The Hajj and Religious Politics after 1905 153ideas not only about Islam, but also about Russia, the empire to which they
belonged? These were open and critical questions, and increasingly of concern
to Russian officials seeking to make Muslims Russians in the early twentieth
cent u r y.
Despite decades of trying various strategies, by 1910 Russia still had not
managed to bring the empire’s hajj traffic under state control. Much to the frus-
tration of tsarist officials inside and outside the empire, Russia’s Muslims used
the services of the state selectively and sporadically. Many continued to rely on
informal Muslim networks to make the long journey. And as of the early twen-
tieth century, many were still making the pilgrimage illegally, slipping abroad
without a foreign passport, and only showing up at Russian consulates when
they were in trouble or needed money.
State officials noted that, not surprisingly, elite Muslims were able to evade
the state-sponsored Black Sea routes with greater ease than the far more numer-
ous poor. A 1910 report by the ministry of internal affairs noted that Muslims
of means sometimes returned to Russia by train through Central Europe—
taking trains from Constantinople through Vienna and Warsaw and on to
Moscow or St. Petersburg—bypassing registration and quarantine in Black Sea
ports. Officials had no idea how numerous these pilgrims were; but they were
frustrated, nonetheless, to know that some pilgrims continued to travel alter-
nate routes and avoid the detection of the imperial authorities.^127
Figure 4.9. A Bashkir switch
operator poses alongside the tracks
of the trans-Siberian railroad, near
the town of Ust Katav, just east of
Ufa. Early 1900s. (Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division, Prokudin-Gorskii
Collection, LC-DIG-prokc-20617)