Blic Children’s Caregiversity in the Transcaspian Region of the Turkestan Krai (1897-1917)

The article is based on archival materials, which are being introduced to the scientifi c community for the fi rst time. The author examines the problems that arose in the Transcaspian regional guardianship and the Askhabad orphanage at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, and related to all aspects of children’s lives. Issues related to charity, in particular orphanhood, were among the priorities of the imperial policy; the government attached great importance to these issues in the Russian distant provinces, striving to raise them to the all-Russian level. The Transcaspian Oblast was the last to be included into the Russian Empire as a result of the conquest of Turkmen lands, so it could successfully use the experience of creating and developing orphanages in previously established Oblasts on the territory of the Turkestan Governorate General. The problem was the small number of the Russian population in the lands of Transcaspia. Nevertheless, the Askhabad orphanage was functioning and developing. Issues related to the construction of separate facilities for the orphanage and the “Shelter for Street Children” were resolved, supplies and medical care were improved, education in the orphanage was evolved according to the program of the Ministry of Public Education. However, the problem of the orphanage was the existence of a “Shelter for Street Children”, where mostly foundling infants were admitted in a weakened state, so infant mortality could not be overcome, despite the efforts of doctors. The author comes to the conclusion that, in general, the development of guardianship and orphanage was proof of the care of the Russian administration for its subjects who were in diffi cult conditions in a foreign land. The development of these components of Russian charity was interrupted by the First World War and the outbreak of the revolution.