The Tashkent “Cholera Riot” (1892)

(Dates in this topic are Old Style, the Julian calendar then used in the Russian Empire; add 12 days for today’s calendar.) In March 1892 cholera spread in Afghanistan; at the end of spring it was recorded in Jizzakh uyezd and on 7 June in Tashkent. The city administration closed 12 cemeteries, but outside the city only one was opened. According to the textbook, sanitary measures were not convincingly explained to people, doctors were few, patients were examined on the third or fourth day, and as a result rumours spread that officials were poisoning water. From 18 June the “Rule on Places Declared under Martial Law” came into force. After the Old City elder Inogomkhoja Umriyokhojayev was removed from office, the new elder ordered that people who had died of other illnesses also be buried in the cholera cemetery, and people were angered. On 24 June some 400 people, mostly labourers and craftsmen, went to the city head S. Putintsev. When he chose force over negotiation, a clash began, and the elder’s house and the office were damaged. A Cossack regiment and a company of soldiers were called in to suppress the revolt. Then St Petersburg allowed a “police regime” in the region: in places under “strong protection” the governor-general gained the right to disperse meetings, close enterprises, ban the press and exile people.