Southern Cross of the Russian Empire Serhetabat Turkmenistan

Serhetabat (formerly Gushgy) ( tk, Guşgy; russian: Кушка, Kushka) is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

in Tagtabazar District,

Mary Province Mary Region ( tk, Mary welaýaty, Мары велаяты) is one of five provinces in Turkmenistan. It is located in the south-east of the country, bordering Afghanistan. Its capital is the city of Mary. Its area is and population 1,480,400 ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...

. Serhetabat lies in the valley of the Kushka River. The population was 5,200 in 1991. It is immediately opposite Torghundi,

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

, with which it is connected by a road and a gauge railway.

Etymology

The name of the city is a Turkmen borrowing from Persian , consisting of two words: () meaning "border" and () meaning "inhabited place" (commonly used as a Persian suffix for naming places, such as

Khorramabad Khorramabad ( fa, خرم‌آباد, Khorramâbâd ), alternatively romanized as Khorramābād, Khoramabad, Khurramabad, Khorram Abad, or Khur Ramābād, is a city and the capital of Lorestan Province, Iran. At the time of the 2016 census, its pop ...

, a city in Iran, and

Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies ...

, the capital of Turkmenistan). The name of the city corresponds to its geographic location on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border. A historical part of the Iranian city

Karaj Karaj ( fa, کرج, ) is the capital of Alborz Province, Iran, and effectively a satellite city of Tehran. Although the county hosts a population around 1.97 million, as recorded in the 2016 census, most of the county is rugged mountain. The ur ...

shares the same name, Sarhadabad. Gushgy is a Turkmenized form of the Persian-Afghan word ''kushk'' (), a term referring to mountain forts. In 1885 after taking the

Panjdeh oasis The Panjdeh Incident (known in Russian historiography as the Battle of Kushka) was an armed engagement between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Russian Empire in 1885 that led to a diplomatic crisis between the British Empire and the Russian ...

Russian troops constructed a fort on the site of present-day Serhetabat and named it for the village of Kush in Afghanistan. The Turkmenistan government changed the name to Serhetabat on 29 December 1999 by Parliamentary Resolution HM-67.

Overview

RIAN archive 644463 First stage in the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

In 1885, Serhetabat and the surrounding region were seized from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

n forces as a result of the

Panjdeh Incident The Panjdeh Incident (known in Russian historiography as the Battle of Kushka) was an armed engagement between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Russian Empire in 1885 that led to a diplomatic crisis between the British Empire and the Russia ...

(also referred to as the Battle of Kushka), in which about 600 Afghan soldiers were overwhelmed by over 2500 Russian troops. The settlement was founded in 1890 as a Russian military outpost. A local rail line branching from

Merv Merv ( tk, Merw, ', مرو; fa, مرو, ''Marv''), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana ( grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and ...

(now Mary) on the

Central Asian Railway The Trans-Caspian Railway (also called the Central Asian Railway, russian: Среднеазиатская железная дорога) is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built b ...

was inaugurated on 1 March 1901, causing some degree of international excitement. A point south of the city is the southernmost point of Turkmenistan and used to be the southernmost point of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

and

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. A 10-metre stone cross, installed to commemorate the tercentenary of the

Romanov Dynasty The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanova, was married to th ...

in 1913, is a memorial to this fact. This cross was one of four erected in 1913, but is the only one still remaining.

Transport

The

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

railway crosses into Afghanistan at the station, Torghundi being the

railhead In the UK, railheading refers to the practice of travelling further than necessary to reach a rail service, typically by car. The phenomenon is common among commuters seeking a more convenient journey. Reasons for railheading include, but are ...

station on the other side. It was built in 1960. In February 2018, the existing rail line between Serhetabat and Torghundi was restored to service. This line is planned to be extended to

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Saf ...

, where it could potentially connect to a rail line under construction from Khaf,

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

. Serhetabat is the southern end of Turkmenistan highway A-388, which connects the city to Ýolöten, Murgap, and Mary. The nearest airport is at Galaýmor.

Climate

Serhetabat has a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi- ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

''BSk''), with cool winters and very hot summers. Rainfall is moderate in winter and spring, but summer is extremely dry.

References

Populated places in Mary Region Populated places established in 1890 Afghanistan–Turkmenistan border crossings {{Cities of Turkmenistan