Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky. General Skobelev on the Horse (1883) He returned to Turkestan after the war, and in 1880 and 1881 further distinguished himself by retrieving the disasters inflicted by the Tekke Turkomans: following Siege of Geoktepe he captured the city, and, after much slaughter, reduced the Akhal-Tekke country to submission. He was advancing on Ashkhabad and Kalat i-Nadiri when he was disavowed and recalled. He was given the command at Minsk. During a campaign in Khiva, his Turkmen opponents called him goz zanli or “Bloody Eyes”.

Turkmen soldiers

In 1880, Russian seamen participated in General Mikhail Skobelev’s Akhal Tekin Campaign. Commander Makarov commanded the naval forces and supplied Russian troops in the Caspian Sea with provisions and ammunition.

In 1867, Russia established Konstantin Petrovich Kaufman as governor-general in Turkestan, with his capital at Tashkent. By 1868, he had taken Samarkand and established Bukhara and Kokand alike as Russian protectorates. Khiva, surrounded by protective deserts, followed in 1873. Conquest did not mean pacification. An anti-Russian uprising in Kokand in 1875 met a crushing defeat, ending in the abolition of the Kokand khanate and its full incorporation into the Russian Empire. Skobelev led the ruthless suppression.

The only remaining independent people in central Asia, the Turcomans, lived east of the Caspian Sea and south of the Aral Sea. Skobelev, returned from the Russo-Turkish War, led their conquest. After a carefully planned expedition, he besieged the Turcoman fortress of Geok-Tepe, just north of the Iranian border.

In December 1880, Geok Tepe (Siege of Geoktepe) was attacked by 6,000 Russians under General Mikhail Skobelev against 25,000 defenders. The siege of Geok Tepe lasted twenty-three days, after which the city was taken by storm. Although they encountered heavy resistance, Russian forces were eventually able to break in by digging a tunnel underneath a portion of the wall, then detonating a mine underneath the wall. On January 12 (24), 1881, the mine was detonated. Once the fortress was breached, the Russian troops stormed in. Several hundred defenders were killed in the initial explosion, and many more were killed in the fighting that ensued. Eventually, the defenders, along with the 40,000 civilians inside the fortress, fled across the desert, pursued by General Skobelev’s cavalry. Around 8,000 Turkmen soldiers and civilians were killed in their flight, along with an additional 6,500 that were killed inside the fortress. Russian casualties were only 398 killed and 669 wounded. Geok Tepe (Gokdepe Mosque) was built to commemorate the defeat and is noted for its mint-turquoise blue coloured roof and white marble structure.

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