The administrative system of the Turkestan Governor-Generalship

The “Provisional Statute on the Administration of the Turkestan Province” of 6 August 1865 placed government in military hands: the governor combined military and civil affairs, and heads of divisions were also military commandants. Later documents (the draft statute of 1867 and the Statute of 1886) strengthened this structure: provinces were run by military governors and divided into uyezds, then into sub-districts and volosts, villages and auls. Local people held only low posts – head of a volost (mingboshi), village elder, aul head, qozi and biy, mirob, onboshi (head of ten); for settled people an elder’s district (oqsoqollik) had 100–200 households, and among nomads a volost had 1000–2000 yurts. In 1877 a “City Statute” was introduced in Tashkent: the city duma had 21 deputies elected by 80 thousand local residents and 48 elected by some 3900 people, mostly Russians. The Statute of 1886 turned the Zarafshan District into the Samarkand Province and created a Council under the governor-general; in that year the governor-generalship covered 1.7 million sq km with 5.2 million people (according to the textbook). In Bukhara a political agency of the Russian emperor was set up under a decree of 1885 (it operated in 1886–1917).