RUSSIAN COLONISATION.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3968, 30 May 1885, Page 3

RUSSIAN COLONISATION.

In an article on the Russian settlement* in Central Auto, the Joimial dcs Debats traces the growth of Russian colonisation in that part of the world since ita first development in Turkestan thirty years rpo. and remarks that — " As all the land best adapted for cultivation is situated at the foot of the mountains, the result is tbst the Russian colonies nre settled along the principal mountain chains. The govern* encourage this colonisation by granting to them a certain quantity of land without payment, upon condition that they at once put it into cultivation. After ten yenr»' occupation the settler becomes the owner of the land, but should he leave it before, it rovertß to the government. Numerous colonies have been founded not only in the steppes of the nomad Kirghiz tribes, but in that part of the country inhabited by the Tadjiks and TJshegs, who have been sedantary and civilised for centuries. Thus it is that the in province of Syr-Daria there is a aeries of settlements which help to consolidate the strength of Russia in that region, the most important being Tashkend, which has more than 12.000 Russian inhabitants. These are nearly all merchants, domestic tervants, and government officials, while just ouUide is the Tillage of Nikolaewka, where General Tchernaieff woa a victory twenty years ago, which I. as become a flourishing agricultural settlement, upwordso<7ooo acres of barren heath having been transformed into flourishing farms occupied by three hundred Russian peasants. The result of an inspection made by competent officials was that the province of Syr-Daria was found to comprise 320,000 acres of good land not cultivated by the natives, and 6500 Russian peasant families have now been settled upon it, there being sevea other settlements besides Nikolaewka, some of the settlers having come from the neighborhood of Kuldja rather than become a subject to the rule of China. In the province of the Seven rivers (Semiretchie), the colonisation of which by Russia dateß from 1854, the number of Russian towns and villages it much larger, and the settlers are over 30,000, among them being several thousand Cossacks. In the valley of Zerafchan, where tue native population is very dense, the Russians have not been able to establish many settlements, thouph they number 20C0 at Samarcand, while there is a floating population of several thousand. In the delta of the Oxus there are several colonies of Cossacks from the Ural, who were exiled for havmg revolted against the government and who now gain a living by gardening and fishing. In the Trans- Caspian deserts there is an important Russian Colony at Askabad, nnd several secondary ones at Mikhailovsk, KizylArvat, and Merv, among the settlers being many Armenian and Moscow traders."