TURKESTAN

Kazak Trkistan city, southern Kazakstan, in the Syr Darya plain. An ancient centre of the caravan trade, known earlier as Shavgar and later as Yasi, it became a religious centre known as Khazret (Hazrat) because of the 12th-century Sufi (Muslim mystic) Ahmed Yesevi, whose 14th-century mausoleum is the city's chief monument. Captured by the Russians in 1864, Turkestan now has several industries. Pop. (1991 est.) 81,200.