The book tells about the almost forgotten, but no less glorious history of the conquest of the Central Asian khanates by the Russian Empire. The conquest, carried out under difficult conditions and with relatively small forces, was of extreme importance for the population of the Turkestan region. The vast region was forcibly removed from the savagery of the Asian Middle Ages and despotism, and began to partake of the fruits of European civilization and legality. The collection includes an essay on the history of the conquest of Central Asia and stories of participants and eyewitnesses of these events. The cover design uses a fragment of V. Vereshchagin’s painting “At the Fortress Wall.”