Semirechie

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Semirechie (Семиречье, also written Semiryechye, Semirech'e, Semirechiye, Semirechye) is a historical name of a part of Russian Turkestan, which corresponds to the South-Eastern part of modern Kazakhstan, known as Zhetysu (Jetysu, Jity-su, Жетысу, Джетысу). It owes its name (Jity-su, Semirechie, i.e. Seven Rivers ) to the rivers which flow from the south-east into Lake Balkhash.

[edit] Semirechie Oblast of Imperial Russia

Semirechie Oblast (Semiryechensk Oblast), before 1917 a province of Russian Turkestan in Imperial Russia, including the steppes south of Lake Balkhash and parts of the Tian-shan Mountains around Lake Issyk-kul. It has an area of 147,300 m²., and is bounded by the province of Semipalatinsk on the N., by China (Dzungaria, Kulja, Aksu and Kashgar on the E. and S., and by the former Russian provinces of Ferghana, Syr-darya, and Akmolinsk on the W. The Dzungarian Alatau Mountains, which separate it from Kulja, extend south-west towards the river Ili, with an average height of 9,000 ft. above the sea, several isolated snow-clad peaks reaching 11,000 to 14,000 ft. In the south Semirechie embraces the intricate systems of the Ala-tau and the Tian-shan. Two ranges of the former, the Trans-Ili Ala-tau and the Terskey Ala-tau, stretch along the north shore of Lake Issyk-kul, both ranging from 10,000 to 15,000 ft. and both partially snow-clad. South of the lake two ranges of the Tian-shan, separated by the valley of the Naryn, stretch in the same direction, lifting up their icy peaks to i6,000 arid, 8,000 ft.; while westwards from the lake the precipitous slopes of the Alexander chain, 9000 to 10,000 ft. high, with peaks rising 3,000 to 4,000 ft. higher, extend into the former province of Syr-darya (containing the southern Kazakh cities of Chimkent, Auliye-ata and Turkestan). Another mountain-complex of much lower elevation runs north-westwards from the Trans-Ili Ala-tau towards the southern extremity of Lake Balkash. In the north, where the province borders Semipalatinsk, it includes the western parts of the Tarbagatai range, the summits of which (10,000 ft) do not reach the limit of perpetual snow. The remainder of the province consists of a fertile steppe in the north-east (Sergiopol), and vast uninhabitable sand-steppes on the south of Lake Balkash. Southwards from the last-named, however, at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance to the valleys, there are rich areas of fertile land, which in the early 20th century were being rapidly colonized by Russian immigrants, who also penetrated into the Tian-shan, to the east of Lake Issyk-kul.

Climate: The climate is thoroughly continental. In the Balkash steppes the winter is very cold; the lake freezes every year, and the thermometer falls to 13 F. In the Ala-kul steppes the winds blow away the snow. The passage from winter to spring is very abrupt, and the prairies are rapidly clothed with vegetation, which, however, is soon scorched up by the sun. The average temperatures are: at Vyernyi (2405 ft. high), for the year 46.4 F., for January 17, for July 74; at Przhevalsk (5450 ft), for the year 36.5, for January 23, for July 63; still higher in the mountains, at Naryn (6900 ft) the average temperatures are only, for the year 437, for January 1.4, for July 64.4.

Rivers: The most important river is the Ili, which enters the province from Kulja and drains it for 250 m. before it enters Lake Balkash. The Chu rises in the Tian-shan Mountains and flows north-westwards through Akmolinsk; and the Naryn flows south-westwards along a longitudinal valley of the Tian-shan, and enters Ferghana to join the Syr-darya. Lake Balkash, or Denghiz, Lake Ala-kul (which was connected with Balkash in the post-Pliocene period, but now stands some hundred feet higher, and is connected by a chain of smaller lakes with Sissyk-kul), Lake Issyk-kul and the alpine lakes of Son-kul and Chatyr-kul are the principal sheets of water.

Population: The population was estimated in 1906 as 1,080,700. Kirghiz formed 76% of the population (n.b. by this is meant the people known today as Kazakhs: before 1917 the Russians referred to the Kazakhs - Казахи - as Kirghiz to avoid confusion with their own Cossacks - Казаки - as both words come from the same Turkic root, meaning a 'free horseman'. The modern-day Kirghiz were called the 'Kara-Kirghiz' or 'Black Kirghiz) , Taranchis 5.7 %, Russians 14 % and Dzungans most of the remainder.

Administration & History: Most of Semirechie was conquered by the Russian Empire from Kokand and the Kazakh Great Horde before the outbreak of the Crimean War, which delayed the advance south. The two major Russian fortresses and garrisons in the region, Verny and Pishpek, were founded in 1854 on the sites of former Kokandian fortresses on the Steppe frontier. From 1867-1884 this province was made a part of Russian Turkestan, and from then until 1899 it was incorporated in the Governor-Generalship of the Steppes before reverting back to Russian Turkestan that year. The province was divided into six districts, the chief towns of which were Vyernyi (the capital), Jarkent, Kopal, Pishpek, Przhevalsk and Sergiopol. Before the Revolution the chief occupation of the Russians, the Taranchis and the Dzungans, and partly also of the Kirghiz, was agriculture. The most important crops were wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice and potatoes. A variety of oil-bearing plants and green fodder, as also cotton, hemp, flax and poppies, were grown. Live-stock breeding was very extensively carried on by the Kirghiz (Kazakhs), namely, horses, cattle, sheep, camels, goats and pigs. Orchards and fruit gardens were well developed; and the Russian Imperial crown maintained two model gardens. Bee-keeping was widely spread. The factories consisted of flour-mills, distilleries, tanneries and tobacco works; but a great many domestic trades, including carpet-weaving and the making of felt goods, saddlery and iron goods, were carried on, among both the settled inhabitants and the nomad Kirghiz. There was also trade with China, valued at less than half a million sterling annually in 1911. From 1905, after the Russian-Japanese war, and the construction of the Trans-Aral Railway the settlement of Russian people in the area increased greatly under the guidance of the new Migration Department in St. Petersburg (Переселенческое Управление). The province was administered by Vasile Balabanov under General Alexander Dutov until the Bolshevik take-over in 1921, when both Dutov and Balabanov escaped to China.

After the Central Asian Revolt of 1916 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government's authority in the region collapsed. Approximately 2,500 Russian settlers are thought to have been killed by the Kazakhs in the violence that followed in Semirechie, and this was followed by equally bloody reprisals against the nomadic population, led by the (all-Russian) workers' & soldiers' Soviets in Tashkent and Verny. Bolshevik control was reimposed in 1918-21 in a series of campaigns led by Mikhail Frunze, after whom the town of Pishpek in Semirechie was renamed. In 1924 Semirechie was incorporated in the southern portion of the new Kazakh ASSR with the Russian Soviet Republic, and in 1931 this was made a full Soviet Republic and nominally independent of Russia. In 1938 the Kirghiz ASSR, which incorporated the southern portion of Semirechie, also became a Soviet Republic.