172 Chapter Five
agent in Tashkent: each thought it was the other’s job to establish the
khadzhikhane. Sovtorgflot also had not lowered the costs of transport, as the
British had done, to make rates affordable to Afghans.^49 It had also become
clear that Sovtorgflot’s other agent in Afghanistan, Seid Kerim, had done noth-
ing to recruit pilgrims. Caravan traders passing through Kushka told Soviet
officials that most Afghan pilgrims were headed to Jeddah by way of India that
year, not the USSR. It seemed that Seid Kerim had done a poor job advertising
Sovtorgflot’s services, as he had promised to do. He had received a stack of
Sovtorgflot posters but had apparently not posted any beyond Herat.^50
Based on this information, Kamalov predicted that few pilgrims from Persia
or Afghanistan would use Soviet routes in 1927. The cost of travel by rail
through Soviet lands and by steamships was much too high for Afghans. He
noted that the Afghans were “not very cultured” and valued “inexpensive over
comfort and quality.”^51 It was certainly more dangerous for them to take the
Indian route: they went on foot and horseback by way of Kandahar, where
many died in the mountain passes, and then by steamship across the Indian
Ocean, where more died from the tropical summer heat. But “Muslim teach-
ings” told them that death while making the hajj was a “good death,” and so few
could easily be deterred from this route. Kamalov also noted the negative effects
of the strict itinerary imposed along the Soviet routes. Afghans did not see the
direct, rapid transport that Sovtorgflot offered from Kushka to Odessa as a pos-
itive thing, but rather as a hindrance on their movement. Many Afghans wanted
to stop at holy shrines and sites in Soviet Central Asia on their hajj journey—not
to be sped through the country by train, as the Soviets wanted. In India they
enjoyed freedom of movement. Last minute planning by the Soviets had made
recruitment all but impossible. Kamalov blamed Seid Kerim: not only had he
not done his job, he had sabotaged the Soviet hajj campaign.^52
In western China, too, Soviet officials had difficulties recruiting hajj pil-
grims. In Kashgar the British had launched a “rabid campaign” to prevent
Soviet hajj transport. The Soviet trade representative there, identified in docu-
ments as Comrade Klidzin, reported that the British consulate had Chinese
authorities and leading merchants solidly under its influence, and through
them it was urging pilgrims to take routes to Mecca through India. The British
were spreading rumors about terrible things that would happen to Muslims if
they went through Soviet territory. And they were “aggressively” issuing pass-
ports to India to all would-be pilgrims.^53
To reverse this situation, Klidzin suggested that the fleet funnel money into
the region. Soviet officials could use the money to bribe Chinese officials, and to