The Hajj and Religious Politics after 1905 133In mid-June, at a special meeting of local officials, Tolmachev announced that
the city had assigned Gurzhi a plot of land in the port for his hajj complex. The
plot lay along the Old Quarantine Jetty, alongside public bathhouses and customs
warehouses, and close to the stopping place for the Volunteer Fleet and other
fleets with service to the Red Sea. A special rail line ran alongside the plot, and
would provide direct service to the complex.^60 The spot was clearly chosen with
sanitary concerns in mind: the idea was to deliver hajj pilgrims directly from
their trains into the complex, bypassing Odessa’s train station, and from there
board them onto steamships.^61 This design followed a recommendation that san-
itary officials in Odessa had made several years earlier, to prevent a cholera epi-
demic in Odessa by “not allowing Muslims into the city.”^62 Tolmachev’s support
for the plan suggests how closely he, too, associated the hajj with deadly cholera,
and viewed Muslim pilgrims as a source of disease and disorder in Odessa.
Within days of this decision, Saidazimbaev mobilized his ties to the Volun-
teer Fleet to undo Gurzhi’s project. Eager to preserve their lucrative deal with
Saidazimbaev, fleet officials in St. Petersburg immediately telegrammed Tol-
machev, urging him to support the economic interests of the fleet—and, by
association, of Russia—by transferring the plot of land to Saidazimbaev. They
pointed out that Gurzhi had no agreement with any of Russia’s steamship com-
panies.^63 A. G. Niedermiller, chair of the fleet’s committee, wrote Tolmachev
directly to tell him that Saidazimbaev had been recommended by several Duma
members, and seemed to have altruistic intentions.^64 In Odessa, the manager of
the fleet’s local office, L. F. Kompanion, also pressured Tolmachev to support
Saidazimbaev, reminding him that Stolypin had just named him hajj director,
and arguing that his plan was better for Russia overall because it spanned the
whole empire, whereas Gurzhi’s focused only on Odessa.^65 Meanwhile, fleet
officials in Odessa also intervened with local representatives of the Ministry of
Trade, which owned the plot of land in question, pressuring them to transfer
the plot to Saidazimbaev.^66
Saidazimbaev approached Tolmachev in the meantime to sell his plan. Writ-
ing to Tolmachev on official letterhead that announced his multiple impressive
titles (Director of the Muslim Pilgrimage from Russia to Mecca and Back;
Appointee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; General Agent of the Volunteer
Fleet; Hereditary Honorable Citizen), Saidazimbaev reprised the arguments he
had made to Stolypin. He argued that only a Muslim could effectively organize
the hajj, given the required cultural knowledge and sensitivity, and pilgrims’
suspicions about non-Muslims’ interference in the practice of their faith.^67 He
also stressed the broad government support that he had as hajj director and