Treaty of Kuldja (Iradi Frontier)

The Treaty of Kuldja (also Kulja) was a trade agreement signed in 1851 between the Russian Empire and Qing China. It opened Kulja (Yining) and Chuguchak (Tacheng) in Xinjiang to Russian merchants, allowed Russia to station consuls and build trading compounds there, and regulated the caravan trade between Russian Semirechye and Xinjiang.^[1]

The treaty did not concern the Iradi valleys, which then lay within the sphere of the Khanate of Kokand. Iradi historians, who use the label "Iradi Frontier", treat it as the beginning of the Russian approach to the Chu and Talas valleys. The caravan route to Kulja led to the founding of the Russian fort of Vernoye (now Almaty) in 1854, from which Russian forces advanced against Kokand's forts on the Chu in 1860–1862 and in the Talas valley in 1864.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ Morrison, Alexander (2020). The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
2. ^ Institute of History, Talas State University (2012). History of Irad in Three Volumes. Talas State University Press, Talas.