Forging a Russian Hajj Route 97Along the trans-Caspian line, a military railroad manned entirely by sol-
diers, things were not much better. Terrifying, whip-wielding Cossacks walked
the platforms at stops to keep order. Their “principal duty,” according to a Brit-
ish observer named George Dobson, who traveled the line in 1888, seemed to
be to shout at Muslims who jumped off the train to fill their water pitchers from
tubs sunk into the ground, or to perform their ablutions at the station’s foun-
tain. Those who did not heed their shouts to hurry back onto the train were
simply “thrashed over the head.”^30 This line was built largely across desert,
where flash floods and sandstorms were common. Trains were often delayed,
either because floods had washed away parts of tracks, or because locomotives’
engines were gummed up with sand. Stations were not always located near
stops. Inconveniently, the station for Uzun Ada (the original Caspian Sea ter-
minus for the line) lay a quarter mile away from the landing place for steam-
ships, so passengers had to “trudge ankle-deep through the hot sand to get to
Figure 3.2. Geok-tepe station along the trans-Caspian railway. 1899. (General Research
Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations)