The Russians, under General Kaufmann, took Tashkent about fifty years ago, and have laid out the new town with broad roads planted with fine trees that are watered by irrigation. There are churches, public parks, tram-lines and imposing-looking shops, the considerable Russian population appearing to mix freely with the Sarts, as the inhabitants are termed by the dominant race. In India a white woman of whatever class has a position with the natives, but here the ordinary Russian woman is seemingly on an equality with them, and not infrequently marries them. In the best confectioner’s shop, served by Russian girls, natives came in and bought and ate cakes and sweets on the premises, side by side with smart officers or elegant ladies evidently belonging to the upper circles of Tashkent society.
Even in this remote part of the Russian Empire the War was brought home to the inhabitants by the presence of fifteen thousand prisoners, Germans and Austrians. The latter, who were mostly Slavs, had the privilege of shopping in the town, and we heard that they were on excellent terms with their captors, whereas the Germans were permitted no such relaxation of their captivity.
A long narrow street led from the Russian city straight into the native town with its mud-built houses, its little stalls of food and clothing, its mosques and shrines, and above all its gaily clad populace. But for the people I could have imagined myself to be in a Persian city; but here, instead of men in dingily coloured frock-coats and tall astrakhan hats, and women shrouded in black from head to foot, the inhabitants of both sexes revelled in colour. All wore smart velvet or embroidered caps, round which the greybeards swathed snowy turbans. The men had striped coats of many colours, the brighter the better, the little girls rivalling them with bold contrasts, such as a short, gold-laced magenta velvet jacket worn above a flowered, scarlet cotton skirt, or a coat of emerald green with a vivid blue under-garment. For the most part they were pretty, rosy-cheeked, velvet-eyed maidens, with their hair hanging down their backs in a dozen plaits, and I felt sorry to think that all their charm would shortly have to disappear behind the long cloak, beautifully embroidered though it might be, and the hideous black horsehair veil affected by their mothers.
One fascinating little figure adorned with big earrings and bracelets came dancing down an alley into the street, holding out the ends of a scarlet veil which she had thrown over her head, her cotton dress and trousers being in two shades of rose. She pirouetted up to a tall man in a rainbow-coloured silk coat who was carrying a tin can, and had paused at the steps of the mosque to let the children gather round him. To my surprise he began to dole out ice-cream in little glasses, and boys and girls had delicious “licks” in exchange for small coins. I remembered how envious I had felt in early youth when I saw English street urchins partaking of what seemed to me to be food fit for the gods, although my nurse allowed me no chance of sampling it, and in a moment the East and the West seemed to come very near, the ice-cream man acting as the bridge across the gulf.
After leaving Tashkent we travelled through a rich alluvial country watered by the Sir Daria, the classical Jaxartes, and halted on our way to Andijan at the ancient city of Khokand. As at Tashkent, the Russian and native towns are separate, and we hired a moon-faced, beardless Sart, attired in a long red and blue striped coat and with an embroidered skull-cap perched on his shaven head, to drive us round.
He raced his wiry little ponies at a great pace along a wide tree-planted avenue ending in a church of preternatural ugliness set in a public garden. Near by were Russian houses and shops, while small victorias containing grey-uniformed officers or turbaned Sarts dashed past, and native carts laden with bales of cotton creaked slowly by. Many of these carts had big tilts, the wooden framework inside being gaudily painted, and the horses themselves were decked with handsome brass trappings.
The old town, with its high mud walls, flat-roofed squalid dwellings, a bazar closely resembling those to be found in any Asiatic city, and comparatively modern mosques, had little of interest, though a well-known traveller speaks of its thirty-five theological colleges: its roads, as usual, were bad and narrow, and must be rivers of mud in wet weather.
Many women were unveiled, others wore the ghoul-like horsehair face coverings, and some of their embroidered coats were so charming in design and colouring that I longed to do a “deal” with the wearers. Many of the people were squatting, eating melons which they store during the winter, or drinking tea, a Russian woman being evidently a member of one family group. We had one or two narrow shaves of colliding with other carriages, as our coachman threaded his way far too fast for safety and exchanged abusive epithets with his brother Jehus, among whom were Russians in black, sleeveless, cassock-like garments worn over scarlet cotton blouses. The harness of the little horses was adorned with many tufts of coloured wools, giving a pretty effect as these tassels nearly swept the ground or waved in the air. The life on the roads, the spring sunshine, the fresh green leaves, the white and pink of the blossom, and the orgy of colour furnished by the inhabitants, made the drive an unforgettable experience.
A few hours later we reached Andijan, where the railway ended, and here we had our last clean resting-place until we arrived at Kashgar. I noticed that the native women wore long grey burnouses with black borders ending in two tails that were always trailing in the dust, and all hid their faces in the mask-like horsehair veils. It was the day before Palm Sunday, and as we strolled in the evening up the cobbled street of the town a large congregation was issuing from the church, every one carrying a small branch and a little candle, which each had lit in the sanctuary. In the darkness the scores of tiny lights looked like fire-flies, and I observed how carefully the sacred flame was sheltered from any draught, as it is considered most important to convey it home unextinguished. Our hotel was fairly good, but I was not pleased on retiring to find that my door did not lock, and that my window, opening on to a public balcony, had no fastening. To supplement these casual arrangements I made various “booby-traps” by which I should be awakened if any robber entered my room, but luckily slept undisturbed.
It may give some idea of the vast extent of the plains of Russia which we had crossed by train, when I mention that there was not a single tunnel on the hundreds of miles of rail between Petrograd and Andijan.