independent rule of Kashgaria. It was restored to the Chinese under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881). In 1888, the Ningyuan County was established. The Geographical Magazine in 1875 by Sir Clements Robert Markham stated: What little industry Kulja possesses is all due to the Chinese, who transplanted the taste for art, assiduity and skilfulness of their pigtailed race, even to these western outskirts of "the celestial flowery dominion of the Middle." Had the Taranjis and Kalmuks been left to themselves, or had they remained in a preponderating majority, Kulja would not be a bit farther advanced than either Yarkand or Aksu. The principal trades are the following:— founders, manufacturing kettles, plates, and other implements of a very primitive form; paper-makers, whose productions do not seem to be superior to the paper manufactured at the present time after Chinese patterns at Khokand and Samarkand. There are, moreover, some confectionaries in which cakes of all shapes are baked of rice and millet, overlaid with sugar; also maccaroni-makers, the Taranjis being notoriously very fond of dried farinaceous food. In Eastern Turkistan there still exist many similar trades, and although their products are not equal to European articles of the same kind—I mean here the fabrics of the formerly western Chinese provinces— they are still said to be profitable. Finally among the tradesmen we may mention millers, vinegar manufacturers and potters. The number of factories amount to-day at Kulja to 38, wherein over 131 hands are occupied. To this of course other tradespeople have to be added, such as 169 boot-makers, 50 blacksmiths, 48 carpenters, 11 brass-founders, 3 silversmiths, 26 stone-cutters, and 2 tailors. Republic of China In 1914, the Ningyuan County was renamed Yining County to avoid confusion with other places in China named Ningyuan. People's Republic Yining became a separate city from Yining County in 1952. In 1962, major Sino-Soviet clashes took place along the Ili River. In 1997, in what came to be known as the Gulja Incident or massacre, the city was rocked by two days of demonstrations or riots followed by a Communist government crackdown resulting in at least 9 deaths following the execution of 30 Uighur activists. Geography Yining is located on the northern side of the Ili River in the Dzungarian basin, about east of the border with Kazakhstan and about west of Ürümqi. The Ili River valley is far wetter than most