At the end of 1880, army troops led by the Russian general Mikhail Skobelev landed on the Caspian Sea coast and almost reached Ashgabat. The expedition was aimed at conquering the territory that stretched from the Caspian and the Aral Seas to the Amu-Daria River and Kopet Dag mountains inhabited by warlike Turkmen tribes. It was part of the first Great Game, in which the Russian Empire and Great Britain struggled for influence in Asia. By invading the Turkmen lands, the Russians wanted to outstrip the British and get closer to India.

The Turkmen living in the western and northern part of what is now Turkmenistan surrendered without fight, expecting Russia to defend them from the warlike Teke people. But the latter, being the strongest and most numerous Turkmen tribe, were not going to surrender their independence. And they took up arms. Unfortunately, the Teke leaders made a mistake when they chose not to pursue the well-tried partisan warfare, but barricaded themselves in a fortress. The fortress was called Geokdepe.

The siege did not last long. On 12 January 1881, Skobelev’s soldiers, who had gained experience fighting in the Balkans, breached the fortress walls without much effort. The slaughter that ensued claimed the lives of about 8 thousand people. Some historians argue that the Geokdepe tragedy was not a result of Skobelev’s cruelty, but rather his cool calculation. The general assumed that if he dealt harshly with those Turkmen who dared stand up to Russia, he would ensure obedience of the rest of them. And he was right.

An incident which took place several years later shows how strongly the events of 1881 traumatized the Teke. A crowd of local people gathered on the opening ceremony of the railway line connecting Ashgabat with Krasnovodsk. After the ribbon was cut, the army orchestra started to play when to the astonishment of the Russians, all the Turkmen fell on their knees. This happened because they associated the sound of the orchestra with just one thing - the siege of Geokdepe, and were afraid that this was a sign to start the battle.

In the Soviet times, nobody talked about the Geokdepe events. The official version was that the Turkmen joined the Russian Empire out of free will. But the Teke have harboured the memory of the 1881 events.

The situation has changed completely after Turkmenistan gained independence in 1991. That was when people started talking freely about those events. The Geokdepe battle became an important element of the official ideology created by Saparmurat Niyazov, who was a Teke. He declared the anniversary of the battle a national holiday (Remembrance Day) and between 1993 and 1995 built a huge mosque on the spot where the fortress once stood.

The building visible from the distance of a dozen kilometres can hardly be called a shrine. It is rather a museum. Nobody prays there, the mosque is completely empty, the only people inside are women cleaning the invisible dirt and admonishing occasional visitors not to take photos. But this is just one of the faces of Geokdepe…
To be continued…