The Hajj and Religious Politics after 1905 125Saidazimbaev’s proposal, which he would shop around to tsarist officials
across the empire in 1908, painted a dire picture of the Muslim experience of
the hajj through Russian lands, particularly for those traveling from Central
Asia. Difficulties had beset pilgrims along the Tashkent-Orenburg line in the
1907–8 hajj season. Stations along their routes were often nothing more than a
sign posted in the ground. Pilgrims sat beside the tracks for days waiting for a
train, with no access to food, shelter, or water. The railroads were not adding
enough rolling stock during hajj season, and trains were overcrowded. Penza
and Samara were two of the worst stations. There, the new trans-Siberian rail-
road intersected with many other rail lines, and large crowds gathered to board
trains that often arrived already full. As many as sixty passengers piled into
cars built for forty, and people lay on floors, luggage racks, and passageways
between cars, or were forced to stand. Men and women were packed together in
miserable conditions for as long as two weeks. On board, Muslims found filthy
toilets and no water to perform their daily ablutions, or open space to pray.^18
Transfers had been especially difficult. Because most Muslim pilgrims could
not speak Russian, they often ended up on the wrong train, or stranded in a
station far from home, unable to communicate. Between home and Constan-
tinople—the entire journey through Russian lands—Muslims had almost no
access to their native foods, and for religious reasons they refused meat prod-
ucts offered at Russian train stations and stops along the way.^19 Many went
hungry. Others carried a month-and-a-half ’s worth of food in their sacks,
much of which spoiled and decayed, which created a stench in the train cars
and cases of food poisoning.^20 Whenever people got sick, disease spread
quickly. On the steamships they boarded in Russia’s Black Sea ports, pilgrims
again suffered crowded conditions, lacked access to water, and were charged
exorbitant prices for food and drink—fifty kopecks for a roll and forty kopecks
for a cup of tea.^21
To address problems on Russia’s railroads, Saidazimbaev proposed working
with the Ministry of Transport to create special “hajj cars” tailored to Muslim
traditions and needs. These would include sex-segregated space and bathrooms;
access to water to perform their daily ablutions before prayer; open space for
them to perform their prayers during travel; and a Muslim conductor to guide
them. He would also work with the ministry to manage the complicated logis-
tics of pilgrim transport during hajj seasons, and arrange for extra rolling
stock.^22 He planned to assign Muslim guides to steamships to accompany and
assist pilgrims on the long journey, and to subsidize and dispense a certain
number of free steamship tickets to poor pilgrims.^23