66 C h a p t e r Tw o
Kotsebu’s resistance to the 1872 measure, and concern for maintaining sta-
bility in his region, were surely tied to the broader problem of unrest in his
region a result of growing anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic violence there. Just
the year before, in 1871, a major anti-Semitic pogrom had erupted in Odessa, a
city with a rapidly growing Jewish population. By the late nineteenth century
Jews made up a third of Odessa’s overall population. Odessa was also a main
transit point for hajj pilgrims using Black Sea routes. Kotsebu’s resistance to the
1872 measure was doubtless shaped by this experience, and perhaps a fear that
anti-Semitic pogroms could spread into a broader disorder involving Muslim
populations as well.^59
The resistance of Kotsebu, Kaufman, and others illustrates one of the chief
difficulties Russia would face in trying to control the hajj. The hajj was a multi-
dimensional phenomenon, having religious, political, economic, and strategic
dimensions. Russian officials necessarily saw it through the lens of their own
local concerns and pressing agendas. This made it exceptionally difficult for
tsarist officials to come to a consensus on what the hajj meant for the empire, or
what kind of policies they should develop and apply. Clearly not all tsarist offi-
cials saw the hajj in wholly negative terms. Kotsebu, for one, in resisting state
restrictions on the hajj essentially argued that there were opportunities for Rus-
sia in instrumentalizing the hajj, that by allowing and involving itself in this
form of Muslim mobility Russia could in fact bring its Muslim populations
more firmly under imperial influence and control.
And yet there was no agreement among tsarist officials on these points,
beyond a consensus that the government could not ignore the hajj, and had to
get involved in it somehow. These tensions, between the aims of regional offi-
cials and central imperial agendas, would persist and continue to complicate
government efforts to involve itself in the hajj.
Realizing that the hajj could not be stopped, and that Russian officials in
Muslim regions of the empire were increasingly committed to keeping open
access to Mecca in the interest of integration and governance, leading officials
in the Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs began to discuss ways to bring
it under state patronage and control instead. To do this they first needed to
understand its basic geography, and the existing networks that Russia’s Mus-
lims relied on to get to Mecca and back.
They considered new facilities for hajj pilgrims abroad. The first idea, put
forth by Ignatʹev in 1874, was to establish a “Russian caravanserai,” a lodging