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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by M. O. Williams 



A TEKKE TURKOMAN AT GEOK TEPE, THE) 

 SCENE OE SKOBELEFE'S VICTORY 

 OVER THE TURKOMANS 



votes were cast by Russian soldiers still 

 stationed in Tiflis. They were the ones 

 who utilized the aeroplane as an election- 

 eering factor months before it was pro- 

 posed to distribute propaganda in this 

 manner behind the German lines. 



After the Bolsheviks came the Party 

 of Popular Freedom, and next came the 

 Cadets. The Zionist party polled 781 

 votes and a party called the Moslem 

 Union of Russia, represented by number 

 14, did not get a single vote. Number 13 

 ran a close second for consolation honors 

 with a solitary ballot. 



Men and women voted together, rode 

 in the same electioneering automobiles, 

 distributed flyers together, and in general 



showed an absolute equality of oppor- 

 tunity and willingness to make use of it. 

 The voting was heavy, amounting to one 

 vote for every five inhabitants of Tiflis. 



In spite of the heavy vote, there was 

 little excitement during the three days of 

 election. There was talk of intimidation 

 by the soldiers, but I could detect no evi- 

 dence of it. Soldiers were prominent in 

 the air-warming oratory in front of the 

 voting places, but those I saw seemed 

 content to listen to their own eloquence 

 without using more forceful measures. 



Out of eighteen thousand Bolshevik 

 votes, the Russian soldiers cast twelve 

 thousand. Prisoners were allowed to 

 vote, and 246 out of 250 voted the Bol- 

 shevik ticket. 



THE SIZE AND EXTENT OE TURKESTAN 



Our doorway to Turkestan was Kra- 

 snovodsk, a mediocre city consisting of a 

 railway station, two churches, several 

 wharves, and other small things too nu- 

 merous to mention, but not too insignifi- 

 cant to make their presence felt. It has 

 spread itself out at the base of some 

 tawny hills very much like the African 

 hills along the Red Sea and basks in the 

 desert sun with a supreme disregard for 

 its own slovenliness. Not only is the rail- 

 way station the main architectural feature 

 of the town ; its sentimental value is only 

 equaled by that of the several wharves. 

 Some say that history emigrated from 

 Turkestan. If it ever emigrated from 

 Krasnovodsk, it simply obeyed the com- 

 mon impulse. 



Turkestan begins in the west by being 

 a land of desert, dust, and dreariness and 

 ends in the east in lovely and fertile 

 Ferghana. Its inhabitants insist that in 

 spring there are green spots here and 

 there, but in few places is there enough 

 rain to give an annual house-cleaning to 

 the dusty trees and shrubs. 



Turkestan, including the Khanate of 

 Khiva and the Emirate of Bokhara, both 

 of which now claim independence, is three 

 times as large as Texas, yet it was almost 

 lost in the Tsar's domains. It has as 

 many people as New York and Massa- 

 chusetts combined and there are as few 

 Russians as there are native-born Amer- 

 icans on Manhattan Isle. Its two largest 

 rivers empty into a sea about the size of 



