100 Chapter Three
There was still another factor that probably contributed to ROPiT’s poor
sale of tickets to hajj pilgrims in 1899 and the early 1900s. Oddly, the Ministry
of Internal Affairs, while encouraging ROPiT to get involved in hajj trans-
port, also introduced measures that worked against ROPiT’s new service.
Every year between 1897 and 1900, Russia’s ministers of internal affairs, I. L.
Goremykin and D. S. Sipiagin, had announced a ban on the hajj, because of
cholera outbreaks in Arabia.^37 By all accounts, these bans did not stop the
flow of hajj traffic out of Russia, but only pushed more Muslims to the land
routes, where they could slip across the border undetected. Adding to this,
the Foreign Ministry effectively increased support for hajj pilgrims along the
route through Afghanistan and India that the Ministry of Internal Affairs
was trying to shut down. In 1900 the Foreign Ministry opened a Russian con-
sulate in Bombay to intercept and assist its Turkestani Muslims passing
through the port city. Citing Russia’s “numerous hajj pilgrims” who traveled
Figure 3.4. Two Central Asian hajj
pilgrims at the Odessa train station,
on their way home from Mecca. The
caption in Russian reads: “Two
Muslim Pilgrims returning from
Mecca to Tashkent. For lack of
funds, they will go on foot from
Odessa to Tashkent.” 1913. (Odess-
kiia novosti)