Ishankhodjaeva Z. R. Labor resources from Uzbekistan in the development  of Russia’s Non-Black Earth Region (1975–1985) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №2. P. 100-118.

EDN: OJQHSC

Annotation

The article considers the role of labor resources from Uzbekistan in the development of Russia’s Non-Black Earth Region from 1975 to 1985 based on the materials from the National Archive of Uzbekistan, scientific literature, periodicals and normative-legal acts of the central and republican authorities of the USSR and the Uzbek SSR. The author describes the mechanisms of attracting and employing Uzbek labor resources in the all-Union program for the integrated development of agriculture in the NonBlack Earth Region. The article presents a detailed analysis of documents regulating resettlement, organization of labor and living conditions of Uzbek workers in new regions; of the goals, scope of participation and main directions of economic development within the program; of the problems of resettlers, including difficulties in adapting to the climatic and natural conditions of the Non-Black Earth Region, social and everyday challenges, organizational and managerial shortcomings in the implementation of the project; of such causes of these problems as insufficient local infrastructure, shortcomings in planning and implementing measures for social integration of resettlers, limited attention to their national-cultural features. The study provides a deeper understanding of the interregional migration in the USSR, revealing mechanisms of interaction between republics and regions and explaining social-economic and cultural consequences of the Soviet mobilization campaigns.

Keywords

Cooperation, economy, Non-Black Earth Region, land reclamation, irrigation, integrated development, land reclamation workers, engineers, workers.  

About the author

Zamira R. Ishankhodjaeva, DSc (History), Professor, Department of History of Uzbekistan, Mirzo Ulugbek National University of Uzbekistan. University St., 4, Almazar district, Tashkent, 100174, Uzbekistan.
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Savinova T. A. Unknown IRTUR and its Head G.K. Riesenkampf: On the history of the development of Central Asia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №2. P. 48-66.

EDN: HMVQLZ

Annotation

The article considers the origins, development, activities and liquidation of one of the first Soviet organizations created by V. I. Lenin’s decrees in 1918 — Directorate of Irrigation Works in Turkestan (IRTUR). The author aims at describing the grandiose tasks set for this institution and its head and the influence of complex historical conditions in Russia in 1914–1920 on their solution. The article focuses on the activities of the technical director and chairman of the IRTUR Board, an outstanding scientist and hydraulic engineer G. K. Riesenkampf, an author of some ambitious irrigation projects, including Golodnostepsky (Riesenkampf’s full biography is given, including the last tragic pages). The work of some of his colleagues in the IRTUR is also mentioned — soil scientist N. A. Dimo, economist B. K. Lodygin and architect F. O. Shekhtel. The article is based on archival documents from institutional funds and personal funds of hydraulic engineers from the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE), most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

Keywords

Irrigation, land reclamation, Hungry Steppe, Turkestan, Department of Land Improvements, B. K. Lodygin, F. O. Shekhtel.  

About the author

Tatyana A. Savinova, PhD (Economics), Head of the Department of Organizational and Planning Work, Russian State Archive of Economics. B. Pirogovskaya St., 17, bldg. 9, Moscow, 119435.
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Chayanov A. V. Essays on the theory of water management // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №2. P. 6-21.

EDN: DAVLHE

Annotation

Alexander Chayanov visited European countries many times but never visited Asia outside the Russian Empire and USSR; however, his visits to Russian/Soviet Turkestan (as the territory of today’s Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was called and administered in the early 20th century) from 1915 to 1927 were reflected in several works. Before the 1917 Revolution, 28-year-old Chayanov visited Samarkand (Uzbekistan) to study irrigation and water management in the Central Asian regions. The results of this research were published as “Essays on the theory of water management”, which he begun in 1915 in Samarkand and completed in 1917 in Moscow. Chayanov wanted to study water rent — the oldest and still relevant problem of Asian irrigation, already having some experience of studying the economy of European irrigation: in 1908, during his postgraduate internship in Italy, he had studied the economy of the oldest European irrigation systems in Lombardy. To theoretically generalize European and Asian irrigation, Chayanov wrote these essays as a cascade of abstract marginalist schemes, ingeniously transforming von Thünen’s famous economic-mathematical model of the isolated city-state into his model of the isolated oasis-state for Turkestan — in the center of a great desert, there is an isolated oasis-society, whose entire agriculture is based on irrigation. At the center of this equally fertile and waterless vast plain, there is a single water source — property of a small number of individuals who sell water to farmers competing for it. This constructed object is analyzed through numerous, increasingly complex marginalist examples of the economy of the isolated oasis-state. The initial oasis model is further expanded to include land of varying quality and the natural cyclical functioning of the water source. Chayanov concludes his work with institutional questions about the role of water owners in national economy, social regulation of water, promotion of rational water use and trade-offs in water distribution. Chayanov wanted to test his theoretical model on empirical data from fieldwork but could not do it. A century later, today’s generation of historians, sociologists, economists and anthropologists studying irrigation in arid regions of the globe may find these abstract essays useful.

Keywords

Irrigation, oasis, water rent, water management, land use, dryland farming, isolated state.  

About the authors

Alexander V. Chayanov 

Alexander M. Nikulin (publisher), PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Irina V. Trotsuk (translator), DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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