At the southernmost tip of Turkmenistan, in the city of Serkhetabad, a towering 10-meter stone cross stands proudly on a high hill. This cross was erected in 1913, marking the southernmost point of the Russian Empire in the city then known as Kushka, in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Originally, there were plans to install four such crosses at the empire’s western, northern, eastern, and southern extremities.
Interestingly, the name «Kushka» is not of Russian origin but Turkmen. However, over the course of a century, it became widely accepted as Russian, until the Turkmen parliament decided to rename the city in 1999.
The Russians first arrived in Kushka in 1882, when General Lieutenant A.V. Komarov was appointed head of the Transcaspian region. In 1883, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, encouraged by the British, occupied the Pendin Oasis on the Murghab River. Simultaneously, Afghan forces seized the strategically vital Akrabat, a key junction of mountain roads. Akrabat, inhabited by Turkmens, is now within Turkmenistan’s borders.
Afghan troops also occupied the Tash-Kepri outpost on the Kushka River, the present-day site of the city of Kushka. General Komarov’s patience was tested to its limit, prompting him to form a special Murghab detachment to repel the invaders. The detachment consisted of eight infantry companies, three hundred Cossacks, one hundred mounted Turkmens, a sapper team, and four mountain guns—a force of approximately 1,800 men.
General Komarov attempted to negotiate with the Afghans and British officer Captain Yate. However, as Komarov reported, the Afghans became increasingly audacious, mistaking the negotiations for a sign of weakness.
On March 18, 1885, at 5 a.m., Russian troops advanced on the Afghans. They halted 500 paces from the enemy. The Afghans opened fire first, and their cavalry charged with cries of «Allah!» The Russians responded with intense rifle and artillery fire before launching a counterattack.
As Emir Abdur Rahman Khan later wrote in his autobiography, as soon as the battle began, «the British officers immediately fled to Herat with all their troops and entourage.» The Afghans quickly followed suit. General Komarov, unwilling to provoke further conflict with the Emir, forbade his cavalry from pursuing the fleeing Afghans. As a result, the Afghans escaped relatively unscathed, with around 500 killed and 24 captured. The Russians captured all eight Afghan cannons and 70 camels, while their losses were limited to nine dead (including one officer) and 35 wounded or concussed.
The day after their victory, on March 19, 1885, a delegation from the independent Pendin Sarik and Ersarin Turkmen tribes approached Komarov, requesting to become subjects of Russia. Consequently, the Pendin district was established from the lands cleared of Afghans.
Kushka, the southernmost point of the Russian Empire, became a crucial stronghold in the struggle against Britain.
Initially, Russian fortifications in Kushka were referred to as the Kushka Post. By August 1890, the 6th Squadron of the 1st Caucasian Cavalry Regiment was stationed there, just 6 kilometers from the Afghan border. In 1896, the Kushka Post was reclassified as a fourth-class fortress, and construction of fortified batteries and forts began. By 1897, Kushka was equipped with 37 rifled guns (of which 36 were present), 16 smoothbore guns (all present), and eight machine guns.
In 1900, the railroad reached Kushka, although the «History of Railway Transport in Russia» notes that the first train arrived at the fortress in December 1898. For the first two years, the railway was kept secret, and on July 1, 1900, it was transferred from the Military Department to the Ministry of Communications. In April 1897, soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Transcaspian Railway Battalions began constructing a standard-gauge branch line to Kushka from Merv.
In the early years, passenger and mail trains ran from Merv to Kushka twice a week: on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and returned on Mondays and Thursdays. The 315-kilometer journey took 14-15 hours due to the challenging terrain and the poor condition of the railway. Strict passport controls were enforced, and access to Kushka was only granted with special permission from the gendarmerie.
Between 1946 and 1991, only one sleeping car operated between Kushka and Moscow. It was attached to the Kushka-Ashgabat train, and at Mary (Merv), it was transferred to the Ashgabat-Moscow train.
Interestingly, the secret railway in Kushka remained, but it was now a different line—a 750-mm military field railway. Initially serviced by a field railway half-company, it was reorganized into a railway company on April 1, 1904.
The military field railway was constructed at a speed of 8-9 versts per day, matching the pace of the advancing infantry. While high-speed trains were impractical on these lines, a speed of 15 versts per hour was considered normal for the 750-mm gauge. The Kushka military field railway had a carrying capacity of 50,000 poods (820 tons) per day.
The railway was intended for an invasion of Afghanistan, and then into India.
With the arrival of the railway in Kushka, siege artillery began to be concentrated there. This artillery was not intended for battles with the Afghans but for bombarding British fortresses in India. To facilitate bureaucracy in the Military Department, or perhaps for secrecy, the siege artillery in Kushka was listed as part of the «Caucasian Siege Park.»
By January 1, 1904, the «department» had 16 6-inch (152-mm) guns weighing 120 poods, 48 8-inch (203-mm) light mortars, 16 light (87-mm) guns of the 1877 model, 16 half-pood mortars, and 16 Maxim machine guns, 15 of which were on high fortress mounts, with one on a field mount. The Kushka fortress was supposed to store 18,000 shells, but in reality, there were 17,386.
In 1902, the Kushka department of the Caucasian Siege Park was renamed the 6th Siege Regiment.
In 1914, the fortress was equipped with a state-of-the-art 35 kW spark radio station, ensuring reliable communication with Petrograd, Sevastopol, Vienna, and Calcutta.
Late on October 25 (November 7), 1917, the Kushka radio station received a message from the cruiser Aurora’s radio station, announcing the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Thus, the officers of the fortress were the first in Central Asia to learn of the October Revolution in Petrograd. Surprisingly, the senior officers of the fortress immediately and unconditionally sided with the Bolsheviks.
The fortress commander, General Lieutenant Alexander Pavlovich Vostrosablin, ordered a telegram to be sent to Petrograd, declaring Kushka’s allegiance to Soviet power. The fortress’s chief of staff, Staff Captain Konstantin Slivitsky, was elected chairman of the fortress’s Soldiers’ Deputies Council. He would later become the Soviet diplomatic representative in Afghanistan.
In late 1917, Lenin and Trotsky were dreaming of a world revolution, revolutionary students were demanding the communalization of wives, and the officers of Kushka and other border units, like Captain Mikhail Dmitrievich Pospelov of the separate Border Guard Corps, understood instinctively, if not intellectually, that what was emerging in Petrograd was not a mere commune but a Great Red Empire.
On the night of July 12, 1918, an anti-Soviet uprising began in Ashgabat, led by Socialist Revolutionaries Fyodor Funtikov, a locomotive driver, and Count Alexander Dorrer. The rebels managed to capture several cities, including Ashgabat, Tejen, and Merv, and began mass executions of Soviet supporters. They formed the «Transcaspian Provisional Government,» headed by Funtikov, who often appeared at meetings in a state of drunkenness, much to the indifference of his comrades.
Kushka found itself deep in the rear of the rebels and Basmachi fighters. The nearest Red Army units were at least 500 kilometers away.
The Transcaspian «government» ordered Colonel Zykov, commander of the Murghab sector of the rebel front, to seize the fortress’s military supplies. On August 9, 1918, the colonel arrived at the walls of Kushka with a 2,000-strong force of soldiers and Basmachis, expecting the 400 defenders of the citadel to surrender their weapons and ammunition immediately.
The Kushka radio station intercepted communications between General W. Mapleson, head of the British military mission, and commanders in Mashhad (Persia). These revealed that on July 28, British troops had crossed the border, with a battalion of the Punjab Regiment, companies of the Yorkshire and Hampshire Regiments, cavalry, and artillery advancing towards Ashgabat.
Visit ancient city of Merv
Explore UNESCO-listed Old Nisa
Marvel at Darvaza Gas Crater
Admire Yangikala’s stunning canyons
Tour Nohur village and crafts