New "Great Game" in Central Asia? Central Asia: “The Great Silk Road” and the “Great Game” are just myths, far from reality

Lieutenant General Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev

The development of Central Asia by Russia in the second half of the 19th century was a difficult and rather lengthy process. It was accompanied by a deterioration in the international situation, an increase in tensions in relations with Great Britain, which saw any attempt by St. Petersburg to move south as a threat to its colonial possessions, primarily India. The problems of Asian politics were also on the radar of the Russian public and the press, although in the decade after the end of the Crimean War there were enough controversial issues and controversial changes in the empire. Taming the wild archaic khanates, whose prosperity had long been a subject, and whose existence was supported largely by robbery and the slave trade, Russia had to constantly feel the invisible British presence in Asia.

The expansion of the Russian Empire into Asia was one of the components of the Cold War of that time, in which it was opposed by the most powerful power in the West - Great Britain. For such a complex rivalry, where the main role was played not by guns, cannons and battleships, but by politicians, diplomats and journalists, an appropriate ideological and scientific platform was needed. It was necessary not only to clearly understand, identify, explain and argue for Russian interests in Central Asia, but also to outline Britain’s hostility towards Russia in this and other issues. An important point should also be considered detailed and thorough documentation of all stages of the development of Central Asia, the history of this process. One of these people, who shouldered the burden of not only military, but also scientific service to the Fatherland, was the outstanding orientalist, linguist, publicist and inventor, Lieutenant General Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev.

Career as a warrior, scientist, linguist

The future orientalist and general was born on January 8, 1837 in the family of a landowner from the Voronezh province, Afrikan Yakovlevich Terentyev. My father was an extraordinary person. He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1830, where he continued to serve for the next five years. He became quite widely known for his numerous publications on the development and management of agriculture and the history and ethnography of the Voronezh region. The son, Mikhail Afrikanovich, followed in his father’s footsteps, choosing a military career and entered the Voronezh Cadet Corps. In 1853 he transferred to the Konstantinovsky Cadet Corps.

At the end of the reign of Nicholas I, Russia fought the unsuccessful Crimean War. Like many young men like him, Terentyev wants to quickly get to the theater of operations. On November 18, 1855, he was released as a cornet into the 11th Chuguev Uhlan Regiment and at the beginning of 1856 he finally found himself in Crimea. The heroic defense of Sevastopol had already ended by this time, and the Allied army, tired of huge losses, did not dare to advance deeper into the peninsula. Both sides harassed each other with reconnaissance raids and sabotage, Napoleon III's fighting impulse was exhausted, and he was increasingly inclined to a peace agreement with Russia. In March 1856, the Paris Treaty was signed, so that the Chuguevsky regiment soon returned to its places of permanent deployment. The garrison service proceeded smoothly - in October 1860, Terentyev was promoted to lieutenant.

Being a naturally gifted person, Mikhail Afrikanovich had a thirst for knowledge and therefore decided to enter the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, which he successfully accomplished in 1862. In 1864, he graduated from the Department of Oriental Languages ​​at the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Arabic and Turkish. While in St. Petersburg, he showed interest in scientific and technical creativity. Among his inventions are a needle gun with a semi-metallic cartridge and a reflective compass with rotating diopters. However, these fruits of invention remained experiments and did not receive further approval.

Mikhail Terentyev will carry out his service to Russia in a completely different field. Having served for two years after graduation at the headquarters of the Kharkov Military District, Terentyev was transferred to the West Siberian Military District in June 1867 with instructions “to train as part of the General Staff.” Soon he received an appointment: assistant to the Aulieata district chief. Until recently, the Aulie-Ata fortress was part of the Kokand Khanate, but in 1864 it was captured by a small detachment under the command of Colonel M.I. Chernyaev. Knowledge of languages ​​and excellent linguistic abilities helped Terentyev study the customs and customs of the local population, which made the recent graduate of the Academy a very valuable officer. Mikhail Afrikanovich was noticed by the Governor-General of Turkestan and came into his possession.

Kaufman had enough worries: in 1867, the war with Bukhara, which had begun a year earlier, continued. Attempts to come to an amicable agreement with the emir, as expected, did not lead to success, and then the time came for forceful solutions. Together with Governor General Kaufman and the detachment of troops under his command, Mikhail Terentyev took part in the campaign against Samarkand. Against 4 thousand Russians, the ruler of Bukhara concentrated, according to various estimates, from 40 to 50 thousand soldiers, settling on the Chupanatinsky heights near the Zarafshan River. Kaufman, through envoys, appealed to his enemy, demanding that the troops withdraw from the crossing and warning that otherwise his positions would be taken by storm.

There was no response, and the order to attack was given - Russian infantry crossed Zarafshan under enemy fire almost chest-deep in water. The soldiers' boots turned out to be filled with water and, in order not to waste time taking off their shoes and pouring out the water, they stood on their hands, while their comrades shook their legs. The Bukharans perceived such an action as some kind of secret Russian ritual, and in subsequent clashes they tried to repeat it. Naturally, this did not bring any success to the enemy. Having crossed to the other side, the Russians took the positions of the Bukharans on the Chupanatina Heights with hostility. Unable to withstand the onslaught, the enemy fled, throwing away for ease of escape. Kaufman's detachment received 21 guns and many rifles as trophies. The Russians' own losses reached no more than 40 people.

Riflemen of the Turkestan linear battalions, photo 1872

The next day, May 2, 1868, Samarkand opened the gates. Leaving a small garrison in the city, Kaufman continued the campaign. After neutralizing the uprising in Samarkand and the final defeat on the Zerbulak Heights, Emir Muzaffar was forced to ask Russia for peace. Bukhara recognized the supremacy of St. Petersburg over itself, lost part of its territory and paid a monetary indemnity. However, Emir Muzaffar also had certain benefits from the agreement. Now the Russian command, if anything happened, was ready to provide him with military assistance, for which the recent enemy turned to his victors already in the same 1868.

In Karshi Bekstvo, Russian troops, at the request of Muzaffar, defeated the rebels who rebelled against the emir, who sought to elevate his eldest son to the throne, who promised to continue the war with the infidels. For his active participation in the Bukhara campaign, Mikhail Terentyev was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav with swords, 3rd degree. Foreign awards did not pass him by either: the Shah of Persia awarded Terentyev the Order of the Lion and the Sun, 3rd degree. Persia, like Russia, was interested in stability in the Central Asian region and also suffered from raids by numerous nomadic hordes, primarily the Khivans. Therefore, the pacification of the violent khanates by the Russian Empire was perceived in Tehran with understanding.

On August 18, 1869, Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev was promoted to captain and sent to serve as an official on special assignments under the head of the Zeravshan district. The Zeravshan district was formed from territories ceded from Bukhara in accordance with the peace treaty signed with it. The largest city in the district was Samarkand. This was not a provincial backwater - in fact, Russia’s frontier in Central Asia, where its interests and policies were already closely colliding with the ambitions, fears and desires of another powerful empire, which had its own vision of almost all problems in all corners of the globe.

Great Game in Asia

While in St. Petersburg and Tehran they perceived the activities of the Turkestan Governor-General Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman with satisfaction and calm, other forces looked at what was happening with growing alarm. London considered itself a virtual monopolist in world hegemony and a trendsetter in political trends. There were practically no worthy competitors left in Europe - France was feverish with periodic revolutions and coups, Austria and Prussia were too focused on internal problems. And only distant Russia loomed in its vague enormity in the East. After the Congress of Vienna, the former alliance that began in the wars against Napoleon began to rapidly melt away, and Russia and England gradually returned to the mainstream of traditional relations - competition and rivalry.

The British crowded at the court of the Turkish Sultan, getting under their feet in the long-suffering Balkan affairs. Their commercial and not-so-commercial agents scurried around in Persia, gradually penetrating into the depths of Central Asia. In London, they well remembered Pavel Petrovich’s initiative to send a detachment of Cossacks under the command of Matvey Platov to conquer India, for which and not only for this, poorly received on the banks of the Thames, the emperor died of an “apoplectic” stroke.

The Sepoy Rebellion of 1857–1859, which was suppressed only with great effort, showed the British that their latent fears about the possible loss of control over the jewel of the British crown were not without foundation. Moreover, such a powerful performance of the broad masses of the native population revealed the deep vulnerability and imperfection of the entire British policy in India. The uprising was drenched in blood and covered in lead, but the smartest and most insightful heads were fully aware that only a compact torch would be enough for the Hindustan Peninsula to flare up again. And, according to these strategically minded gentlemen, the fire of this torch can be lit in India by a Russian soldier. Measures were required to avoid such a terrible development of the situation. To achieve this, it was planned to expand the zone of British possessions and influence to the north of India in order to rid the most valuable British colony of the Russian sword of Damocles.

To the north of India lay Afghanistan, a wild mountainous country that did not tolerate strangers - even if they drank expensive tea and quoted Shakespeare by heart and read Dickens. The first attempt to test the Afghan realities dates back to 1838, long before the Crimean War and the sepoy uprising. The main reason was that the then local emir Dost Mohammed, fighting against tribes supported by the British, dared to ask for help from no one other than the Russians. Through his envoys, the persistent emir reached the Governor-General of Orenburg V.A. Perovsky, and through him to higher authorities. The result of the negotiations was the dispatch of a Russian mission to Afghanistan, led by Lieutenant Jan Vitkevich. This outrageous fact overwhelmed the depths of British patience, and the British began a war against Afghanistan.

Then the British had successes that turned out to be superficial and temporary, an uprising in Kabul, the high-profile destruction of General Elphinstone’s column retreating from the Afghan capital, and the complete withdrawal of British troops from the country in 1842. The first attempt to fight the ghost of a Russian bear, making scary faces from behind the snow-capped Himalayan peaks, ended, like any other attempt to overcome a phantom threat, in failure. Collateral damage amounted to almost 20,000 dead and missing British soldiers, £24 million, and the dangerous realization that the whites were losing too. The next milestones of Great Britain's expansion to the north date back to the second half of the 19th century, when, after the suppression of the sepoy uprising, London had a free hand.

In April 1863, the Ambelakh operation was undertaken when a British force of five thousand invaded Afghan territory in response to numerous raids. In the end, after a series of clashes, the British were forced to retreat to Peshawar by the end of the year. In 1869, after several years of traditional civil strife, power in Afghanistan was concentrated in the hands of Emir Shir Ali Khan, who began to centralize government administration. Lord Mayo, the then governor of British India, decided to make Afghanistan relatively loyal through diplomatic means - to provide the emir with vague guarantees, to bestow status gifts on him, and in exchange to subordinate the policy of Afghanistan to the will of the British Empire. In March 1869, Shir Ali Khan and Lord Mayo met on Indian soil to negotiate a possible arrangement.

Shir Ali Khan in 1869

At first, the Afghan ruler increased his worth by listing all the real and imaginary grievances and claims against the English side, but in the end he accepted a large batch of weapons as a gift and willingly agreed to an annual English financial subsidy. Shir Ali Khan responded by demanding guarantees from Lord Mayo that Britain would recognize Shir Ali's youngest son Abdullah Khan as the sole heir. The governor categorically objected to this, since the entire system of British policy in the colonies was based on the opposition of rulers and their heirs, in order to easily carry out the necessary castlings at the right moment. Nevertheless, Lord Mayo agreed to non-interference in the internal politics of Afghanistan in exchange for the coordination of all its foreign policy with British representatives.

Afghan affairs became the subject of intense and lengthy bargaining between the diplomatic departments of Russia and England. Also in 1869, a meeting between Prince Gorchakov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Clarendon, took place in Heidelberg. The English side, expressing their extreme concern about the advance of troops in Central Asia (London's approval after the victory at Waterloo clearly only caused the advance of English troops), the occupation of Samarkand and the involvement of the Bukhara Emirate in the field of Russian influence. The fact of the founding of the Krasnovodsk fort on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, in which the British saw almost a springboard for the conquest of all of Central Asia, added fuel to the fire.

Clarendon suggested that Gorchakov create a neutral zone in Central Asia between Russian and English possessions. The Russian chancellor did not fundamentally object to considering such a problem, but the discussion stumbled over different views on the borders of Afghanistan. More specifically, about the regions of Wakhan and Badakhshan, which St. Petersburg did not consider subject to the Afghan emir. Disputes over the Afghan borders dragged on for almost three years, but by 1873 Russia was preparing to carry out a military operation against Khiva, and the relative calm of British diplomacy and the London press, greedy for creating illusory threats, but dressed in brown bearskins, would have been useful for it. In January 1873, Gorchakov gave the go-ahead for the recognition of the Wakhan and Badakhshan regions as the territory of the Afghan emir.

In 1874, Gladstone's liberal cabinet was replaced by the conservative team of the more decisive-minded Disraeli. The new Prime Minister was somewhat upset by how few, in his opinion, there were places on the globe painted in the colors of Great Britain, and therefore considered it necessary to carry out colonial expansion wherever possible. Disraeli firmly decided to reduce the number of independent and semi-independent states along the perimeter of British possessions - Afghanistan was also supposed to become another possession of the British Empire. At the same time, Disraeli did not lack a sober view of international relations and did not want to intensify confrontation with Russia.

In order to find a platform for a possible next geopolitical agreement with St. Petersburg, in May 1875, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Disraeli government, Lord Derby, informed Gorchakov that, in connection with new trends in London high offices, England was abandoning the strategy of a neutral zone in Asia, and in relation to Afghanistan will now enjoy complete freedom of action. Alexander II, in his own way interpreting “freedom of action,” gave permission for the Khanate of Kokand to join Russia in 1876. In London they realized that they were in a bit of a hurry - the Russians calmly annexed the territory of a state that should formally be neutral, being located on the demarcation line. But difficult-to-reach Afghanistan still had to be conquered, remembering the bitter experience of the war of 1838–1842.

The Afghan ruler, Emir Shir Ali Khan, for the time being more or less honestly (from an eastern point of view) worked off the British investments. He pursued a policy hostile to Russia where he could, causing harm in small ways, sending his agents and condoning raids in Central Asia. Although, by English standards, the emir was “our son of a bitch,” they nevertheless kept him on a short leash. The British did not lose sight of the influential Afghan nobility in order to turn their ambitions and lust for power against Shir Ali Khan if something happened.

The emir, in turn, receiving money and weapons from the white sahibs, did not at all want complete submission. Already in 1873, having obtained from the Russian side the recognition of Wakhan and Badakhshan as territories controlled by the Afghan emir, the British, for their part, demanded that their junior “partner” station British emissaries in Kabul. Bearing in mind that where the British embassy or mission is located, intrigue, espionage and intense mouse fuss immediately begin, the emir categorically refused. In 1876, the new Viceroy of India, Lord Edward Lytton, demanded the admission of British emissaries in a much more stringent manner. As a member of Disraeli's team, he fully implemented the new political course aimed at sharply reducing the number of compromise agreements with native rulers. Shir Ali Khan responded with a predictable refusal.

Anglo-Afghan friendship was rapidly cooling down, and it began to smell more and more clearly of gunpowder fumes. Negotiations in Peshawar came to nothing. The emir could not even suspect that all these appeals from the viceroys with obviously impossible requests, the protracted fruitless negotiation process, were nothing more than a sham. The decision to war with Afghanistan long before these events was made in offices on the banks of the distant Thames. In 1877, the British imposed an embargo on the supply of weapons to Afghanistan, and troops began to converge on its borders. Having now fully realized what a pleasant surprise his British “friends” were preparing for him, and having demonstrated enviable maneuverability in a difficult situation, Shir Ali Khan began to send benevolent messages full of all sorts of pleasantries to the governor of Turkestan von Kaufmann, claiming that he, the khan, had always been for friendship and good neighborly relations with Russia - the English devil just misled him.

Kaufman responded to the emir no less kindly, completely sharing and approving of the feelings that suddenly gripped the Afghan ruler. A diplomatic mission was sent to Kabul under the command of Major General N. G. Stoletov, which signed a friendly convention with Shir Ali Khan in August 1878, which recognized his independence. It should be noted that this event occurred at the height of the Anglo-Russian crisis at the final stage of the war with Turkey, when the Russian army was already near Istanbul. An army group of more than 20 thousand people was concentrated in Central Asia for a possible military expedition to India. The friendly neutrality of the Afghan emir in the current situation was more useful than ever; in addition, one could count on help from the mountain tribes, who had old scores to settle with the British.

However, in St. Petersburg they made a different decision. Istanbul was not taken, coastal batteries were not erected on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the Turkestan battalions never moved. The Great Game has remained uncompromising, tough, often mean and treacherous - but a game. And in capturing, describing and directly participating in the rounds of the Russian-English confrontation in Asia, much credit goes to Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev, a military man and scientist.

Orientalist scientist in uniform

In 1867, in St. Petersburg, authored by Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev, “Tolmach - a companion of Russian soldiers for inevitable questions and negotiations in languages: Russian, Turkish, Serbian and Greek” was published, which became a phrasebook for the Russian army. In 1872, the “Russian alphabet for schools of Central Asia” compiled by him was published. The administration of Turkestan paid sufficient attention to improving the cultural level of the local population, without violating traditional customs. In addition, Terentyev regularly publishes various works on Orientalism, which have not only scientific but also military value. Central Asia is inhabited by many tribes and peoples, often with different traditions and worldviews, so it was necessary for those serving here to have an understanding of local conditions.

Plan of part of the fortress wall of Khiva

Mikhail Terentyev was engaged in scientific activities in his free time from work. In 1870, he was appointed assistant to the head of the Khudzhent district, and the following year, 1871, to the same position, only in the Chimkent district. Also in 1871, he was seconded to the district headquarters for various works. Such a vague formulation actually hid the painstaking activity of preparing and planning a military operation against Khiva. As a recognized expert on Turkestan, under the leadership of the Governor-General of Turkestan Konstantin Petrovich Kaufman, together with a group of officers, Terentyev took part in the development of a plan for a military campaign. Important issues were the problems of relations between the Khiva Khan and various tribal entities, the internal social situation of this state and the degree of support for the ruler in the event of hostilities with Russia. For a number of reasons, primarily of a foreign policy nature, this expedition took place only in 1873 and was crowned with complete success.

After the pacification of Khiva, on behalf of Governor-General Kaufman, Terentyev began creating an essay about Russia’s conquest of Central Asia. For a number of reasons, including the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878. this work was not completed then, and the author will return to it only after his resignation. Based on the collected material, two fundamental works were published: “Russia and England in the Struggle for Markets” and “Russia and England in Central Asia.” These books describe in detail and impartially the history of economic, political and diplomatic relations between the Russian state and Great Britain, as well as the Central Asian khanates. The first work pays great attention to the economic component of Russian policy in Central Asia, the prospects for the development of trade and sales markets. The second talks about the main milestones and stages of Russia’s advance into Siberia and Asia, and provides the political, military and economic justification for these processes. For their manner of presentation and impartiality, both books were appreciated by the “Western partners” themselves - the British. The works were translated into English and published in the 70s. in Kolkata.

Terentyev continues to expand his scientific horizons - in 1875 he graduated from the Military Law Academy in St. Petersburg and received the rank of major. On the eve of the expected Russian-Turkish war, the orientalist again demonstrates his knowledge and skills in the service of the Fatherland. He creates the “Military Translator” (Russian-Turkish-Romanian-Bulgarian) - as an army phrasebook for the Balkan theater of military operations. The Military Translator was printed in large quantities and distributed to the troops. Terentyev took a direct part in the Russian-Turkish war. Awarded in 1877 the Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class with swords and bow, and the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class with swords and bow. In 1878 he received the Order of Anna, 2nd degree.

Subsequently, the career of Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev followed the military-legal path. He became a military investigator of the Vilna Military District. Career growth gradually took place: Terentyev rose to the rank of colonel. In 1895, he was again transferred to Turkestan, where he spent his youth, to the post of military judge of the Turkestan Military District. The organizer of the Turkestan region, K.P. Kaufman, had long since passed away, but the Great Game in Asia continued. Soon the Far East will also be in its orbit.

In 1902, Terentyev retired with the rank of lieutenant general. Now Mikhail Afrikanovich could concentrate on the main work of his life - the major work “History of the Conquest of Central Asia with Plans and Maps” in three volumes. This work is a fundamental historical study of Central Asia. The three-volume book turned out to not only contain a detailed description of military operations, various historical information, everyday and ethnographic sketches, sometimes made not without a healthy sense of humor, but also includes the author’s reflections on economics, politics, religious issues and the problems of contact, interaction and confrontation between civilizations. On a number of issues and areas, Terentyev’s work has no analogues to this day. The author managed to capture in detail, vividly and colorfully, the most important component of the Great Game: Russia’s advance in Central Asia and its tense and uncompromising, complex and confusing, reaching to the point of cocked, confrontation with the British Empire. This now almost forgotten Cold War of the 19th century, skillfully picked up by overseas “cousins” from the weakening Foggy Albion in the 20th century, continues without signs of fatigue in the 21st century.

Mikhail Afrikanovich Terentyev died in St. Petersburg on March 19, 1909 and was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery. He lived a colorful life, inseparable from the history of his Fatherland, the monument of which remains a modest line on the title page of the “History of the Conquest of Central Asia”: General-Lt. M. A. Terentyev.

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“The Great Game” or “War of Shadows” is the name given to the rivalry between Russia and Britain for influence in South and Central Asia that unfolded in the second half of the 19th century. It was a geostrategic and political confrontation. And also - a duel between the intelligence services of two powerful empires, replete with the most interesting twists.

hating each other, but not wanting war.

G. J. Palmerston

How the Crimean War turned out

The course of the “Great Game” cannot be understood without knowing the events of previous decades, so we cannot do without an extensive preamble.

The “Great Game” was a consequence and continuation of the Crimean War, starting almost immediately after its completion. Therefore, two words about that war. We have become accustomed to the thesis about the “humiliating” Treaty of Paris, which summed up the “shameful defeat” of Russia in the Crimean War, although for some reason we are not talking, for example, about the truly shameful defeat of Napoleonic France in 1812–14, which ended with the occupation of Paris.

One can call one or another treaty, treaty or pact successful or humiliating only after the passage of time, which can change the initial conclusions. American historian J. Ledonne ( John P. LeDonne) asserts ( The Russian Empire and the World. 1700–1917. — Oxford University Press, 1997) that the consequences of the Crimean War turned out to be a complete failure precisely for Russia’s opponents: the reorientation of Russian foreign policy caused by the Treaty of Paris caused the catastrophe of France in 1871 and led to precisely such a development of events that England tried to prevent for many years, considering it mortally dangerous for its empire - to the entry of Central Asia into Russia.

In addition, the secondary theater of military operations, Kamchatka, was happily forgotten in Paris. The Anglo-French squadron tried to capture Petropavlovsk in August 1854, but was defeated, and the squadron commander, Admiral Price, was killed. At the cost of an insignificant softening of their demands regarding the Black Sea and the Baltic, the Allies could well have obtained from Russia at the Paris Congress the concession of all of Kamchatka (by that time, Russian forces had been completely evacuated from there to the mouth of the Amur - to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, founded for this occasion ). But the memory of the Peter and Paul defeat forced the British and French to pretend that Kamchatka was a trifle of no interest to anyone. It was from Nikolaevsk that the Russian development of the Far Eastern shores began, directed south, right up to the Korean border. Which played a role in the final stage of the “Great Game”.

Back in the 18th century, the British began to worry about the Russian movement to the south. They did not believe that Russia's goal was to protect Transcaucasian Christians. The British were just getting their hands on India, pushing out their direct rivals (the French, Portuguese, Dutch) with all their might, but just in case they kept an eye on even the distant approaches to their main prey and took precautions.

Map of British India (1909)

That is why during the Russian-Persian War of 1804–1813. the Russian army had to fight an enemy trained by English military instructors - fortunately, unimportant instructors, judging by those victories with small forces of General Pyotr Kotlyarevsky (the battle of Aslanduz on October 20, 1812 and the capture of Lenkoran on January 1, 1813), which forced the Shah recognize the inclusion of Georgia into the Russian Empire. The British even had to help conclude the corresponding treaty - after all, at the time of its signing, Russia and England had already been allies in the fight against Napoleon for several months.

But this is not yet an episode of the “Great Game” - just like the murder of the Russian ambassador A.S. Griboedov in Tehran in 1829 (popular literature claims that at the instigation of the British, but there is no evidence). They also ask the following question: when England tried to prevent Russia from gaining a foothold in the Caucasus, helping the highlanders with money and weapons, wasn’t this the beginning of the “Great Game”? Did not have. Instead of “England” you should write here: several ardent English Russophobes. Everything is true about weapons and money; here you can add their secret trips to the Caucasus and campaigns in the press. These activists did their best to provoke their government into conflict with Russia and were angry that their efforts were being thwarted by the caution of London. The strength of their anti-Russian passion did not fade over the years: many years later, in 1877, the most ardent of them, David Urquhart, died of grief after learning that Russia had declared war on Turkey for the liberation of the Balkan peoples.

Once it began, the “Great Game” consisted, like a game of chess, of alternating exchanges of moves and complex multi-move combinations. As such, it began in 1857. It is important to understand the motivations of the players. First of all, these were empires that acted according to the rules and customs of the empires of their time. Today it is customary to condemn imperial policies, but later, non-retroactive laws cannot be applied to any country. The historian V.P. Buldakov is right: “Empire is a way of spatial-historical self-affirmation of an excessively powerful culture. Empire is not a historical sin, but a law of universal human development.”. England's main motive during the Great Game period was the fear of losing India. British India of the 19th century included, in addition to India itself, the territories of what are now Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. The main financial basis for the economic growth and prosperity of England for more than two centuries was the income coming from this huge colony - a fact known to any literate Englishman at that time.

Southern underbelly of Russia

Russia did not have even a remotely similar feeding trough. The Trans-Ural expanses, of course, brought her income in the form of valuable furs in the 16th–18th centuries, but they hardly repaid the efforts invested. Russia only invested in all its subsequent territorial acquisitions - before the development of Baku oil began. There was no point in thinking about making a profit from them. Many considered this a mistake. General Rostislav Fadeev in newspaper articles of the 1860s–70s. and in notes addressed to the highest name he proved that Asian possessions hang like chains on Russia. He was outraged by the fact that the tax burden of a Transcaucasian resident is a quarter, and a Central Asian resident is a fifth of what a resident of native Russia pays. But we got ahead of ourselves.

Being in natural-geographical isolation (and often in military-political isolation in the western direction), Russia was preoccupied with finding new trade routes. As befits an empire, it has repeatedly tried to build them by force. Hence the Khiva campaign of 1717 of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky and the Persian campaign (1722–23) of Peter I. Free trade with Bukhara, Samarkand, Kokand and Herat was prevented by the warlike Kyrgyz-Kaisaks (Kazakhs), Kara-Kirghiz (Kyrgyz), Khivans, Turkmens and Karakalpaks. The entire 18th century passed under the sign of their raids on Russian, Kalmyk, and then on German settlements in the Lower Volga region. A chain of fortresses was created along the edge of the steppes opposite them - one of them appears in “The Captain’s Daughter”. And whoever read Leskov’s “The Enchanted Wanderer” will remember how Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin ended up as slaves of nomads in the steppes beyond Orenburg and was “bristled” by them so that he would not run away.

Nomads robbed caravans, took people captive, and then sold them into slavery in the Bukhara or Khiva Khanate. In the 1830s alone, about two thousand Russian citizens were kidnapped. Slavery and the slave trade were perhaps the main branches of the economy of Bukhara and Khiva. In 1845, the English official Joseph Wolff presented a report in London stating that of the 1.2 million population of the Bukhara Emirate, 200 thousand were Persian slaves. Looking ahead: among the first measures of the Russian authorities after the conquest of the three Turkestan monarchies was an order to their rulers to free all slaves and prohibit slavery. This alone allows us to accept the thesis of Soviet textbooks about “the progressive significance of the annexation of Central Asia to Russia”.

Russian historian E. Yu. Sergeev (The Great Game, 1856–1907. - M., 2012, p. 68) writes: “As documents show, the tsarist strategists, busy planning military operations in the Caucasus, ignored the Indian direction until the Crimean War.”. But fear has big eyes, and London alarmists accused their government of turning a blind eye to the Russian threat. The already mentioned Urquhart in print called the English Minister of Foreign Affairs (and future Prime Minister) Palmerston a “Russian agent” (does this remind you of anything?).

The Crimean War reminded that India is "Achilles' heel" British Empire. Senior military officials overwhelmed the General Headquarters with plans for a campaign against India. Moscow University professor I.V. Vernadsky (father of Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky) published in 1855 - the Crimean War was still in full swing - the book “Political Equilibrium and England”, where he warned: if you do not strike a preemptive strike on Hindustan, “British power will conquer China, just as it conquered India”. Note that this is exactly what almost happened soon, during the Second Opium War.

Having read the warlike staff notes, Alexander II did not give effect to any of them, preferring to take up his Great Reforms, in which, as we know, he succeeded. As for the burdens imposed by the Paris Congress, Russia got rid of them after 15 years. After which she liberated the Balkan peoples, at the same time regaining Southern Bessarabia, Batum, Ardahan and Kars. In those same years, she made her Central Asian acquisitions, which became a cause for extreme concern in London.

Russian expansion from the Urals and Southern Siberia towards Central Asia was inevitable. The main reason was the obvious difference in the potential of the empire and the archaic agricultural and nomadic monarchies. Russian goods (textiles, sugar, flour, as well as tools, metal and glass products, watches, dishes and, since the 1850s, such a novelty as kerosene) were looking for new markets, Russian merchants needed access to Turkestan cotton, silk, astrakhan, carpets, spices, transit Chinese goods. But the caravans were subject to robbery attacks. Since the times of Peter the Great, Russia began to create fortified lines along the perimeter of the Great Steppe, gradually moving them to the south: Orenburg, New Orenburg, Syrdarya, Aral (not deployed). The fortifications later became cities: these are Fort Shevchenko on the Caspian Sea (Novopetrovsk fortress), Kazalinsk, Kokchetav, Pavlodar, Turgai, Akmolinsk, Shchuchinsk, Semipalatinsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Ak-Mosque (in Soviet times - Kzylorda), Alma-Ata (formerly fortification Verny), etc.

Already at the end of the 1820s, English spies were spotted in Bukhara and Samarkand. The Turkestan oases were tantalizingly close to northern Afghanistan, which by default fell within the British sphere of influence. Having gained a foothold in these oases in a still neutral space, unfriendly England could, with a throw of the sepoy army, cut off Siberia from the old provinces of Russia - after all, they were connected to each other only by a thin “umbilical cord” of the Siberian Highway.

V. Vereshchagin. Spy, 1878–79

St. Petersburg's fears were intensified by the events of 1839–1842. The British, for an unclear purpose, sent their Indian troops into Afghanistan, which even more than three years later were still there. Information and rumors coming from Kabul were contradictory. Russia had the right to fear that the British had, in fact, already annexed Afghanistan and were about to move further north, capturing the Merv oasis to begin with, after which Samarkand and Bukhara would seem like easy prey to them. What will prevent them, having overcome the Hindu Kush, from spreading throughout the entire plain of Turkestan? True, in 1842 reliable news came that the British were completely defeated in Afghanistan and, having lost 18 thousand people, went home. But the threat was identified, and it was necessary to meet it not on the border of the Ural-Siberian “underbelly”, but on the southern, perhaps more distant approaches to it. Russia has firmly decided to shift its border here beyond a wide strip of barren deserts and semi-deserts. The fight against robbers faded into the background.

How did the advance to the south go? The Kazakh Khanate ceased to exist back in 1822. Khan Kenesary, who tried to revive it, died in 1847 in a civil war with the Kyrgyz. Almost all the lands of present-day Kazakhstan that were not previously included in the imperial citizenship are gradually included, but further Russian steps to the south were stopped by the Crimean War.

The results of this war were called in Russia painful, hateful, disastrous, sad, but the winners appreciated them little better. France, having lost 95 thousand people, could at least assure itself that it had taken revenge for the defeat of Napoleon. But it was not for nothing that the French ambassador in Vienna, Francois Bourqueney, said about the Paris Treaty: “It is impossible to understand, after reading this document, who is the winner and who is the loser”. England was shocked by the Crimean War in vain victims, it was called there "heroic disaster". Alfred Tennyson’s ballad “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was known to every schoolchild in England (the “light brigade” that fell near Balaklava consisted of the scions of eminent families of England, they saw a symbolic meaning in this). The shock from the costs of the war was no less shocking. The main disappointment was the more than modest win. Palmerston planned to take away from Russia the Caucasus with Transcaucasia, Crimea, the Kingdom of Poland with Lithuania, Courland, Livonia, Estland, Finland with the Aland Islands, and all of Bessarabia. His dreams did not come true. Turkey (one of the “winners”!), like Russia, lost the right to have a navy in the Black Sea.

The annoyance of the two main rivals, Russia and England, over the outcome of the war gave the “Great Game” that unfolded a dangerous spirit of revanchism, but the very memory of this war kept them from taking completely rash steps.

In 1857, the Sepoy Mutiny broke out in India. We know about him mainly from Vereshchagin’s terrible painting “British Execution in India.” English rule was shaken by this uprising and barely survived. But, as the already quoted E. Yu. Sergeev writes, “all the intentions of the British press to find any traces of Russian incitement of the sepoys to revolt turned out to be in vain... The first secret emissaries were sent to India by the headquarters of the TurkVO only in the mid-1870s.”.

The game begins

Having finally pacified the Caucasus and coped (with the help of Prussia) with the Polish uprising of 1863, Russia resumed its expansion into Central Asia, which lasted almost until the end of the century. From now on, the empire did not act situationally, as had happened before, but purposefully, constantly keeping the English factor in mind. The "Great Game" has begun.

We’ll have to touch on the “imperial” topic again. We all know that 1857–1881 were the years of the Great Reforms, an era, as they say in textbooks, “introducing Russia to rights and freedoms according to European models”. In some television discussion about the reforms of Alexander II, the following was said: “What European reforms are we talking about? These reforms can only be called hypocritical, because it was during these years that Russia made its main colonial conquests.”. There was no one in the audience who would answer that Russia in this regard followed European models.

During these years, England continued its worldwide expansion, annexing territories in South Africa, Burma, the West Indies, Nigeria, making the Gold Coast (Ghana), Bazutoland (Lesotho), Sikkim its colonies, completing the formation of its possessions in Canada and Australia, and in India subjugated the semi-independent native principalities (over 600 in number!) to the British crown. Since 1864, it has occupied Egypt, captured Fiji and Cyprus, destroyed Afghanistan and Ethiopia, and colonized Malaya. And what are her European friends doing these years? Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia; the Germans take Schleswig-Holstein from the Danes, and Lorraine and Alsace from France; France “squeezes” Savoy and Nice from the Italians, includes Tunisia, Tahiti, and all of Indochina into its empire, and is fighting in Mexico; Spain captures Saint-Domingue (part of Haiti); Little Belgium makes the huge Congo its colony, little Holland makes gigantic Indonesia its colony. And don’t forget: the United States is unsuccessfully trying to take over Korea (the Philippines’ turn will come later). I repeat once again: no country can be judged outside the context of time and according to later, non-retroactive laws.

The history of Russian-English relations during this period is a history of jealous observation of each other, veiled threats, mutual trips, intrigues and temporary alliances at a high and very high level. When bluffing, each side tried not to be the first to blink; dangerous situations arose more than once. But at their own level, negotiations took place between Russian and British officers and mid-level diplomats - not in the capitals, but in places of common interest or on neutral ground nearby. There were no problems with understanding: both parties spoke French. Before the advent of the telegraph, reports to the capitals took weeks, and the situation often had time to cool down on its own. Negotiations were conducted on narrow matters, but sometimes ideas were voiced for transmission to the very top, which was helped by a mutually respectful tone. Undercover scouts and travelers also met, but also with military ranks. Together they helped to avoid direct clashes.

At the same time, both Russia and England always had ready plans for a military solution to problems. A note from General N.P. Ignatiev to Foreign Minister Gorchakov, written in 1863, is typical: “In order to be at peace with England and force her to respect the voice of Russia, avoiding a break with us, it is necessary to bring English statesmen out of their pleasant delusion about the security of Indian possessions, the impossibility [for] Russia to resort to offensive actions against England, our lack of enterprise and sufficient availability of routes through Central Asia for us". Ignatiev wrote knowledgeably: the General Staff at that time had prepared at least three plans for a campaign against India along different routes.

In Russia they believed that it would be safer for everyone if Russian and English possessions did not come into direct contact. It is better if they are separated by independent Persia and Afghanistan, and better if they remain independent. It is with them that Russia should border directly, since British India already borders with them on the “reverse” side. True, the northern borders of Persia and especially Afghanistan were not entirely clear. The situation in the Pamirs was also dark, not to mention the Eastern Tien Shan. And the question remained: should we strive to absorb the Central Asian khanates or would it be enough to make them protectorates of Russia with the right of movement of Russian troops?

Despite the backwardness of their monarchies, the khans and emirs of Central Asia were quite warlike. Thus, the Kokand Khanate actively seized the lands of the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz and fought with Bukhara with varying success. She did not give up and continuously fought with the Khiva and Kokand khanates for Merv, Chardzhuy, Khojent, Shakhrisabz (Tamerlane’s favorite city). But the activities of the rulers covered up a different picture. We find it in the orientalist (General Staff officer and friend of Dostoevsky) Chokan Valikhanov (183–1865), a Kazakh by birth, who did not consider it necessary to sweeten the pill. He writes about the terrible decline of vast expanses, “this gigantic wasteland, on which from time to time one comes across abandoned aqueducts, canals and wells”, about the mounds of ancient cities, long covered by sands, where wild donkeys and saigas roam, about “pathetic adobe huts”, the wretched inhabitants of which are “crushed by their faith and the tyranny of their rulers".

V. Vereshchagin. Mausoleum Gur-Emir. Samarkand, 1869– 70

The memory of ancient kingdoms, poets and astronomers, amazing manuscripts, palaces and mausoleums - all this in itself could not become a driving force capable of pulling the impoverished region out of the Middle Ages. Locked in the depths of the continents, the kingdoms flourished only as long as stable trade routes ran through them. But the Great Silk Road died out - and the lands along it fell into stagnation and regression. There are no navigable rivers; the Oxus and Yaxartes (Amu Darya and Syr Darya) lead to a dead end in the Aral Sea. Backwardness and desolation reign in the Fergana Valley, Khorezm, Badakhshan, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Merv. Only an external force could pull them out of this state.

Could England become this force? It seems that she was not against her possessions adjoining the Russians without any buffer zones. Cavalry Colonel Kazakov reported to the top in 1862: “In Tashkent, Kokand and especially in Bukhara there are already many Englishmen training native troops in military craft... They are pleased and encouraged by our slowness... There were Englishmen in disguise in our Kyrgyz steppes, which clearly proves the desire of this nation for dominion in Central Asia.”. But in the realities of the Great Game, the British at that time, most likely, had already missed the chance for such dominion.

(What could have happened if the British had tried to get ahead of the Russian army is suggested by events that happened 15 years later. In 1879, the English Prime Minister Disraeli, who did not like the negotiations of the Afghan Emir Sher-Ali with the Russian General N. G. Stoletov, sent to Afghanistan from India, a 39,000-strong army. Having removed the emir, this army would have entered Russian borders. The emir was removed, his successor signed an unequal treaty with the British, but guerrilla warfare broke out, and soon the British were besieged by an army of almost one hundred thousand rebels. As a result, Disraeli lost his post , and Gladstone, who replaced him, returned the troops back to India. It was confirmed: in order to enter Central Asia from Afghanistan, the British first needed to cross it without losses.)

Campaign in Central Asia and “skillful inaction”

On the initiative of Minister of War Milyutin, the great campaign to Central Asia began in 1864. Until the end of 1865, several important cities of the Kokand Khanate were taken, including Tashkent. The following year, Khojent, located at the entrance to the Fergana Valley, was occupied, and the path to Kokand was open. However, a new campaign was not needed, negotiations began, and the war ended in 1868 with the signing of a trade agreement between Khudoyar Khan of Kokand and the Governor-General of Turkestan, Konstantin von Kaufmann. Despite the modest name, this agreement brought the status of the Kokand Khanate closer to vassal and opened up for Russia direct access to the Chinese market, since Kokand owned two passes leading to Kashgaria (Western China). It was not possible to take advantage of this advantage immediately: for several more years the Fergana Valley was rocked by uprisings against the “infidels.” As a result, the Khanate was abolished in 1876, and its territory was divided into two regions: Syrdarya (with its center in Tashkent) and Fergana.

The Emir of Bukhara also did not submit immediately, but after the capture of Samarkand he capitulated. The Samarkand region was separated from the territory of the emirate, and to console the emir, the Russian army returned the breakaway rebel outskirts under his control and restored contact with the Bukhara possessions in the Pamirs.

At first, England reacted with feigned skepticism. In The Times one could read: “In St. Petersburg they are still thinking about projects to include the East in one big empire... Such projects will inevitably represent an extravagant and impossible dream.”. Judging by the (temporary) absence of strong counter moves, the English elite considered it best to stick to this point of view for now. Viceroy Northbrook of India wrote to Secretary of State for India Argyll: “The more Russia expands its possessions [in Turkestan], the more open it is to our attack and the less strength it has to repel it.”. They say, let the situation mature, we will respond at the right time. Such views are called "skillful inaction" (masterly inactivity), but their dominance could not last forever.

The English press was less cool. She reinforced her fears at all stages of the “Great Game” with an information war. The imaginary “Testament of Peter the Great” was endlessly quoted with a whole program for the conquest of the world (a fake that was published back in 1836). Russian world domination, according to the “Testament,” was impossible without the capture of Constantinople and India. Therefore, any step by Russia in the Caucasus or Turkestan, even a trifling one, was perceived by the press as the beginning of an operation to take away the “pearl of the British Empire,” giving rise to exclamations: "Here! Here! We told you so! The Russians are carrying out Peter’s plan!” Let us note in parentheses that Peter I clearly continued to edit his will from the other world: in reprints of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. items appeared concerning the Persian Gulf, China and, most touchingly, Japan, the very existence of which Peter I was barely aware of.

Caricature from the time of the “Great Game”

Since the beginning of the 1860s, Russia has every time found itself one step (or a move) ahead, and England did not dare to raise the stakes for several decisive years. The author of the fundamental work on the “Great Game,” E. Yu. Sergeev, believes that Russia created the Turkestan Governor-General at the right time (in 1867). And in time (in 1869) she founded a port on the Caspian Sea, thus beginning the annexation of the vast Trans-Caspian region (present-day Turkmenistan - by modern standards these are three Bangladeshes and Ceylon in addition). This territory did not have a single ruler, belonging to a number of warlike semi-nomadic tribes, and control over it ultimately became decisive in the outcome of the “Great Game”. The historian shows that these two events forced London to turn to St. Petersburg on October 30, 1869 with the idea "cordial agreement" (entente cordiale; That’s when the idea of ​​the Entente was first voiced!). Negotiations on the spheres of influence of the two empires from that moment were no longer interrupted, taking almost 40 years. The search for agreement has more than once hung by a thread.

This happened during the Russian-Turkish War (1877–1878) for the liberation of the Balkan Slavs. It was then that a plan was developed in London for a full-scale war against Russia from Asian directions: through the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, Persia and Afghanistan, combined with uprisings on the southern borders of the Russian Empire - they would be prepared by British agents. Disraeli wrote to the queen: “By our troops the Muscovites must be driven out of Central Asia and thrown into the Caspian Sea.” But making a plan is easier than putting it into practice. It would hardly have been possible to involve Persia in it, so the plan remained on paper. It is interesting that at the same time, the Russian military attache in London, General Gorlov, was secretly approached by the leaders of Irish nationalists with a proposal to create a brigade of Irish volunteers within the Russian army, ready to fight against the British. Petty Indian princes and sons of maharajas came incognito to Tashkent and even St. Petersburg, persuading them to free India from the British yoke.

Strictly speaking, the annexation of Turkestan to the Russian Empire became irreversible only in 1886, with the commissioning of the main section of the Trans-Caspian railway - from the Caspian Sea to the Amu Darya. Laid in incredibly difficult conditions along the very edge of the Karakum desert, the road guaranteed, if necessary, the rapid delivery of reinforcements (transferred by sea from the Caucasus or from Astrakhan) to any threatened point on the southern periphery of the Turkestan General Government. Further to the east, the rather wide Amu Darya served as a natural boundary. Disraeli's threat was now impossible to carry out. The road was completed for another five years and was brought to Samarkand, and then to Tashkent.

On the border of empires

But the question remained of a clear demarcation between Russia and England in the space between the Caspian and Pamir. In 1885, due to uncertainty on this issue, things came to a direct military clash, the only one in the entire “Great Game”. By annexing the Turkmen lands (Trans-Caspian region), the Russian Empire thereby pledged to protect the interests of the Turkmens. Residents of Merv, which swore allegiance to Russia in January 1884, insisted that the Pendinsky oasis, 250 km to the south, was inhabited by Turkmens and the border between them was inappropriate. General Alexander Komarov received orders to reach the new border line. Because in the title "Empress of India"(English Queen Victoria was also her) Afghanistan was also listed, the British considered this step the beginning of an invasion of India and demanded that the Afghan emir stop the Russians. The British can be understood: a hundred kilometers from Pende to the south lay ancient Herat, beyond which an easy route to India opened through flat Afghanistan, bypassing the mountain systems. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that there were no plans to invade Afghanistan, but it was not heard.

Afghan units under the command of British officers immediately occupied the disputed oasis and several neighboring ones. Russia took this as a challenge. In response to Komarov’s request to the representative of the British side, General Lamsden, to order the Afghan troops to leave, the Briton refused. Then, in March 1885, Komarov’s Cossacks recaptured the occupation. German Emperor Wilhelm I congratulated Alexander III on his "brilliant victory at Pende". The expectation of war reigned. In London, Prime Minister Gladstone asked the House of Commons for a loan for the military operation. But things didn’t come to war, Gladstone resigned, and in September a preliminary agreement was reached: the Penda oasis on the Kushka River (later a city of the same name, the southernmost in the empire, was founded here) remains with Russia, but Russia does not advance further.

The next crisis that aroused militant feelings in England was the Pamir crisis. Anyone who is familiar with geography remembers that the Pamirs look like an almost regular trapezoid on the map. But these are the outlines of the Soviet, Tajik Pamir. From the west and east, this trapezoid is adjacent to the powerful ridges of the Afghan and Chinese Pamirs. There was a lot of wealth in this mountainous country - gold, rubies, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, noble spinel, tourmaline, alexandrite, gems have been the subject of legends since ancient times, but even in the late 1880s there were no borders. This worried the main rivals: the Russians could, without formally violating anything, penetrate into Kashmir, the British and Afghans into the Fergana Valley. China also showed a keen interest in the Pamirs. There was clarity only with Badakhshan: this inhabited corner of the “roof of the world” had been paying taxes to the Bukhara emir since ancient times, so it should have been left behind Bukhara.

The Pamir disputes - with the dispatch of armed expeditions, skirmishes, with the construction by the Russian military of a secret strategic road from the Fergana Valley to the Pamirs, with the exchange of loud statements and notes, with campaigns in the press - lasted seven years. To journalists and writers who did not have accurate information, everything seemed as simple as shelling pears, just like today. The talented militarist Kipling wrote in 1891:

And yet a clever solution was found. Looking at a map of Afghanistan today, it is difficult not to notice the thin and long appendix protruding from its northeastern corner. We are talking about the so-called Wakhan corridor, artificially carved out in 1895 from the Southern Pamirs to separate British India from the Russian Empire. And it worked! But a new round of the “Great Game” was already brewing – in the Far East.

The shift in Russian attention to China and the shores of the Pacific Ocean was perceived by many in London as an attempt to get closer to India, this time from the northeast. The activity of Russian explorers in and near Tibet, the travel of Russian Buddhists (Buryats and Kalmyks) to Lhasa, Russia's involvement in the conflict between the Chinese and Muslims in western China, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and now the creation of naval bases in Vladivostok and Port- Arthur - everything was interpreted exactly like that. Based on this, plans were being prepared in England for an attack on the Ussuri region and the mouth of the Amur, preferably in alliance with China and Japan. English strategists did not know that (as historian E. Yu. Sergeev found out) back in 1888, in anticipation of such a turn of events, “a special commission began work in Vladivostok to consider scenarios for the actions of cruisers at sea against the British and Qing fleets”. And again everything worked out.

The end of the “Great Game” was put by an agreement between Russia and Great Britain, signed in St. Petersburg on August 18 (31), 1907. Russia recognized the English protectorate over Afghanistan, England recognized the Russian protectorate over Bukhara and Khiva and the direct entry of the rest of Central Asia into the Russian Empire. In Persia, Russian (in the north) and English (in the south) spheres of influence were distinguished, which came in handy in 1941, when the USSR and England sent their troops into this country for the duration of the war.

Results of the “Great Game”

The Great Game kept all of Europe and almost all of Asia in suspense for half a century. Over time, it gave rise to a whole literature with an emphasis on secret and behind-the-scenes episodes, intelligence operations, etc. But these fascinating works usually lack the main conclusion: the many years of efforts of the two empires helped, without resorting to force (almost without resorting), to solve insoluble issues about the spheres of influence of each of them, including the most conflicting areas, to reconcile irreconcilable interests. There were plenty of “hawks” on each side, but patience, common sense, and the desire to find compromises prevailed. The “Great Game” enriched diplomatic practice with the concepts of “buffer state”, “natural border”, “détente”, “consent”, “sphere of influence (interests)”, which were previously absent from the conceptual apparatus of international relations.

Bukhara general and officers

As is now clear, the main benefit from the “Great Game” came from the peoples of the territories annexed to the Russian Empire, torn out of the Middle Ages. Left to its own devices, Central Asia today would be something like a gigantic Afghanistan. It is not for nothing that in 1995 a monument to Nicholas II was erected in Khorog (Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan, Pamir) - long before the appearance of such monuments in Russia. Let us ask ourselves: would the Russian Empire have taken such an unheard-of costly step as annexing and modernizing these dry, hot and alien khanates, if not for the English threat? But the British too - would they have sought to put a knife to the Russian underbelly, making their way through Punjab, Kashmir, Kashgaria and Dzungaria, through the same hostile Afghanistan, if not for the fear that the Russians were about to loom over India?

Central Asian affairs were taken to heart by Russian society, giving rise to furious newspaper controversy. It was then that the phrase was born "Englishwoman shits". Like the expression "Gentlemen of Tashkent". Tyutchev's last words on his deathbed were: “Is there any news about the capture of Khiva?” Gumilyov’s poem “Turkestan Generals” was a clear reminder to everyone in 1912 of a glorious era, still so recent.

We recognize the right of national elites to see things differently, but it would be a pity if in the history of Russia there was no Central Asian period, there were no adventures of Chernyaev and Stoletov, there was no Vereshchagin, Karazin, Semyonov-Tyanshansky, Przhevalsky, Mushketov, a brilliant galaxy of cartographers, surveyors, geologists, botanists, there were no Semirechensk Cossacks, Kushka with its gigantic cross looking south, if Tibet - the “roof of the world”, the Fedchenko glacier, the ridge of Peter the Great, the great border passes of Irkeshtam and Torugart were not part of Russian history.

The point of empires is not always the profit they bring, and in the Russian case it’s definitely not that. The Empire has the right to be unprofitable. Empires are cultural expansion, strategic rear areas, stimulating challenge. Russia gratefully preserves the memory of the time spent with the peoples of Central Asia under a common state roof, of the common victims of wartime, of the millions who escaped thanks to the fact that there was somewhere to evacuate, and before that, who escaped during the famine years, when, for example, a fair part of the Volga region rushed to Tashkent - the city of grain and to similar places.

Russia annexed the sparsely populated and backward Turkestan, whose peoples had long experienced their former splendor, wealth and glory; Over the course of a century and a quarter, they went through two modernizations - imperial and Soviet - and set off on a free voyage, no longer needing guardianship. The initial impetus for this development of events was largely given in the 19th century by the “Great Game”.

Additional reading: E. Yu. Sergeev. The Great Game, 1856–1907: Myths and Realities of Russian-British Relations in Central and East Asia. – M., 2012 (scientific work); A. B. Shirokorad. Russia – England: the unknown war, 1857–1907. – M., 2003 (for the general reader).

Central Asia is a region that is both fascinating and frightening. The once strategic section of the Silk Road today is to a certain extent on the periphery of international politics. Territorial isolation, low economic growth, political instability, and the spread of radical Islamism are just some of the factors that explain the region’s weak political position at the global level.

Was Halford MacKinder wrong in assigning a key role to the “Heartland” with its steppe peoples? The English geographer, inspired by the vast expanses of Eurasia and its monolithic nature, believed that a developed system of transport communications would allow the region to compete with the maritime powers of the World Island. This is how Mackinder imagined the balance of power in 1904. Eurasianism, as an ideological movement, appeared in the 20s of the 20th century, but it received its political content in the 90s, being adopted by the Russian political elites. The collapse of the USSR presented the Russian Federation with the task of determining its place not only in the new world politics, but also outlining its “critical space” on the map. The Heartland concept was perfectly suited to new political thinking, opening up new opportunities for unifying the disintegrated Soviet space. The once forbidden geopolitics became one of the popular sciences, within the framework of which the Eurasian project was formed. The Eurasian project was conceived, and still is, primarily a political project, but it does not exclude economic cooperation and security components.

Thus, the region of Central Asia, or the “near abroad”, as it was designated in Russian political discourse, entered the sphere of interests of the new state - the Russian Federation. However, having gained independence, the former republics of the USSR also gained freedom of choice in terms of the development of foreign and domestic policies. Moreover, the newly formed geopolitical space attracted the attention of other world powers. In this context, we can talk about a new “Great Game” between influential actors in international relations in Central Asia.

Russian presence in the “near abroad”

Russia's return to the region implied the creation of an institutional platform, which was reflected in the emergence of organizations such as the CSTO, aimed at cooperation in the field of security, or the Eurasian Economic Union, involving the creation of a single market.

One of the most developed areas of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the countries of Central Asia is military cooperation. Neighboring Afghanistan, SUAO implies numerous threats, primarily associated with the spread of radical Islamism. Military bases of the Russian Federation are located in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on the basis of long-term interstate lease agreements. Currently lacking the economic and technical capabilities to create their own powerful military potential, the countries of Central Asia are using the help of their northern neighbor, thereby integrating into the local security complex initiated by Russia.

Various associations in the post-Soviet space also have the goal of maintaining political ties at the highest level that were formed during the Soviet era. The leaders of neighboring countries are representatives of the same Soviet political elite, appointed with the consent of Moscow. These ties are actively supported by the Russian side, as evidenced by Vladimir Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in February 2017, aimed at strengthening “geopolitical loyalty”. Secondly, the political structure and culture of the Central Asian countries are in many ways similar to Russia, which favors mutual understanding on both sides and promotes multilateral cooperation.

In addition, since the times of the USSR, close economic ties have been maintained, in particular related to labor flows. Thus, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, at the end of 2016, more than 3 million people were registered as citizens of Uzbekistan alone. This fact gives the Russian side an advantage during negotiations with the leaders of Central Asian countries, when relaxations in the field of migration legislation regarding migrant workers are used to achieve agreement. For example, during the above-mentioned visit to the Kyrgyz Republic, the President of the Russian Federation emphasized the role of Russia in the country’s economy, drawing attention to the fact that “thanks to Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the EAEU, in the nine months of last year, remittances from Kyrgyz labor from Russia increased by 18.5% migrants - up to $1.3 billion, which is almost a third of the country's GDP."

Strong ties between Russia and the countries of Central Asia are also observed in the field of energy cooperation, which has been preserved since the times of the USSR, and is manifested in the activities of such large companies as Gazprom and Lukoil.

However, the Russian project to create the Eurasian space has encountered a number of problems in this region. First of all, upon gaining independence, the Central Asian countries were interested in creating a union based on cooperation rather than interdependence. In this context, Russia's position as a dominant player due to its economic and military potential may become an obstacle to the Eurasian project.

In addition, at present, the preservation of the structural interdependence of various sectors of Russia and the states of the region is still largely determined by the economic and geographical isolation of Central Asia and Russia’s monopoly on the transit of energy resources from the countries of the region. However, the wide potential of the region, endowed with rich hydrocarbon resources, is increasingly attracting other countries interested in importing them. The struggle for influence in Central Asia raises the question of a new “Great Game” in the region.

China's turn to the West

The “One Belt, One Road” project, launched on the initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, is still in development, and although a number of programs have been released indicating its goals, objectives and scope, there is still no clear framework for its activities. In general terms, the project represents long-term ambitions to develop economic cooperation, internal connectivity and infrastructural progress of the Eurasian region under the auspices of the PRC.

In addition, being the largest consumer of oil, China is naturally interested in the resources of Central Asia, which were once under the monopoly of the USSR. Almost half of China's oil imports come from the Near and Middle East, and thus China faces the challenge of diversifying it, which is why it is turning towards its Western neighbors.

It is clarified that the PRC initiative does not imply competition with the influence of other actors or any limitation of their activities in the region. However, is it possible to assume that the project, which relies largely on Chinese financial resources and is aimed at developing countries with relatively low economic indicators, does not have a political component? It is worth taking into account the fact that “One Belt, One Road” is perhaps the first project of this scale since the founding of the PRC, and its adoption coincides with a time when the rate of economic growth in China has noticeably decreased compared to the indicators that appeared a consequence of the active rise as a result of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up policies. Moreover, the beginning of the 21st century saw the emergence of the initiative to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes the participation of China and is aimed at creating an economic association as opposed to the PRC. In this context, it is quite logical to assume that the project itself is some kind of response to the TPP initiative, as well as a reaction to the decline in economic growth. To give the economy a new impetus for development, China is taking a “pivot to the West” in search of new markets for Chinese goods and new opportunities for investors.

Thus, despite its economic orientation, “One Belt, One Road” inevitably (or deliberately) acquires a political character. Some experts refer to the project as the PRC's "Marshall Plan". This circumstance may lead to a clash of China’s interests with the interests of other countries in the target regions, including the interests of Russia in the Central Asian region. As the project is implemented, the “near abroad” of Russia may transform from the “near abroad” of China, since the economic potential of the latter is more attractive for Central Asian countries than Russia’s.

Security questions

“One Belt, One Road,” just like the Eurasian project, inevitably faces security problems in the region. For the successful implementation of these projects, it is necessary to ensure political stability and maintain a peaceful environment. As mentioned above, priority in the field of security and in the field of political contacts is still on the side of the Russian Federation. However, the PRC is also associated with some security problems with the countries of the region. This, first of all, concerns the spread of radical Islamism and the Uyghur separatist movement. Since the independence of the Central Asian countries, separatist sentiments in the region have intensified significantly, since the potential possibility of re-establishing a Uyghur state, or East Turkestan, has arisen, which sharply contradicts the interests of the PRC.

Thus, for successful “infiltration” into the region, two conditions must be present: economic and financial capabilities and possession of significant military potential. In this context, the prospect of combining the efforts of the PRC and the Russian Federation seems to be the best option for the leaders of the two countries.

“Norm” of Russian-Chinese relations

Since the intersection of the interests of the Russian Federation and China in the Central Asian region in one form or another is inevitable, since the late 90s, after the official definition of the interstate border, attempts have been made to formalize and coordinate the ambitions of the two countries. The “Strategic Partnership” (1996), supported by the Treaty of Friendship (2001), gradually evolved into the creation of an official institutionalized platform in the form of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which today seems to be the most optimal option for coordinating the activities of the Russian Federation and China in Central Asia. As a result, a certain concept of the “norm” of Russian-Chinese relations was defined: equal, de-ideologized, pragmatic relations aimed at satisfying their interests, within the framework of which each side adheres to realistic expectations regarding the behavior of the other side. In addition, there is an unspoken consolidation of the priority of the military-strategic positions of the Russian Federation in the region and non-obstruction of the economic expansion of the influence of the PRC.

This logic lies in the desire to combine the Eurasian project and “One Belt, One Road”. One of the mechanisms for coordinating activities within the framework of two projects was launched on June 25, 2016 by the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. In October 2016, the presidents of Russia and China reaffirmed their intentions to cooperate. As noted by the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov, “Russia continues negotiations on the integration of the EurAsEC and the Silk Road Economic Belt project implemented by China.”

However, it is worth asking yourself: is such an initiative realistic and feasible? The separation between the security and economic spheres, especially the energy sector, raises some doubts in this regard.

An example of this is the founding of the Quadrilateral Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism, which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and China. As part of this unification, it is planned to create a local security system without the participation of Russia, which has caused some dissatisfaction with the latter. As Andrei Serenko, an expert at the Center for the Study of Modern Afghanistan, noted in his interview with the Izvestia newspaper, we are talking about “the creation of such a “Central Asian NATO” under the Chinese umbrella.” Of course, the format of the four is less developed compared to NATO and perhaps deserves less critical assessments, but, nevertheless, it forces the Russian Federation to reassess its position in the region in relation to the PRC.

The political and economic opportunities of the countries of Central Asia depend on how relations between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China develop in the region. Firstly, competition between the two neighbors will increase the level of economic development of the countries: interest in the energy sector will make it possible to develop untapped hydrocarbon reserves and attract investment in this sector. Secondly, both the Russian Federation and the PRC are making efforts to maintain the stability of the region and preserve the status quo.

At the moment, there are no sharp contradictions between Russia and China, which is largely explained by the context: the policy of relative economic isolation of Russia from the United States and the European Union in connection with the Ukrainian conflict and subsequent sanctions forces it to “turn to the east”, while making some concessions. China's capabilities in Central Asia should not be overestimated. At the moment, China's presence in the region has not yet reached the size that could pose a threat to Russian interests. For example, the head of the Institute of International Studies at Beijing Tsinghua University, Yan Xuetong, considers plans to create infrastructure as part of the New Silk Road initiative “beyond China’s capabilities.”

The new role of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in US strategy

The “Great Game” is a term coined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the rivalry and colonial conquests of the British and Russian empires in Central and South Asia. The focus of events was Afghanistan. The term was remembered again in connection with the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of new Central Asian republics. Since then the situation has developed intensively. Today, geopolitics lovers are talking about a new Great Game or “Great Game 2.0, 3.0...”. In relation to the region, this means the same struggle for resources between global players - the USA, Russia and China - with the only difference that such geopolitical structures are simply “optics” - as old as the technologies from the time of the first Great Game.

The recent history of American-Russian relations in Afghanistan begins with the collapse of the USSR. The departure of Soviet troops in 1989 was not a departure in the full sense of the word. Support for Najibullah, and after the fall of his regime in 1993, sympathy for the Mujahideen group and the then ruling Islamic Party of Afghanistan with a predominance of the Tajik ethnic element. These kinds of stakes are almost inevitable in this country, where ethnic and even tribal origins are markers of political character. The party led by Rabbani and Massoud increasingly lost control, while other factions (for example, led by Hekmatyar) demanded much more than what was allocated to them within the framework of the transitional governments. The dispute resulted in a civil war, which gave birth to the Taliban.

If we remember who once financed and armed the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation, it becomes clear why the “ghost” of the United States was seen in all the troubles and conflicts of Afghanistan. This was the Russian optics of the Afghan problem. But the United States hasn't really cared about Afghanistan since 1989. The Cold War is over. Who was really bothered by this problem was Pakistan.

During the Soviet military presence, Islamabad became the main transit destination for financial, material and military assistance to the Mujahideen. The funds were colossal: the USA - USD 1 billion per year, Saudi Arabia - USD 800 million. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence became an almost profitable corporation, which was at the origins of the distribution of such “aid”. Having lost a donor, and also having had many problems with its former “wards,” Pakistan was faced with the task of intra-Afghan settlement.

The Taliban movement became a kind of “answer”. But here things were by no means simple. The movement, ethnically Pashtun, was supposed to help solve the Pakistani problem of Pashtunistan, about 50% of whose territory is part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. And there was no Afghan government that recognized the Pakistan-Afghan border as fair. If we talk about the demographic component, the titular group in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns, make up 47% of the population (16 million people), while in Pakistan the Pashtuns are an ethnic minority - 15% (30 million people). If we take into account that the Pashtun tribes are distinguished by their belligerence, high mobility, pronounced tribal loyalty and almost complete disregard for state borders (for various reasons, including economic ones), then it becomes clear why it is so important for Islamabad to have a reliable partner or even ally in Kabul.

Pakistan's assistance and support to the Taliban movement was provided based on two considerations: ensuring Pakistani interests regarding the border issue and entering the market of the newly independent states of Central Asia.

Big Game 2.0

The vast majority of geopolitical projects have one significant flaw: the interests of medium-sized and small countries (subjects) are not included in the analysis of the present and design of the future. But, entering into an argument with lovers of geopolitics, I would like to say that global players, although they play an important role, do not completely determine the situation.

This was the case with the Taliban movement. The Taliban were building the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, but internal resources were not enough to maintain the loyalty of all parties. The Taliban movement had more opponents in the region and in the world than supporters. Three states have recognized their legitimacy - Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan. In 1996, the countries of Central Asia, together with Moscow, expressed their position on non-recognition of the Emirate. Although, it should be noted that there was no unity here either. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as a whole did not refuse further episodic cooperation, while for Moscow, the establishment of ties by the Taliban with the separatists of Chechnya excluded any possibility of recognition of their regime.

The terrible practice of using the norms of “Islamic law” by the Taliban has turned the entire international community against them. Even a demonstrative fight against drug trafficking did not help correct their image. Devastation, lack of external sources of financing, sanctions and prolonged drought and crop failure in 1999-2001. led to a humanitarian catastrophe. And the Taliban's alliance with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden personally led to a political disaster. The terrorist attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, the destruction of Buddha statues and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - this is the chain of events that led to a massive US military invasion of Afghanistan and a military presence in Central Asian countries. Let me remind you that we are talking about two military bases in Khanabad (Uzbekistan) and Gansi (Kyrgyzstan). This fundamentally changed the military-strategic situation in the region.

The Russian political and military elite perceived all this with a mixed sense of anxiety and relief. It was quite difficult for Moscow to admit its helplessness in the face of advancing radical Islamism, which had seriously and permanently changed the political map of the region. At the turn of the century, Central Asia was shaking under the blows of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, just as the civil war in Tajikistan ended. The forces and means were not enough to stop the infiltration of terrorist groups from Afghanistan. Russia was experiencing the 1998 default and its consequences, and the counterterrorism campaign in Chechnya in 2000.

China, in a certain sense taking advantage of the situation, announced the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the summer of 2001. The US invasion of Afghanistan balanced the situation, but threatened long-term consequences for the entire region (including Russian interests).

Big Game 3.0

So, the “ghost” of the United States has materialized. A long and complex anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan began. If you follow the formal history, then it took place in several stages. The first was the establishment of control over the capital and part of the country (2001-2003), then the NATO military mission (2003-2014) and, from 2015, Operation Resolute Support, the purpose of which was to assist the Afghan government in establishing control over the country. If we talk about the true state of affairs, then control was never established, since the expansion of areas of responsibility to the south and east faced serious resistance. The Obama Administration's promise to end the military campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan encouraged the Americans to end the NATO mission.

During all this time, Russian-American relations experienced ups and downs, although the Afghan issue was an example of cooperation between the countries. In particular, Russia received a substantial contract for the supply of fuel for military equipment. But as troops were withdrawn (and the transition period was defined from 2012 to 2014), relations became worse. The Ukrainian issue – Maidan, the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in the southeast of the country – in a short time reduced Russian-American relations to the state of the “second edition of the Cold War.”

In 2013, Xi Jinping presented his project to the world in Astana, then called the “Economic Belts of the Silk Road”, and now “One Belt – One Road” (OBOR). It has become clear that China views Central Asia as part of its new strategy. Meanwhile, the rise of another radical Islamist project has had a significant impact on Afghanistan.

In June 2014, the forced march of ISIS troops from Syria to Iraq amazed all experts. Nobody expected such consequences of the civil war in Syria, but when it became known that this group was created on the territory of Iraq back in 2006, it became clear why their seizures were so impressive. The idea of ​​the Caliphate, implemented by ISIS, recruited more and more supporters into its ranks. Among them were not only citizens of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and other countries in the region, but also Western countries. Over time, it became known that among the militants of the Islamic State there are many people from the former USSR (Russia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia). ISIS militants began to penetrate Afghanistan and recruit young people into their ranks, but in addition to this, individual groups also began to swear an oath of allegiance to the new emir Al-Baghdadi. Ferment began among the Taliban.

For Afghanistan, 2015 was the “X-hour”. NATO's military mission ended, but the transition of control over the country was carried out with problems. The shock was the Taliban invasion of Kunduz province on the border with Tajikistan and the capture of the provincial capital. This was not just an attack, but a real battle for the city and one of the four most important military pillars of NATO's presence in the north. The conflict between the Islamic State and the Taliban has given rise to the misleading impression that all global players have room for maneuver. According to rumors, there were attempts to conclude a tactical alliance with the Taliban against the Islamic State, which made it possible for the movement to obtain weapons, as well as participate in negotiations on a future Afghan settlement. By the fall of 2017, it became clear that the Taliban took advantage of the shift in attention to IS to strengthen their positions in the country.

It was relations with the Taliban that became a “stumbling block” between the United States and Russia. The US military accused the Russian side of supplying small arms to the Taliban, and in response they accused the transfer of IS militants to Afghanistan. But in this “murky story,” one thing must be understood: the Taliban movement has been recognized as a force to be reckoned with in future negotiations on Afghanistan.

Big Game 4.0

A year ago, when Donald Trump entered the White House, representatives of the US expert community argued that the new president did not have a foreign policy strategy, but today we can well imagine this strategy.

By the summer of 2017, it became clear that US-Russian relations would not improve. In Washington, a scandal regarding the interference of Russian special services in the election process was gaining momentum. On August 2, Trump signed the Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Enhancement Act, which explicitly named Russia as an enemy for the first time since the Cold War. The sanctions part of the law has not yet been implemented, including the secret list of people who will be subject to sanctions at the first stage. The White House has taken a break on this issue for now, but enforcement of the law is inevitable.

On August 21, 2017, a new strategy for Afghanistan was presented, which included five main positions: 1) increasing the military presence (the exact number is not specified); 2) the military makes decisions about conducting operations on the spot; 3) the ultimate goal is to force the Taliban into peace negotiations; 4) force Pakistan to stop harboring the heads of terrorist groups (Haqqani); 5) the goal is victory, not building a state.

According to unofficial data provided Washington Post, during the year from December 2016 to December 2017, the number of American military personnel doubled from 8.4 thousand to 15.2 thousand. It is planned to transfer 1000 more US military personnel by the spring of 2018 to create a new unit under the working name Support Brigade security agencies, which should directly help in the fight against the Taliban.

In December 2017, a new National Security Strategy was published, which actually outlined the main contours of US policy for the coming years. South and Central Asia in the regional context comes fourth after the Middle East. The essence of this area is that the strategic partnership with India is complemented by other partnerships, including with Pakistan, which is determined by many factors. One sentence identifies the main counterparty - China, which is regarded as a challenge to the sovereignty of South Asian and Central Asian nations in the light of increasing influence due to the new initiative - the BRI. Separate attention is paid to the integration of Central and South Asia, and in the military sphere the importance of the region in terms of transit is emphasized (transfer of goods to Afghanistan, as in 2001). Moreover, it is clear from the text that the emphasis is on Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

In mid-December, a meeting was also held between the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, at which the issue of building the China-Pakistan Development Corridor (CPDC), which includes Afghanistan, which is an integral part of the BRI, was discussed. At the same time, since the beginning of 2017, the American military has been spreading information about the appearance of Chinese military personnel in the country. Beijing does not deny such information, but emphasizes that the joint patrol of the Chinese-Afghan border (78 km section) was aimed at joint anti-terrorism exercises.

Thus, we can state the beginning of a new round of the so-called Great Game or Game 4.0. A significant difference of this game will be the inclusion of such states as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as its subjects. The Islamists and the Taliban have proven their viability, and, accordingly, they will also have to be taken into account.

To be continued

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