Forging a Russian Hajj Route 113Disembarking in Jeddah, pilgrims could leave their baggage and money on
board while they performed the hajj.
“For the convenience of pilgrims,” the ROPiT poster announced, “direct
tickets to the Hejaz” were being sold in railroad stations across the Russian
Empire—in Cheliabinsk, Tiumen, Omsk, Petropavlovsk, Tomsk, Moscow, Ria-
zan, Kazan, Nizhnii Novgorod, Tambov, Ufa, Samara, Simbirsk, Penza, Ba-
traki, Perm, Orenburg, and Tsaritsyn—as well as in stations along the Central
Asian railroads. Ticket holders riding in both directions would be offered sepa-
rate train cars for hajj pilgrims. Round-trip tickets were heavily discounted. For
more information, pilgrims could contact the ROPiT agency in Sevastopol or
the office of the newspaper Perevodchik in Bahcesarai.^77
If these advertisements promised superior speed, comfort, and affordability
for hajj pilgrims, Russia had other goals as well. One was to revise pilgrims’ itin-
eraries and prevent them from making stops along the way. The advertisements
listed several stops, but in fact ROPiT’s ships often passed through Constantino-
ple without stopping, angering many pilgrims intent on visiting holy sites and
mosques in the city. Some of these were foreigners who deliberately followed
itineraries through Russia to visit the Ottoman capital, and were outraged to be
prevented from visiting it. In 1906 a group of Kashgar hajj pilgrims from the
Qing Empire complained to the Ottoman government that the Russian govern-
ment was not letting them travel the routes they wanted, blocking them from
Figure 3.7. ROPiT advertisement in
Turkestan’s main newspaper, offering
“esteemed hajj pilgrims” service aboard
“Hejaz steamships” from Sevastopol.
- (Turkistan wilayatining gazeti)