Eastern policy under Peter the Great began to take on a clearer outline and integrity with priorities focused on the south and southeast. Peter I purposefully and energetically managed to mobilize significant state resources to ensure Russia's geopolitical interests in the East. As a result, Russia emerged as the world's largest land force and most powerful navy at the time, and it became a formidable rival for the world's trade routes. Under Peter I, for the first time, a systematic and, in modern terms, scientifically based practical study of those regions that were of interest to Russia was carried out. The tsar understood the interrelation of politics in the West and in the East, and sometimes tried to solve Eastern problems by his foreign policy actions in the West.

As for the implementation of Russia's geopolitical goals in the East, politics could and did take various forms under Peter the Great. The possibility of achieving foreign policy goals in the East was determined primarily by the extent to which these goals were realistic in the specific historical conditions and conditions that existed at that time, both within Russia itself and in neighboring countries. If we evaluate the results of Peter's Eastern policy, we can say that its success was significantly inferior to the foreign policy achievements of the Russian state in the West. Peter I was most active in the East at the beginning and end of his reign; this is understandable if we take into account the Northern War.

Already during the Kerch campaign, carried out in 1699 by Peter I together with Admiral I. Kruis and Captain P. Pamburg, he was faced with the lack of a detailed geographical description of the sailing route. As a result, astronomical and geodetic measurements, measurements of fairway depths, and detailed instrumental surveys of the Don River and the coast of the Sea of Azov were carried out. The materials of this campaign made it possible to compile maps published in Amsterdam in 1704 (Voprosy..., 1975). Apparently, from this time Peter I began to pay close attention to the study of the territories adjacent to Russia, among which Central Asia was given a special place.

Already in the first years of independent rule, Peter I faced the issue of relations with the Uzbek khanates. Thus, in 1689, the Khiva ambassador Ibrahim-Bahadir Aniezov arrived in Moscow [Materials..., 1932, pp. 255-257]. The ambassador, along with complaining about the raids of the Yaitsk Cossacks and Kalmyks of Ayuki Khan on the Khiva lands, raised the previously discussed problem of building a small town on the Khiva territory, near the "Trukhmen pier" on the Caspian Sea, in order to ensure the safety of merchants. Во-

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this question was an old one, and in the letter of leave to the Khiva ambassador it was promised that "the decree of their great sovereigns (Ivan and Peter - Kh. g.) on the city structure will continue" [Materials..., 1932, p. 258]. This was a simple reply, if only for the simple reason that the Embassy's order did not have any clear idea of the geography of the localities and territories in question.

This is evidenced, for example, by the questioning speeches of the Khiva Ambassador Ibrahim in the Embassy Order "in conversation" with the Duma clerk E. Ukraintsev [Materials. .., 1932, p. 256-257], as well as questioning speeches of the Tobolsk Cossack Fyodor Skibin about the routes to Central Asia [Materials..., 1932, p. 263-267]. F. Skibin in 1694 was sent with an embassy from Tobolsk to Turkestan, where he was detained by the Tauke Khan and escaped 15 months later. He walked through Bukhara to Khiva, where he lived secretly for three months, and at the end of March 1696, he reached the lower reaches of the Ustyurt River through the Ustyurt plateau. Yaik (Ural), and then to Ufa.

Knowledge of the geography and general situation in Central Asia was also important for establishing trade links through Central Asia with more distant countries. Thus, at this time, a "merchant's son of a hundred Semyon Maly" was sent to Persia, Central Asia, then to Kabul and India [Materials..., 1932, pp. 258-262], which was notified by royal letters to the Khiva and Balkh khans.

Thus, the lack of reliable information about the region, even about the borderline Caspian Sea, was a serious obstacle to the implementation of any intentions of the tsarist government in the south-eastern direction. This was the reason why Peter I sent several so-called Caspian missions and expeditions. Of course, in most cases the tasks of these expeditions went beyond purely geographical boundaries, and their results were widely used by the tsarist government during the Persian campaign.

In 1699, Peter I sent a mission to the Caspian Sea under the leadership of Captain Yeremey Meyer of the Astrakhan Navy. The main task of E. Meyer was to survey the Caspian Sea, its coast, get acquainted with the coastline and draw up its general drawing. In 1704, Meyer presented his map of the Caspian Sea with a detailed description, for which the tsar presented him with his portrait and gave him a monetary reward. In the newspaper Vedomosti of March 18, 1704, it was reported on this occasion: "And that captain of that Khvalizhsky (Caspian. - Kh. G.), made a map and ordered to print a large number of such sheets" [Knyazhetskaya, 1964, p. 68]. However, this order was not carried out for unknown reasons; this may have been due to the death of E. Meyer in 1705 in Astrakhan during the Streltsy riot. The fate of E. Meyer's map is unknown, however, according to experts, it was reflected in the map of the Caspian Sea published in Amsterdam in 1722 (the so-called Meyer-Otteis map). E. Meyer was not the first person who was commissioned by Peter I to draw up a map of the Caspian Sea. Earlier, a Danish serviceman, H. Scheltrun, was brought in for this purpose, who was unlucky from the very beginning of his mission: he was captured while working by the Persians and died in prison [Berg, 1940, pp. 160-165, 171].

In 1709 and 1713, Captain Yagan (Jean-Christophe) Rentel of the Astrakhan Navy was sent to reconnoiter the western coast of the Caspian Sea and search for the most convenient marinas and bays. Although Rentel did not descend south of the mouth of the Kura, the main part of the western coast of the Caspian Sea was taken by him with a sufficiently high accuracy for that time. The results of Rentel's surveys and surveys of the water area of the port of Baku served the Russian troops during the second stage of Peter I's Persian campaign in 1723-the siege of Baku, when Russian ships came to the Baku roadstead and landed troops.

In May 1700, Dostek - Behadur, the ambassador of Khan Shahniyaz of Khiva (1688-1702), arrived in Moscow. The letter of the Khan of Khiva addressed to Peter I contained six articles.

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"The first petition is that our khan should be a subject of the great sovereign", and "the second petition is: to be friendly with a friend, and to be an enemy with an enemy" [Materials..., 1932, p. 269]. The rest of the petitions concerned trade relations, and the khan asked the tsar for free leave from Astrakhan to Khiva for various weapons and materials for weapons production, "and iron for lead and steel pishchals" [Materials..., 1932, p. 269]. It is obvious that Shahniyaz's request to accept him as a Russian citizen was motivated by a desire to strengthen his power and weaken his vassalage from Bukhara.

Peter I received the Khiva ambassador and on June 30 of the same year issued him a letter of leave for Khan Shahniyaz. It said: "We, the great sovereign of our Royal Majesty, grant you the favor of Shaniyas Khan, we praise you, and we have ordered you to be a subject of the great sovereign of our royal Majesty." And further: "... and to you b Shaniyas Khan, according to his promise to us of the great sovereign of our royal majesty, being a subject, serve us faithfully to the great sovereign, and we, the great sovereign of our royal majesty, will keep you in our royal majesty's mercy for your faithful service " [Materials..., 1932, p.272]. Rich gifts were sent to Khan Shahniyaz, and the ambassador himself was also rewarded.

Three years later, the tsar confirmed the fact that Khiva was granted Russian citizenship to the new Khan of Khiva, Arab-Muhammad (1702-1714) [Moskovskie Vedomosti, 1703].

In January 1705, Ambassador Alimbek arrived in Moscow from Ubaydulla Khan of Bukhara with 35 khan's and 15 embassy people. Merchant Mirgadaev and seven other people were present at the embassy. The embassy was received by the tsar on February 17. In the letter of reply, the tsar thanked Ubaydulla Khan for sending an embassy and informed about his permission to trade with Russian merchants in Bukhara and Bukhara in Russia on preferential terms. Earlier, benefits were granted to Khiva merchants trading in Astrakhan.

Subsequently, Peter I decided to take advantage of the struggle between the Khans and the feudal aristocracy in the Central Asian khanates, of which he was undoubtedly aware. Thus, there were plans to place, with the consent of the khans, Russian military detachments in Khiva and Bukhara, which would be maintained at their expense and would help them against their enemies. Such a measure would strengthen the khan's power over his subjects, but at the same time make the khans dependent on the tsarist government.

Despite all these plans, the exchanges of embassies and traffickers that took place up to 1714, Peter I was too busy with Western affairs to pay more attention to relations with the Uzbek khanates.

In 1714, events occurred that aroused the close interest of Peter I in Central Asian affairs and caused the well-known Caspian and Khiva expeditions of the Life Guards of Captain-Lieutenant Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky and the somewhat less well-known expedition of Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Buchholz.

In 1714, the Siberian governor Prince M. P. Gagarin arrived in St. Petersburg. He informed Peter I that" in Siberia, near the Kalmyk town of Yerketa, in the Amu Darya River", gold sand was found, and brought a sample of such gold. It should be noted that Gagarin reported incorrect information about the location of the "town of Yerketa". The city of Yarkand, located in the valley of the river of the same name, had nothing to do with either Siberia or the Amu Darya. The information of M. P. Gagarin was received from a certain F. Trushnikov, who went to Malaya Bukharia (Xinjiang) and bought gold dust in the city of Yarkand. Reporting further that the journey from Yerket to Tara takes two and a half months "with no rapid water", and from Tara to Tobolsk five days, the Siberian governor suggested that the tsar organize a military expedition to capture this city, and on the way to it build fortified fortresses with Russian garrisons [Miller, 1760, p. 7, 32 - 33, 126-150].

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Simultaneously with Gagarin, a prominent Mangyshlak Turkmen Khoja Nefes arrived in St. Petersburg. He also reported that "pesosh gold" was being found in the Amu Darya and suggested that Peter take possession of the land lying on this river. Khoja Nefes also said that in ancient times the Amu Darya River flowed into the Caspian Sea, but local residents of Khiva blocked its flow with a dam. If this dam is destroyed, the river will flow back to the Caspian Sea. The information received greatly interested the tsar. The Northern War that was taking place in those years required huge expenditures, and since Russia did not have large gold mines at that time, the Amu Darya gold was of great state interest. Peter himself questioned Khoja Nefes, whose testimony coincided with the report of the Siberian governor.

At the same time, the ambassador of the Khiva khan Ashur-bek was in St. Petersburg, who was introduced to the information received from M. P. Gagarin, and with samples of"pesosh gold". The ambassador confirmed this information, as well as the stories of Khoja Nefes, pointing out that such gold is available in the Khiva and Bukhara khanates and is mined in the Amu Darya. He also confirmed the existence of a dam on the Amu Darya. The ambassador suggested that Peter "build a fortress near the place where the Amu Darya used to flow into the Caspian Sea and provide it with a garrison" [Zhukovsky, 1915, p. 47]. Thus, the tsar's attention was again drawn to Central Asia, which had always attracted the interest of the tsarist government, both in itself and as a territory through which to share in the benefits of Indian trade.

It was decided to send two expeditions to the "town of Yerketu". One of them was to go in search of this city through Siberia-from Tobolsk up the Irtysh. This expedition was led by Lieutenant Colonel I. Buchholz. In the personal decree of Peter I, he was instructed to go to Tobolsk and, having recruited "military people" here, climb the Irtysh River to Yamyshev Lake, where he founded a fortress [International Relations..., 1989, pp. 231-232]. After spending the winter in this fortress, Buchholz was instructed to "go to the Kalmyk town of Yerketya and get it and strengthen it, and check on the Darya River how the Kalmyks are fishing for sand gold" [Zhukovsky, 1915, p. 58].

I. Buchholz's expedition set out from Tobolsk in the summer of 1715. It consisted of about three thousand people. The expedition went up the Irtysh River in large boats to Yamyshev Lake, where they laid a fortress, where they spent the winter. Trouble began in the spring of 1716, when the fortress was attacked by the local population. Without waiting for the approach of the auxiliary detachment, which, as it turned out later, was almost entirely captured by the Kalmyks, Buchholz was forced to evacuate the fortress after a long resistance and heavy losses. Having descended down the Irtysh River to the mouth of the Om River, in the summer of 1816, I. Buchholz, with the permission of the Siberian governor M. P. Gagarin, laid the fortress, which later became the basis of the city of Omsk.

The failure of the Buchholz expedition showed that the Russian presence on the Irtysh River must be significantly strengthened in order to carry out the campaign on Er-ket. Corresponding instructions were given to several detachments led by Buchholz, Stupin, Mstigorev. Thus, in 1716 Buchholz was instructed to go to Zaisan Lake and build a city on this lake, and in 1718 Stupin founded Semipalatinsk. In 1719, Major Ivan Likharev was assigned with a detachment of more than 400 people to scout "about the path from Zaisan Lake to Irket, how far and whether it is possible to reach; also, whether there are peaks of any rivers that went to Zaisan and flowed into the Darya River or the Aral Sea" [International Relations..., 1989, pp. 245-246]. Likharev's detachment passed and sailed far beyond Lake Zaisan along the Black Irtysh. On the way back, I. Likharev built Ust-Kamenogorsk, essentially completing the creation of the Irtysh line of fortifications that delineated Russian possessions in Siberia with Central Asia [Barthold, 1977, p. 397].

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It should be noted that the task of I. Likharev's mission was to "search" for the abuses of the Siberian governor M. P. Gagarin. Likharev had to "find out about Lieutenant Colonel Buchholz, how the Yamyshev fortress was taken from him, and also testify to his other evil deeds." He was instructed to gather as much information as possible about the "gold of Yerket", whether it was genuine, and from whom Gagarin learned, to find those people, as well as other knowledgeable people, and to go with them to the fortresses where our people were planted..."[Monuments..., 1985, pp. 182-209]. However, another attempt to learn about sand gold did not lead to success. Likharev could not find the people who first informed Gagarin about the Flight, and he could not reach this city.

The route of the second expedition, led by A. Bekovich-Cherkassky, was planned through Central Asia, the Khiva and Bukhara khanates. The tasks assigned to this expedition were much broader and more complex than the tasks of the Buchholz expedition.

These tasks were formulated by Peter I in two personal royal decrees. In the first, dated May 29, 1714, it was ordered to go to Astrakhan and, having recruited here "1,500 people with proper ships, provisions and fuel", sail with them along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the Khiva lands, where it was necessary to establish a city. Bekovich-Cherkassky was instructed to find out about the "Darya River", drive to the Persian border and, if the river was found, put a fortress at its mouth that could be held by six or seven hundred people. For this purpose, A. Cherkassky was given guns and provisions for the fortress. Finally, he was instructed to draw up a map of the sea route, i.e., the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea; for this purpose, he had to take experienced people of the Astrakhan Navy. Among these people, who were handed over to the Bekovich-Cherkassky expedition, was the above-mentioned Ya. Rentel.

The mission of Bekovich-Cherkassky began in the summer of 1714. Arriving in Astrakhan, he, along with the preparation of a sea expedition, sent several groups of scouts to Central Asia to collect information about the area between the Aral and Caspian Seas, the Amu Darya, its tributaries, gold mining sites, etc. The sea expedition set sail in November 1714 along the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, but heavy ice conditions forced the expedition will return to Astrakhan in December. By this time, Bekovich-Cherkassky had received information that gold was being mined in Central Asia. To search for such places, Bekovich-Cherkassky asked the tsar to send a detachment of 500 Cossacks. As a result of a difficult transition, the detachment arrived in Khiva in the autumn of 1715 in a serious condition and was forced to surrender to the Khiva people [Knyazhetskaya, 1986, p.29].

In April 1715, A. Bekovich-Cherkassky again went to sea on 20 brigantines. He traced and described all the northern and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Astrabad. After discovering the bay later named after him and describing Kara-Bogaz-Gol, he visited "Red Waters". Here he interviewed local Turkmens and, having misunderstood them, concluded that only relatively recently the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian Sea. His scouts, led by Khoja Nefes, received incorrect information that the Khiva people allegedly dammed the riverbed, which caused the Amu Darya to flow into the Aral Sea. At the end of October of the same year, Bekovich-Cherkassky returned to Astrakhan without losing a single person. From here he informed Peter: "A map has been made of this place where we were" - and attached to the letter a map of the entire Caspian Sea.

It should be noted that Peter I later had doubts about the correctness of this map, and in 1719 a new expedition led by Karl Verdun was sent to survey the Caspian Sea. Fyodor Soymonov, who later commanded naval forces during the Persian campaign, was appointed assistant to Verdun.

Bekovich-Cherkassky's information about the dam that blocked the Amu Darya's path to the Caspian Sea greatly interested the tsar, who was inspired by the idea of turning the Amu Darya River back to its old course and thus establishing a single waterway from the Caspian Sea.

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The Volga through the Caspian upstream of the Amu Darya, possibly even as far as India. Peter was all the more interested in this idea, since by this time he had already, in general, imagined the difficulties of the land route to India through Persia.

In the light of these new ideas, the second personal decree of Peter of February 14, 1716 was prepared, in which the tasks of the expedition of the captain from the guard A. Cherkassky were formulated. Cherkassky was ordered to build two fortresses: one on the site of the former mouth of the Amu Darya on the Caspian Sea, and the second - on the Amu Darya near the dam he found. Cherkassky had to make every effort to direct the flow of the Amu Darya along the old channel. After turning the Amu Darya, it was necessary to follow its current as far as possible and look for a waterway to India. An officer subordinate to Cherkassky, Lieutenant Alexander Koshin, was to go to India, and special instructions were prepared for him. Cherkassky was to persuade the Khan of Khiva and, if possible, the khan of Bukhara to be loyal to the tsar by promising protection from his subjects by sending guards, for which the khan had to pay. It was also pointed out that it was necessary to go up the Syr Darya River to the city of Yerket to inspect the gold mining sites.

To achieve these goals, more than 6,000 people, ships, provisions, etc. were allocated to the expedition, and engineers and navigators were also assigned to the expedition. In the event that the goals could not be achieved directly, it was prescribed to do so in secret. Cherkassky was provided with royal letters in the names of the Khiva and Bukhara khans and the Great Mughal.

It should be noted that in March 1716, when Cherkassky was in Moscow preparing for the second sea expedition, one of his scouts, Tebey Kitaev, who had visited Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Balkh, returned to him. He brought important information, in particular about gold mining near Samarkand (and samples of gold sand and lapis lazuli), about the most important trade routes and the nature of trade in Central Asia.

The second sea expedition of Cherkassky began on September 15, 1716. For its implementation, it was necessary to build a special flotilla, almost 100 ships. On October 9, the flotilla sailed to Cape Tyub-Karagan, where a fortress was laid, which was named the fortress of St. Peter. Then a second fortress was built in Alexander Bay, and a third one was built near Krasnye Vody, where the city of Krasnovodsk later grew up. From here Cherkassky sent three men to the Khan of Khiva with the message that he intended to go to Khiva and needed help. But his messengers did not return. Leaving a garrison and provisions in each of the fortresses built, Cherkassky returned to Astrakhan in February 1717. In his army by this time there were about three thousand people left.

Thus, the second Caspian expedition was completed. Its main result was the laying of fortresses, mainly Krasnovodsk, which, according to the plan of Peter I, was intended to protect the mouth of the revived river and serve as a strong point in Russia's relations with Central Asia.

By this time, Bekovich-Cherkassky finally received the long-awaited news from his ambassadors sent to Khiva from the Krasnovodsk Fortress. They reported on the alarming situation in Khiva and the disbelief of the people of Khiva in the peaceful intentions of the royal expedition. This information greatly disturbed Cherkassky, who informed Peter I. Cherkassky would probably have been even more concerned if he had known about the fate of the 1000-strong Yaitsky Cossack detachment that decided to raid Khiva in 1705. After crossing Ustyurt, this detachment safely reached the approaches to Urgench, but here it was completely exterminated [Russia and Turkmenistan..., 1946, p. 7].

Despite this news, at the end of March 1717, Cherkassky sent a detachment of Yaitsky and Grebensky Cossacks by land to Guryev, who were supposed to wait here for the main forces of the expedition; the rest, led by Cherkassky, were sent to Gu-

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zealously. Thus began the Khiva campaign. While in Guryev, Cherkassky received news of the tragic death of his wife and two children during a storm in the Caspian Sea. This grief, according to eyewitnesses, had a very strong effect on him.

Having received guides from the Kalmyk Ayuki Khan, in June 1717 the expedition headed for Khiva. After leaving Guryev, the detachment moved east, after 10 days they crossed the Emba River on rafts, then turned to the southeast and crossed the Ustyurt plateau in the middle of summer. Throughout the journey, the expedition suffered greatly due to the lack of drinking water and feed for horses and camels, some of which fell for this reason. The journey along the Ustyurt plateau took seven weeks. In mid-August, the expedition saw lakes formed by the discharge waters of irrigation channels on the outskirts of the Khiva oasis.

The further history of the expedition is well known. A hundred versts from Khiva, Shirgazi Khan led a large detachment to besiege the Russian camp, but was repulsed. Retreating to Khiva, the khan entered into negotiations with Bekovich-Cherkassky, convinced him of his ignorance of the attacks on the Russians and invited him to negotiations, during which peace was concluded. A. Bekovich-Cherkassky agreed to the khan's proposal - to let the detachment into the city in parts so that the Russians would be stationed in the khanate in five cities in small groups. Then, by order of the Khan, the Russians were killed or captured and enslaved. A. Bekovich-Cherkassky himself was killed.

Information about the fate of the expedition was reported to Russia by several participants of the Khiva campaign who managed to escape from captivity. Peter I learned about the death of the expedition and the collapse of his plans for Central Asia in September 1717. He ordered to strengthen the garrisons in Tyub-Karagan and Red Waters, but they could not carry out his order. The commandants of the fortresses, faced with the death toll in the garrisons, alarmed by the attacks of the Turkmens and receiving no instructions from Russia, decided to return to Astrakhan to rescue the remnants of their detachments. In 1720, an embassy from the Khan of Khiva headed by Aivaz-Muhammad arrived in Russia. The official purpose of the embassy was to resume trade relations; it can be assumed that the ambassador was to find out the intentions of the Russian government in relation to Khiva after the destruction of the A. Bekovich-Cherkassky expedition. The ambassador was, on Peter's instructions, arrested and imprisoned in a fortress, where he died in 1721. Only one of the participants of the embassy was released to Khiva with a letter addressed to the khan. A letter from the Chancellor was also sent with it, informing the Khan of Khiva of the death of his ambassador. Russian prisoners who later returned from Khiva to Russia said that after receiving the royal charter, the Khan of Khiva trampled it underfoot [Barthold, 1977, p. 396].

Extensive literature is devoted to the description of the expedition of A. Bekovich-Cherkassky, which repeats the theses about the exceptionally peaceful nature of the enterprise and the treachery of the Khiva people. All these studies, both pre - revolutionary and Soviet, covered only one side of the problem.

The Khiva people's point of view on the expedition of A. Bekovich-Cherkassky and his actions (building fortified fortresses on the Khiva lands, the intention to turn the Amu Darya towards the Caspian Sea, destroying dams on the river, as a result of which a significant part of the irrigated land could remain without water, sending groups of scouts under the guise of trading people throughout Central Asia, finally, the arrival of a large It has never been discussed in the scientific literature. Only V. V. Barthold noted that "according to the Khiva historian, the detachment was aimed at conquering the Khanate of Khiva for the sake of gold mined in the Sheikh Jeli Mountains" (Barthold, 1977, p. 394). However, Barthold himself said earlier in the same work that "the plan for the peaceful conquest of Central Asia was connected with the hope of restoring the waterway to India and acquiring gold placers" (Barthold, 1977, p. 58). Speaking of a peaceful conquest, the scholar apparently meant that Khiva should not have offered resistance

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to these plans of Russia. It is obvious that such actions were not the norm of interstate relations and could and should have caused a negative reaction on the part of Khiva residents, which, however, both A. Bekovich-Cherkassky and Peter I himself were well aware of [Knyazhetskaya, 1964, p. 36-37]. The point was, as S. V. Zhukovsky noted, that under Peter I, " the Russian government no longer treated Bukhara and Khiva as equals... This change in Russia's relations with the khanates is explained by the fact that both in the Bukhara Khanate after Abdul Aziz, and in the Khiva Khanate after Anusha, a time of internal troubles and frequent changes of khans began. These riots led to the disintegration of the Bukhara Khanate and the weakening of the Khiva Khanate, which Peter decided to take advantage of for the actual subordination of the khanates to Russian power" [Zhukovsky, 1915, pp. 41-42].

Speaking about the peaceful intentions of the expedition of A. Cherkassky, one cannot but agree that it hardly meant the conquest of the khanates - the forces for this were clearly insufficient. But we must not forget what European trade turned out to be for Asia: "It begins there with calico, and ends with the creation of a subordinate empire of 150 million inhabitants" (Fadeev, 1889, p. 7). History has shown that this is true not only for England. Finally, as for the cunning and cunning of the Khiva people, it must be borne in mind that the poorly armed Khiva troops, who do not know real military discipline, were unable to destroy the Russian camp near Khiva in open battle and then resorted to other means. In any case, the death of the A. Bekovich-Cherkassky expedition stopped Russia's military activity in Central Asia for a hundred years.

This tragic event marked the end of a certain stage in Russia's relations with the Central Asian khanates. As noted by F. Engels, the failure that befell this enterprise was quite natural [Engels, p. 615]. Subsequently, the tsarist government used mainly diplomatic means in its relations with the Central Asian khanates. At the same time, the need to expand Russia's influence and the desire to gain more benefits from expanding economic and political ties with the countries of the East led Peter I and his successors to the idea of building fortresses and fortified lines on the borders with Kazakhstan, i.e., to a specific organization of space, which, according to the tsarist government, extended Russia's geopolitical interests.

In this sense, it is interesting to consider the mission of artillery Captain Ivan Unkovsky to the Dzungarian Khanate [Notes..., 1887]. Like many other missions and expeditions of that time, the expedition that set out on April 11, 1722 from Tobolsk was assigned diplomatic, reconnaissance, and scientific-applied tasks. The mission included surveyors, mining specialists, and engineers. Its main goals were: first, to persuade the ruler of the Dzungarian Khanate, khuntaiji Tsevan-Rabtan, to accept Russian citizenship and get his support in building fortresses with Russian garrisons on the territory of the khanate; second, to search for river routes from Siberia to Central Asia; third, to search for deposits of "pesosh gold" (the Russian government still hoped to find the city of Yerket) and, finally, geographical and geodetic surveys and the compilation of appropriate maps. Unkovsky was instructed to inspect those places "where it is convenient for fortresses to be, and especially so that in those places where ore can be found and communication with Siberia, especially by water."

The Unkovsky embassy had its own backstory. Qing China grew stronger under the Kangxi Emperor and began to threaten the existence of the Dzungarian Khanate. Khan Kalmykov decided to turn to Russia for military assistance. For this purpose, an ambassador was sent to Russia and received in St. Petersburg. "Proposals made by the ambassador ...they fully corresponded to the plans of Peter the Great: the Kalmyks offered the Russians from-

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rule an army of 20,000 men from Semipalatinsk and build a fortress " [Barthold, 1977, p.398] on the Upper Irtysh. The Embassy of I. Unkovsky was sent for the final solution of these issues.

After going up the Irtysh River to Semipalatinsk, then heading south-east along the Char River Valley and crossing several mountain ranges, I. Unkovsky passed through the Dzungarian Gate on October 25, 1722, and after crossing the Khorgos River, on November 20 reached the Khuntaiji residence in the Ili River Valley. Here the mission spent the winter and then moved for several months to Lake Issyk-Kul. All along the way, the mission members took measurements and geographical surveys. I. Unkovsky failed to persuade Huntaiji to become a Russian citizen, and he also failed to get permission to build fortresses. The fact is that political conditions in the Dzungarian Khanate have changed in a short time. The Kangxi Emperor died in 1722, and Chinese pressure on the khanate eased. Now the Khanate did not need Russian help and feared the appearance of Russian detachments. Moreover, Tsevan-Rabtan again began to raise the issue of Kalmyks ' rights to the banks of the Irtysh River up to the Omi.

On September 18, 1723, the mission set out on its return journey, almost repeating the previous route. The main result of the mission of I. Unkovsky was a travel log and a map that gave the first reliable idea of East Kazakhstan [Magidovich, Magidovich, 1983, p. 139]. In addition, I. Unkovsky collected very valuable information about the fate of the Russians captured by the Kalmyks during the expedition of I. Buchholz. They were taken to East Turkestan and Semirechye.

The story of the Yerket gold was not finished with the Unkovsky mission. In 1732, an embassy of Major Ugrimov was sent to the Dzungarian Khanate, who finally managed to find out that gold was mined in East Turkestan, and not at Yarkand, which was called Yerket [Bodkorsky, 1947, pp. 105-106]. After that, the Russian government did not take any further steps towards mastering the mines. But Ugrimov managed to free from Kalmyk captivity and return to Russia almost all the Russians alive at that time, captured during the expedition of I. Buchholz.

One of the major reasons for the weakening of Russia's activity in Central Asia was Russia's intervention in the Caucasian knot of contradictions, which was expressed in the implementation of Peter I's Persian campaign. The goal of the campaign (Kinyapina, Bliev, Degoev, 1984, p. 17) was to spread Russia's influence in the Caspian regions and the Caucasus and gain access to world trade routes in this region, primarily "to the central silk trade of Iran and from Pyatigorsk to Tiflis, the center of Georgia" (Bushuev, 1955, p. 10).. The success of this campaign was reflected in the annexation of significant Caspian territories assigned to Russia by the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1723 between Russia and Iran and the creation of Cossack fortified lines in the North Caucasus.

This military and political success of Russia, of course, caused a response from Turkey and the discontent of France and England, who saw Russia's actions as a threat to their interests in the Levantine trade. It was at this time that the Russo-British rivalry in the East began to take shape, reaching its peak in the 19th century. These contradictions soon involved the Crimean Khanate, which sided with Turkey and threatened to raid the North Caucasus and Iran, which was strengthened as a result of unification under the rule of Nadir Shah.

To realize its interests in the Caucasus, Russia first needed to neutralize the influence of Turkey and Crimea. This problem has become Russia's most important task in the East for many decades, diverting its attention and military resources from Central Asia. Nevertheless, even at this time, Russia continues to build aggressive plans for Central Asia. This trend has intensified with the adoption of Russian citizenship by the Younger Kazakh zhuz. Known, for example, about-

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A project developed by one of Peter I's associates, the Senate Chief Secretary I. Kirillov, who was appointed head of the Orenburg expedition [Barthold, 1977, pp. 404 - 407]. The project proposed to take advantage of the weakness of the Central Asian khanates (Bukhara and Khiva) and conquer them with the help of Kazakh zhuzs. A necessary condition for the conquest was the declination of all Zhuzs to Russian citizenship. It was for this reason that Kirillov insisted on accepting all the conditions under which Abulkhair Khan agreed to accept Russian citizenship. Kirillov believed that otherwise "not only can we lose many peoples who came to citizenship and still want citizenship, with many cities, like Tashkent and the Aral Sea, but we will also miss the current opportunity to pick up the scattered Bukhara and Samarkand provinces and the rich place of Bodokshan." The project set the task of building cities in the north and south of the steppe, and noted the need to build fortifications in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya in order to " declare the Russian flag on the Aral Sea." The issue of trade routes to India through the Central Asian khanates was also raised.

The project was approved by the government, and Kirillov was instructed in 1734 to begin its practical implementation. Already in 1735, the city of Orenburg was built on the Ori River. The Russian government at that time was able to implement only a small part of the project, namely, to create lines of fortifications along the north-western border of the "Kyrgyz-Kaisat steppes". In the work of V. V. Barthold, published in 1911, the unrealistic nature of Kirillov's project was noted. Barthold wrote: "It can be seen that in Central Asia, as well as in Manchuria and Mongolia, the projects that were drawn up at that time attached regions to Russia that later remained outside the borders of the Russian Empire:" the rich place of Bodokshan "(Badakhshan. - Kh. G.) is now part of Afghanistan " [Barthold, 1977, p. 406]. At the same time, Russia's conquest of the Caucasus provided it, along with the Orenburg fortified line, with a new strategic springboard with such strong points as Baku, Petrovsk (Makhachkala), and Derbent, facilitating Russia's penetration into Central Asia.

As a result of the victorious Northern War, the international importance of Russia increased, which became the primary European power.

In the East, however, it was not possible to find "the key and gateway to all Asian countries", as Peter planned: "This is not surprising - the country did not have the resources to simultaneously achieve equal results in the west and in the east" (Pavlenko, 1990, p.427). Neither the nominal recognition of Russian citizenship by individual khans, nor the military expeditions of Bekovich and Buchholz solved this problem. A century after the events described, Foreign Minister K. V. Nesselrode wrote that turning trade roads "from Khiva, Bukhara and from the vicinity of the Indus to Mangyshlak or another convenient place there and from there to Astrakhan by sea or by land via Emba and the Urals "would be the " most reliable means" of developing trade relations with Asia. He emphasized the special expediency of studying the question of the ancient channel of the Amu Darya and the possibility of its restoration - a question that has long occupied Russian scientists and "cost Peter the Great a noble number of troops" [AVPRI, l.9-10].

As one of the most important tools of his Eastern policy, Peter the Great made extensive use of military missions and expeditions. Since in most cases it was a question of new territories and countries, these missions and expeditions were assigned the tasks of detailed geographical description and study, mapping, and finding trade routes to the East. The materials collected by the expeditions contained invaluable, sometimes unique data. But the questions of studying the East were of a military-applied nature.

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The main thing was to achieve the main goals of Russia in the East - to prepare for strengthening its economic role and political influence. The analysis of Peter's expeditions to Central Asia shows that they often set tasks and goals that were unattainable under the specific historical conditions that existed at that time, both in Russia itself and in the neighboring eastern regions. But these Petrine enterprises "determined the tasks of Russian foreign policy for the future" (Buganov, 1989, p. 175).

list of literature

Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI). St. Petersburg. Main archive. P-18. Op. 62. 1819-1.

Barthold V. V. Istoriya izucheniya Vostoka v Evrope i Rossii [History of studying the East in Europe and Russia].

Berg L. S. Pervye russkie karty Kaspiyskogo morya [The first Russian maps of the Caspian Sea]. Geograficheskaya i geofizicheskaya seriya [Geographical and Geophysical Series], Moscow, 1940, No. 2.

Bodkorskiy M. S. Ocherki po istorii russkogo zemlevladeniya [Essays on the History of Russian Land Ownership], vol. 1, Moscow, 1947.

Buganov V. I. Pyotr Velikiy i ego vremya [Peter the Great and His Time]. Moscow, 1989.

Bushuev S. K. Iz istorii vneshnepoliticheskikh otnosheniy v period prikladeniya Kavkaza k Rossii [From the History of Foreign Policy relations during the Accession of the Caucasus to Russia].

Voprosy geografii petrovskogo vremya [Questions of Geography of the Petrovsky time].

Zhukovsky S. V. Russia's relations with Bukhara and Khiva over the last three-hundredth anniversary. Pg., 1915.

Zapiski Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva po otdeleniyu etnografii [Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society on the Department of Ethnography].

Kinyapina N. S., Bliev M. M., Degoev V. V. Kavkaz i Srednaya Aziya v vneshnoi politike Rossii [The Caucasus and Central Asia in Russia's Foreign Policy]. Moscow, 1984.

Knyazhetskaya E. A. The Fate of one map, Moscow, 1964.

Magidovich K. P., Magidovich V. I. Essays on the history of geographical discoveries, vol. II. Moscow, 1983.

Materials on the history of the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen SSR. Issue 3. Part 1. L., 1932.

International relations in Central Asia of the 17th-18th centuries. Documents and materials. Book 1. Moscow, 1989.

Miller G. F. Izvestiya o pesochnom zolote [News about sand gold]. St. Petersburg, 1760.

Moskovskie vedomosti. April 1703

Pamyatniki sibirskoy istorii XVIII v. Pamyatniki sibirskoy istorii XVIII v. Book 2. SPb. 1885.

Russia and Turkmenistan in the XIX century / Ed. by G. I. Karpov, A. G. Solov'ev, D. F. Maslovets. Ashgabat, 1946.

Fadeev R. A. Sixty years of the Caucasian War / / Fadeev R. A. Sochineniya. Vol. 1. Ch. 1. SPb., 1889.

F. Engels. Promotion of Russia in Central Asia // K. Marx, F. Engels. Essays. Ed. 2-E. T. XII.

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