Russia’s conquest of Central Asia had been…

Russia’s conquest of Central Asia had been prompted by almost purely military concerns, but Turkestan has come to play a reasonably important economic role within the Russian Empire in the 1870s and 1880s.

Cotton had shot up in price in the 1860s because of the American Civil War,  becoming an increasingly important commodity in the region, although its cultivation is on a much lesser scale than it will be during the Soviet period.

The cotton trade has led to improvements: the Transcaspian Railway from Krasnovodsk to ..