Prostitution, Alcoholism,

Transcription

1 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 97 Prostitution, Alcoholism, and Drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana Yulia Uryadova Abstract. This article examines the rise of prostitution and the spread of alcoholism and drug use in the heartland of Central Asia, the Ferghana Valley, from 1905 to Authorities fears of possible revolt by the Muslim population intensified as social problems manifested in the early twentieth century. These issues were not just threats to social stability. Because Muslims considered these activities to be the alien importations of a corrupt Russian culture and empire, the appearance of social problems contributed to political problems. While Russian authorities presented revolt as the outcome of fanaticism, Muslim resistance to Russian autocracy was articulated in resistance to drugs, alcoholism, and prostitution in the late imperial era. Thus, in the already restive Ferghana Valley, social issues that indicated rising tensions also worked as a point to articulate Muslim discontent, discredited the moral authority of the Russian Empire, and brought into question the ability of Russian authorities to bring order in the area. Introduction In 1898, the Muslim population of Andijan revolted against the Russians living in the Ferghana Valley, a fertile valley along the parched path of the Great Silk Road in the heartland of present day Uzbekistan. The revolt, described by a post-soviet scholar Salavat Iskhakov as the most dramatic form of Muslim unrest against Russian rule, occurred on 18 May when an angry crowd, under the leadership of the Shaykh of the Naqshbandi Sufi order Muhammad- Ali (Madali) b. Muhammad-Sabir (1853?-98) nicknamed Dukchi-Ishan attacked the Russian garrison in the city of Andijan. 1 At his subsequent trial, Dukchi-Ishan declared that alcoholism and prostitution, which had been imported from Russia, had ruined the Muslim youth of the Ferghana Valley, inspiring the revolt. Under interrogation, he said There came a severe deterioration of morals and deviation from the requirements Yulia Uryadova is an assistant professor in the Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy, Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia SHAD (2016):

2 98 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) of the Sharia. There is drunkenness, debauchery, and the weakening of the family unit. 2 Dukchi-Ishan pointed to such vice as undermining local society and he blamed the Russians. While the Russian authorities were similarly concerned, they did not assume responsibility and instead tended to blame local culture. Russian authorities may have recognized economic and social reasons behind this anti-russian revolt of 1898, but explained the revolt to the Russian population as a result of Muslim fanaticism and the backwardness of the Central Asian Ferghana population. 3 V. P. Sal kov, writing several years later, described the impetus for the revolt as the low level of intellectual developments of madmen, who decided to threaten our large empire with sticks, sickles, and bats... the Andijan [revolt] proved once again that the uneducated folk and the dark masses of people, [who are] easily affected by outside influences, are a constant threat to the existing order. 4 While both Muslim and Russian figures acknowledged increasing social problems in the region following the revolt, their understanding of the origins of these problems, and their responses differed markedly. During the late imperial period, the Fergana Valley was brewing with bitter antipathy to Russian rule. The issues that existed in the area after the 1876 conquest, such as the rise in alcoholism and prostitution, the influx of Russian settlers, and lack of basic services, had never been resolved and became symptoms of grander political and economic problems. As this article argues, these social problems contributed to the growing political tensions in the period, becoming part of anti-government campaigns, which undermined, weakened, and immobilized authorities and endangered Russia s already precarious position in the region. 5 As migration and the railway led to economic development, the tsarist regime s hold on the region began to crumble, causing greater tensions. Revolutionary unrest continued to ferment in the Ferghana Valley for the next two decades. The year 1905 was pivotal in Russian history because of the emergence of a constitutional movement, mass politics, and numerous political parties throughout the empire, including in the Ferghana Valley. At the same time, Ferghana stands apart from the Russian Empire as it was not only affected by Russia s revolution, but also those in nearby Qajar Persia in 1906, the Ottoman Empire in 1908, and China in While Russia had distinct imperial concerns, all of the major empires in the area were struggling to modernize and confronting new political pressures. An influx of migrants from Ottoman Anatolia, Qajar Persia, the Caucasus, and central Russia led to rapid urbanization, overcrowding, and social disruption, which in turn led to a rise in alcohol consumption, prostitution, and criminal activities. Crime reports in the press often pointed at the ethnicity of the perpetrators, most of whom were identified as Persian or Caucasian. While the arrival of political exiles and migrants fleeing from revolutionary violence provided a convenient scapegoat for colonial authorities,

3 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 99 the rapid social and economic changes in the Ferghana Valley had inculcated revolutionary sympathy among the local population. The concerns expressed by Muslim activists over alcoholism and prostitution were not baseless. After the Russian conquest, alcohol consumption among the local Central Asian population in the Ferghana Valley increased sharply. Most brothel owners and pub keepers were identified as from Persia or Caucasus. Anxiety over regional problems and moral decline preoccupied Islamic modernists and intellectuals at the turn of the century. Likewise, perceptions of religious fanaticism among local Muslim populations, as well as Pan-Islamic propaganda coming from other Muslim countries fueled imperial anxieties of outsiders as fomenters of revolts. Fears of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism emerged in 1898 in Turkestan, after the above-mentioned anti-russian revolt in the Ferghana Valley led by a Naqshbandi Shaykih, Dukchi-Ishan, and were reinforced during the Russian revolution of 1905 when the Muslims of the Russian Empire became more politically active. Agents and citizen reports reflected the level of official paranoia. There are no major contributions from either Russian or English language historians on the subject of unrest in the Ferghana Valley during the revolutionary period of Particularly glaring is the lack of information on the radical and social unrest from 1905 to Despite the numerous bandits, revolutionaries, and radicals, in the face of economic dislocation, hyper urbanization, and unlawful land seizure by Russian peasants, this restive area has been dismissed as a region where not much in terms of revolutionary activities was going on. Jeff Sahadeo, in his research of the colonial society in Tashkent between 1865 and 1923, argues that the revolution of 1905 in Turkestan was mostly organized by Russian railway workers who were exclusive when it came to their demands, and who refused to associate themselves with either poor Russian settlers or Central Asians. 6 When discussing the Revolution of 1905, Adeeb Khalid emphasizes the emergence of a free unofficial press in Turkestan and the way in which Jadid reformers took advantage of their political freedom, but he argues that the Revolution of 1905 did not affect the local population. He points out that local schools were immune from the political activity that seized all other educational establishments of the empire and that the revolution produced a honeymoon between officialdom and traditional maktabs and madrasas. 7 Most Central Asian scholars overlook the relevance of revolutionary violence in the region. Ferghana Valley scholars tend to discuss the revolts of the nineteenth century and then quickly move on to the revolt of 1916, dismissing altogether the period of violence between and on into In a recent work on the Ferghana Valley, for example, which consists of a compilation of articles from Central Asian scholars, the article that addresses forms of resistance neglects to mention

4 100 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) anything at all that occurred between the revolts of the late nineteenth century and My research reveals that the Ferghana Valley was neither impassive nor serene during the years of Instead, it details a region where economic, cultural, and social dislocation bred violence, discontent, and disorder. Situated between the Ottoman, Russian, and Persian empires, Ferghana witnessed revolution, political upheaval and dramatic social transformation. Economic and Social Context From its incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1876, the Ferghana Valley was important to Russia strategically, politically, and economically. Its geographic location and proximity to neighboring countries and regions made it ideal for participation in the Great Game, an ongoing rivalry for trade, influence, and land in the Near East. 9 Rivaling Great Britain, Russia wanted access to this strategically valuable point situated along an important trade route to India. 10 Influenced by the spread of the British Empire in India, the Russians planned to develop similar economic, military, and cultural strongholds in the area. The rivalry with Britain was particularly evident in the officials concern over cotton production in the Ferghana Valley. Economic factors were of great importance as they were a baseline for social and cultural changes in the Ferghana Valley. Investment in the infrastructure of the Ferghana Valley, such as the cotton and oil industries, led to an increased imperial presence, which, in turn, necessitated the railroads. The Russians built the railroads in order to maximize control. As railroads moved into the area, Russian authorities became even further invested in the Ferghana Valley, and their anxiety for ruling power, evident in their eager and almost frantic investment, indicated a fear of losing Turkestan. 11 In addition to increasing the economic investment of Russians in the region, the railroads came to be a source of social and cultural anxiety. The influx of Turkic and Persian people, as well as migrants from central Russia, the Caucasus, and other places, led to rapid urbanization, overcrowding, and social chaos, which brought a rise in alcohol consumption, prostitution, and other problems. Russian authorities worried that the perceived corruption of the Ferghana population by prostitution and alcohol, which were widely considered problems of foreign origin, would cause resentment among conservative Muslims against Russian rule. The Ferghana Valley was a hotbed of social discontent, especially after Outsiders who came to the Ferghana Valley in the early twentieth century contributed to making the valley an area of anxieties. The migration of Persian immigrants looking for work in the Ferghana Valley unsettled imperial authorities. Railroad workers came and organized revolutionary radical groups. Political exiles were forced to the Ferghana region. Outsiders from the Caucasus followed opportunity and came to

5 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 101 start their businesses or joined forces with the local population to organize criminal bands and terrorize the Ferghana population. Russian officials believed that the most troublesome element in the region are Georgians, Armenians, and other natives of the Caucasus, who came in large numbers in all cracks and are doing whatever they want. 12 Russian officials were concerned that increased robberies, prostitution and all sorts of mayhem were a result of all of these outsiders coming in. Russian officials were equally as concerned that the Muslims knew and heard about anti-russian riots elsewhere; officials believed that the Muslims were confident in their power against a weakened Russian government that could be overthrown and discarded. 13 The anxieties of Russian authorities and the concerns of Muslim activists about alcoholism, drugs, and prostitution were not baseless. Officials feared that a proliferation of drugs, alcoholism and prostitution would provoke unrest among the majority Muslim population and produce political and social instability. Russian authorities were concerned for the issue as symptom of political disorder rather than for public health or national pride. Whereas in Tashkent, the imperial capital of Russian Turkestan, the fear of prostitution revolved around the idea that it might be damaging to an image of European moral superiority, 14 in Ferghana it was Muslim revolt against Russian rule that excited comment. In the Ferghana Valley fear over prostitution was mostly expressed as fear of Muslim fanatics who might rise up against Russian rule. Drugs Among the anxieties and fears of Russian officials that played out in the press, as well as in various official and doctors reports, was the consumption of drugs by both Muslim and non-muslim populations of Russian Turkestan. The populations of Turkestan consumed various types of drugs, both native and those smuggled from other countries. The chief among them, opium, was not produced in Ferghana but was smuggled from India through Kabul and from China through Kashgar. 15 Among the drugs consumed by the Ferghana population were kuknar, an infusion of dried poppy husk heads, and teriak (hashish) as well as nasha, a drug produced from hemp. 16 A Russian doctor resident in the Ferghana Valley, V. I. Kushelevskii, reported that opium was less popular in Ferghana than kuknar, which was also prepared from poppy heads and made into a drink and had a stupefying effect. 17 Kushelevskii reasoned that since the Qur an forbade Muslims to drink alcohol, they found other means of intoxication such as nasha and other drugs. 18 One of the articles in the pro-octobrists newspaper published in St. Petersburg concerning drug addiction in Turkestan remarked that if the consumption of alcoholic beverages by the Russian population can be called propoistvo (excessive and continuous drunken-

6 102 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) ness), then hashish smoking by the Muslims should be called pianstvo (drunkenness). 19 Although the press covered fewer stories about drug consumption among the local population than it did about alcohol consumption, drugs were of no less concern to Russian authorities and intellectuals in the region who shared the view that drugs contributed to moral collapse, crazy drunkenness, and debauchery of some indigenous elements. 20 Russian doctors and researchers were among those who constantly raised the issue of hashish and opium smoking in Turkestan. I. S. Levitov, a prominent drug researcher/scholar in Russian Turkestan found it astounding that Russian Turkestan was in the lead among those countries that enjoyed smoking hashish. According to Levitov, hashish smoking was more prevalent in Turkestan than in any other place in the world, including India and China: Never have I met so many hashish smokers, Levitov wrote, as I met here in Turkestan, despite our laws prohibiting the use of any drugs. 21 Furthermore, the number of women and children consuming drugs, either smoking or eating hashish, was shocking to Levitov. 22 According to one of the custom inspectors of the Ferghana region, N. E. Feodorov, the city of Kokand alone housed around 150 hashish smoking houses, all of which were secret. In the Ferghana Valley in general there existed no fewer than five hundred such secret places where people would get together and consume drugs. At the same time, Feodorov says that the customs office could not possibly to shut down all of the houses because of their secrecy and multiplicity. 23 Doctor P. Ortenberg attempted to describe these hashish houses, or kuknarkhona, but struggled to do so because after the Russian conquest, Ortenberg wrote, kuknarkhonas were closed by the Russians. Therefore, Ortenberg had a hard time convincing the local Muslim population to show him the existing kuknarkhonas, and even then he was shown those that were destroyed by earthquakes. Ortenberg wrote that before the earthquake, these rooms had big comfort and better features. In these rooms, kuknar smokers read the Qur an and made toothpicks. 24 While Russian doctors claimed that all local Muslims, including small children, smoked kuknar, it was difficult for the Russians to get an exact number of the people who consumed drugs since neighbors concealed kuknar smokers. 25 Hashish usage became widespread among the Russian populations of Turkestan in general, and the Ferghana Valley in particular. Unease regarding drug use led to attempts to eradicate smoke houses and to fight against drug use in general. A Russian doctor who worked in the capital of Tashkent, A. P. Shishov, witnessed the usage of hashish not only among Russian Cossacks but also among Russian women and children. 26 He witnessed Russian soldiers smoking nasha and teriak by mostly mixing it with shag (rustic tobacco). 27 St. Petersburg s moderately liberal newspaper

7 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 103 published excerpts from Levitov s report on hashish smokers Cossacks are smoking, mixing hashish with tobacco, contagion even went to the police. 28 The Russians living in the city of Bukhara even referred to nasha as Champagne. In fact, the phrase to smoke Champagne referred to smoking nasha. As for teriak, people both smoked and ate the drug. 29 Doctor Ortenberg was among those who came to the Ferghana Valley as part of the Red Cross organization to help the Andijan population after a devastating series of earthquakes that shook the Ferghana Valley in the early part of the twentieth century. 30 In 1907, Ortenberg observed that the Sarts of the Andijan region drank kuknar, and among those who drank it were not only adults but also old people, women, teens, and little children. 31 As Levitov concluded, because [drug consumption] is spreading with such speed and the state is not willing to interfere with this matter, then the Russian society itself is responsible for taking up the cause and joining the fight against this evil. 32 Although reports of drug use by the Russians were intended to be embellished and over-the-top, the accounts, nonetheless, heightened colonial fears that the region was in danger. Russian intellectuals saw the need to fight this evil because the usage of these substances brings [one] to madness The entire country, all of Turkestan, is wrapped up in ingesting hemp The region has extremely few doctors. An immediate and reinforced fight is necessary to combat this developing new evil. 33 One of the steps toward regulation proposed by the above mentioned Levitov was to start registering Turkestani addicts. While Russian doctors sought greater authority by professionalizing the regulation of drugs, local physicians attempted to seek out authority of their own by registering drug addicts and directing local anti-drug efforts. 34 Levitov argued that registration should be directed by local doctors who would conduct the operation everywhere, including in hospitals and prisons. 35 Doctor Levitov argued that local doctors needed to take responsibility; unfortunately, in Turkestan, not a single local doctor entered to fight against this evil. Levitov states that at the time, in the Russian Empire, more than twenty million Muslims were living under Russian rule and these were people who needed to be treated by doctors and put under strict regulation. 36 Doctors would have to take matters into their own hands to save people s morality and health in the region. 37 While the Russians seemed to be concerned about morality and health, they argued for eradicating addiction in Ferghana because of its connections to political destabilization of the region. 38 According to a person who went by the name Rok-Ten, many crimes were committed under the influence of drugs; in fact, according to Rok-Ten, all thieves and bandits are by all means either nasha smokers or teriak [consumers]. 39 But more than anything, taking drugs was associated with fanatical frenzy of the Muslims

8 104 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) similar to the unrest in Andijan in 1898 mentioned at the beginning of the article. 40 Descriptions of fanatical Muslims taking drugs varied among the Russians. 41 While some Russians described a Turkestani drug smoker as one who stiffens, [who] is haunted by horrific visions, something oppresses him, a nightmare presses him. He sees everything in black light. 42 Others, including the Ferghana doctor Kushelevskii, described drug addicts as cowardly, indecisive, dreamy, and confused, which makes it difficult to classify them as acting out behaviors of fanaticism. 43 The aforementioned Levitov, a specialist on drugs, explained several periods of unrest in Russian Turkestan aroused by the influence of hashish. 44 He argued that during any turbulent time, the local Muslim populations greatly increased the amount of drugs consumed. 45 Levitov wrote: During restless times, the amount of drugs consumed among the Muslims greatly increases. Hashish serves as a strong stimulant during revolutionary time for the Muslims, the same as alcohol for the Russian people. The researchers of Muslim life usually use tables of smoked hashish as a gauge to measure the degree of Muslim unrest. If only we had the opportunity to control the amount of hashish smoked in Turkestan, we would always be aware of the degree of agitation of Muslim mobs To destroy hashish to avoid massacre, to watch out for its consumption to know when slaughter will begin. 46 Nevertheless, the only people who were called to fight drug addiction in the region were doctors. At the end of the nineteenth century, Kushelevskii complained that there was not a single mention of nasha smokers in Russian legislation. 47 It was only on 1 June 1908, that a new decree came out that stated the consumption of drugs, both smuggled and native to the region, was getting worse. The decree read that with this evil we have to fight unremittingly, while we still have time and while the consumption of drugs has not captured the general population. The decree suggested strengthening the supervision of such places where one could expect smoking of nasha and opium as well as to pay special attention to local chay-khona (tea houses) and ash [osh]-khona (eateries), where one could also encounter consumers of drugs. Furthermore, the Lieutenant General Kondrashevich announced that managers of chay-khonas and osh-khonas, as well as anyone involved in selling drugs should be held legally liable, thus suggesting criminalization of drugs. 48 While some Russians began to believe that they succeeded in destroying drug houses in the region, they admitted that the consumption of drugs was replaced or substituted with alcohol, such as Russian vodka and beer. A Russian scholar A. I. Dobrosmyslov, referring to 1912 Tashkent, wrote that during Muslim holidays all taverns and pubs in the Russian part of the city and those places where prostitutes live are jam-packed by Sarts of all ages. Drunkenness at this time is the most reckless. 49

9 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 105 Alcohol In the Ferghana Valley, alcohol consumption was of no less concern. Alcohol consumption was acknowledged by all as on the rise during the revolutionary period. Drinking alcohol is forbidden for Muslims by the Qur an, but after the Russian conquest, alcohol consumption among the local Central Asian population in the Ferghana area increased sharply, according to some Russian newspapers. An editorial in the official newspaper of the Turkestan region, for example, expressed the following concern: If one comes to any restaurant, café, or a pub, one could see the natives drinking beer, wine, cognac, vodka or a mixture from all of that. And they drink without being ashamed of the number of bottles or the poor quality of what is inside the bottles. 50 Each city of the Ferghana Valley had numerous establishments devoted to selling alcohol. The number of pubs and taverns increased after the earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Ferghana cities were rebuilt, but according to local pundits, most of the new buildings were places that sold alcohol. Russkii Turkestan, a paper aimed at the socialist audience, lamented that many stores built after the earthquake consisted of pubs, taverns, and other places that sold alcohol to the local Russian and Central Asian populations. 51 The newspaper backed its claims with data noting that out of 150 houses built in the Russian quarter of Andijan, fifty of them were brothels and pubs mostly built to serve the native population. 52 The official Turkestan newspaper Turkestanskie vedomosti, claimed that all these pubs became a sore of old Andijan, [which are] growing today like mushrooms and multiply monthly. 53 A lower-ranking officer, Mr. Krondo visited the cities of the Ferghana Valley in the early twentieth century and later complained that visiting Ferghana cities left me with sad and pathetic memories because whatever city I visited, almost on every step I encountered sad inscriptions [such as] beer pub and restaurant. 54 All these pubs were visited not only by the people of Andijan, but also by those from other areas and cities of the Ferghana Valley. 55 An unknown author published in St. Petersburg newspaper that in the main cities of the Ferghana Valley, such as Andijan, and Namangan, places such as pubs occupy whole streets and are filled with tuzemets (the local Muslim population) from morning until night and that in addition to settled Muslims, nomadic Kyrgyzs arrived from remote villages to drink. 56 Renting a house in Andijan was very difficult due to extremely high prices. Apartment owners knew that if a person could not afford to pay rent, it would be easy to find someone else who could pay to use the place as a pub or brothel. 57 Other cities showed similar patterns. Osh, for example, had a very small Russian population, and yet, according to one newspaper there were nine liquor stores, five pubs, and two motels that contained pubs and prostitutes in the city. 58 In 1916, Nil Lykoshin, a Russian tsarist ad-

10 106 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) ministrator, orientalist, and former governor of Samarkqand oblast, 59 wrote that the influence of the Russians was truly corrupt, referring specifically to the problem of alcoholism. He wrote that among the native Turkestan population, there was increased alcoholism and debauchery (razvrat) and he blamed this rise on the Russians. 60 An article titled Progress on the bad side was written in a tone of regret and stated that borrowing from the Russians is still purely imitative and the Sarts often adopt our customs uncritically, not distinguishing between bad and good customs. 61 The local Russian administration recognized alcoholism as a major societal problem and described the issue as one rooted in ethnic and class bases. The administration tried to prevent the spread of alcoholism among the lower class Russian population and especially among the native population by implementing regulations, such as banning lower ranked soldiers from entering pubs. 62 Crimes tended to happen at pubs and liquor stores, as people were often provoked at these establishments. When Ahmadjan Daniyarbaev, an inhabitant of Kokand, came into a liquor store, his own brother and a friend poured wine down his throat, then started choking him until he gave them all the money he had. 63 The pro-octobrists Sredneaziatskaia zhizn decried that no one, not even the administration and police, could do anything about these places: It is reported from Andijan, that the local administration and police cannot cope with taverns, pubs, and brothels. The owners, who are Armenians, make the local population drunk with beer, vodka, and other alcoholic beverages. The city administration [Gorodskoe khoziaistvennoe upravlenie] is going to appeal to the military governor... to send either Cossacks or implement a military patrol. It probably will be difficult to have soldiers to keep order in such depraved places [zlachnye mesta]. 64 Articles published in various newspapers brought forth debates on measures to combat this evil, among which were arguments to move drinking houses to the outskirts of cities. 65 Other writers believed in educational measures. Mr. Peshehod, for example, reasoned that the best way to eradicate alcoholism among the local Muslim population was through various entertainment, conversations, and lectures. Simultaneously, the same Mr. Peshehod realized that there might be some challenges in these measures as, for example, no one even tried to create a theater for the local Muslim population in the region due to the lack of initiative. No one attempted to construct a library due to the lack of books in local languages, thus leaving lectures and conversations as the only way to get rid of alcoholism. 66 This argument goes against the argument of other Ferghana citizens, such as a Mr. Flaner who argued to move pubs to the outskirts of the cities and who ridiculed the idea of lectures by claiming that if a person is at odds with

11 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 107 religious requirements, then lectures and conversations will not help. 67 Prostitution Alcoholism led to more than just unruly behavior. Newspapers depicted alcohol as the gateway to prostitution. As one newspaper lamented, our pubs and hotels are not just drinking establishments, but first and foremost brothels. 68 One could easily find prostitutes working as waitresses in pubs, restaurants, and hotels. Their first and main task was to encourage guests to drink as much alcohol as possible, and then brazenly shortchange and rob their guests clean. 69 The above-mentioned Krondo who visited Turkestan in the early twentieth century wrote that All of Turkestan is rich of this beauty, referring to brothels. He wrote about how much he rejoiced in the fact that when he entered the city of Marghilan, he did not encounter any dissolute houses for a whole mile. But when he approached the center of the city, he was disappointed to see the streets filled with prostitutes and young men with weak character, referring to the clients of prostitutes. In Andijan, he saw more of the same scenes. 70 The Russian scholar and administrator, Vladimir Nalivkin, perceived prostitution in the Ferghana Valley as a sign of social and political liberation for Muslim women. He and his wife Maria resided in a small village in the Namangan district for six years in order to master the native languages and culture. During winters they lived among the settled Uzbek population, and during summers they traveled with the nomadic Kyrgyz. Their two sons did not even learn their native Russian language until they were seven or eight years old. 71 In order to learn about the native Ferghana women, Nalivkin relied upon his wife, who was allowed in the company of women and who shared her observations with her husband. From their time in the population, the Nalivkins published several books, including a study of Ferghana Valley women. 72 In this work, Nalivkin linked colonialism with the degradation of the native population, noting that the first houses for prostitutes emerged in the cities of the Ferghana Valley as soon as the area was conquered by the Russians. Adeeb Khalid s research backs Nalivkin s perception that local women were the majority of prostitutes. Khalid, relying on the 1897 census, argues that the majority of prostitutes were Central Asian women, while the number of the Russian prostitutes was much smaller. 73 Nalivkin wrote that one of the first public actions of Muslim prostitutes was unveiling their faces in public. Nalivkin wrote that this unveiling was something in the middle between spitting at the society of yesterday which made her life difficult and a kind of Marseillaise... It [prostitution] was her peculiar triumph (celebration) of freedom, and yet a kind of greeting to those who... gave her the right to citizenship and saved her from eternal fear for her life. 74 Nalivkin s imperial discourse that prostitution, despite its hor-

12 108 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) rific realities, was uplifting for Central Asian Muslim women, can be seen through the author s cultural prism of backwardness and chauvinism. Nalivkin shared the opinion of other Russian male bureaucrats who linked prostitution to freedom for Central Asian women, since they believed Islam so deprived women of liberty. For example, Ferghana doctor Kushelevskii, writing about prostitution, stated It is a kind of emancipation although expressed in a very rough and cynical way. The cause in most cases is a miserable existence and humiliating position in which [women] were living in the [Muslim] community. 75 For Nalivkin and Kushelevskii, the life of the Muslim women of the Ferghana Valley was so debased that prostitution was a step up from the degradations foisted upon them by their religion. According to local accounts, both poor and wealthy Russian and Central Asian men frequented prostitutes. Local newspapers lamented that Central Asian young men spent their entire salaries in one night on alcohol and prostitutes, leaving their wives and children hungry. 76 Sredneaziatskaia zhizn published that many Central Asian young men, after drinking away their earnings, took loans from cotton companies to procure more alcohol and prostitutes. 77 Numerous accounts of wealthy people enjoying prostitutes dotted the press. In July 1906, the local liberal newspaper Ferghana reported that in the city of Old Marghilan a rich man, Muhammad Sayyid Musa Khojaev, entertained guests in his garden with three prostitutes. Everyone could hear noises and shouts of drunken men. The local police arrived at Khojaev s house, but he was not punished, according to the newspaper. The newspaper published that people believed that Khojaev escaped the law because of his wealth. Khojaev was sure that he would never be punished, and thus, did not care that he drank and patronized prostitutes in the native quarter, risking the disapproval of his neighbors and other Ferghana Muslims. 78 Adeeb Khalid notes similar situations in Russian Turkestan and cites a complaint published in one local newspaper in 1906, which stated that at a recent Feast of the Sacrifice (Id-i Qurban, a sacred holiday for Muslims), Muslims of Tashkent spent 100,000 rubles on alcohol and prostitutes. 79 The anxiety regarding moral decline preoccupied Islamic modernists and intellectuals at the turn of the century throughout the Middle East and Muslim world. 80 Muslim intellectuals of Turkestan in decried the increase in alcohol use and prostitution, citing Central Asian judges, the qazis, who did not attempt to eliminate those evils as the reason these problems continued to worsen. 81 In his work titled Tuzemtsy ran she i teper (The natives before and now, 1913), Nalivkin wrote that those qazis who used to whip drunkards with sticks do not exist anymore. 82 With their absence, the people saw themselves as free and no longer punishable, and gave in to their desires. 83

13 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 109 Crowds of men marched to drinking establishments, opened by us [the Russians]. Women and girls were willing to cohabit with the Russians (shli na soderzhanie). In one of the cities of Ferghana, a few months after our occupation, a daughter of a former qazi-rais [Muslim judge who observed the moral behavior] entered into cohabitation with a Russian official. Wives left their husbands, and daughters left their parents for brothels. Mosques became empty. In such way the native population celebrated their freedom. 84 Nalivkin argued that the Russian conquest was opening eyes after centuries of sleeping (hibernation). 85 Perhaps it was the perception of colonial powers justifying their rule that pushed many Russians to see prostitution as an escape into freedom. Nalivkin s views equating prostitution with freedom were not shared by other Russian administrators of the region. To them, prostitution and alcoholism posed dangers to the Ferghana social and political order. According to Jeff Sahadeo, Russian officials in Tashkent were similarly anxious about prostitution because prostitution indicated the lack of control felt by imperial elites toward subject groups. 86 Russian authorities tried to prevent the rise of prostitution by regulating it. Ferghana governor Vasiliy Pokotilo issued a decree in 1906 that limited hours of operation for pubs and brothels. Many, however, continued their alcohol business. 87 In 1907, the Ferghana governor ordered certain pubs to close and prohibited women from working in them. 88 The Andijan district chief, Captain Ivanov, visited brothels, pubs, and hotels where he spoke to owners to explain the regulations and emphasize that these regulations need to be followed. 89 The official newspaper of the Ferghana Valley Ferghanskie oblastnye vedomosti boasted that such regulations would help to improve the financial situation of the young native population, in addition to positively affecting their health. 90 Yet, despite such concerns about the rise in alcoholism and prostitution, no major regulations or state intervention, similar to those in other states to control prostitution and alcoholism, seem to have been issued in the Ferghana Valley. Regulations were weak relative to other parts of the Russian Empire or any other state. While France, Britain, and Russia, as well as the Ottoman Empire released regulations, Islamic and non-islamic states in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tolerated prostitution but put it under strict state control, which often generated profit. The newspaper Russkii Turkestan decried the authorities of Andijan for doing nothing to eradicate this problem. Instead, authorities enjoyed the taxes they collected from brothels and pubs. 91 Even though the Ferghana Valley was part of the Russian Empire, no regulations on prostitution, similar to those in Russia, were passed or imposed. In the Ferghana Valley, despite the fears of prostitution as a threat

14 110 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) to public order and public health, there was no evidence that Ferghana prostitutes had to exchange their passports for yellow tickets or endure medical-police control as Russian prostitutes in central Russia did. 92 I have not found any examples of state intervention or police surveillance of prostitutes in Ferghana, even though regulations in Russian Turkestan did exist. According to Dobrosmyslov, prostitutes were registered as soon as the Russians conquered Tashkent, even though registration did not give Russian authorities an exact count of prostitutes in the city. In 1876, for example, there were one hundred registered prostitutes, eighty of whom were local Muslim women, and twenty soldiers wives. 93 All registered prostitutes who serviced officials and officers had to have a medical examination once a week. As for soldiers and Sarts, they were served by secret, unregistered prostitutes and, as a result, Dobrosmyslov argued, venereal diseases among the troops were rampant. 94 By law, it was the responsibility of the police to supervise prostitution, and a city doctor was responsible for medical examinations. 95 Brothels in Tashkent housed only registered prostitutes; as for others, Dobrosmyslov wrote, from time to time the police conducted round-ups of various dens, taverns, doggeries, and pubs. Apparently, after round-ups, prostitutes were divided into locals and newcomers; locals were provided with yellow tickets and newcomers were ousted from the region. 96 According to Kushelevskii, who worked as a doctor in the Ferghana Valley from the time of the conquest, brothels emerged in the area and the prostitutes were among those who either divorced their husbands or simply left them: 97 In some of the larger cities of [the Ferghana Valley] there are several women who don t want to accept their former lives, having seen the way that Russian women live They abandon their despicable husbands and live independent lives. They attend Russian parties where they dance, sing, play, and feel free to have amorous relations with other guests. 98 Whereas initially brothels were attended by mostly Russians, now they are overcrowded by the Sarts. Kushelevskii emphasizes the fact that the local Muslim male population especially attended brothels during sacred Muslim holidays, when Muslims celebrated in the company of prostitutes. 99 At the same time, Kushelevskii argues that obvious prostitutes and brothels emerged with growing popularity at the same time that the Russians arrived, and yet he states we added nothing to the local depravity. Kushelevskii intimates that prostitutes always existed in the region, as had bachas (dancing boys for wealthy men) and secret female prostitutes. 100 Female prostitutes began to attend not only Russian, but also Muslim

15 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 111 parties. But Kushelevskii believes that it was nothing new in the sense that philandering existed among the Muslim population of Ferghana long before the Russians occupied the region. The only difference is that these female prostitutes, little by little, began replacing bachi (dancing boys) who had previously only entertained during holidays for Muslim men. 101 Kushelevskii concludes that the situation was predictable and to be expected if the religion of Islam sanctioned polygamy and thus protects and endorses prostitution. 102 The lack of police surveillance and major regulations requiring yellow tickets, obligatory medical-police control, or obligatory hospitalization is not indicative of the authorities being less concerned with venereal diseases that could pass from clients to wives and on to children. 103 Public health, in connection with thriving venereal diseases like syphilis, was a concern. Laurie Bernstein, in her study on prostitution in imperial Russia, argues that the prostitutes presented a serious threat to public health. 104 Sahadeo contends that syphilis was feared as it could become a scourge in the imperial city, especially when being passed from soldiers to their wives. 105 Dobrosmyslov writes that a Tashkent clinic for prostitutes, which opened in 1908, provided medical exams to prostitutes every Tuesday and Saturday; prostitutes who worked in brothels as well as secret prostitutes captured in round-ups were treated at the clinic. Dobrosmyslov describes the clinic as having five beds for prostitutes sick with syphilis and other venereal diseases. The number of beds could be increased if needed. The city financially helped to maintain the clinic, but the owners of brothels were obliged to pay fifty kopeks for each prostitute per day. Owners, however, got that money from prostitutes anyway, Dobrosmyslov writes. 106 According to the statistical reports of the Ferghana Valley for 1896, the officials registered 2,427 people sick with syphilis, and this number included only those who came to seek the doctor s help. 107 In ,178 people were registered with syphilis (those who either consulted a doctor or were registered in hospitals). In fact, syphilis in 1909 was registered as one of the major diseases after fever, bruising, and wounds. 108 Many of those who visited prostitutes in the Ferghana Valley contracted sexually transmitted diseases but refused to report in which pub or brothel they were infected for fear of retaliation from pub owners tied to the criminal world. 109 The diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections was so commonplace that it appears to have been overused. A German citizen living in the Ferghana Valley, Brunon Iarchevskii, brought his pregnant wife into a local hospital because of stomach pain. To the surprise and horror of both man and wife, Mrs. Iarchevskii was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease and was prescribed numerous medicines, which ultimately caused her to miscarry. As her case illustrates, local doctors were ill-equipped and poorly trained in diagnostics. 110

16 112 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 30 (2016) Local authorities continued boasting that they were doing their best to improve the financial situation of the young native population, in addition to positively affecting their health. 111 But it was not the health or finances of the native population that Russian authorities were concerned with when it came to prostitution or drinking; Russians feared that alcoholism and prostitution among the native population would lead to dissatisfaction with Russian rule, and possibly even unrest. This was not a charge fabricated by orientalist administrators. Prostitution was a similar threat to the social order in Russia itself. According to Bernstein, prostitution in imperial Russia became the focal point from which social frustration and political rebellion proliferated. The function and responsibility of the state in relation to prostitution came under fire because prostitution was regulated by the Russian tsarist government, and was therefore, a political issue. 112 Many among the Muslim population of the Ferghana Valley supported the Andijan revolt of 1898 due to their outrage at the way they perceived that alcohol and prostitution was slowly ruining the young Muslim generation. One police report notes that selling alcohol everywhere and prostitution caused outrage and [the] anger of the Muslim population against the Russian government in general and against the Russian people. [The Muslims] blamed the local authorities for taking bribes from the owners of brothels, thus allowing them to exist and prosper. 113 Another police report states that by 1916 prostitution in Andijan was so highly developed that it was not possible to refer to it as secret prostitution anymore. Rather, everyone treated it as uncontrollable prostitution. [Prostitution] was so open and ugly, that anyone who had arrived in Andijan for the first time thought that there were no good women left. One could see the prostitutes with drunk soldiers or with youth from the Muslim population bargaining with them in front of other people, in the middle of the day. 114 These concerns were similar in other regions of Russian Turkestan. In Tashkent, for example, as Sahadeo argues, Russian prostitutes ruined the image of Russian women as paragons of European culture, guardians of the separation between civilization and the wild spaces of the periphery. 115 Most local and regional newspapers, as well as archival sources, emphasized the involvement of Central Asian men and women with alcohol and prostitution. Even though Russian involvement was perhaps as great, Russian administrators were most concerned with the influence of alcohol and prostitutes on the Central Asian population. Emphasis on Central Asians was due to the fear of political disorder. Alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes in the Ferghana Valley were perceived as symbolic of public disorder, as threatening to the already fragile Ferghana society. Alcohol, drugs, and prostitution appeared to be particularly dangerous

17 Uryadova: Prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs: Social disorder in imperial Ferghana 113 in the Ferghana Valley as they all contributed to the deterioration of the social and political situation in the region. At the same time, very little was done about the eradication of these moral vices. Because of the geographical proximity and political and economic ties, hundreds of thousands of unemployed Persians searched for jobs in Transcaucasia and Central Asia. 116 Many of them participated in building the Central Asian railway. 117 The Ferghana Valley was an attractive place because it was the birthplace of cotton and one of the major regions of silk and cotton production in Turkestan. 118 Many immigrants from Persia worked in cotton, oil, soap, and brick production in the Ferghana Valley, but their pay was considerably lower than the pay of their Russian and Central Asian counterparts. Perhaps some of the workers from Persia and the Caucasus who came to the Ferghana Valley searching for jobs had instead turned to crime. With the arrival of radical revolutionaries from central Russia and immigrants from the Caucasus to the Ferghana Valley, the threat of instability, crime, lack of loyalty, and fear of revolt increased. During the revolution of 1905, Russian authorities in the Ferghana Valley were weak and incapable of dealing with crime and other issues. Police functions were left to local administration, such as the district chief (uezdnyi nachal nik) or district bailiff (pristav). 119 The bailiffs were among authorities of the Ferghana Valley being placed under the supervision of the district chiefs and the chief of police in the cities of Staryi Marghilan (Old Marghilan) and Novyi Marghilan (New Marghilan). 120 Despite military rule, however, the number of police was limited in the cities of the Ferghana Valley. Prior to 1903, the cities of the Ferghana Valley boasted only one chief of police and six municipal bailiffs. In 1903, this number was increased to two chiefs of police and fourteen municipal bailiffs, which was still a very small number for the large Ferghana Valley. 121 Russian authorities could not maintain order in Russia and were losing control over the local population in Ferghana. The lack of crime control became problematic because of the threat of rioting and revolts by the local Central Asian population. Any revolt could threaten the Russian colonial possession in Turkestan. In writing about British rule in India, Sandria B. Freitag states that any collaborative criminal efforts were viewed as a threat to British authority, or were an effect of weakened British authority. In any case, these crimes were in direct relation to the strength of British authority. 122 Similarly, Russian authorities in the Ferghana Valley viewed collaborative criminal efforts as a threat. Kim A. Wagner, in his study of Thuggee in British India, notes that the greatest challenge to the colonial state was violence because of the potential for violent crimes to get out of hand and grow into a rebellion. 123 As Russia also struggled to maintain control over its empire, social and political disorder contributed to the frustration, disintegration, and challenge to Russian colonial authority in