© Ltd Integration: Education and Science. All rights reserved. 19th and early 20th-century Vernyi is usually seen as a Russian settler or Cossack town, laid out on a classic colonial grid pattern and the centre of a new settler colony in Semirech’e. This paper suggests a new way of looking at Vernyi and Semirech’e — as a “plural society”, a phrase taken from J. S. Furnivall’s studies of Colonial South-east Asia. Located close to the Chinese frontier, Semirech’e saw significant in-migration of different ethnic and religious groups from China — Manchus, Qalmyqs, Dungans and Taranchis — as well as Muslims from other parts of Russian Turkestan such as Ferghana and Tashkent. This was reflected in Vernyi’s diverse population and atmosphere, which some contemporary observers compared to that of a Chinese treaty port.
