Administrative and territorial functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in the management of national outskirts of the empire

A common problem of the organization of the tsarist administration in Turkestan region has not been fully studied neither in pre-revolutionary, neither in Soviet nor in post-Soviet periods. The article is devoted to establishing the role and place of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of tsarist Russia in the management of the national outskirts of the empire. Referring to the prehistory of Central Asia accession to Russia, the author analyzes the principles of organization and arrangement of the administrative-territorial management body - Syr-Darya line. This helps to understand the functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the meaning of the transition to a military-public administration in Russian Turkestan.