Region of Republican Subordination

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Region of Republican Subordination (Tajik: Ноҳияҳои тобеи Ҷумҳурии), or Karotegin is a province in Tajikistan. Karotegin is the historic name of the Rasht Valley and a historic political region in pre-Soviet Central Asia that is today part of Tajikistan. The Karotegin region was also named Garm, though Garm is also the name of a city and the Garmi ethnic group. The Karotegin frequently appears in its alternative spellings Karategin and Karateghin in literature from the 1990s and earlier.

[edit] History

Karotegin was an independent region in Central Asia for many centuries. The native princes, who claimed to be descended from Alexander the Great, were till 1868 independent, though their allegiance was claimed in an ineffective way by Kokand. The Emirate of Bukhara took advantage of internal political feuds and conquered the region, along with Darvaz, in 1877. [1]

The Karategin consisted of a highland district bounded on the north by Samarkand and Khokand, on the east by Ferghana, on the south by Darvaz, and on the west by Hissar and other Bokharian provinces. Traditionally rough woolen cloth and mohair were woven by the natives, who also made excellent firearms and other weapons. Gold was mined in various places and there were salt-pits in the mountains. The chief town, Garm, situated on a hill on the right bank of the Vakhsh River, was a place of some 2,000 inhabitants, as of 1911. The population was about 60,000 (1911); five-sixths Tajik, the rest Kyrgyz, who reside in what is today the Jirgital district of Tajikistan. Historically it was difficult for the people of the Karotegin to communicate with neighboring lands except during the summer, from May to September. [1]

[edit] Districts

  • Varzob district
  • Darband district
  • Gharm district
  • Kofarnihon district
  • Regar district
  • Roghun district
  • Rudaki district
  • Tavildara district
  • Tojikobod district
  • Faizobod district
  • Hisor district
  • Jirgatol district
  • Shahrinaw district

[edit] Geography

The plateau is traversed by the Vakhsh River, a right-hand tributary of the Amu Darya. On the northern border run the Gissar and Zeravshan Mountains mountains, and on the southern border the Darvaz range (24,900 ft). The area is 8,000 m². The winter climate is extremely severe; snow begins to fall in October and it is May before it disappears. During the warmer months, however, the mountainsides are richly clothed with the foliage of maple, mountain ash, apple, pear and walnut trees; the orchards furnish, not only apples and pears, but peaches, cherries, mulberries and apricots. Both cattle and horses are of a small and hardy breed. [1]

  1. ^ a b c Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition