Bronislaw Ludvigovich Grombchevsky

B. L. Grombchevsky (1856-1926)

Here is another figure, Bronislav Ludwigovich Grombchevsky (1856-1926), a descendant of the Polish nobility who faithfully served Russia. He was not only a combat officer who participated in the Alai campaign of 1876. Since 1880, he served in the so-called military-national administration in the Margelan district. In addition, he was a prominent researcher of Pamir, Tian Shan, and the countries of Central Asia. He was a recipient of the silver and gold medals of the IRGO. His reports, notes, and works on travels through unexplored mountainous areas contain interesting ethnographic observations about the Kyrgyz, their close and distant neighbors, and their habitats, illustrated with beautiful photographs.

Since we are talking about people, I will also mention the demographic statistics of Osh at that time. "Although the colonial path of development that Central Asia took after its annexation to Russia and its transformation into a raw material appendage of the metropolis hindered industrial development, this period nonetheless created more favorable conditions for the deepening of social division of labor, increasing the commodity nature of the economy, and developing the economic specialization of individual regions, leading to significant urban growth," notes expert on pre-revolutionary history of Central Asian cities O.A. Sukhareva.

In concluding our tour of Osh during the time of Kurmanjan Datka, it is important to add that this city was the starting point for many scientific and military expeditions of the Russians to Alai and Pamir. Moreover, the most valuable practical results in the study of the previously unexplored region and the recreation of forgotten pages of its history were obtained by scholars precisely at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, that is, at a time when the Alai queen shone in all her glory in Osh. It is not surprising that she became the heroine of many travel notes and reports by Russian geographers. But this will be discussed in other chapters of the book...

District Chief Vasily Nikolaevich Zaytsev