There were several articles and information about socio-economical and cultural events of towns of Fergana region in many newspapers published in Turkistan newspapers at the end of the XIX th and at the beginning of the XX th centuries. This information is the main base of learning the history of Fergana cities and towns.
We can find information about opening of the new Post Offices in Fergana cities and towns in the newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. For example, in the issue of December 15 1876, they write information about opening Post Offices in Kokand, Namangan, Andijan, Osh, Margilan and Chust cities of Fergana region. (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1876, №33)
At the same time sending parcels was also established from Tashkent to Kokand. On Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays parcels were sent from Tashkent to Kokand, and on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays parcels were sent from Kokand to Tashkent. Later among other cities of Fergana region dilijans (a special wagon for carrying people and parcels) carried parcels. (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1876, №10)
On the 28th of April 1912 a new car began to transport people from Andijan to Osh in order to make their life easier. There were rooms for 12 people in the car and for every passenger ht cost was 3 soms (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1876, №40). Therefore on the 47- volume of the 23rd November, 1989 of “The newspaper of Turkistan region” it was given information about establishing medical service center for Muslim women of Andijan city. They assessed the service of the center positively and mentioned that during the year 1888, 1052 children patients were brought to the hospital, among them 650 of them had smallpox but just 21 of them were vaccinate against smallpox. As it was given in the newspaper polio, scab and other illnesses were spread among children, but parents took their children to local (tabib) and that resulted in death for most of them, because of that, Russian women doctors warned mothers against malaria, smallpox and other inflectional diseases and asked them to bring the children, who have above mentioned diseases, to hospitals. The newspaper had information about the spread of the smallpox among children as a result of lack of drinking water and rice fields that were situated near people’s houses. Only in the year 1888, 541 women and 367 children addressed to women’s and children’s hospital in Andijan.
In 1886, the hospital for women and children was opened in Margilan and served for people. Many different kinds of diseases were spread among people; the reason was shortage of drinking water. 1142 people in Margilan region and 483 people in Margilan city died of cholera in 1892.
In the reports of the newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region” the information about the number of people who addressed to hospitals, what diseases they were infected, the reasons for infecting and foresee the reasons for diseases were shown. In those reports reasons for spreading different kinds of diseases were mentioned as poverty, shortage of drinking water and grocery products, and lack of government’s attention to the medical service, especially the low level of medical culture among people.
In 1911 in 19th volume of the newspaper an article “The letter from Andijan” was published. In this article they wrote about existence of places, where beers were sold, whore houses and other places against Islamic laws. Local people of Andijan wrote a letter to their hokim (mayor) Ivanov to show there discord as: “…these activities may result to change the nation, religion and laws of Islamic religion and you should help to stop these activities.”
There was information about the building of railway stations. For example, new railway roads were built from Kokand to Namangan on the 7th of July, 1912.
By this railway the first train came from Kokand to Namangan. Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1912, №54)
At the same time we can find information about socio-industrial life of the cities of Fergana in this article. In 1912, the minister of military forces Vladimir Aleksandrovich Suhumilnov visited to Kokand and merchants of the city complained about their problems. For example, Mulla Solihjonboy gave his complain and suggestions in written form:
-to get a member of the Duma (governmental organization) from local people;
-to give back all the related documents of the Mosques and Medresas of the city;
-to give the right of delivering trade activity documents to Qozis (Judge);
-to raise the price of cotton;
-to give more credit to peasants;
As it was mentioned in the newspaper, they couldn’t get any positive answers for their complain and suggestions. (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1912, №3)
There was some information about economical issues too in this newspaper. According to the information of the newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region” a new oil company began its work in Surxtepa village of Margilan in 1900. In 1902 this company was newly equipped with modern mechanics. There were six workers in this plant. They produced 25-30 pounds of clean cotton oil from 300 pound of cotton seeds a day (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1902, №44).
Cultural life of people of this region was also written a lot in this newspaper. At that time children of this region studies in different kinds of schools, like: boys schools, a girls school and a primary school for girls in Church in new Margilan. In old Margilan there was a Russian school; many children went to local Medreses to study. According to the information of the newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region” in 1910, 300 Russian schools existed in Turkistan. However there is an information that many people didn’t want their children to go to the Russian schools because of not teaching religious knowledge in many cities of Fergana valley. (Newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”. 1910, №81)
When we analyzed the function of the newspaper “The newspaper of Turkistan region”, we got information about the shape and existence of the newspaper during the difficult years. We have found out that it had evolution during those years. The newspaper tried to give series of information about socio-economical and cultural news, their reforms, positive and negative effects of them in daily life. Therefore, they also gave full information about life of people in far villages and towns of Turkistan. This information helps researchers to analyze socio-economical and cultural situation of that period.
