Tsarist Russian Period, 1867 - 1918
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are characterized throughout the world by the effects of European colonialism. Powers like Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Holland in the seventeenth and eighteenth, and France, England, a unified Germany, and Russia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had tried to increase their national wealth either by direct conquest and economic exploitation of militarily weaker regions of the world or by a gradual process of establishing trading centers and then using those trade centers as a means of establishing political power. These two forms of expansion had the result of transferring European conflicts and rivalries to the farthest corners of the globe.
For Central Asia, which was generally isolated from those rivalries until the mid-nineteenth century, the rivalry of two superpowers, Great Britain and Russia, had dramatic effects. British politicians obsessed about Russia’s threat to India and Russian politicians were equally fearful of Britain ambitions towards Central Asia. Russian policies had the most direct impact on Central Asia. Great Britain suffered a humiliating defeat when it tried to occupy and control Afghanistan (1839–42), while the Russia, twenty-five years later, was able to take advantage of conflicts going on within Central Asia to forcibly seize much of the region north of the Amu Darya (Oxus River) by 1867 and reduce the rest to dependency (notable the Bukharan emirate). Great Britain, on the other hand, settled for exerting diplomatic and economic influence over southern Central Asia, present-day Afghanistan.
Architecture of conquest
With the Russian conquest of Central Asia, new ideas about the organization of the built environment were introduced. Russia was a Christian European society and its ideas about the built environment would diverge significantly from that of the societies it was now ruling. For one thing, rather than integrate into the existing urban fabric, Russian settlers and colonial functionaries opted to establish new cities adjacent to the old (Kagan or New Bukhara at Bukhara, for example) or develop areas outside the walls of the existing cities (Tashkent and Samarqand) are good examples. Russian city planners were much under the influence of what was called “garden city” planning. The plan of the late Chinggisid city, which was divided into discrete densely-populated quarters, was seen as “oriental” and “traditional” and therefore to not to be emulated, despite its obvious value in preserving land for agricultural use. Moreover, Russians believed the dense development of the cities of Central Asia was harmful to good hygiene and contributed to the epidemics of cholera and dysentery that were endemic at the time. Russian city planners adhered to the ideal of the garden city plan with wide streets intersecting tree-lined avenues at right angles, the streets lined with narrow open ditches carrying water for irrigation. Parks and public facilities like shops and schools would be distributed on the plan according to expected demand. The residences built by Russian settlers and officials within the garden city plan showed a marked divergence from the compound house (hawili or howli) style favored by the local populace with the visual orientation focused inward on the courtyard. Houses would be detached and low and their large windows faced the street. One can see this most clearly in Tashkent and Samarkand where the Russian presence was deeply entrenched. Despite the great earthquake of 1966 which leveled much of Tashkent, for example, surviving residential structures from the Russian era are predominantly of a bungalow style, one or one-and-a half storey houses with doors and windows opening directly onto the street.
Neglect of indigenous built environment
When it came to religion and society, the Russians generally took a laissez-faire attitude towards the Muslim population and its built environment, showing interest mainly in large monumental structures such as the tomb of Tamerlane in Samarqand as museum-worthy and therefore worth preserving. Although active proselytizing campaigns to convert Muslims to Christianity were not conducted, no active encouragement of Islam was given either. The government ceased to be an active supporter of public buildings such as madrasas and mosques unless of architecturally historic significance. As the wielders of political power,, the Russians controlled the fiscal resources that under a Central Asian government might have been used to help maintain public architecture, the numerous schools (madrasas), mosques, and shopping centers. As a result, the architecture of the city centers suffered from lack of maintenance. The natural environment with its cycles of freeze and melt wreaked havoc with brick and stucco structures and with the ceramic tile with which the more monumental were faced.
Certain patterns persisted for about fifty years after the first Russian conquest (until 1918) despite the Russian presence. Property rights and political agreements restricted Russian building to certain areas of the cities. Samarqand shows the most visible separation between the pre-existing urban plan and a new Russian city. At Bukhara, by agreement, Russians were not allowed to own property within the walls of Bukhara City proper and a new town, Kagan, sprang up 13 kilometers to the southeast to accommodate Russian settlers and provide a site for the station of the new railway.