Russians in Kazakhstan - Early Colonization

Early Colonization

The first Russian traders and soldiers began to appear on the northwestern edge of modern Kazakhstan territory in the early 16th century, when Cossacks established the forts that later became the cities of Oral (Ural'sk, est. 1520) and Atyrau (Gur'yev). Ural, Siberian and later Orenburg Cossack Hosts gradually established themselves in parts of northern Kazakhstan. In 1710s and 1720s Siberian Cossacks founded Oskemen (Ust-Kamennaya), Semey (Semipalatinsk) and Pavlodar (Fort Koryakovskiy) as border forts and trading posts.

Russian imperial authorities followed and were able to seize Kazakh territory because the local khanates were preoccupied by a war with Kalmyks (Oirats, Dzungars). Kazakhs were increasingly caught in the middle between the Kalmyks and the Russians. In 1730 Abul Khayr, one of the khans of the Lesser Horde, sought Russian assistance against the stronger Kalmyks, and the Russians in exchange for help gained permanent control of the Lesser Horde as a result of his decision. The Russians conquered the Middle Horde by 1798, but the Great Horde managed to remain independent until the 1820s, when the expanding Kokand Khanate to the south forced the Great Horde khans to choose Russian protection, which seemed to them the lesser of two evils. In 1824, Siberian Cossacks from Omsk founded a fortress on the upper Ishim River named Akmolinsk, which is known today as Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. In the same year they founded the fort of Kokshetau.

In the 1850s, the construction of Russian forts began in southern Kazakhstan including Fort Shevchenko (Fort Alexandrovsky), Kyzylorda (Fort Petrovsky), Kazaly (Kazalinsk) and Almaty (Verniy).

In 1863, the Russian Empire created two administrative districts, the Governor-Generalships in Central Asia of Russian Turkestan (the oasis region to the South of the Kazakh steppes and Zhetysu (Semirechye) region) and that of the Steppe ( modern eastern and northern Kazakhstan including the lands of the Siberian and Semiryechensk Cossask Hosts) with their capital at Omsk. The north-west of Kazakhstan was at the time part of Orenburg gubernia. First Governor-General Gerasim Kolpakovsky of the Steppe region (and all his future successors) was also ataman of Siberian Cossacks symbolizing the important role the Cossacks played in the Russian colonization of Kazakh territories. In 1869 Russian settlers founded the town of Aktobe (Aktyubinsk), in 1879 Kostanay. In the 1860s General Mikhail Chernyayev conquered the only towns that existed in Kazakhstan before the Russian conquest Hazrat-e Turkestan, Taraz and Shymkent that belonged to the Khanate of Kokand.

Christianity spread in the predominantly Muslim region together with Russian colonists: the Russian Orthodox Church established a Central Asian bishopric in 1871 with its bishop first residing in Verniy and after 1916 in Tashkent. In the 1890s, many non-Cossack Russian settlers migrated into the fertile lands of northern and eastern Kazakhstan. In 1906 the Trans-Aral Railway between Orenburg and Tashkent was completed, further facilitating Russian and Ukrainian migration to Central Asia.

Between 1906 and 1912, more than half a million Russian farms were started in Kazakhstan as part of the reforms of the Russian minister of the interior Petr Stolypin. By 1917 there were close to a million Russians in Kazakhstan, about 30% of the total population.