Yakub from Kattakurgan
The Most Famous Guide in Turkestan
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And nowhere is this adage more true than for the past, a time so removed from our own, for which a single image can have a huge impact. In this section, the editors at Qalam seek to do more than merely showcase documentary photographs from various eras—we want to tell the real stories behind these images and bring history to life. Each photograph here captures a moment that has shaped our world, and the accompanying narrative highlights its significance and context, giving us a nuanced insight into the events they depict. After all, understanding these stories can only help us appreciate the complexities of history better.
This time, let’s take a look at photographs of Yakub from Kattakurgan, the most famous guide in Turkestan.
The stunning photographs of the renowned chemist and inventor Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863–1944) are famous across the world. During his travels across Central Asia, he captured an extraordinary collection of portraits featuring Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and many other local communities. Often, these were ordinary people whose stories we unfortunately do not know outside of the brief caption in the album. Yet, one person stands out, appearing in his photographs more often than anyone else—at least four times.
This man’s name was Yakub, and he served as Prokudin-Gorsky’s guide during his journey through Turkestan in 1906–07, when he aimed to capture a solar eclipse in the Tian Shan mountains. Yakub was a professional guide and interpreter who participated in Central Asian expeditions for more than twenty years, and yet little else is known about him.
He also worked with the prominent Ukrainian botanist Vladimir Lipsky, who described him in 1899 as Persian by origin and Shia by faith. According to Lipsky, Yakub did not know Persian and spoke the ‘Sart language’. His father was a local official in Kattakurgan, now a city in the Samarqand Region of Uzbekistan, but fled with his family after the arrival of Russian troops in 1868. Upon returning, the family found their home in ruins and apparently moved to the village of Bag-i-Shamal (also in the Samarqand Region), where Yakub grew up.
In his youth, Yakub became acquainted with Russian army officer and ethnographer Lev Barschevsky, with whom he began his career as a guide. Yakub was responsible not only for navigation and facilitating communication with locals but also for managing the camp, cooking, transportation, and setting up scientific instruments, something he was highly skilled at. For his efforts, he was awarded the ‘For Zeal’ medal in St. Petersburg in 1897, which he can be seen wearing in the first photograph.
During Prokudin-Gorsky's expedition, Yakub fell ill and was unable to provide much assistance, which the traveler later lamented in his reports. However, in 1910, Yakub appeared in another photograph, this time taken by the artist and photographer Boris Romberg. Unfortunately, no more information about Yakub and his life is known beyond this.
