To Qizil Su and Beyond (1869–1876)

I n the autumn of the same year as their arrival on Ashuradeh, in 1840, the Russians had secured the submission of the Uzbek khan of Khiva and two years later they were eyeing an expedition to the Afghan city of Kabul in order to assist the ruler of that territory in beating back the rumored advance of a British force from India. The British attack did not materialize, however, and the khan soon jilted the Russians. Undeterred, year after year, the Russians worked to inch their way to the Aral Sea. In 1844, they surveyed the Aral and in 1847 they occupied the mouth of the Sir Darya River. 1 As a part of this drive, in 1846, they established Fort Alexandrovski, later renamed Fort Shevchenko, on the tip of a prominent peninsula on the northeastern shore of the Caspian in a straight line from Astrakhan and the mouth of the Volga. Later, the Russians established a settlement to the south, and it, too, eventually bore the name Shevchenko, presently called Aktau. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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