After the defeat of the
Dzungar Khanate by Qing China in 1758, eastern Kyrgyzstan did not formally become part of the
Qing dynasty but instead declared independence. The border line was designated naturally south of the Issyk-Kul along the
Tien Shan mountains. In the 1820s and the 1830s, the
Khanate of Kokand carried out trade and military expansions into Kyrgyzstan, during which campaigns against
Naryn and Issyk-Kul were organised. In 1832 small fortifications were erected on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. Each fortress housed garrison of 40 to 60 Uzbek troops, who guarded trade caravans and assisted officials in collecting taxes. Administratively, Karakol and the entire Issyk-Kul Region were governed under
Tashkent. In 1843 ethnic Kyrgyz of Karakol rebelled against the Khanate of Kokand, expelling officials from fortifications on the Karakol, Barskon, and Kongur-Olen rivers – after this, the Kyrgyz of Karakol and surrounding regions declared their independence. By 1857 the
Russian Empire conducted military expansions in the region. By 1865 the first Russian settlement was officially established in Karakol and surrounding areas. On 1 July 1869, a Russian military outpost was founded in Karakol, after explorers came to map the peaks and valleys separating Kyrgyzstan from China. In the 1880s, Karakol's population surged with an influx of
Dungans (i.e.
Hui Muslims) fleeing warfare in China. A small influx of
Koryo-saram also arrived into the region. In 1877 Qing China retook the territory as a result of
the Muslim revolt in 1864. According to Austro-Hungarian explorer
Károly Újfalvy von Mezőkövesd, 447 inhabitants had been living there. Later that winter, a stream of Dungan, Kazakh, and
Uyghur refugees crossed the border into Russia-controlled Kyrgyzstan. 1,130 Dungans were settled in the village of Yrdyk (where they were allocated a plot of land) and Karakol. Many Dungans and Koryo-saram, as well as Kazakhs and Uyghurs, intermarried with local Kyrgyz in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Until 1887 mostly adobe houses were built in Karakol, but after the
1887 Verny earthquake, the city began to be built predominantly with wooden houses with porches decorated with carvings. In the 1880s, Yaroslav Korolkov founded a weather station in the city. Among the first residents of Karakol were the
Tatars, which included merchants like Hamza Abduvaliev—the grandfather of writer
Chingiz Aitmatov. In 1888 Russian explorer
Nikolay Przhevalsky died in Karakol of
typhoid, while preparing for an expedition to
Tibet. By the order of Tsar
Alexander III on 23 March 1889 the city was renamed Przhevalsk in the explorer's honor. After local protests, the town was given its original name back in 1921 — a decision reversed in 1939 by
Stalin to celebrate the centenary of the explorer's birth. Karakol then remained Przhevalsk until the demise of the
Soviet Union in 1991. However the name has been retained by nearby
Pristan-Przhevalsk. Nearby Issyk Kul Lake was used by the Soviet military as a testing site for torpedo propulsion and guidance systems and Karakol was thus home to a sizable population of military personnel and their families. Karakol continues to be a major hub for visitors of Issyk Kul Lake. ==Demographics==