Russian conquest of Central Asia
In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army succeeded in conquering all of Central Asia. The majority of this land became known as Russian Turkestan—the name "Turkestan" was used to refer to the area due to the fact that it was and is inhabited by Turkic peoples, excluding the Tajiks, who are an Iranian ethnicity. Upon witnessing Russia's absorption of the various Central Asian realms, the British Empire sought to reinforce India, triggering the Great Game, which ended when both sides eventually designated Afghanistan as a neutral buffer zone.
Ural Cossacks in skirmish with Kazakhs
A train crossing the Kazakh steppe
Mountain-steppe boundary near Bishkek
Russian troops taking Tashkent in 1865
The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia or simply Russia, was a vast realm that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its proclamation in November 1721 until its dissolution in March 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British and Mongol empires; it also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.
The Victory at Poltava, painted by Alexander von Kotzebue in 1862
Peter the Great officially proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721 and became its first emperor. He instituted sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power. Painting by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1717.
Empress Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the Russian Enlightenment (painted in the 1780s).
1764, Rouble Catherine II ММД - Krasny Mint