TASHKENT

Uzbekistan is historically rich, and richer are the three settlements that have marked milestones in world history - Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent. The trio have been part of almost every chapter of Central Asian and, later, Russian and Soviet history. Talking here specifically about the capital Tashkent, this blog briefly encompasses its history and significance cartographically. 

The history of Tashkent dates back to the Bronze Age, 2000 BC when the Andronovo culture flourished in entire Central Asia; around 500 BC, when the Achaemenid Empire stretched to the Aral Sea and boundaries of India, cities such as Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara were founded, but not by the modern names. Tashkent was previously known as Chach, as it was settled around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC. When the Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great expanded throughout the three continents, Tashkent remained untouched and protected under the Massagtae societies, famous for killing the Iranian ruler Cyrus the Great in 530 BC. Around 100 BC, the Kangju state engulfed Uzbek regions from Bukhara to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, bordering the rising Kushan Empire of the Indian subcontinent in the south. Kangu or Kanka is located on the southeastern outskirts of the Tashkent oasis. This was succeeded by the White Huns or the Hephthalites community that extended from the coast of the Aral Sea to Sinkiang in the east and Afghanistan to the south and spoke languages such as Bactrian, Sogdian, Chorasmian and the ancient Indian language of Prakrit. 

The history of the Islamic world gives us information on the various archaic polities that let us know of the different ruling heads of those territories. Phrases such as Sultanate, Khanate, Emirate, Caliphate, Khaganate etc. Central Asia had a series of Khanates and Khaganates that started with the arrival of Islam in the 8th century AD. But just before the arrival of this new religion, Central Asia practised Tengrism, worshipping the sky god Tengri, a nomadic cultural belief system of Central Asia. Such Shamanistic belief was the main faith system of the Turkic Khaganates of the Göktürks that spread in the 6th century AD throughout the Central Asian territories. 

Under the Göktürks, there were various sub-communities such as the Kangars, Kimeks, Karluks, Turgesh, Chigils, Basmyls, Wusun and Tölash and even the Magyars and Khazars beyond the Caspian Sea in today's Ukraine. The Kangars were the ones who populated today's Uzbekistan region. On the arrival of Islam, although the Ummayads were the first to approach the Central Asian countries, the Abbasids entered Uzbekistan first. The province of Transoxiana, or Varaz-rüd or Mā Warā' an-Nahr, stretched from Bhukhara in the west to Khujand in Tajikistan in the east. This was followed by an independent segment from the Abbasids, known as the Samanids, who ruled Uzbekistan between 819 to 999 AD. 

While the Samanid Empire existed, the Qarakhanids or the Kara-Khanid Khanate emerged in Uzbekistan and parts of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. This empire existed for more than three and a half centuries. Around the same time, close to the Aral Sea, the Oghuz Turks formed a confederation known as the Oghuz Yabgu State. Originally they practised Shamanism and Tengrism but later embraced and adopted Islam as their sole religion. The next to the line would be the Seljuks, who ruled from Turkey to Tajikistan and extended to the Gulf Coast and the Levant. They headed for more than a century between 1037 to 1194, and their origin goes back to one of the sub-branches of Oghuz Turks. As Islam was expanding in Asia, the Chinese Muslims grew their territories in Central Asia with the Qara Khitai or the Khitan Empire between 1124 to 1218, extending across Uzbekistan to as far as Sinkiang and western Mongolia, just on the onset of the upcoming giant, the Mongol Empire. 

The Chagatai Khanate, which ruled under the Mongols between 1226 to 1266, was a fraction of the Mongol Empire that laid over Uzbekistan. This was followed by another breakaway that would later become masters of the pre-colonial Indian subcontinent - the Mughals. A segment of Chagatai Khanate that would extend from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan and extend to northwestern China is known as the Eastern Chagatai Khanate or the Moghul Khanate or Moghulistan. Although the actual Mughal Empire started in 1526 on the Indian subcontinent, its origin goes back three centuries in the heartland of Central Asia. While eastern Uzbekistan had Chagatai Khanate, the western portion was part of the Golden Horde or the Kipchak Khanate that ruled till 1502. The successor to Moghulistan was the Timurid Empire, which covered the entire Uzbekistan and spread to as far as the Caucasus and Euphrates valley in the west to the Punjab region of undivided India in the east; the successor to which would be the Mughal Empire that ruled the subcontinent till 1858 (the first Mughal Emperor, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, was born at Andijan, located at the border of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). 

The Timurid Dynasty broke into fragments, such as the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khiva, the Mughal Empire, the Khanate of Kokand etc., that would later give rise to the Uzbek and Qazak Khanates. Interestingly, the original Uzbek Khanate extended much in Kazakhstan from 1428 to 1471, and hence the succeeding Qazakh Khanate superseded and gave birth to modern Kazakhstan. The Khanates existed even while the new superpower Russia was expanding up in the north, and it was by the mid-1800s when Russia took over Khiva, Bukhara, Qazaks and the Turkmens. By the end of the 19th century, Russia had engulfed everything from the Baltic to Siberia and from the Caucasus to Central Asia. The Russian Republic entering the 20th century would later transform into the Soviet Unions, among which the three autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics: Bukharan, Khorezm and Turkestan - were distributed to form the Uzbek SSR and Karakalpak ASSR. In 1990, after Uzbekistan's independence, the autonomy of Karakalpak continued to maintain its autonomy and still held the right to secede anytime it wanted to based on a nationwide referendum. 

Returning to Tashkent, its history traversed through all the abovementioned policies. Its name evolved from Chach or Shash to Binkath, Chachkand, Chashkand, Tashkand, Toshkent, to the Soviet spelling of Tashkent. The city's revival occurred primarily during the Timurid dynasty and the subsequent Shaybanid dynasty in the 15th century facing numerous attacks from various clans such as the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Persians, Mongols etc. In 1809, Tashkent was annexed to the Khanate of Kokand and was swinging between the economic power clashes between Kokand, Russia and Bukhara. In 1865, a massive Russian attack captured the city, and one Russian General, Mikhail Grigorevich Chernyayev, recommended that Tsar Alexander II declare Tashkent as an independent Khanate under Russian protection. But history was written differently, and instead of granting independence, Tashkent became the capital of the newly formed Russian Turkestan that extended from Turkmenistan to southern Kazakhstan and covered Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This political entity would later break into autonomous pieces forming the premise of Central Asian politics under the Russians and, later, the Soviets. 

Tashkent has a strong Indian connection that goes back to 1966 when a pact between India and Pakistan was signed to seek a solution to the Indo-Pak war in 1965. The two countries had been clashing on the issue of Kashmir since the two nations gained independence in 1947, and the 1966 pact was intervened by the Soviet Union and the United States to find a permanent solution. Unfortunately, the pact achieved little success, and suspicions rose immediately when the then-Indian Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was declared dead days after the pact was signed at Tashkent. The mystery behind his death is yet to be resolved. 

Today's Tashkent is divided into twelve districts: 

1. Yunusabad
2. Olmazar
3. Shaykhontohur
4. Mirzo Ulugbeg
5. Yashnobod
6. Yakkasaray
7. Mirobod
8. Chilanzar
9. Ukhtepa
10. Sergeli
11. Bektemir
12. Yangihayot

Below here is a map of Tashkent pre-2020.