Central Asia as a field of Russian interests

After the collapse of the USSR the interest in national history got an additional boost. Some new and quite unexpectable excogitations of the empire and the Soviet past have appeared. Previous time dogmata appeared to be inverted, but the new interpretations are exceedingly emotional. Over time, it is possible to look more rationally and impartially at events that occurred more than 150 years ago. In this article there are the points made on the history and circumstances of integrating Turkestan region into the Russian Empire. Mainly pre-revolutionary resources make the basis of this article. They are reports, collections of official lectures, notes, dispatches and other archival materials. From the conceptual point of view, the works of modern and Soviet authors became the important part of this article. The excursion into the history of Moscow and later Russian state establishment is made. Territorial expansion is interpreted as a kind of objective and predictable step on the way of the state forming. It became a thorough feature of Imperial period in world history. The creation, deliberation and establishment of territorial boundaries have been intensified in modern history. The reasons of Russian expansion into Central Asia are shown. There were sparsely populated territories, disunity of Turanian Khanates ("lack of discipline", not following the arrangements, and, as a result, the assaults of nomadic tribes on boundary areas and coffles), commercial and economic interests, geopolitical factors among those reasons. Russia's territorial expansion into Central Asia begins with the fact that it competes among the three largest empires Russian, British, and Ottoman. There is a kind of involuntariness, the need to conquer and Russian colonization. The relevance of using the terms "conquest" and "annexation" at the same time as a more complicated feature bringing "elements of force" and "goodwill" together explained. Talking about the character of Russian expansion, we note that it was more often "without the plan prepared by the government" rather than maintained intentionally. The main part of the article contains a small excursion into the history of the region, which was either an oasis and the center of civilization, or a center of disunity and devastation of the region; chronology of Russia's entry into Turkestan and its nationalization. It was shown that one of the main aims in Turkestan was providing "strong possession of the region". Among the ways were to build good-neighbourly relations and mutual understanding between the Russian and local population. The conclusion about the geopolitical logic of the territorial expansion is made. We believe that nationalization of Turkestan by Russia prevented its nationalization by the British Empire. The reality of saving their independence by Turanian Khanates was speculative. We hope this resource pack will let us specify or even improve our perception of the past.