The history of creating Pamir Highway and its meaning for arranging artificial irrigation of Central Asia (late XIX – early XX centuries)

Abstract

Appearing the Pamir Highway made the lands of Central Asia accessible for scientific expeditions. Arid and empty territories could not have been used in agriculture and industry without irrigation, and development of the region depended on this. At the end of the XIX century. Many scientists studied the geographic features and problems of artificial irrigation in the arid territories of Central Asia. In scientific works, they considered the opportunities of improving the land, arranging new systems of artificial irrigation, building dams and hydroelectric power stations. By the middle of the XIX century, the reclamation of agricultural lands was for the first time included in the list of the most important directions of state activities, the first state reclamation law in Russia was adopted. The railway and the communication routes connected with it enabled the development of agriculture and industry in the Turkestan Territory. The region acquired a connection with shopping centers and provinces of Russia, the expansion of markets for products, the growth of cities, the settlement and development of the regions of Central Asia began, and roads were laid there in the late XIX – early XX centuries.