This is one of the many examples when Jews had to prove vis-a-vis the Russian authorities that they had lived in the Turkestan region prior to the Russian conquest. When they were able to prove this, as in the document above, through the purchase of land for example, they entered the legal system as “indigenous” Jews, which granted them far more rights of mobility, settlement and trade than “foreign” Jews. In this regard, Bukharan Jews had more rights than the European, Ashkenazi Jews, who had settled in Central Asia starting from the Russian conquest. While Russian rule did bring some new possiblities for the Jewish communities, awarding the status of “indigenous” Jews mainly served the economic and political expansionist interests of the Russian empire.
Persian Jews 