Soviet Central Asia () was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared independence. It is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan in the Russian Empire. Soviet Central Asia went through many territorial divisions before the current borders were created in the 1920s and 1930s. Administrative divisions Former divisions Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic By the end of the 19th century, Russian tsars effectively ruled over most of the territory that later would constitute Soviet Central Asia. Russia annexed Lake Issyk Kul in north east Kyrgyzstan from China in the early 1860s, lands of Turkmens, Khanate of Khiva, Emirate of Bukhara in the second half of 1800s. Emerging from the Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War of 1918–1921, the USSR was a union of several Soviet republics, but the synecdoche Russia – after its largest and dominant constituent state – continued to be commonly used throughout the state's existence. Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic) (30 April 1918 – 27 October 1924) was created from the Turkestan Krai of Imperial Russia. Its capital was Tashkent, population about 5,000,000. British and Persian forces briefly tried to reach Baku in Azerbaijan and the Turkmen port of Krasnovodsk. Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand, Kokand, Dushanbe and the former Trans-Caspian Province would see various anti-Bolshevik risings over the next few years. In 1924, it was split into Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast (now Karakalpakstan), Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast (now Kyrgyzstan), Tajik ASSR (now Tajikistan), Turkmen SSR (now Turkmenistan), and Uzbek SSR (now Uzbekistan). Bukharan People's Soviet Republic In March 1918, activists of the Young Bukharian Movement informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharans were ready for the revolution and that the people were awaiting liberation. The Red Army marched to the gates of Bukhara and demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharans. As Russian sources report, the emir responded by murdering the Bolshevik delegation, along with several hundred Russian inhabitants of Bukhara and the surrounding territories. The majority of Bukharans did not support an invasion and the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Bolshevik army fled back to the Soviet stronghold at Tashkent. However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia wound down, Moscow sent reinforcements to Central Asia. On 2 September 1920, an army of well-disciplined and well equipped