an open smile and kind brown eyes.

On November 15, 1885, Astanakul-biy was appointed as the new emir to the post of viceroy of Chardzhuy, the most important post in the provincial administration of the khanate, instead of the disgraced brother of the emir Siddik Khan. After the murder of his father Muhammad Sharif in 1888, the emir, according to the historian al-Sami, “by his mercy, by royal order, appointed his son, Astanakulu-biy divanbegi, the position, rank and service that he desired, and even better than he desired." Then Astanakul received the rank of inak and the position of chief zakyatchi, which his father had previously held. Just like his father, he carried out communication between the Bukhara government and the Russian political agency, signed various official protocols, agreements, etc. on behalf of the emir, and negotiated various issues. Subsequently, he simultaneously held the posts of zakyatchi and kushbegi, retaining these positions until 1910, when he was replaced by the heir to the throne, Mir Alim Khan.
The reason for the displacement was the permission of Astanakul for the Bukhara Shiites to openly celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura, which led to a bloody Sunni-Shiite massacre that continued in Bukhara for several days and was stopped only due to the introduction of Russian troops into the city.

Astanakul-biy accompanied the emir more than once on his trips to Russia (for example, in 1893 and 1903). He was awarded many Bukhara and Russian orders.

Emir Abd al-Ahad, heir to the throne of Mir-Alim and the retinue of the emir in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Standing: third from the left - Astankul-biy parvanchi, fourth from the right - Durbin-biy kul kushbegi, extreme right - Sh.R. Asfendiarov. Photo by V. Yasvoin, January 1893 (Winter Palace, St. Petersburg)

Emir's trip to St. Petersburg in 1393. The emir's trip to Russia in 1393 had a specific purpose - he was carrying with him the heir to the throne, Mir Alim Khan, whom he intended to appoint to study.

Going on a trip, the emir entrusted the conduct of all affairs to a council of three persons - qazi kalyan (chief judge), commandant of Ark and serkerdar. In addition to the chief zakatchi Astanakul-biy, the emir’s retinue included several top dignitaries of the khanate, including Durbin-biy kushbegi, a Persian by birth, who was bought by the emir in childhood and went from a slave to one “of the closest persons to the emir.” According to V. Krestovsky, in 1832 he was over fifty years old (according to some sources, he was born in 1827), he had the rank of monk and occupied one of the high court positions. Under Abd al-Ahad, he did not hold any specific position, but he took part in managing the treasury, and also always accompanied the emir on his travels. He was awarded several Russian orders.

In addition, a large staff of servants was with the person of the emir, as well as the personal translator of the Turkestan governor-general, captain Sh.R.

On December 27, 1892, the emir and his entourage left Chardzhuy by rail and arrived in Moscow, where he met with his brother Mir-Mansur. Arriving in St. Petersburg, the emir stopped at the Winter Palace. Accompanied by Astanakul-biy and Sh.R. Asfendiarov, he paid visits, visited theaters, went to the bathhouse daily, and also received visitors himself, met with Emperor Alexander III. Having completed negotiations on the formation of Mir-Alim-khan and left him in St. Petersburg, the emir returned to Bukhara via Odessa and Tiflis.

BEKI

[…] The emir often changed beks, and now it is almost impossible to say exactly who is depicted in this or that archival photograph. We have detailed information only about the bek of Hisar - Astanakul-bek-biy kuli kushbegi.

He was one of the most senior dignitaries of the Khanate under Emir Abd al-Ahad. The son of Abbas-bey, the vizier of Emir Nasrallah, and the half-brother of Emir Muzaffar, Astanakul-bey-bey held high positions during his father's lifetime, and after his father's death he reached the highest ranks and positions, so that some of his contemporaries called him a "shelter of hope", the title of sovereigns.

In 1882, Astanakul-bek-biy had the rank of parvanachi and served as governor of Shakhrisyabz. V. Krestovsky, who visited him this year, wrote that he was “an important man, good-naturedly simple, affable, but essentially indifferent to everything in the world, except for himself and his sovereign, to whom, obviously, he is very devoted. In the whole character of his appearance, it somehow immediately showed that this man is not only smart, but also knows his own worth.

In 1882, Astanakul-bek-biy accompanied the future emir Abd al-Akhad on a trip to Moscow. In 1885, as a personal envoy of Emir Muzaffar, he traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met with Emperor Alexander III. In the days of illness, Muzaffar ad-Din, together with Mulla Muhammadi-biy, actually exercised supreme power in the khanate. After the transfer in 1886 from Hisar to Baysun of the disgraced brother of Emir Abd al-Mumin, Astnakul-bek-biy was appointed governor of the Hisar vilayet. Darvaz, Kulyab and Karategin were also under his control.

In 1887, he received the highest rank - atalyk, and therefore his bekdom was expanded: five more counties were attached to it. It should be noted that under the last Bukhara emirs, no one in the khanate, except for Astanakul-bek-bey, had the rank of atalyk.

According to V.I. Lipsky, who visited Hisar in 1896, Astankul-bek-biy was not only the most distinguished, but also “the richest man in all of Bukhara. In addition to gold and silver (the latter he had in sacks in the cellars), he had a herd of horses, herds of sheep. His herds were met in the summer in remote places in the mountains, even within Russian borders. ("Turkestan Gazette", No. 183, 1907)

Astanakul-bek-biy remained the Bek of Hissar until his death in 1906. After his death, his body was taken out of Hissar and buried in the family mausoleum of the Mangyt emirs, the Hazrat Imam mazar, located at the Imam imlya cemetery near Bukhara.

Sources, literature, periodicals

1. Aini, Sadreddin, Memories, (translated from Tajik by A. Rosenfeld), M.-L., 1960
2. Arendarenko G.A., Leisure in Turkestan, 1874-1889, St. Petersburg, 1889
3. Andreev M.S., Chekhovich O.D., Ark of Bukhara, Dushanbe, 1972
4. Arapov D.Yu., Bukhara Khanate in Russian Oriental Historiography, M., 1981
5. Bartold V.V., History of the cultural life of Turkestan, - Works, vol. II, M., 1963
6. Berg Ya., History of Bukhara, - Moscow News, 1892, No. 360
7. Bukhara and Afghanistan in the early 80s. XIX century (Journals of business trips G.A. Arendarenko), M., 1974
8. Bukhara merchants, - Turkestanskiye Vedomosti, Tashkent, 1915, No. 42
9. G. Vamberi, History of Bokhara and Transoxania from ancient times to the present, St. Petersburg, 1873
10. Gasprinsky I., Accurate translation of the diary of his lordship Emir of Bukhara., Kazan, 1894
11. Geyer I.I., All Russian Turkestan, Tashkent, 1908
12. Dzhidzhikhia A., On the latest events in Bukhara (January 9-12, 1910), Military collection, St. Petersburg, No. 5, 1910
13. Donish A., Journey from Bukhara to St. Petersburg, Dushanbe, 1976
14. Donish, Ahmed, History of the Mangit dynasty, Dushanbe, 1967
15. Iskandarov B.I., Bukhara (1918-1920), Dushanbe, 1970
16. Iskandarov B.I., Eastern Bukhara and the Pamirs in the period of accession of Central Asia to Russia, Stalinabad, 1960
17. Iskandarov B.I., From the history of the Emirate of Bukhara (Eastern Bukhara and Western Pamir at the end of the 19th century), M., 1958 18. History of Bukhara from ancient times to the present day, Tashkent, 1976
19. History of the Uzbek SSR, vol. I, book 2, Tashkent, 1957 20. History of the Uzbek SSR, vol. II, Tashkent, 1968
21. Kamalov U.Kh., Muzaffarov A.A., Saakov V.G., Bukhara. Guide., Tashkent, 1973
22. Krestovsky V.V., Visiting the Emir of Bukhara, St. Petersburg, 1887
23. Kurbanov G.N., Bukhara seals of the 18th-early 20th centuries, Tashkent, 1987
24. Lessar P.M., South-Western Turkmenistan (Land of the Saryks and Salors), S.Pb., 1885 - Proceedings of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, XXI, 1885
25. Logothete, In a forgotten land. Travel essays in Central Asia, M., 1912
26. Lunin B.V., From the history of Russian oriental studies and archeology in Turkestan. - Turkestan circle of lovers of archeology (1895-1917), Tashkent, 1958
27. Madzhi A.E., On the history of the last two decades of the Bukhara Khanate, Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences of Taj. SSR, Department of Social Sciences, 2 (29), Dushanbe, 1962
28. Masalsky V.I., Turkestan region, S.Pb., 1913
29. Meyendorff E.K., Journey from Orenburg to Bukhara, M., 1975
30. Nechaev A.V., In mountainous Bukhara. Travel essays, S.Pb., 1914
31. On the accession to the throne of Muzaffa Khan and on the rite of raising on a felt mat, - Turkestanskie Vedomosti, 1878, No. 28
32. Ostroumov N.P., Clippings from Turkestan newspapers, mainly in 1913, 1914 and 1916 (library of the St.Petersburg FIV RAS)
33. "Translator", No. 4, January 3, 1892
34. Rock-Ten, Death Penalties in Bukhara, - "Turkestan Courier", 1910, No. 189
35. Rock-Ten, Prisons in Bukhara, - "Turkestan Courier", 1910, No. 197
36. Sami, Mirza ‘Abdal’azim, Tarikh-i Salatin-i Mangitiya (History of Mangit Sovereigns). Ed. text, prev., trans. and approx. L.M. Epifanova, M., 1962
37. Semenov A.A., Bukhara treatise on ranks and ranks and on the duties of their bearers in medieval Bukhara, - Soviet Oriental Studies, vol. V, 1948
38. Semenov A.A., Essay on the structure of the central administrative Bukhara Khanate of later times (Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR, v.25), Materials on the history of Tajiks and Uzbeks Cf. Asia, vol. 2, Stalinabad, 1954
39. St. Petersburg News, No. 122, 1896
40. Sukhareva O.A. Bukhara XIX - early XX century. (Late feudal city and its population), M., 1966
41. Tukhtametov T.G., Russian-Bukhara relations at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, Tashkent, 1966
42. Friedrich N.A., Bukhara. Ethnographic essay, S.Pb., 1910
43. Khamraev M., Essays on the history of the Hissar Bekstvo of the late XIX and early XX centuries, - Proceedings of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Tadzh.SSR, vol. CXIV, Stalinabad, 1959
44. Khanykov I., Description of the Bukhara Khanate, S.Pb., 1843
45. Shubinsky P.P., Ochenki Bukhara P. Shubinsky, S. Pb., 1892
46 Olufsen O., The Emirof Bukhara and his country, London, 1911

Archival documents:

I. Office of the Turkestan Governor-General, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-1, Inventory No. 29
II. Office of the Turkestan Governor-General, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-1, Inventory No. 34
III. Russian Imperial Political Agency in Bukhara, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-3, Inventory No. 1
IV. Russian Imperial Political Agency in Bukhara, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-3, Inventory No. 2
V. Office of the kushbegi of the Emir of Bukhara, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-126, Inventory No. 1 (book 1)
VI. Office of the kushbegi of the Emir of Bukhara, - Central State Historical Archive of the Uzbek SSR, Fund No. I-126, Inventory No. 2 (book 1)

Photo archives

a) St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg)
b) Russian Geographical Society (St. Petersburg) c) Institute of the History of Material Culture (St. Petersburg) d) State Film and Photo Documents Archive of the Uzbek SSR (Tashkent)
e) Bukhara Regional Museum of Local Lore (Bukhara)

ADDITION

The state structure of the Bukhara Emirate
Material from Wikipedia

The head of state was the emir (Persian امیر‎), who had unlimited power over his subjects.

Islambek kushbegi - minister of Bukhara. Photo by Orde, 1894

State affairs were managed by kushbegi (Turk. قوشبیگی), a kind of prime minister. The entire ruling class of the Emirate of Bukhara was divided into secular government officials - Amaldars (Pers. عملدار‎) and spiritual - Ulama (Pers. ﻋﻠﻤﺎ‎). The latter included scholars - theologians, lawyers, teachers of madrasas, etc. Secular persons received ranks from the emir or khan (Mong. خان), and the spiritual ones were elevated to one or another rank or rank. There were fifteen secular ranks, and four spiritual ones.

In administrative terms, the Emirate of Bukhara at the beginning of the 20th century. was divided into 23 beks (Persian بیکیﮔرى‎) and 9 fogs (Mong. تومان). Until the last quarter of the 19th century. Karategin and Darvaz were independent shahs ruled by local rulers - shahs (pers. ﺷﺎه‎). In Karategin during the period under review, there were five amlyakdarstvo (Persian املاک داری‎), in Darvaz - seven. Having annexed Karategin and Darvaz, the Emirate of Bukhara transformed them into beks (Persian بیکیﮔرى‎), which were ruled by officials appointed by Bukhara - beks (Turk. بیک). The beks, in turn, were subordinated to divanbegs (Turk. دیوان بیگی), yasaulbashi (Turk. یساولباشی), kurbashi (Turk. قورباشی), qazi (Arab. قاضی‎‎) and rais (Arab. ر؀ی).

The majority of the population was made up of a taxable estate - fukara (arab. فقرا‎‎). The ruling class was represented by the land-feudal nobility, grouped around the local ruler. Under local rulers, this class was called sarkarda (Pers. سرکرده‎) or navkar (Mong. نوکر), and during the period of Bukhara rule - sipahi (Pers. سپاهی‎) or amaldar (Pers. عملدار‎). In addition to the two specified classes (rich and poor), there was a numerous social stratum that was exempt from taxes and duties: mullahs, mudarrises, imams, mirzas, etc.

Each bekstvo was divided into several small administrative units - amlyak (Arabic املاک‎‎) and Mirkhazar (Persian میرهزار‎), headed by the Amlyakdars (Persian املاک دار‎) and Mirkhazars (Persian میرها‎) respectively. The lowest rank of the village administration was the arbab (arab. ارباب‎‎ - headman), usually one for each village.

There were four shahsts in the Western Pamirs. Each shahship was divided into administrative units called sada (Persian صده‎ - one hundred) or panja (Persian پنجه‎ - five). Shugnan and Rushan were divided into six gardens each. At the head of each garden or panja was an aksakal (Turk. آقسقال - elder), and in smaller administrative units - arbab or mirdeh (pers. میرده‎). The entire population of the upper reaches of the Pyanj was divided in class terms into two main categories: the ruling class and the taxable class, called raiyat (Arabic رعیت‎‎) or fukara. The next, lower category of the ruling class was the service estate - navkar or chakar, who were chosen and appointed by the peace or the shah from people with military and administrative abilities.

RECENT TRAGEDY IN BUKHARA
(Information about the episode presented below was collected by us personally, when we were in Bukhara, in June of last year.)
Historical Bulletin, No. 5. 1892

"If someone offends you, offend him as he offends us."
Qur'an, chapter II, verse 190.

Infinitely great is the discord that still separates us in everyday, social, religious and moral terms from our closest neighbors in the far east. The Koran and Sharia, which form the sole basis of the beliefs and concepts of the Muslims of Central Asia beyond our control, are, as it were, a wall protecting them from the spirit of the times and the influence of civilization. Limited on our territory, in its immediate application, by the sphere of religious practices and the autonomy of the people's court, Islamic-Sufficient tendencies find wide scope for their development on the soil of our neighbors, the semi-independent khanates of Bukhara, Khiva and Afghanistan, related to them in language and religion. The state and social system of these countries, religion, the way of life of the people, mores, customs, legal proceedings and education - all this follows from the two main principles of Islam: the Koran and Sharia. These two creations of the great Muslim prophet and his closest follower are still the only two truths that the Mohammedan of Central Asia believes in, by which he lives and from which he draws all his worldly wisdom.

Numerous and influential Muslim clergy do their best to support the charm of the religious ideas of Islam among the people. Jealously guarding the state and social system that developed over a millennium ago, under their influence, from any modern innovations, it is a powerful opponent to those new ideas that poured into Central Asia from Europe in a wide wave through the open gates of the Turkestan region. It, apparently, is fully achieving its goals so far, because the inertia in which the Muslim world is not subject to us extends to such an extent that even the powerful influence of Russia, combined with the good desire of the rulers of the khanates, is sometimes powerless to change their the internal system is one or another condition created by the millennium-old traditions of Islam.

Strange, almost unbelievable for our time, these burning hotbeds of religious fanaticism, obsolete ideas and outdated traditions are an anachronism!

We cannot help but welcome that noticeable desire to bring into this dark world the ideas of state and social order, education and humanity, which of late has been especially felt in our policy in the far east. Undoubtedly, these aspirations are only the first attempts at the realization of that highly humane task, which, contrary to the assurances of our British rivals, Russia is completely unselfishly pursuing in relation to the peoples of Central Asia subject to it.

At the same time, it is desirable that the tragic episode cited below constitute a single fact in the history of the reign of Emir Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-Khan, whose noble motives and good intentions cannot be doubted.

__________________________

A few years ago, a related group of dignitaries of Persian origin, consisting of the elderly kush-begi Mulla-Mehmet-Biya, was of paramount importance among the state ranks of the Bukhara Khanate (The title of kush-begi, in its internal meaning in the Bukhara Khanate, can be equated to the title of our minister of foreign affairs and chairman of the state council. It is associated, at the same time, with the title of governor of Bukhara and commandant of the palace of the emir. The highest position in Bukhara "atalyk" has remained unfilled since the time of emir Nasr-Ullah, who made the ruler of Shakhrizyabsky the last time (Murza-Shamen-Bukhari, Notes, pr. 13, p. 60)), his son, the chief Bukhara zaketchchi Mukhamed-Sharif-divan-begi (The title of divan-begi can be equated to the title of secretary of state; the position of chief zaketchi - to the position of Minister of Finance and head of the treasury and economy of the Emir.), and grandson, bek of Chardzhuy, Astanakul-inak (Bek is the head of the city and lay down Inak-military rank, equivalent to the rank of colonel).

This group was considered the most powerful and influential in the country, both in its direct significance and in the trust and disposition that the young emir Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-khan showed her, bound in relation to kush-begi by a sense of gratitude for his ancient devotion to the house Mangyt (The dynasty reigning in Bukhara traces its lineage, along the female line, from Tamerlane. (Myrza-Shamsi-Bukhari, Notes, note 15, p. 61). As for men, it comes from the Uzbek clan Mangyt, from the Tuk branch. (Khanykov , Description of the Khanate of Bukhara, p. 58) Among the Mongols, the name “tuk” defined a detachment of warriors of 100 people (Marco Polo, translated by Shemyakin, p. 181)) and to him personally, and with his son, the bonds of friendship. At the same time, this group was considered to be at the head of the party of Bukhara dignitaries most sympathetic to Russia, the counterbalance of which was the old Bukhara, Uzbek, party. It goes without saying that this powerful family, as elsewhere in the East, had numerous relatives, proteges and adherents at various levels of the state ladder.

The head and patriarch of this family, Mulla-Mehmed-Biy, a Persian by birth from the town of Karay, near Mashhad, was captured by the Turkmens as a boy of ten or twelve years old and in 1820 brought by them for sale in Bukhara.

Here he was bought for several chervonets by the famous Hakim-kush-begi (Hakim-kush-begi played an outstanding role in the history of the Bukhara Khanate of the first quarter of the current century, personifying the treacherous type of courtier at the court of the Central Asian despots. Emir-Seid owed all his well-being , he poisons him, wanting to deliver his second son, Nasr-Ullah, an opportunity to seize the throne of his father, in addition to his older brother, Hussein Khan. poisoning him as well. Having sworn, then, to the younger son of Emir-Seid, Omar-khan, appointed by Hussein Khan as his successor, he treacherously betrays him and the city of Bukhara into the hands of the rebellious Nasr-Ullah, who reigns in the capital of the khanate on March 22, 1826 year, under the name of Nasr-Ulli-Baghadur-Khan-Melik-El-Mumenin. This treacherous man was adequately punished for his shameful deeds. In 1837, emir Nasr, who was enthroned by him, Ullah confiscates all the untold riches he has stolen, and imprisons him himself, where he was stabbed to death in 1840. (Khanykov, History of the Khanate of Bukhara, pp. 224-230; Borns, Journey to Bukhara, part 2, pp. 382-388 and others; Vamberi, History of Bukhara, ch. XVIII, pp. 136-140)).

After the death of this latter under Emir Nasrullah, in 1840, he, along with his other slaves and property, entered the treasury and was added to the staff of the heir to the throne of Seyid-Muzafar-Eddin (Emir Seyid-Muzafar-Eddin was born in 1823, entered to the throne of Bukhara in 1860, died on October 31, 1885), under which he was a servant. His outstanding abilities drew the attention of Muzafar Eddin to him and, during his accession to the throne, in 1860, Mulla Mehmed Biy was successively appointed to the positions of mirshab (police official), mirab (irrigation manager) and serkerd (battalion commander) . In his last rank, he participated in the battles at Jizzakh, Samarkand and Zerabulak, sharing with his master the heavy blows inflicted by Russian weapons on the power of the ruler of the faithful in Central Asia.

At the end of the war, Mulla-Mehmed-Biy was appointed bey in Shakhrizyabz, where he managed to declare himself a capable, active and energetic administrator, and in 1870 the emir granted him the remaining vacant position of kush-begi (In this position he was seen and wrote about him: Vsevolod Krestovsky (Visiting the Emir of Bukhara, ch. VII, pp. 292-296) and Dr. Yavorsky (Journey of the Russian Embassy in Afghanistan and the Bukhara Khanate in 1878-1879, vol. II, pp. 334-336).

Kush-begi Mulla-Mehmed-Biy lived to a ripe old age, maintaining good spirits until the last minute and taking a direct part in the affairs of the state. His nineteen-year stay in power was marked by deep devotion to the interests of the people and both emirs, whose trust and favor he enjoyed, despite the intrigues and intrigues of natural Bukharans, who hated him as an alien and a Shiite.

The population of the capital respected and loved him. According to the testimony of persons who were intimately familiar with the state of affairs in the khanate, no complaints were ever heard of oppression, intrigue or injustice on his part.

In 1886, Mulla-Mehmed-Biy, together with his family and other slaves in the Bukhara Khanate, was freed from slavery, forever destroyed by Emir Seid-Abdul-Akhat-Khan in his possessions.

The son of Mulla-Mehmed-Biya, Mukhamed-Sharif-divan-begi, holding the position of the chief Bukhara zyaketchy even at the court of the late emir Muzafar-Eddin, managed to establish himself with outstanding abilities and special devotion to the reigning dynasty, in particular to Seyid-Abdul-Akhat- khan. Among the other services rendered by him to the last services was that he hid from the people the death of Emir Muzafar until from Kermine (the city of Kermine and the district adjacent to it constitute, as it were, the inheritance of the heirs of the Bukhara throne, where they settle upon reaching adulthood, ruling the district for rights of beks. and inevitable in such cases in the East family strife.

Upon the accession of the young emir on November 4, 1885, Mohamed-Sharif became his closest personal adviser. In addition, Seyid-Abul-Akhat entrusted him with the management of all affairs related to the relations of Bukhara with the Russian government.

In this state of affairs, the whole country and the emir himself looked at Mukhamed-Sherif-divan-begi as the future successor of his father Mulla-Mehmed-Biya in the rank of kush-begi.

The youngest representative of this outstanding family was the son of Mukhamed-Sharif, the twenty-eight-year-old Chardzhui bek Astanakul-inak (currently the chief Bukhara zaketch, Astanakul-parkanachi). Gifted with a remarkably handsome appearance, handsome and intelligent, he soon attracted the attention of the emir, who entrusted him with the important post of head of the Chardzhui district bordering on Russian possessions. In this position, he managed to provide serious services to the Russian government during the construction of the Trans-Caspian railway, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Anna 2nd degree.

Under such circumstances, this family finds the year 1888, which had a fatal meaning for them.

At that time, a certain Gaib-Nazar, an Afghan by origin, lived in Bukhara, who under Emir Muzafar held the position of amlyakdar in Kermine (Amlakdar is a tax collector. In the Bukhara Khanate, the annual amount of tax from the land is determined by spring shoots, which, of course, opens a wide path to all kinds of abuses on the part of officials of the tax administration.), when the heir to the throne, the current emir Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-khan, ruled this bekstvo. Shortly after the death of Murafar, Gaib-Nazar was dismissed from his post for concealing part of the state revenues of the district entrusted to him. Suspecting Mukhamed-ІІІarifa-divan-begi as the main culprit of the misfortune that befell him, he harbored a deep hatred for him and, having settled in his house in Bukhara, where he enjoyed the reputation of a man with means, he waited only for an opportunity to take revenge on his enemy.

The emirs of Bukhara have a habit of going around their possessions once a year, stopping for some time in the most populated districts, such as Kermine, Qakhshi, Shakhrizyab possessions and Chardzhuy.

During one of these trips of Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-khan to Shakhrizyabz, in the spring of 1888, Khaid-guard-run, brother of Gaib-Nazar, who served in the Bukhara troops and was sent, for a while, with some assignment from Shakhrizyabz to Bukhara , brought to the emir Gaib-Nazar's denunciation of Mukhamed-Sharif-divan-begi and other senior officials who remained in the capital.

This denunciation infuriated the emir and caused an order to arrest Gaib-Nazar and confiscate his property. The execution of this order was entrusted by the emir to Muhamed-Sharif-divan-begi.

On March 21, 1888, at 8 o'clock in the morning, Mukhaned-Sharif, accompanied by two servants, arrived at Gaib-Nazar's house to announce to him the will of the emir and make an inventory of his property. Having entered the mima (mehman)-khan (reception room), he conveyed the command to Gaib-Nazar, adding, for his part, words of consolation and a promise to intercede with the emir for his forgiveness. Gaib-Nazar silently listened to the divan-bey and, when the latter had finished, told him that among his property were valuable things given to him for preservation, which he, first of all, wanted to present. Then he went into another room and, a minute later, returned from there with a revolver in his hand, with the words: “a dog, a Shiite, a traitor!” fired two shots at Mohammed Sharif. This last one, already mortally wounded, rushed at him. A struggle ensued, which was only stopped by a crowd that ran to the noise and seized and beat the criminal.

The dying man was put on a cart and taken home, but he still found enough strength in himself to order the release of the murderer from the hands of the angry mob and take him to his apartment, where he placed him in a room next to him, fearing that he would be torn to pieces by the people before production. investigations on him.

On March 22, at 6 o'clock in the morning, Mukhamed-Sharif-divan-begi died, despite the medical assistance provided to him by Dr. Geifelder, who was sent to the scene by the builder of the Trans-Caspian Railway, Lieutenant General Annenkov, who was at that time on official business near Bukhara.

The death of this outstanding person sincerely upset not only the emir and the population of the capital, but also all the people of our Turkestan administration who came into contact with him on official business. Bukhara lost in him a capable, energetic administrator, and Russia lost a man sincerely devoted to Russian interests, otherwise contributing to a change for the better in the state of affairs in the khanate.

Upon learning of the death of Muhamed-Sharif, the emir wrote a heartfelt letter to the grief-stricken elderly Kush-begi, in which, among other things, he mentioned that he had never looked at the deceased as a servant, but as an older brother, and that now he would try to replace Mulle-Mehmed -Beating his lost son.

The venerable elder did not survive this sad event for long: he died on November 10, 1889, at the age of 81.

The son of the deceased Mukhamed-Sharif, Astanakul-inak, was appointed emir to his father's place immediately after his death, and in the rank of parvanachi and chief zaketchia is now one of the most devoted and useful servants of Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-khan.

As for the murderer of the divan-begi, Gaib-Nazar, then, by order of the emir, he was handed over to the relatives of the murdered.

One must know the history of the Bukhara people and those bestial instincts, greed and ambition that are inherent in them, one must finally take into account that, according to established custom, the death or removal of some state dignitary in the Bukhara Khanate entails the removal of all his subordinates and the replacement of their henchmen by a newly appointed person in order to explain to himself the terrible execution that awaited the criminal. Without a doubt, it was invented not by one person, but by a whole corporation of people who tried to take out on the killer of sofa-runs the bitterness that was in them, which was caused by the death of this man, who took with him to the grave the chances of success, wealth and honors, perhaps , not one generation of people close to him and relatives.

This execution, worthy of the times of Caracal and Nero, consisted of the following: the murderer was tied to the tail of a horse and, with a huge crowd of people, we thus carry through the streets, squares and bazaars of the city. Then, they crushed the bones of his arms and legs and threw him alive behind the city wall, to be eaten by dogs.

The main details of this inhuman execution, as always, were carried out on the vast cathedral square of Bukhara, in view of the majestic buildings of the Mir-Arab madrasah and the Mosque-i-Kalyan, these mute witnesses of so many bloody historical events, starting with the invasion of Genghis Khan and the triumphant Timur’s entry, until the recent execution of two innocent instruments of English greed and harassment in Central Asia - Conoli and Stoddart (Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conoli, sent by the British government to Bukhara and Kokan with the aim of forming a coalition hostile to Russia from the Central Asian khanates, were captured by the emir Nasr-Ullah and, at his command, were executed in Bukhara, in 1842.).

P.P.S.

New Emir of Bukhara
Niva magazine, 1886, No. 7. Pages: 177-178

After the second capital of the Khanate Samarkand was taken, under the gene. Kaufman in 1868 with our troops and they took possession of the sources of Zaryavshan, which fed Bukhara - the Russians have the ability to divert water, and this would be the death of the country. Completely defeated by Russian troops on June 2, 1868, the emir declared himself in obedience to the White Tsar and since then Bukhara has been in vassal relations to Russia.

After the death of the late Emir of Bukhara, Muzaffar Khan, which followed on October 31 last year, his eldest son Seid-Abdul-Agad Khan (whose portrait is placed here) became the ruler of Bukhara. His brother, Seyid-Mansur, is brought up in Russia, in the Page Sib. corps, and the current emir Abdul-Agad attended the sacred coronation in Moscow and spent some time in St. Petersburg. Seid-Abdul-Agad-khan is now no more than 27 years old. Here is how one of our travellers, who saw him when he was in Bukhara, describes him: “Seid-Abdul-Agad-khan himself stood before us. Taking two steps towards us, he cordially extended his hand to each of us. In appearance, he is a handsome man, taller than average, strongly built. His handsome swarthy face is pubescent with a black, medium-sized beard; small mustaches set off thin, energetically pursed lips. Black and large eyes are very expressive. Their gaze is sharp and penetrating. The arches of the eyebrows very characteristically slightly rise from the inside above the bridge of the nose, adjoining two small longitudinal wrinkles. In general, his face has a serious expression of an inquisitive mind and a strong character. It somehow involuntarily affects a large supply of energy, willpower and perseverance. It cannot be said that this face was one of the kind, in the sense of kindness, although there is nothing repulsive in it - on the contrary, it is rather even sympathetic; you only immediately feel that you are dealing with an internally strong person who will not think about anything to achieve his goal. He is not at all prone to harem promiscuity - he has one legal wife. In his everyday environment, he prefers simplicity, even with a somewhat stern tint, which we could also notice, at least from the atmosphere of his waiting room. They say that his favorite pastime is falconry and the taming of semi-wild, hot and evil horses, which he rides under himself. He also does a lot of military work.”

Seid-Abdul-Agad Khan was in Moscow, as we said, at the coronation celebrations of 1883. On his return from Moscow, he said in Tashkent, among other things, that this trip was of great benefit to him in the sense that he had a good opportunity to see for himself the enormous forces and means of Russia. Recognized in his rights by the All-Russian Emperor, he no longer needs any parties to support power.

Mixture. Gifts from the Emir of Bukhara.
Niva, 1893, No. 3 (2), p. 74

Gifts from the Emir of Bukhara presented to the Sovereign Emperor, the Sovereign Empress and other Members of the August House. Among these gifts are many expensive fabrics and carpets - works of Bukhara and, in general, the East: astrakhan furs, golden bowls and dishes with niello, belts studded with precious stones, a silver service with niello, necklaces with precious stones, walking sticks strewn with diamonds, silver enameled caskets and many other precious items. Particularly distinguished were: a saber in a golden scabbard with a hilt strewn with diamonds, presented by the Emir to the Sovereign Emperor, and an umbrella sewn entirely with pearls for the Empress, the handle of which was strewn with precious stones.

Then the emir brought 17 horses of various breeds for gifts to the Highest Persons: Teke, Turkmen, Uratyuben and Kungrad. Each of them is saddled with a Turkmen saddle, with gold and silver forged stirrups. Expensive velvet chapraks are embroidered with silks and gold; the bridle, breastplates and tailpieces are richly trimmed with gold set. Some of the horses are very small and resemble the breed of our southern steppe horses, but all of them are distinguished by remarkable endurance and speed, during the race they seem to spread along the ground. One of the stallions intended for the Sovereign Emperor, of the Teke breed, red with white stockings on all four legs, is considered the best horse of Bukhara, about which the Bukhara people say that “only one wind will overtake him.” The horses have not yet been given names; all of them are placed on the main royal stable. For the Sovereign Emperor, actually 5 horses were given: 2 stallions of a red color, Tekin, growth of 2 arshins and 2 vershoks, 1 stallion of a karak color with a golden tan, Turkmen breed, a strong strong horse 2 arshins and 2 vershoks tall, and a pair of gray stallions of the Bukhara breed, about 2 arshins tall, all six years old. Sovereign Empress - 3 horses: 1 gray stallion Turkmen, height 2 arshins 1 vershok, a very beautiful graceful horse, and a pair of black stallions of the Bukhara breed of small stature. One of these stallions is very kind, almost tame and a little trained: he gives a leg, puts his head on his shoulder, with remarkably intelligent eyes. The heir to the Tsarevich also has 3 horses: 1 red-haired Turkmen without marks, a slender, light, as if chiseled stallion, 2 arshins with a small stature, can argue on a gallop with a Tekin horse brought to the Sovereign Emperor. Tekinets will probably be called "Wind", and this Turkmen "Wind"; then a pair of smaller Bukhara stallions. Grand Duchesses Xenia and Olga Alexandrovna were brought a pair of piebald stallions of the Bukhara breed of very good disposition. Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich - a pair of black stallions of the Uratyubensky breed. On the main stable, there are a pair of dark bay stallions intended for Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. Since all horses are exclusively steeds, it is likely that some of them will be harnessed in threes for a draw; the roots will be picked up by pacers. In addition to these 17 horses, the emir presented a pair of stallions to the Grand Dukes Vladimir and Alexy Alexandrovich and Mikhail Nikolaevich.

Throne chair for the Emir of Bukhara.
Niva, 1893, No. 33, p. 752, 753

By order of the Turkestan Governor-General by the Lizere firm in St. Petersburg. the throne armchair in the old Russian style was made of gilded wood (maple), covered with red plush and trimmed with gold galloon. The armchair is intended for the Emir of Bukhara and is very characteristic, as can be seen from the attached drawing. It was executed according to the drawing of V. Scherzer, by Russian workers.

His Grace Emir of Bukhara.
Magazine "Motherland". St. Petersburg, 1893. No. 3, p. 88, 91-92, 105-106.

Showered with the graces of His Majesty the Sovereign Emperor and now visiting St. Petersburg, His Grace Emir of Bukhara Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-Khan is an extremely imposing, beautifully built brunette, with a very expressive face and a large, jet-black, bushy beard.

Like all the faces of his retinue, he wears a colorful Bukhara costume, a turban and a lot of stars. The Emir is at the head of the Khanate of Bukhara, covering an area of ​​31/2 thousand geographical miles, with a population of 11/2 million engaged in agriculture and trade. There are 15 thousand people in the Bukhara army. On November 4, 1885, the emir succeeded his father's throne, being his fourth son, because the elder brother, bribed by the British, rebelled against his father, was defeated with the help of Russian troops, fled and is now in India. In 1883, the Sovereign Emperor granted the request of the father of the current Emir, Mozafar Eddin, to recognize our today's guest, Seyid-Abdul-Akhat, as the heir to Bukhara. Emir has been married since the age of 13, and from the age of 18 he already ruled the bekstvo (district) in Kermin and earned common love with his fairness and accessibility. The emir's predominant passion is horses, and he is reputed to be the best rider in Bukhara.

In Russia, the emir was, as the heir to Bukhara, at the coronation celebrations of 1883. The high attention and gracious address of the Sovereign and the Royal Family, as well as everything seen in Russia, deeply sunk into the soul of the future heir to the throne of Bukhara, and upon accession to the throne, he first became transfer our culture to his native country. He abolished slavery, reduced the army to facilitate finances, destroyed underground prisons, torture and brutal executions, did a lot to streamline the tax system and develop trade in his country. An extremely lively, active temperament distinguishes the emir among the Bukharians and evokes in them a well-deserved tribute of surprise and respect for their head.

Together with the emir, his ten-year-old son, Seid-Mir-Alim, arrived in St. Petersburg, whom his lordship, with the permission of the Highest Sovereign Emperor, will assign to one of the St. Petersburg military educational institutions.

In the retinue there are 7 dignitaries, 6 officials, a representative of the Bukhara merchant class and masses of servants. Among the seven dignitaries of the emir are three generals "parvanchi", of which two are ministers - Astapa Kulbek parvanchi and Durban Kumberg parvanchi. This is followed by Tural-Kul parvanchi, Khabarit-Kulbek-Tonova, Makhalot-Yunas-Marahat-bachi, Haji-Abdul and Murza-Akhat-mushi.

The emir brought with him a lot of valuable materials, jewelry and horses for gifts, and the cost of everything brought, part of which arrived in the summer, is estimated at 2 million rubles.

Bukhara before and now. History reference.
Niva, 1893, No. 4, p. 94, 95

Comparison of the former state of Bukhara with the present can serve as a striking example of the enormous influence of civilization that it can have on the structure and life of the state. In the forties, Bukhara represented the pure type of Asiatic despotic kingdom. Any of the relatives of the ruler, incurring suspicion of not sympathizing with his system of government, was immediately eliminated. Most often he was imprisoned in disgusting underground prisons, very common then in Bukhara. The emir Seyid-Nassr-Ulla, the grandfather of the current emir, acted in the same way. He eliminated all adherents of a strong party opposed to him, including Kush-Begi, Gakim-Bai and Ayatsa-Bai. During the reign of Seyid-Nassr-Ulla, Bukhara occupied a central and main place among the surrounding khanates. Therefore, it is quite understandable that Russia and England paid attention to it. England wanted at all costs to subjugate the emir to her influence and restore him against Russia. All her intrigues, however, were unsuccessful. They even ended very sadly for her diplomatic agents, Colonel Stoddart and Conolly. Both of them paid with their lives for their diplomatic inexperience and partly disregard for the mores and customs of the local population. They endured a painful prison sentence and remained alive for the time being, thanks only to the intercession of the Russian diplomatic agent Butenev. Stoddart was forced to convert to Islam out of fear.

Following the departure of Bugenev, Emir Seid-Nassr-Ulla received the news that all British troops in Afghanistan had been destroyed. Realizing that now there was nothing to be afraid of England, he ordered, on June 17, 1842, that these two unfortunate Englishmen be put to shameful execution in the square. They were brought there from prison. Colonel Stoddart was the first to be beheaded. Then the executioner stopped, knowing that Conolly had been promised life if he converted to Islam. But Conolly, noticing this, said contemptuously: “Stoddart became a Muslim and you still executed him. I'm ready to die." With these words, he coolly offered his neck to the executioner, who with one blow separated his head from his body.

In 1860, after the death of the emir, he was succeeded by his son, Seyid Motsaffar Eddin Khan. As the guardian of the minor Kokand Khan, in the rank of Tamerlane's successor, suzerain of other khanates, and, finally, as a zealot of the Mohammedan faith, in 1865 he joined the war of the Kokand people against General Chernyaev. The emir continued this war with the successors of Chernyaev, generals: Romanovsky in 1865, Kryzhanovsky and Manteuffel in 1867, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov in 1867 and von Kaufmann in 1886. Their victories over the emir led to the conclusion of peace, finally breaking the military pride of the Bukharians. Since that time, friendly relations between Russia and Bukhara began to be established. Little by little, the emir became convinced both of the disinterestedness of these relations, and of the strength and power of our homeland. When his eldest son and heir Abul-Melin-Kati-Tiur rebelled against him, wanting to overthrow him from the throne, Russia, in the person of General Abramov, with his detachment, rendered him active assistance - returned to him by armed force the possessions of Shari seized from him. Siabts, Kitab and Kasshi. This finally made him lose all faith in England's false intimidation against Russia. After all these events, together with the accession to the throne of the current emir, a new, bright, peaceful period of her life begins for Bukhara.

Emir Seyid-Abdul-Akhat-khan took over the government of the country, which was in a miserable, chaotic state. His energetic nature did not give way. the prevailing order of things and gave him the strength to radically transform his state on the basis of humanity and justice. He drew attention to the prevailing in the country bribery, embezzlement, burdening the people with unbearable taxes and taxes, terrible injustice in the courts and other ulcers of the state organism. Emir Seid-Mozaffar-Eddin, his father, who was completely reconciled with all the troubles in the country, died on October 31, 1885. From that time on, the current emir, then a young man of 28 years old, began to rebuild the state in his own way. At first, he met energetic resistance from the former adherents of his father and the clergy. His only support was the confidence that Russia would help him in his civilizing activities, especially since her activities in Asia were of exactly the same nature. Firmly relying on Russia, he ignored all threats from the most influential and closest people, he boldly and unceasingly followed the path of beneficent reforms. The first order of this kind was the abolition of slavery for all time in all provinces. From ten thousand, mostly Persians, the heavy fetters of slavery were broken. His second measure was the order to bring the army to the number of 13,000 people, constituting 13 infantry battalions, 800 people. artillery with 155 guns, 2,000 irregular horsemen and 4 squadrons of cavalry. These two measures were followed by the order to fill in the tsindana (underground pits and dungeons), where criminals and victims of the wrath of the rulers languished, and to fill in and stone the siah-gara or kenne-khan (black well), which served as the underground Bastille, in which they writhed from torture unfortunate prisoners. In this regard, torture was abolished, and the death penalty was significantly limited. In addition, he took a lot of measures to raise people's morality by prohibiting the use of opium and other narcotic plants (Kunara-Nasha) and stopping the immoral dances of bachy (boys). Then he created a whole series of orders for the destruction of bribery and usury, with the threat of subjecting those responsible to punishment and a fine. Thus, the emir achieved that the population became convinced of the benefits of his innovations and took his side. Having brought the affairs of the state into some order, the emir wished, in 1886, that Russia would send its special diplomatic agent to Bukhara, as a sign of the special favor of the Sovereign Emperor to him. His wish was fulfilled, and Charikov was appointed such an agent, later replaced by the famous explorer of Central Asia P.M. Lessar.

In this way, trade relations between Russia and Bukhara began, and the latter found a place for the sale of its raw products. In addition, thanks to the laying of the Trans-Caspian railway through Bukhara, but along its entire railroad, villages and factories for processing Bukhara wool and silk arose. At the same time, Bukhara was connected by a telegraph network with Russia. All this strengthened Russia's relations with Bukhara as closely as possible and at the same time forced everyone to change their view of Bukhara as a country dominated by arbitrariness and lawlessness. Bukhara is growing every day higher and higher in the row of district khanates, and under the rule of such an energetic and intelligent monarch as the present Emir, it has all the makings for future brilliant prosperity.

G.B. Our colonies. New-Bukhara.
Niva, 1899, No. 13, p.

New-Bukhara, - a Russian settlement in the eastern part of the Bukhara Khanate, 12 versts to the south-east. from the city of Bukhara, at the Trans-Caspian railway, in the area of ​​Kogan, located at an altitude of 235 meters above the sea, was founded in 1888. Ten years ago this area was a wild steppe, and now there are 2,500 inhabitants in Novaya Bukhara.

Twelve versts from the khan's capital of Bukhara, along the Karshi tract, a desert steppe lay in a strip - a plain: the earth densely saturated with salt is completely barren. With the cessation of spring rains, the salt marsh accumulated on the surface of the soil is deposited and, drying up, covers the steppe with a hard, grayish-white bark; the earth takes on a deathly pale tone. In such places, only occasionally does a bright green thorn, camel's manna, break through the salt marsh... This plant is so unpretentious and tenacious, its grassy stem is so strong and resilient that in Bukhara one can often observe how from under the plaster of a recently rebuilt building , suddenly a tender, pale green, ugly branch of a thorn with thin, sharp thorns breaks into the light of God. Only the mighty power of this wild plant, with creeping bushes of bright greenery in places, enlivens the overwhelming lifelessness of the saline steppe.

When the Trans-Caspian railway was being built, here in 1888, the “Bukhara” station was opened - and, as the nearest point of the railway to Bukhara, the station was revived by the influx of people along the railway on the one hand and the influx of the native population on the other. Station "Bukhara" has become a major cargo point. From all sides different luggage arrives here in whole batches. A transport and commercial and industrial company is starting up warehouses near the station, opening their offices. The hitherto desolate area revived unusually. Here railway buildings were built, huts were somehow molded there, wooden huts were hastily knocked together - temporary dwellings of people. Immediately, in a clumsy hut - in a dirty wagon - under a felt canopy, a buffet opened, a food shop, clothing stores, various trades were started ...

On June 23, 1888 (according to the Muslim account, on the 25th shaval, 1305), the Russian government signed an agreement on the establishment of Russian settlements in the Bukhara Khanate at railway stations and steamship piers, and in the same year, the Russian colony “New Bukhara” was founded in the Kogan area . Here were laid the houses of the Russian Imperial Political Agency in Bukhara, whose residence used to be in the Khan's capital. The Bukhara government started the construction of the Gostiny Dvor, which now gives its owner a good profit. Various entrepreneurs, commercial and industrial companies and individuals quickly began to buy land in the nascent city and build. By virtue of the aforementioned contractual agreement, the land is sold from the Bukhara government, but the price is about 50 kopecks. (three Bukhara tents) per sq.m. fathom. A purchase of a fortress for possession is made through a political agency.

By the way, we note that the purchase of plots here was for some time a specially commercial enterprise for other resourceful people: they bought, by choice, the best places and then resold them for a triple price.

In 1890, there were already several transport offices, several shops and shops, a post and telegraph office in Novaya-Bukhara; in 1892, an Orthodox church arose, a parish school was opened, and a world court was established, and in 1894 a branch of a state bank and then a customs office were opened.

Management in the city is administrative and police. An official appointed by the Turkestan governor-general represents here the police, and administrative, and judicial-executive authorities, and is in charge of the city economy. The annual budget of the city government in the first years after the founding of Novaya Bukhara reached 2,000 rubles, and now it exceeds 12 thousand. The main sources of urban income are privately owned immovable property, trade, industry, and carting. More than 300 horses are constantly occupied by carriage for cargo and light communication between Novaya-Bukhara and the Khan's capital. All drivers, in complexity, earn about 600 rubles a day.

A large branch of the local industry is the transport of various goods coming from Russia to Bukhara and back. Four transport offices of different companies operate here: “Nadezhda”, “Caucasus and Mercury”, “Eastern Society” and “Russian Society”; These offices have their branches and agents in Old Bukhara and other places of the Khanate. Bukhara mainly exports cotton, wool, leather, intestines. Five steam factories in Novaya-Bukhara process cotton; they clean it on special machines (guzlomka and gin) from the husk and seeds and press it into a bale for shipment to Russia. A pood of pressed cotton is equal in volume to one cubic foot—that's how tightly it's pressed. More than a million poods of cotton are processed annually in Novaya-Bukhara, partly going to Moscow, partly to Lodz. A lot of old cotton (wool), which was already in use, is also taken out of here. Worn-out and useless wadded robes, blankets, mattresses, pillows and all sorts of wadded waste produce about 50,000 poods of this material a year. This rubbish is bought up in Bukhara for next to nothing, about 40 kopecks. pood, and it goes into production on a par with pure cotton. In Łódź, at Poznansky's factories, bumazeya (warm cloth) is made from old cotton, and the last waste is processed into lower-grade cotton wool, which is sold in Russia at 25-10 kopecks per pood.

Industry in New-Bukhara is not developed. Despite the good quality of the local grapes and their abundant harvests, the only winery of the merchant Bakhtadze is still in the city, producing about 7,000 buckets of cheap grape wine per year. Several small industrialists make up to 2 thousand buckets of wine in a handicraft way.

The match factory produces matches worth about 50,000 rubles; the tobacco factory does not have much demand for its products. Craft establishments serve only for local orders. They bring here from Russia mainly sugar, kerosene, iron, building materials *) manufactory and haberdashery goods. The city has several good shops with different goods; two good hotels with rooms are kept very decently, quite in a European way. There is a social club, a public library and reading room, a printing house and a bookbinding workshop. On holidays, folk readings with foggy pictures are held in the parish school.

The primary element of the population in the city are officials, then agents and clerks of various commercial and industrial firms, in general the people are servicemen and, probably, as a result of this, there is no social life in the city, no incentives for social activity. They live - the majority with a good income, but everything is monotonous and boring. The composition of the population is extremely diverse in terms of nationalities. Thus, out of 2,500 inhabitants, there are: 545 Russians, 50 Poles, 30 Germans, 10 Greeks, 40 Georgians and Ossetians, 155 Armenians, 115 Kirghiz, 345 Jews, 345 Persians and 865 Sarts; of this number 1,939 are men, 284 are women and 277 are children. The difference between the male and female gender is striking: there are almost 7 men for one woman.

Novaya-Bukhara spreads wide, it stretches for two versts along the railway line, opposite the Bukhara railway station. This is the main part of the city, where all state and private institutions, commercial and industrial establishments and shops are located, and on the other side of the railway there are factories and plants, military barracks and several private houses. Immediately, a little further away, a hundred sazhens along the Bukhara highway from the station rises the rich palace of the Emir of Bukhara, the construction of which cost 300,000 rubles. The palace was built in the Moorish style, but not quite seasoned. Rich decorations of alabaster and many columns and turrets give it a very distinctive look. Around the palace there is an extensive park with a variety of tree species, decorative and fruit.

Until now, however, the city has retained the character of scattered and unfinished buildings. On the space of two squares. versts (500,000 sazhens) are spread out to the sides in less than a hundred yard places: entire sections lie wasteland, without any buildings, and correctly divided, straight streets are lost in places in empty space. Now there are only 113 houses in the city, big and small. The houses are almost exclusively brick, one-story, with flat Asian roofs; most are given over to plastering. Raw brick, often used as a cheap material, is often used for buildings, but buildings made of such material are always damp and not durable; in three or four years they are already destroyed. Buildings made of baked bricks are also exposed, although not so quickly, to the destructive influence of the sun. The particles of the sun contained in the brick mass are saturated in wet weather with atmospheric moisture, which expands from frost in winter, destroying the brick mass: the brick becomes porous, loose and unstable. The only stone building in the city is the house of the merchant Bakhtadze, built of hewn limestone and costing more than 40 thousand rubles. There are not more than fifty houses that are well arranged with good apartments, in a European way, where the apartments have wooden painted floors and the walls are covered with wallpaper. A significant part of the houses is poorly arranged: cheap apartments of such houses on brick and earthen floors are uncomfortable and not hygienic.

Near the streets in the city during the rains and in winter they are covered with deep mud; the loess soil turns into greasy, sticky mud and literally forms a swamp ... There is so much salt in this mud that when it dries, the streets are covered with a thick white coating, and it seems as if it had just snowed. Shoes soaked in mud, drying out, are covered with salt hoarfrost, consisting of needle-like crystals. Due to the scattered houses, there are no sidewalks on other streets at all. Some streets are densely lined with trees. The boulevard street leading from the station to the city is paved with stone. Along this street in the middle of the city, the city garden is beautifully spread, which, with careful care, is well maintained and represents the best decoration of the city in summer.

Breeding plants is worth a lot of work here. Planted trees on salty soil are not accepted, perish and are replaced by new ones every year, until the soil under the trees is freed from solonetz through careful loosening and leaching by repeated and abundant flooding with water. The city suffers a great need in the summer, from a lack of water for irrigation. There is no rain at all in the summer, and the water, carried out for 20 versts through the diversion channel from the Zeravshan River, is allowed into the city only once a week for two days: on these two days, the townspeople use water according to a special schedule. Shallow canals were built along the city streets, and swimming pools (in Sart, hauz) were built in the courtyards of the homeowners, connected by pipes to the city canal. During the water flow, each homeowner opens the sluice of his water pipe for a certain hour and lets water into the yard pool. The water from the pool is used for various yard needs, but it is not suitable for drinking, as it is muddy and dirty. In the very drought, when there is little water, the sluices at the water pipes are locked and the keys are kept by the city gardener, who is in charge of the passage and distribution of water supply - so as not to give one much and not leave others completely without water.

Due to lack of water, the streets are not watered and the dust in the city is terrible, salty and caustic; thin as powder, light as fluff, it rises high into the air and stands over the city in a white cloud. In summer, a northeasterly wind blows almost constantly during the day; strong gusts of it sweep in the form of a hurricane. Then even in the houses there is no escape from dust, as the air penetrates imperceptible wells and during the day everything in the house is covered with a light white coating. But often there are wonderful summer nights. The wind usually subsides in the evening, the temperature sometimes drops to 160 R, the dust settles ... Clean, dry air, coolness and a completely cloudless sky ...

The climate in New-Bukhara is hot, extremely dry and highly variable. The highest temperature in summer (according to Réaumur) is +18, the lowest is +16; in winter, the highest +13, the lowest -16; average annual -18. Summers are extremely dry, winters are damp. The air humidity in summer at noon is 0, at night 25 - 10, and in winter: during the day 65, at night 75 - 80. The average number of days with rain and snow per year is about 50. Snow occurs at the end of December, in January and February, but does not lie melts long and fast. The seasons do not differ in characteristic changes: hot summer imperceptibly passes into winter.

The summer heat has a relaxing effect on the human body: a severe fever rages from time to time all summer, various inflammatory diseases appear in autumn and spring: pneumonia, typhoid fever, bronchitis, and so on. But still, in comparison with other cities of the Transcaspian region - in climatic and sanitary terms - a great advantage remains with New-Bukhara.

In the Khanate of Bukhara, in addition to N.-Bukhara, there are two more Russian colonies - New-Chardzhui and Kerki on the Amu-Darya River.

The article by A.G. Nedvetsky was supplemented by the site "Library of Khurshid Davron" ("Khurshid Davron kutubkhonasi"

(Visited: total 5,637 times, today 1 time)

Legends of Bukhara. Astrologer's cat

He did not see anything, who did not visit Bukhara, and he did not see Bukhara, who did not look at the bazaar. This is what the old people say, and this is what Zafar thought as he made his way past the shops with wonderful fabrics, marvelous fans, skillful ornaments, and painted pottery. The boy lingered at the gunsmith's shop. Eyes lit up at the sight of sharp sabers and damascus steel daggers in their sheaths encrusted with precious stones and gold. Zafar even extended his hand - to touch one of the daggers, but the gunsmith's taunt:

Isn't it too early for a foal to lead a herd? - made me pull back.

The boy sighed and, without looking around, went to the sweet shop. He had already seen enough of tightrope walkers and fakirs, soothsayers and sword-swallowers, and now he wanted to buy dried melon or peas with honey with the coin-tenge earned from a neighbor on melons. Approaching the bench, he took a coin from the pocket of his dressing gown and put it on his palm. And at that moment I felt a push. The fat nuker warrior, not noticing the boy, pushed him in the back. He did not notice the boy, but he saw a coin that fell into the dust and quickly grabbed it. Zafar did not have time to come to his senses.

Dear, - he turned to the nuker, - this is my tenge, return it.

He just laughed in the face of the frail boy. He already wanted to go away, when a sonorous female voice rang out, as if a stream ran over the pebbles:

Dear, return the coin to the boy, I saw how he dropped the tenge.

A short, all wrapped in a black silk cloak, a stranger stood near Zafar. The boy did not notice how she approached. The lower part of the face was covered with a translucent fabric, only emerald green eyes framed by black thick eyelashes and angrily knitted eyebrows were visible. The unexpected intercessor only made Nuker laugh:

You can't prove it, Kazi Judge is my brother.

Unexpectedly, the stranger stood at attention, her voice became like the hiss of a cobra or an angry cat:

Come here, wicked one! - Nuker obediently approached, as if someone's will led him. His eyes were empty and meaningless. - Give the boy a coin. - Nuker obediently gave Zafar a coin. - And now another five, for wanting to appropriate someone else's! - The fat man took out his purse, counted out the coins and handed it to Zafar. The boy did not dare to take it, then the stranger grabbed the money from the nuker's hand and put it on Zafar's palm. Then she commanded the nuker:

Now go away, you will forget about the coin and our meeting.

The fat man turned around and trudged away, after a few steps, he shook his head and walked with his usual gait. Zafar exclaimed in admiration:

You are like a cobra caster, janim! Do you want me to treat you to sweet halvah or sherbet?

The stranger laughed.

For a long time no one called me janim - my soul! And I didn’t treat, I won’t refuse halva. What is your name, hero?

Zafar, - the boy drew himself up, no one has yet called him a batyr, - what is your name, beautiful lady?

Munira, - came the answer.

They bought sweets in a shop and, going out of the city gates, settled down on a fallen saxaul near the canal. Munira pulled back the cloth covering her face and smiled at Zafar, her round cheeks adorned with dimples.

And you are more beautiful than the potter's daughter, and she is considered the best beauty of Bukhara, after the Emir's daughter, of course, may Allah prolong his days, the boy exclaimed.

Munira laughed again. They ate sweets and chatted, then the girl realized:

Oh, my time is up! - and quickly ran away, forgetting to say goodbye. Zafar decided to go to the teahouse, where the teahouse attendant gathered the children on holidays, gave them tea with candies and told stories. The boy was on time: his friends and girlfriends were seated on a felt mat, and the teahouse owner only put out a dish with refreshments and began to distribute bowls with fragrant aromatic green tea. He nodded to Zafar, handed the bowl to the boy and began the story:

Glorious for his predictions, as accurate as a blow of a saber, inevitable as the passage of time, the astrologer of the Emir himself, may Allah prolong his days. He could bathe in gold and sit on pillows stuffed with swan down, but the astrologer Agzam-aga is modest and unpretentious, like a dervish. His only treasure is a wonderful cat. Her fur is black, like the night, soft as the finest silk, and her eyes shine with two green emeralds. They say this cat is magical. From noon until the moment when the shadow of the minaret reaches the city wall, she turns into a young beautiful girl and walks around the city: if she meets a mourner, she will console, the poor will help, and she will help out those in trouble. Her speech sounds, delighting the ear, like a spring, her eyes look kindly, like the eyes of a mother or sister. But there is no mercy from her for the greedy and deceivers, she will definitely punish.

The teahouse owner fell silent, poured himself hot tea and began to drink it, enjoying it in small sips. And the children began to discuss what they had heard. Zafar said thoughtfully:

And she also has two dimples on her cheeks, like our Khalifa.

Khalifa, the wood carver's granddaughter, exclaimed animatedly:

Have you seen the magic cat?

No, I didn’t see it, - the boy suddenly thought that it was not worth telling the whole truth, but what if it would harm Munira. I introduced her like this.

Khalifa revived:

Like me? - the girl straightened up, as if she was carrying a jug of water on her head and sternly turned to Ali's bumpkin: - Hey, shameless rich man, return the money stolen from the poor, I tell you this - the astrologer's cat, - and then, becoming ordinary, she laughed out loud. Everyone joined her, and even the old teahouse owner. The children listened to another story about the stubborn lamb and dispersed.

Night has fallen on the city. Zafar used to sleep on the roof in the summer. He lay and looked at the tower of the astrologer, it seemed that a light flickered at the very top. The boy thought that the cat was a princess bewitched by an evil genie. And that when he grows up and becomes a strong brave batyr, he will defeat the genie, and the evil spell will subside.

In the palace of the Emir, on her luxurious bed, Princess Munira could not sleep. Very rarely, the wayward daughter of the Emir succeeded, disguised, for a short time to escape from the palace. She loved to wander around the city and dream. Sometimes, like today, she had to use her gift, which the princess kept secret. The gift to manage people. She thought about the nice boy who called her "my soul" and treated her with sweets for the last coins.

At the very top of the tower, the astrologer Agzam-aga thoughtfully studied the stars and stroked a large black cat lying on his lap.

Legends of Bukhara. patterns of fate

Glorious Bukhara. It is famous for the beauty of its palaces, mosques, minarets, madrasahs and caravanserais. And it is also famous for the skillful hands of the masters who created this beauty. This is what the teahouse owner said as he watched Khalifa's grandfather put new carved bars on the windows of the teahouse. A famous wood carver has prepared a gift for an old friend. And when he tried to pay, he replied:

Do you remember, in the famine year, you supported many families of the poor by giving away free cakes? It's our turn to repay the good.

Then today I will arrange a holiday. I will slaughter the best lamb and invite all the neighbors to pilaf. In the meantime, I'll feed the kids. My camel, - the teahouse owner turned to Khalifa, who came with her grandfather, - call your friends, today I will tell you a new fairy tale.

Khalifa ran down the narrow street holding her skullcap. She quickly found friends: Zafar and Ali played dice with the lanky Hassan, the son of a gunsmith, and Feruza, Ali's sister, asked to be allowed to quit once, assuring her that she had a light hand. Having learned about the treat and the promised fairy tale, the friends quickly jumped off and ran to the tea house, only the floors of the boys' dressing gowns were fluttering, and a lot of girls' pigtails bounced amusingly while running. They were in no hurry, and the teahouse owner was already preparing to welcome the guests: grapes flaunted on a large tray, slices of melon exuded aroma, slices of watermelon were red. On the second tray were sweets: halva, Turkish delight, candied nuts, golden honey in painted cups.

Having paid tribute to the treat, the children stared inquiringly at the teahouse owner in anticipation of the promised fairy tale. The old teahouse keeper stroked his gray beard, admired the new bars, and began his story:

The patterns that are born on a tree under the hands of skillful carvers are beautiful. None repeats the other, intertwining and wriggling like human destinies. Rarely, but masters are born who are able to create real patterns of fate. Whether it was or not, but the old people say it happened when our emir, may his name be glorified, replaced his deceased father. That spring, Bukhara hosted the most skilled wood carvers that the world knew. Such competitions brought out the best of the best. Carved pillars, doors, gratings at the end of the competition were supposed to decorate the city, and the work of the best craftsman - the emir's palace. The most famous was a carver from Kokand. He won, his lattices, striking with the subtlety of work and the novelty of patterns, worthy of decorating the Garden of Eden, were delivered to the palace. The young emir, may Allah prolong his days, decided to admire the wonderful gratings, which were still exposed in the far corner of the palace, alone. The fate of the city and the nearby lands, and his own, too, worried the young ruler. He looked at the delicate pattern of one of the bars and exclaimed: “If only I knew what patterns my destiny would weave!” And then the lattice lit up with heavenly light, the pattern began to take shape in a bizarre ligature of letters, a gentle voice was heard, like the song of a flute: “Oh, ruler, bold like a leopard and reckless, like a young tiger! You will reign long and just, your wives will be beautiful, and your children will bring only joy. But it will be if you survive tomorrow. The cunning chief vizier and the senior guard nuker are preparing a trap for you. When you enter your father's chamber, which should be yours, there will be a pit with poisonous snakes under the carpet. Disable the enemies today while they are not expecting an attack. Yes, let your punishing hand know no pity. They set out to interrupt your path, written in the Book of Fates. The emir listened to wise advice. He summoned loyal warriors and found a trap pit. On the same day, the rebels were executed. But the headless snake was still moving - detachments of supporters of the chief vizier appeared and were defeated by the emir's soldiers by the end of summer. And the emir, peace be upon him, ordered to hang a lattice with a pattern of fate in the hall where the most important decisions are made. They say that before speaking, our emir looks at this lattice, reading the patterns of his fate invisible to the rest.

The old teahouse keeper fell silent. He, along with the children, admired the marvelous work of grandfather Khalifa for a long time. The gratings bathed in sunlight seemed to be golden, the patterns on them against the blue cloudless sky really looked like the magic writing of the Book of Fates.

At the same time, in his palace, the Emir of Bukhara looked thoughtfully at the famous lattice. No one dared to disturb the lord at such moments. No, the ruler did not see the patterns of fate in front of him. As if in reality, a laughing face appeared before him, arched eyebrows; eyes the color of honey, sparkling with slyness; tender as a peach cheeks; lips as scarlet as poppies. Shahzoda, the daughter of a carver from Kokand, his first love. No one else loved the Emir so much, no one else loved him so much. For some reason, I remembered their date at the far end of the palace, away from prying eyes and ears. The emir then decided to tell the girl that he was taking her as his wife. Having become the ruler, he imagined that everything was in his will, and no one would dare to oppose his decisions. But he didn't have time to say. Footsteps were heard. The emir and Shahzoda hid in a niche behind bars and involuntarily overheard the conversation between the chief vizier and the senior nuker. The conspirators discussed tomorrow's murder of the young ruler and how wonderful everything will be when the chief vizier takes the place of the emir. When the wicked left, the emir intended to immediately rush after them and punish them, but his beloved stopped him: “Oh, the lord of my heart! You must not go alone, call the faithful warriors. And you should not confess to deeds unworthy of the emir - eavesdropping and meeting with the daughter of a simple carver, even the best of the best "

The emir smiled, remembering how together they came up with the patterns of fate. But the smile quickly faded from her lips. Then, after the disclosure of the conspiracy and the executions, time passed before he got out to his beloved, in the hope of never parting again. The emir was stunned by the news that, having received the due reward, the carver from Kokand, together with his daughter, left home with a passing caravan. The first thought was to follow, but a messenger arrived with news of the uprising of the rebels. Then things piled up, wives, children appeared ...

The emir looked at the lattice, the sun painted it with gold, the sky shone through with blue, and the bizarre pattern merged into a ligature. The ruler asked himself why he decided that he should not be with Shahzoda together, and felt that because of this decision he had lost one of the very important patterns of his fate. Did you lose? The next morning, the emir with a large retinue left for Kokand.

Legends of Bukhara. potter's daughter

The girls of the East are beautiful, their camp is flexible, like a vine, their eyes are velvety, like the night, their lips are tender, like rose petals. But the daughters of Bukhara are the best of all, for they are not only beautiful, but kind and merciful, like guiding stars that show the way to the wayfarer who has lost his way in the night.

Suraya is a star, so the potter and his wife named their first daughter. All the neighbors came running to admire the amazingly beautiful baby. Years passed. The wonderful girl turned into a girl, the beauty of which is second only to the daughter of the emir. Two more children were growing up in the family of the potter, the bumpkin Ali and the restless Feruz. Evil tongues claimed that Allah, having bestowed on the eldest daughter, exhausted all his favors. Even the parents only sighed, looking at the younger ones, unable to discern Ali's kind heart and Feruza's sharp mind - gifts no less generous than Suraya's beauty.

Every wish of Suraya was immediately fulfilled by her parents, all the neighbors admired her, the best suitors of Bukhara dreamed of winning the beauty's heart. The tender hands of the girl were not accustomed to hard work. Suraya's life would have flowed serenely, like a river on a plain, if not for her sister's tongue, sharp as a Damascus dagger.

And now Feruza, seeing how her sister wraps herself in a piece of silk in front of a mirror, mockingly said:

When another madman appears, intending to take you as his wife, fill your mouth with water.

What for? Suraya was so surprised that she even forgot about the mirror.

You will be silent, and he did not notice your stupidity! Feruza laughed.

Sister, with such beauty as our Suraya, it is not necessary to be smart, - Ali intervened.

His inept intercession angered the beauty so that she screamed:

So that Iblis takes you, rascals! - and launched a pillow at her brother and sister.

And do not hope, - Feruza laughed again, - the unclean one also prefers beauties.

Grabbing her brother by the hand, the girl ran out into the street. She taunted Ali:

Let's hurry to the tea house. Today Nadir-aga promised to tell a new fairy tale.

Suraya, in order to calm down, sat down on soft pillows made of swan's down, opened a carved wooden box and began sorting through her jewelry: beads, monista, rings. Time imperceptibly approached dinner. The girl flinched as her parents entered.

Suraya, the light of my soul, go to the teahouse, call Ali and Feruza, the potter asked.

The girl frowned, remembering the morning taunts. It did not escape the attentive loving eyes of the mother.

Daughter, on the way back you can go to the market and buy yourself new bracelets or earrings, - the mother handed the coins to her daughter.

Suraya got up reluctantly, tied the coins at the end of her belt and went to the tea house.

From a distance, she heard the sonorous children's laughter. Apparently, Nadir-aga was telling something funny. Seeing the girl come in, the old teahouse keeper answered the greeting and invited him to sit down, holding out a bowl with fragrant tea. Nadir-aga said:

Today, the marvelous peri herself visited the old man, delighting my gaze with wonderful beauty. In response, I will try to please her ears with a fairy tale.

The children made a joyful noise, they had already listened to the tale of the cunning shepherd and the stupid Kazi judge, and now they were ready to listen to another one. And the fairy tale began:

It happened when Bukhara was young. The wise padishah ruled the city. But he did not become famous for wisdom and wealth, but for the beauty of his only daughter. Gyurza - that was her name ...

But after all, a gyurza is ... - Ali began, but his sister poked him in the side, the teahouse owner, hiding a smile in his mustache, continued:

Proud impregnable Gyurza refused all who wooed her. But among the grooms there were both brave batyrs and pakhlevany heroes. No one could touch the cold heart. This upset the padishah, and even more upset the cruelty of his beloved daughter. One day a foreign sheikh came to the palace. But Gyurza also rejected him. Neither the rich gifts of the groom, nor his unprecedented beauty helped. The rejected bridegroom headed for the gate when the exhausted dervish entered. The guards let him through, for all those who met the dervishes should give them food and lodging for the night. Gyurza, seeing the ragged traveler, frowned and ordered to be driven away. Neither the requests of the dervish for shelter, nor the request of her father not to anger Allah did not soften her. "I didn't mistake you! exclaimed the foreign sheik. “Think, we will have a wonderful life together.” And again Gyurza rejected him. Then the stranger threw off his human form and became what he really was - Ifrit, a fiery genie. “You did not want to become my wife, so you should be my eternal servant!” Gyurza recoiled in fright, she watched in horror as her hands and body were covered with scales, then the girl was engulfed in flames, and she turned into a large poisonous snake. Ifrit picked up his servant and rushed away in a fiery whirlwind. Since then, people began to call poisonous snakes "gyurza".

The teahouse owner glanced at the hushed listeners:

What, scared, camels? Do not be afraid, Ifrit is powerless before a kind heart and a pure soul. And snakes are just snakes. You need to beware of them, but you should not be afraid.

It was only then that Suraya remembered why she had come to the teahouse:

Ali, Feruza, your father is calling you home.

They said goodbye to Nadir Agha. The children ran home, and Suraya went to the market, thinking about the fairy tale she had heard. Suddenly, two ragged dervishes blocked her path.

May Allah protect you, beauty, - one of them turned to the girl, - tell me, where to find the market?

Previously, Suraya treated the beggars with disgust, but now she not only led travelers to the market herself, but also gave all the coins so that they could buy food. Returning home, the girl began to worry about whether she treated the dervishes with sufficient respect. She carefully examined her hands. No, the scales did not appear. Suraya breathed a sigh of relief, but then the thought came to her: “But my father and mother were tired during the day, we need to help them.”

In contact with

Mikhail Seryakov

Bukhara is one of the few cities in world history that has always been and developed in the same place, in the 7th century the Arab Caliphate spread to this territory and the religion of Islam came from the Arabian Peninsula.

Bukhara was the capital of the Emirate of Bukhara - an ancient Asian state headed by a ruler or emir.

In this post, I would like to tell the story of the last Emir of Bukhara, while reviewing his summer residence.

Summer Palace of the Emir of Bukhara

Castle Sitorai Mohi Khosa was built in the late 19th - early 20th century and was the country residence of the ruler of the Bukhara emirate.

Front entrance to the Palace:

The palace is located very close to the city, at a distance of only four kilometers. It belonged to the last emir of Bukhara - Said Alim Khan whose story I would like to tell. Although officially Bukhara had the status of a vassal of the Russian Empire, the emir ruled the state as an absolute monarch.

The descendants of the "Emir's peacocks" are still walking on the territory of the palace:

The name of this palace can be translated as "the stars are like the moon" and it was built over two decades. It was built by the master Usta-Shirin Muradov, with whom the emir acted very "humanely" after graduation. So that the master would not repeat his creation on the side, they did not kill him, blind him, cut off his hands, but simply locked him up in the Palace. Now, for his merits, a monument to the Architect is erected on the territory of the complex:

Emir was looking for a place for his summer residence for a long time and could not make a choice. But then the smart vizier gave him advice that four carcasses of rams should be skinned and hung in four different directions of the world, and where the carcass stays fresh longer, the wind rose is better, which means there is a summer residence.

This is how the Emir's "cottage" arose on this vast territory, the territory of which is now "severely affected", part of the land was annexed by the Soviet government under the Sanatorium.

The emir decided to build a building in a semi-European - semi-Asian style:

Since Said Alim-Khan himself lived in St. Petersburg for three years while he was studying, he really liked the St. Petersburg lions, and he asked Bukhara sculptors to make him the same ones. The artisans of Bukhara have never seen lions live and have never seen St. Petersburg sculptures either, so the lions turned out to be a bit like dogs:

Palace ceiling:

"White Hall" - the highlight of the Said Palace:

The uniqueness of the hall is that a white drawing is applied on a mirror surface:

Portrait of the last emir of ancient Bukhara:

At first, it will probably be difficult to guess what kind of thing it is, and this is the great- or great-great-grandfather of the Russian Saratov refrigerators. This is a gift from Russia, it was supposed that ice would be placed on top and cold water would flow down through special tubes, cooling the contents of the “refrigerator”. No one just thought then about where to get ice in Bukhara:

The emir was very fond of dishes and vases, there were a huge number of them in his summer residence, floor vases, merchants brought them from Japan and China.

Said built a special house for the Emperor of the Russian Empire Nicholas II, who never visited Bukhara. If we deviate a little from the topic, then it’s completely incomprehensible to me how probably the most mediocre of the Russian tsars, who stupidly destroyed almost the entire Russian fleet in the Tsushima battle, was suddenly canonized as a Saint, the world is truly full of mysteries.

The last emir of Bukhara and the last autocrat of the Russian Empire are even somewhat similar, they both fell under the pressure of the new Bolshevik government. In 1918, Soviet Power had already been established in the city of Tashkent, the emir assumed that Bukhara would also fall and planned escape routes.

Said turned to Great Britain for help, but the British at first seemed to agree, but then they refused him emigration, and he began to seek asylum from other countries, and at the same time prepare a caravan of 100 beasts of burden.

General view of the emir's summer residence:

On these one hundred pack animals he loaded the best part of his treasures, because he could no longer take everything out. The emir had already agreed with Afghanistan at that time, the authorities of this country were supposed to provide him with asylum. He called his faithful colleague Colonel Taxobo Kalapush and entrusted him with the "leadership of the caravan."

The decoration of the house built for the Russian Emperor:

Said Alim-Khan planned to conduct business negotiations with Nicholas II and for this he built a special hexagonal room in the center of the house, around all the walls of which there were more rooms and it had no external walls, this was done so that no one from the street could eavesdrop on conversations leaders.

The British protege in the nearest Chinese city of Kashgar and the viceroy of India refused to accept the emir's valuable cargo, due to the unsettled situation in the region. Then the emir decided to bury his treasures in the steppes, and in pre-revolutionary times, at night, a hundred beasts of burden, led by Taxobo Kallapush, left Bukhara.

The main house of the emir, where his wives and concubines lived. The wives lived on the first floor of the house, and the concubines on the second:

Meanwhile, the caravan with the emir's treasures was moving towards the foothills of the Pamirs. On the way, the guards found out what they were transporting and wanted to kill Kallapush, and then take possession of the treasures of the Emir of Bukhara. A fight ensued in which Callapush and his companions were more successful and killed the rebellious guards.

The survivors hid the treasure in one of the many caves, and the entrance was blocked with stones. It is now believed that the emir's treasures are hidden on the territory of modern Turkmenistan, somewhere between the Uzbek Bukhara and the Turkmen city of Bairamali.

After four days of the campaign, the caravaners returned to Bukhara and stopped for the night, before a morning visit to the emir. But at night Kallapush killed all the guards and in the morning he came to the emir in splendid isolation.

He handed him a dagger on which was engraved the path to the treasure cave. The emir very joyfully greeted his devoted comrade-in-arms, but most of all he was interested in whether anyone survived from those who saw where the treasures were hidden.

To which Kallapush replied: “Only two people on Earth know this secret, you and me.” “Then it is not a secret,” the emir replied, and on the same night the palace executioner killed Kallapush. And two days later, the emir of Bukhara with a retinue of a hundred sabers set off and crossed the border of Afghanistan.

There was a pond near the house, where, when it was hot, the emir's wives and concubines bathed. Access to this part of the building was forbidden to absolutely all men, except for the emir himself. They bathed in special bathrobes, because according to the Islamic traditions of that time, a woman should not be FULLY naked in front of her husband:

Arbor in which the Emir of Bukhara rested. He could sit here in the cool shade, watching the bathing wives, sometimes calling the children to play with him:

Said Alim-Khan could not take his whole family to Afghanistan, his three sons remained on the territory of Uzbekistan and the Soviets took custody of them. The emir left only with a harem and young children.

Two of his sons entered a military school, one was assigned a general ahead of schedule, but only on the condition that they publicly disown their father through newspapers and radio. Otherwise, they were threatened with reprisals or execution.

One of the sons could not survive the renunciation and went mad. The second son died later under unclear circumstances, and soon the third heir also went missing.

The Emir, being in Afghanistan, even sent detachments to take away his treasures, but all these attempts were unsuccessful, the Red Army was stronger, the Afghan soldiers even slaughtered his native village and all the relatives of Kallapush, thinking that his relatives should know about something about the treasure.

Once the emir was a very rich and powerful man, with his money the most famous Cathedral Mosque of St. was to save on everything.

As a result, he became blind and died in absolute poverty in the Afghan capital of Kabul in 1944. Pride did not allow him to ask for money from the rich rulers of other Muslim countries.

A lot of representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran came to his funeral. They provided some assistance to the family of Said Alim Khan, whose descendants still live on the territory of modern Afghanistan.

And this is the same sanatorium of the USSR, built on the former possessions of the Emir of Bukhara:

Emir's gazebo next to the pond, from a slightly different angle:

No one fully knows how true this story is, because the treasures of the last emir of Bukhara have not been found to this day, or maybe all this is nothing more than fiction. It is always very difficult to talk about the reliability of historical events, usually any government always "corrects history for itself."

I left the palace of Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa in thought, now only peacocks silently see off visitors, and during the greatness of Bukhara, the emir had a huge menagerie...:

Goga Khidoyatov

Where did the gold of the Emir of Bukhara Alim Khan go?

Alim Khan

The story of the fate of the untold riches of the last Emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan (1880-1943), has recently become one of the most popular problems in historical works related to the history of the countries of Central Asia.

And not only in this regard. It binds into a single historical knot many others related to the history of the revolution, the activities of the Bolsheviks, and the fate of peoples. Some historians conjecture, others invent myths and legends, and there are those who compose detective stories based on it. One of the articles says: “They talk about her, they still remember her, and that is why there is great interest in her.” Of course, for the modern reader, it is interesting to read not serious historical works, but sensational discoveries like those detective novels that glorified Dumas Père. This is natural in an era of pop culture, where all that glitters is gold, where fiction is supposed to capture the imagination, not stimulate serious creative analysis.

Meanwhile, history already knows the secret of “innumerable treasures”, their fate and the address to which they sailed away. All the authors of the works of the emir's treasures use rumors, oral sources, while information about them and their fate has long been known in the press.

Unfortunately, in today's historical society, many amateurs and dilettantes have appeared who are trying to make a name for themselves on sensations, caring little about the reliability of their "discoveries".

Publicists and journalists also contributed to the legend about the secret of the emir's treasures, who launched more and more new details into the case of treasures that distorted historical truth.

The emir's gold was a product of his own production. Its prey has been cultivated since ancient times, according to some sources, from the time of Bactria (4th century BC). It allowed Bukhara to become one of the richest centers on the Great Silk Road. In the sixteenth century under the Sheibanids in Bukhara, they began to mint their own gold coins (ashrafi), which soon replaced the gold dinars of Arab production and became the main currency in market settlements. Bukhara merchants widely used them in trade relations with Russia. Gold in Bukhara was widely used for clothing production, various types of jewelry that were popular in Asia and Europe, gift weapons, inlays, household items, etc. In 1863-1864. in Bukhara, under the guise of a dervish, the famous Hungarian turkologist and traveler Arminus Vamberi lived for a whole year. In England, he launched a noisy newspaper company about the gold of Bukhara and explained to the English layman about the Zar-ofshan River, which in translation means the Golden Stream, and about gold miners who take out a pound of gold from the river every day. In this way, he fulfilled the order of the British ruling circles, who sought to launch an offensive campaign in England against Russia in Central Asia. Hurry up, he wrote, otherwise Russia will soon take possession of these riches. He published a book called The History of Bokhara (L.1872), in which he colorfully described how gold miners start work on both banks of the Zaravshan every morning, who lowered camel tails into the river, stirred up the sand and took them out with grains of gold.

On his initiative, in 1878, Bukhara was represented by a separate pavilion at the world exhibition in Vienna, where Bukhara gold items delighted visitors. The European public was surprised that in such a distant country there is so much gold and there are such skillful jewelers. The newspapers had to explain that a river called Zar-ofshon (Zerafshan), which meant “golden stream”, flows in the Emirate of Bukhara, and it carries huge amounts of gold. For Europe, this was an important discovery - Bukhara and gold became synonymous.

In Russia, they were also interested in Bukhara gold. For the first time, Peter I decided to carry out a campaign for this gold. He needed gold to end the war with Sweden. The treasury was empty, bells confiscated from churches were cast on cannons, there were no funds to support the army. He sent two expeditions to Khiva and Bukhara under the command of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky and Colonel Buchholz, who were supposed to establish, confirm or reject rumors of countless gold treasures in these countries. Both expeditions ended in failure and Peter abandoned his idea for a while, although he kept it in his future plans.

In the second half of the 19th century, Russia conquered Central Asia. The Russian empire expanded and took possession of a pearl no less important than India was for England. In 1878, after the defeat of the troops of the Emir of Bukhara, Russia established a protectorate over the Emirate of Bukhara. Russian companies went here in search of gold. In 1894, the Russian gold mining company of Zhuravko-Pokorsky began to work in Bukhara, and after it the English company of Rickmers began to develop gold mines. Both companies worked successfully, when mining gold, large nuggets often came across. Pointing to the successes in their work, the famous Russian traveler and politician D. Logofet wrote in 1911: “Gold is found in abundance in the mountains of the Bukhara Khanate.” (D. Logofet “The Khanate of Bukhara under the Russian protectorate” vol. 1, S.-Pbg 1911, p. 364).

Most of the population of the Bukhara emirate was engaged in gold mining. All mined gold, under pain of cruel punishment and a large fine, was handed over to the emir's treasury at special rates. For the right to mine gold, the gold digger had to pay a special tax to the Bukhara treasury. The gold handed over to the treasury was melted and then minted into royal chervonets, called Nikolaev. They were minted from the highest standard of gold and were highly valued on the world market. Large nuggets were stored separately in a special vault. Thanks to such a system of gold mining, the Bukhara emirs were the monopoly owners of all Bukhara gold and accumulated a huge supply of it. True, no one has ever determined its quantity. The emir carefully concealed the true reserves of his gold.

The October Revolution, which established the power of the Bolsheviks, made Emir Alim Khan think about the fate of his treasures. After all, they were not only in gold coins, but also in countless precious stones, expensive carpets, such rarities of historical value as a collection of Korans written by talented calligraphers-artists of the 15th-16th centuries, when Bukhara was considered the dome of Islam. He tried to slowly take them out to Afghanistan, but they were plundered along the way by gangs of wandering robbers. He had good reasons that the Bolsheviks of Tashkent would try to take possession of his treasures and, to this end, they would try to either destroy him or overthrow him with the help of the Jadidoa or the Young Bukharan Party, led by the son of a wealthy carpet merchant, Faizulla Khodzhaev. Soon his fears were confirmed.

By agreement with the Tashkent Soviet, the Young Bukharians scheduled an uprising for March 1, 1918. Red detachments were pulled up to the borders of the Bukhara Emirate. On March 3, an uprising of the Young Bukharians led by Faizulla Khodzhaev began in Bukhara, red detachments broke through to help him. First of all, Kagan was captured, where the administration of the Russian Novo-Bukhara Bank was located, in the warehouses of which the emir kept his gold. But the emir managed to repulse the attack of a detachment led by the chairman of the Tashkent Council, in fact the head of the Soviet government in Turkestan, F. Kolesov. He managed to capture only one wagon of gold. The Reds had to retreat and the Emir's troops drove them to Samarkand. The losses of the Bolsheviks were significant and there was no strength left for a new intervention. For a while, I had to come to terms with the emir. And take the Young Bukharians to Tashkent.

The Bolsheviks hid, preparing for a new intervention. The denouement was accelerated by the conclusion of the Brest Peace, signed on March 3, 1918 in Brest between representatives of Germany and Russia. It was called an obscene and shameful world, not only humiliating Russia, but also destroying its entire economy. In practice, Russia, and then the USSR, throughout its history experienced the consequences of this predatory treaty.

According to the agreement, a territory of 780 thousand square kilometers was torn away from Soviet Russia. with a population of 56 million people (a third of the population of the Russian Empire), on which before the revolution there were 27% of cultivated land, 26% of the entire railway network, 33% of the textile industry, 73% of iron and steel were smelted, 90% of coal was mined, 90% of sugar was produced ; on the same territory there were 918 textile factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco factories, 1685 distilleries, 244 chemical enterprises, 615 pulp mills, 1073 machine-building plants and 40% of industrial workers lived.

But the German side did not stop there either. While the German General Staff came to the conclusion that the defeat of the Second Reich was inevitable, Germany managed to impose on the Soviet government, in the context of the growing civil war and the beginning of the intervention of the Entente, additional agreements to the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty.

On August 27, 1918, in the strictest secrecy, a Russian-German financial agreement was concluded, which, on behalf of the government of the RSFSR, was signed by Plenipotentiary A. A. Ioffe. Under this agreement, Soviet Russia was obliged to pay Germany, as compensation for damages and expenses for the maintenance of Russian prisoners of war, a huge indemnity - 6 billion marks - in the form of "pure gold" and credit obligations. In September 1918, two "gold echelons" were sent to Germany, which contained 93.5 tons of "pure gold" worth over 120 million gold rubles. It didn't make it to the next shipment.

A few weeks remained before the surrender of Germany, and the Soviet government gives her a present. This gold then helped Germany pay off Entente reparations and rebuild its economy.

The problem has another side. Under the Brest Treaty, Russia was not recognized as a defeated country and was not obliged to pay reparations, and no force could force it to pay them. Moreover, a month later, in the Compiegne Forest in Paris, Germany signed an act of surrender, recognizing itself defeated and all the conditions of the Brest Treaty were cancelled. And the gold is gone...

The Soviet government was left with nothing and the “great leader's wisdom” led to the collapse of the Russian economy. There was no money in the treasury, the gold reserve was in Omsk with Kolchak, who used part of it to buy weapons and maintain his army and the Omsk government.

The peace of Brest-Litovsk caused a deep political crisis in the country. The country has split. The Bolshevik Party broke up into factions, the authority of V. Lenin fell to the lowest level. The people were completely unaware of the political situation in the country. The Brest peace was the main cause of the civil war in Russia. The White Guards turned into patriots who proclaimed patriotic slogans in defense of the Fatherland. It took twenty years to heal the wounds inflicted by the civil war. The counter-revolution received material and moral and political support from abroad, the Soviet government could only rely on its own resources, which were dwindling every day. Front commanders sent telegrams to Moscow with desperate appeals to send money to support the army. The policy of war communism, the red terror, the confiscation of products from the peasants caused mass unrest directed against the Bolsheviks. The economy degraded due to the inexperience of officials and theft of business executives. country literally pulled apart in parts.

History has never known such a cruel revolution. The break occurred nationwide, political, family, social, wall to wall went in families, villages, cities. A huge country rolled into the abyss of disaster for the sake of preserving in power of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Russia could have avoided this national disaster. Lenin could, with his authority, declare "The Fatherland is in danger" and the whole country would support him. His main argument was the collapse of the army. But it was the Bolsheviks who ruined the army with their propaganda and political slogans such as - the enemy in their own country. After all, they were able to create an army of 1.5 million people during the period of intervention and civil war, which won. There were also weapons, ammunition, uniforms. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was Lenin's payment to German imperialism for assisting in the transfer from Geneva to Petrograd in February 1917.

It is impossible to find another explanation for his activity in signing this terribly illiterate treaty on the Russian side. Dying Germany turned Russia into its tributary.

The Bolsheviks started looking for money. The question became - where is the gold reserve of the Russian Empire? Old officials of the Ministry of Finance said that the entire gold reserve of the empire, which had been stored until then in Moscow, Tambov and Samara, previously brought here from Petrograd, was taken to Kazan in May 1918.

In August 1918, Kazan was captured by General V. O. Capell (1883-1920) and all the gold reserves in one echelon were taken to Omsk to Kolchak. An inventory of the gold reserves, carried out by order of Kolchak, estimated its total value at 631 million gold rubles.

On November 27, 1919, the garrison of Nizhneudinsk, led by a Bolshevik, revolted. Kolchak's guards were disarmed, and he himself was arrested. He was released by representatives of the Czechoslovak corps, which was leaving Russia under an agreement with the Soviet government. Having learned from Kolchak about the gold stored in the train stationed on the siding, they took it under their guard, intending to take it out. Their path was blocked by the leaders of the local revolutionary committee, who blocked all roads, bridges, closed the semaphores, declaring that the Czechoslovak corps would not be released until the gold reserves and Kolchak were handed over. In the small town of Kuytun, negotiations between the local authorities and the command of the Czechoslovak corps were going on for several months. The agreement was signed only on February 7, 1920. According to the Kuitun Treaty, the Czechoslovak command pledged to transfer safe and sound the echelon with Russian gold to the Soviet authorities of Irkutsk. The gold transfer act took place on March 1, 1920 in Irkutsk. Representatives of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee wrote down in the act of accepting 18 wagons of gold, containing 5143 boxes and 168 bags of gold and other valuables with a nominal price of 409,625,870 rubles. On May 3, 1920, all this stock of valuables was delivered to Kazan and placed in the storerooms of the bank. In practice, this was the salvation of the Soviet government from financial bankruptcy.

The search for gold continued. Lenin was prompted about the emir's gold old tsarist officials of the Ministry of Finance. The Bolsheviks decided to take him, although the emir remained neutral and did not give rise to hostile actions. A well-known Soviet military leader was sent to the Turkestan front, who lived most of his life in Central Asia and knew the local languages ​​​​and the mentality of the local peoples. He made contact with a party of Young Bukharians and used them in his operation. According to his plan, the Young Bukharians were to oppose the emir, declare a "revolution" and, if the emir did not abdicate, turn to the Soviet authorities in Tashkent for help. All the details were thought out in a personal conversation between M. Frunze and Faizulla Khodzhaev.

Preparations for the operation began in early August. Frunze had 10,000 troops, 40 guns, 230 machine guns, 5 armored trains, 10 armored vehicles and 11 aircraft at his disposal. The emir's army, resembling an unorganized crowd, numbered 27 thousand people, but it had only 2 machine guns and several old guns.

The entire Bolshevik army was already concentrated on August 12, 1920 at the starting positions. Four groups of troops were created - Chardzhui, Kagan, Katta-Kurgan and Samarkand. The whole operation went according to plan. On August 23, as agreed, the "Bolsheviks of Bukhara" revolted and demanded that Emir Alim Khan renounce power. The emir rejected this demand and began to prepare for war. In connection with the refusal of the emir to fulfill the demand of the rebels, the leadership of the Young Bukharians on August 29 turned to Frunze with a request to provide assistance in the fight against the emir. The Soviet command immediately granted this request and on the same day began military operations against Bukhara, which were called the “Bukhara operation”. As expected, the operation was short-lived, the Red Army met no resistance and broke into Bukhara on September 1. But neither the emir nor his gold was found in the city.

Rumors circulated in the city that the emir fled from Gijduvan on August 31 and took away so much wealth that it would be enough to build a second Bukhara. They also found one of the guards of the emir's treasury, who said that they loaded a large amount of gold in ingots, jewelry, diamonds of unprecedented size, gold belts with precious stones, corals, pearls, rare and beautifully designed religious books, which were so rich in Bukhara is the dome of Islam. (see War in the Sands. Edited by M. Gorky M. 1935, p. 313).

The emir could not go far with such luggage and Frunze ordered the pilots to find the fugitive. Soon one of the pilots discovered on the way to Karshi one of the emir's convoys of 40 arbs, loaded to the brim with bags and boxes, and 20 loaded camels. The convoy was accompanied by a cavalry detachment of 1000 people (ibid. p. 307).

According to the Bolshevik command, this could only be one of the convoys. Soon, the Red Army men managed to capture three carts with gold, and the drivers confirmed that they were carrying the emir's gold, but they did not know where to deliver it, they were only given a route without determining the final destination (ibid., p. 313). The wagon train was supposed to follow camel trails away from the main roads.

It became clear to M. Frunze that the emir had decided to go through the mountain passes to Afghanistan, hiding the main part of his treasury in some safe place.

He could do it in Karshi, Shakhrizyabs or Guzar. Frunze threw his best parts in pursuit of the emir. He was especially interested in Shakhrizyabs, where influential relatives of the emir lived, to whom he could entrust his cash. He wasn't wrong. The Emir stopped for a day in Shakhrizyabs and, according to the information of local residents, left in the direction of Guzar. It was not difficult to establish the addresses of the possible storage of the emir's treasury, and soon the staff of the Cheka found his treasures.

On September 6, 1920, Frunze reported to V. Kuibyshev, head of the Political Directorate of the Turkestan Front (1888-1935): “A huge amount of gold and other valuables was taken from Shakhrizyabs. All this is packed into chests, sealed and, by agreement with the Revolutionary Committee, will be transported to the Samarkand bank.” (M. V. Frunze Selected Works. Vol. 1, Moscow, 1957, p. 343).

Apparently in Shakhrizyabs the main part of the emir's treasures was found. The rest was plundered by the Basmachi kurbashi of the detachments commanded by Ibrahim bey, appointed by the emir as commander-in-chief of the troops of Bukhara.

Some of them ended up in the Baysun mountains, where they were stored in hard-to-reach natural storages. There were mainly carpets, copies of the Koran created by talented calligraphers of Baghdad and Cairo in the 15th-17th centuries, household utensils made of gold and silver, Chinese porcelain and much more. What happened to them is known only to Allah.

Before 1927 they were under the protection of cavalry detachments of kurbashi Ibrahim bey. They came here from time to time and checked the safety of valuables. The priests spread rumors that the spirits of the dead Bukhara emirs live in these caves, turned into poisonous snakes that protect the property of Alim Khan and anyone who touches them will also turn into a mountain snake. And will live in this state forever.

This was told to the author of these lines in 1958 by one of the participants in the Basmachi movement. He also told how from time to time, at the request of the emir, who lived in Kabul and was engaged in the trade in astrakhan fur, some of the valuables were confiscated and sent to unknown addresses.

Copies of the Koran were distributed to Samarkand priests, and some fell into the hands of local residents. They were kept as sacred. These rumors later became legends and provided a historical basis for writers who wrote historical novels. True, enriched with their own inventions.

The emir's gold was transported to Samarkand, and from there by rail to Tashkent. From Tashkent through Orenburg, where by this time the “Dutov traffic jam” had been eliminated, it went to Moscow. At this price, the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic was created.

This is how all “democratic revolutions” were carried out on the national outskirts of the tsarist empire.

How similar they are to the modern “democratic revolutions” of the so-called. "Arab Spring", organized by modern neo-colonialists.

The experience of the Bolsheviks turned out to be in demand in modern conditions.

12 news. uz