174 Chapter Five
the pilgrimage meant to Afghans, and how they felt compelled to describe to
their compatriots what they saw and experienced on the long journey. He
argued that the journey through the USSR was an opportunity to expose
Afghans to Soviet government structure, cultural and industrial achievements,
and “the rights of all of our nationalities.” While helping them make the hajj
through Soviet lands, “we should be careful not to propagandize,” he warned,
but instead let Afghan pilgrims discover and become interested in Soviet life on
their own. He urged the government to subsidize facilities for pilgrims and give
them “bountiful meals” during their time in Soviet lands, which they could
compare to what they had back home.^58
Nazarev also proposed that the Soviet state gently try to reshape foreign Mus-
lims’ itineraries through the USSR, using suasion rather than force. The idea
was to accede to pilgrims’ demands to visit holy sites in Central Asia, while also
exposing them to Soviet life in all of its splendid dimensions. “If we could find
some cultured, politically restrained Muslims who could . . . show pilgrims
around the holy sites in Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent, and then along the
way squeeze in side trips to the electric station, factories, tractor tillage of fields,
the Sovietized kishlak (rural settlement of seminomadic peoples in Central
Asia), a model cooperative shop, a session of the Soviet court,” he wrote, “this
could help our Soviet propaganda in Afghanistan.” Considering the “low cul-
tural level of the Afghans,” Soviet officials should not propagandize in written
form, but should instead show them around, and influence them “in a subtle
way.” In sum, Nazarev argued that “the movement of Afghan pilgrims through
Kushka has huge meaning for us, and we need to be sure they are comfortable,
well treated, and experience no red tape.”^59
The Soviet hajj campaign in 1927 went poorly, although it was not a complete
failure: Sovtorgflot transported 1,200 hajj pilgrims from Odessa to Jeddah in
1927, most of them from western China.^60 But this was far less than the pro-
jected 5,000, and the fleet lost money on this transport because pilgrims could
not afford its rates. The Chairman of Sovtorgflot, Comrade Ivanov, estimated
that the fleet lost thirty-four rubles per pilgrim, and wrote to the Commissariat
of Finance to ask it to cover the losses.^61
Many Muslims complained to Sovtorgflot about their awful experience.
Conditions along Soviet railroads had been terrible, even deadly. Promised
second-class cars, pilgrims were forced instead to travel in freight cars that had
no berths. They were overcrowded, and pilgrims had to sleep together in a heap