Ashkhabad

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ASHKHABAD

ASHKHABAD (formerly Askhabad; (1919–1927) Poltoratsk ), capital of Turkmenistan. Jewish soldiers in the czarist army settled in Ashkhabad after the Russian conquest of the area in 1881, but they were expelled soon afterward by the governor-general of Turkestan. Later, Jewish artisans moved here from European Russia. By 1897, 310 Jews lived in the town (1.6% of the total population). At the end of the 1920s it served as a deportation center for Zionists exiled from European Russia. In 1939, 711 Jews (0.56% of the total) lived in the town and 1,202 in the entire district. In 1959 the Jewish population was 1,276. Around 600 remained in 2005.

[Yehuda Slutsky]

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Ashkhabad

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