Paper long abstract:

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some changes took place in the socio-economic life of Turkestan. In particular, new industrial apparatus and technologies began to be applied in various spheres of life. State institutions and entrepreneurs were interested in the appearance of equipment and technologies in Turkestan. Since it brought capital to the state reserve and allowed entrepreneurs in the region to earn more money.

In this period, in Turkestan, the first steps were taken to mechanize agriculture. Specialists in the region who taking into account world experience tried to store and process agricultural products by using modern equipment and technologies. At the same time, sewing-machines, musical instruments and new type of transports started to enter into the market in Turkestan. Also, there were first factories such as oil mills, brick factories, modern type mills, small enterprises that became the first steps of light industry in the region. They were equipped with machine tools that brought from different countries, in particular from USA, England, Germany. In order to give advantages of these technologies, entrepreneurs and state institutions used advertisement as a tool for sharing technologies. I argue that despite advantages of these new types of technologies, local people, in most cases, preferred traditional technologies because of prices of new industrial machines were expensive and they were incompatible to local natural condition. I use materials of periodical press that published in 1870-1917 and archival sources that held in National Archive of Uzbekistan. The both sources provide reports of state institutions about putting new technologies into practice and attitudes of local users of these industrial machines. I attempt to compare opinions of these two groups and bases on these, I try to show the fate of modern technologies in Turkestan.