Turkestan Military District

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Turkestan Military District
Staff building of the Turkestan Military District, Tashkent, 1977
Active	1867–1920 1945–1992
Country	Russian Empire (1867–1917)  Soviet Union (1945–1992)
Type	Military district
Headquarters	100 Maxim Gorky Avenue, Tashkent
Engagements	Russian conquest of Central Asia Russian Civil War Soviet–Afghan War
Decorations	Ivan Yefimovich Petrov

The Turkestan Military District (Russian: Туркестанский военный округ (ТуркВО), Turkestansky voyenyi okrug (TurkVO)) was a military district of both the Imperial Russian Army and the Soviet Armed Forces, with its headquarters at Tashkent. The District was first created during the 1874 Russian military reform when by order of Minister Dmitry Milyutin the territory of Russia was divided into fourteen military districts. Its first commander was Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann, who was also Governor-General of Russian Turkestan at the time.

History

Turkmen Horse Half-Regiment

The Turkmen Horse was a cavalry force forming part of the Imperial Russian Army prior to the Revolution of 1917. Numbering two squadrons in peacetime, it was recruited from the Moslem Tekin tribesmen of the Turkestan Military District. Recruitment was on a voluntary basis with the men providing their own horses and equipment, and the Czarist government paying an allowance and issuing weapons. The Half-Regiment was derived from various Turkmen mounted militias first raised in the 1880s. Its uniform was modeled on tribal dress and included a distinctive striped kaftan and shaggy fleeced hats.^[1]

With the outbreak of World War I the native Turcoman cavalry recruited from Moslem volunteers was increased to a full division in strength. Following the overthrow of the Czarist regime the Turkmen Horse formed the bodyguard of General Lavr Kornilov.

Central Asian Military District

From 1918 to 1926 the District was referred to as the Turkestan Front as its forces were conducting active operations against the

In October 1919, Gleb Bokii was sent by Cheka head Felix Dzerzhinsky to Tashkent to head the operations of the Cheka in the Turkestan Front.^[2]

By USSR Order No. 304 of June 4, 1926, the Turkestan Front was renamed as the

Turkestan Military District

This designation was re-created on 9 July 1945, after the division of the Central Asian Military District into the Turkestan and

After a number of changes to 119th Rifle Corps, including 201st RD being reduced in status to a brigade for eight months, in 1950 it comprised the 201st Mountain Rifle Division at Dushanbe and the 376th Mountain Rifle Division at Osh.^[4] In June 1955 the corps was renumbered the 33rd Rifle Corps and the divisions renumbered the 27th and 71st Mountain Rifle Divisions. The 71st Motor Rifle Division was then reduced into the 427th Motor Rifle Regiment in 1958.

In January 1958 from the abolished

In 1960, with the entry into service of the BTR-50, the 427th MRR was reorganized into the 71st Motorized Rifle Division (cadre). In 1962, the 71st Motor Rifle Division was reorganized into the 34th Separate Reinforced Motorized Rifle Battalion (34th Motorized Rifle Battalion), which began to cover the state border with the PRC.

In 1968 the now-33rd Army Corps moved from Dushanbe to Kemerovo in the Siberian Military District.^[4]

The district initially covered most of Soviet Central Asia, but due to tensions between the Soviet Union and China the Tajik SSR, Kyrgyz SSR, and Kazakh SSR, the majority of the district area of responsibility, was split off to recreate the

From June 1, 1989, the Central Asian Military District was dissolved and its territory again incorporated into the Turkestan Military District, as part of the unilateral reductions which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had announced at the United Nations on 7 December 1988.^[8]

After the withdrawal from Afghanistan the 40th Army was disbanded. But in June 1991 it was reformed at

The District was finally dissolved on June 30, 1992 with the demise of the Soviet Union, when its forces were distributed between five newly independent Central Asian countries —

The Museum of history of The Turkestan Military District is on Gorki Avenue in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.[9]

Commanders

Russian Empire

• Adjutant General, Engineer-General Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann; (07.1867 - 04.1882)
• Lieutenant General Mikhail Chernyayev; (05.1882 - 02.1884)
• Lieutenant General Nikolai Rozenbakh; (02.1884 - 10.1889)
• Lieutenant General Baron Alexander Borisovich Vrevsky; (10.1889 - 03.1898)
• General of Infantry Sergei Mikhailovich Dukhovsky (03.1898 - 01.1901)
• General of the cavalry Nikolai Alexandrovich Ivanov; (01.1901 - 05.1904)
• General of the cavalry Nikolai Nikolaevich Tevyashev; (06.1904 - 11.1905)
• Lieutenant General Dejan Subotić (11.1905 - 08.1906)
• General Evgeny Osipovich Matsievsky; (08.1906 - 12.1906)
• General of Infantry Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov; (12.1906 - 03.1908)
• General of artillery Pavel Mishchenko; (05.1908 - 03.1909)
• General of the cavalry Alexander Samsonov; (03.1909 - 07.1914)
• General of Infantry Fyodor Vladimirovich Martson; (10.1914 - 07.1916)
• infantry general Mikhail Romanovich Erofeev; (07.1916)
• Adjutant General, General of Infantry Aleksey Kuropatkin (07.1916 - 02.1917)
• Colonel Leonty Nikolaevich Cherkes (03.1917).

Soviet Union

• Ivan Petrov
  - Army General: July 1945 - July 1952
• Alexei Radzievsky - Lieutenant General: July 1952 - April 1953
• Alexander Luchinsky - Colonel-General, from August 1955 Army General : April 1953 - October 1957
• Ivan Fedyuninsky - Army General : December 1957-December 1965
• Nikolai Lyashchenko - Colonel-General, from February 1968 Army General : December 1965 - June 1969
• Stepan Belonozko - Colonel-General : January 1970 -December 1978
• Yuri Maksimov - Colonel-General, December 1982 Army General : January 1979 -September 1984
• Nikolai Popov - Colonel-General, Army general from February 1988 : September 1984 -January 1989
• Ivan Fuzhenko - Colonel-General : January 1989 -December 1991
• Georgi Kondratyev - Lieutenant General, Colonel-General from 1992 : December 1991 -June 1992.

Composition

In 1988-9, these forces included the:^[10]

• 40th Army (Kabul, Afghanistan)
  • Shindand, Herat
    )
  • 103rd Guards Airborne Division (Bagram
    , Afghanistan)
  • 108th Motor Rifle Division (Bagram)
  • 201st Motor Rifle Division (Kunduz
    )
• Ashkabad)(formed May 1982)^[11]
  • Kyzyl-Arvat
    )
  • 88th Motor Rifle Division (Kushka
    )
  • 61st Training Motor Rifle Division
    )
• District Troops[12]
  • 787th Independent Training Motor Rifle Regiment - 720th Training Centre (Shengeldi (ru:Ченгельды)), Saryagash District, Kazakh SSR)
  • 353rd Guards Artillery Brigade (Kattakurgan)
  • 845th Independent Rocket Divizion (Kattakurgan)
  • 135th Anti-Tank Artillery Brigade (Mary, Turkmenistan SSR)
  • 2nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade (Samarkand)
  • 162nd Independent Military-Transport Helicopter Regiment (
    Kagan, Uzbekistan)^[13]
  • 399th Independent Helicopter Regiment (
    Chirchik)^[14]
  • 230th Engineer-Sapper Brigade (Samarkand)
  • 805th Independent Spetsnaz Company (Fergana)
  • 94th Pontoon-Bridge Regiment (Fergana)
  • 56th Independent Radio-Technical Brigade PVO (Chimkent)
  • 4th Guards Motor Rifle Division (Termez)(Military Unit Number 28345)
    • 365th and 367th Guards Motor Rifle Regiments; 1213th Motor Rifle Regiment; 304th Guards Tank Regiment; 837th Artillery Regiment; 1168th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment, smaller units
  • Ashkabad
    )
• 12th Independent Air Defence Army (HQ Tashkent)
  • 88th Communications Centre
  • Alma-Ata
    )
    • 737th Fighter Aviation Regiment (Ayaguz)
  • 15th Air Defence Division (Samarkand)
    • 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (Andijan)
  • 17th Air Defence Division (
    Mary Oblast
    )
    • 152nd Fighter Aviation Regiment (Ak-Tepe) (MiG-23M)(Formed 1950)
    • 179th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment

See also

• Central Asian Military District

Notes