In the 12th century , Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire . In the next century , the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled , scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups . The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes , who remained staunchly independent and inspired fear in their neighbors . By the 16th century , most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates , Khiva and Bukhoro . Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period . In the 19th century , raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that group 's dispersal by the Uzbek rulers . According to Paul R. Spickard , " Prior to the Russian conquest , the Turkmen were known and feared for their involvement in the Central Asian slave trade . " Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century . From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk ( now Turkmenbashi ) , the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates . In 1881 , the last significant resistance in Turkmen territory was crushed at the Battle of Geok Tepe , and shortly thereafter Turkmenistan was annexed , together with adjoining Uzbek territory , into the Russian Empire . In 1916 the Russian Empire 's participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan , as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia . Although the Russian Revolution of 1917 had little direct impact , in the 1920s Turkmen forces joined Kazakhs , Kyrgyz , and Uzbeks in the so-called Basmachi Rebellion against the rule of the newly formed Soviet Union . In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia . By the late 1930s , Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan , and Moscow controlled political life . The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people , amounting to two-thirds of the city 's population
Ashgabat earthquake
1948 Ashgabat earthquake
Turkmenistan