Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann (; 2 March 1818 – 16 May 1882), was the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan. Early life His family was German in origin (from Holstein), but had been in the service of the Tsars for over 100 years, and had since converted to Orthodoxy. Another source says that he was "descended from an Austrian mercenary who had entered Russian service in the late eighteenth century. A Russian-speaking Orthodox Christian, the only thing German about him was his name". Kaufmann graduated from Nikolayev Engineering Institute (now Military Engineering-Technical University; Russian Военный инженерно-технический университет) as a military engineer. Kaufman entered the military engineering field in 1838, served in the campaigns in the Caucasus, was promoted to the rank of colonel, and commanded the sappers at the siege of Kars in 1855. On the capitulation of Kars, he was deputed to settle the terms with General William Fenwick Williams. In 1861, he became director-general of engineers at the War Office, assisting Minister of War Count Dmitry Milyutin in the reorganization of the army. Promoted lieutenant general in 1864, he became Governor-General of Vilna, where at that time the Tsarist state had begun a policy of expropriating the Polish aristocracy in an attempt to break its influence in the countryside. Conquest of Turkestan At the high point of the Russian conquest of Turkestan, in 1867, he became Governor-General of the new province of Turkestan, and held the post until his death, making himself a name in the expansion of the empire in Central Asia. The western part of the Khanate of Kokand along the Syr Darya had already been captured, and the independence of the rest of that country became merely nominal. He accomplished a successful campaign in 1868 against the Emirate of Bukhara, capturing Samarkand and gradually subjugating the whole country. During the Khivan campaign of 1873, he attacked Khanate of Khiva, took the capital, and forced the Khan to become a vassal of Russia. This was followed in 1875 by the campaign against Kokand, in which Kaufman defeated the uprising khan, Nasreddin, after an anti-Russian uprising against the previous ruler, Khudoyar. The fiction of Kokand's independence was ended, and the remaining rump of the Khanate in the Ferghana Valley was annexed. This rapid absorption of these Khanates brought Russia into proximity to Afghanistan, and the reception of Kaufmann's emissaries by the Sher Ali Khan was a main cause