LEGAL BASIS OF THE IRRIGATION SYSTEM IN TURKESTAN DURING THE PERIOD OF RUSSIA

Abstract

The irrigation issue in the Turkestan Territory was very acute, since the development of new lands in the Turkestan Territory depended on irrigation work. The colonization process in Turkestan region depended on the development of new lands. On the issue of irrigation, the first general-governor of Turkestan Territory K.P. Kaufman wrote: “The initial colonization of the region was to be accompanied here, just like the current increase in the area under cultivation, by the preparation of artificial irrigation†1. In addition to the problems of colonization, the colonial authorities sought to increase cotton crops in the province. And without the development of irrigation, cotton would be at an impasse. And as the expert in cotton business, Prince V.I. Massalsky: “... Due to the climatic conditions of Turkestan, the use of land for sowing cotton and the vast majority of other plants is possible only under the condition of supplying it with water, and since unoccupied, free land in Turkestan is almost always at the same time not irrigated, the only measure that “It can extremely beneficially influence not only the further development of cotton growing, but also the prosperity of the whole region, is the urgent expansion of the irrigation network†. First of all, the local administration had to decide the legal side of water use. In 1877, K.P. Kaufman published a circular “On Interim Rules, on Irrigation of the Turkestan Territory,†which transferred virtually all water management to the administration.