130 Chapter Four
had gotten the Senate to ratify “Rules on the Transport by Ship of Muslim Pil-
grims from Black Sea Ports to the Hejaz and Back.”^44
But the 1907 rules focused mainly on steamship issues, leaving many others
unaddressed. And in his report, Saidazimbaev implicitly warned Stolypin
about severe consequences if he did not address these other issues. A key issue
Saidazimbaev raised was public health. He described the inadequate lodging
for pilgrims in Odessa, and the sanitary dangers for the city and the empire. He
described a typical “hotel” situation in Odessa as a breeding ground for disease,
with pilgrims crowded several to a room for as long as two weeks, with no ven-
tilation, unwashed bodies lying on filthy linens, the stench of rotting food, and
people preparing food and eating on the same dirty floor where they prayed
and slept.^45
Saidazimbaev also warned that if terrible travel conditions through Russia
continued, pilgrims would start reverting to their old land routes.^46 Already, he
claimed, rumors were circulating about the “rewards” offered by the Persian
government for pilgrims who took routes through their realm, and some pil-
grims were returning to these routes.^47 This point certainly would have made an
impression on Stolypin. Since the late nineteenth century, the government had
been trying to encourage Russia’s Muslims to take state-sanctioned routes
through Russia, along Russian rail lines. This was both for economic reasons—to
channel the profits of hajj transport into state coffers—and for reasons of secu-
rity and imperial stability. Russia had no way of monitoring pilgrims along land
routes through Indian and Persian lands. Russian officials referred to this as
secret pilgrimage, one that they had steadily tried to discourage, because they
worried that it would have negative sanitary and political effects on the empire.^48
Documentation of Stolypin’s response to Saidazimbaev and his plan is spotty
in the historical record. We know that Stolypin embraced the plan, because he
appointed Saidazimbaev hajj director and authorized him to carry it out. But
nowhere did he fully explain his motives. The existing evidence suggests that
Stolypin was secretive about the appointment, treating it as an experiment to
try out before going public. This would make sense, given the tense political
atmosphere of the time.
By 1908 Stolypin was two years into his tenure as prime minister, and under
fire in the government for pushing for “an expansion of the limits of ‘religious
freedom,’ ” as promised in the tsar’s October Manifesto of 1905. Stolypin had a
utilitarian view: he believed that the expansion of government support for Rus-
sia’s non-Orthodox faiths, and the achievement of “full religious toleration” for
all in the empire, were central to guaranteeing imperial stability and preserving