ussians under Peter the Great sent an expedition led by the unfortunate Bekovich-Cherkassky, who established three forts on the coast of the Caspian Sea, but they were abandoned after one year. Then there were several Russian scientific expeditions. In 1834 they founded on the south coast of the Bay of Mertviy Kultuk a permanent garrison at Novo-Petrovskoye. This caused a conflict with the Khan of Khiva and an abortive military campaign between 1839 and 1840. During this period, the Bayuli tribe of the Kazakhs settled and the remaining Turkmens left it in 1840 except a group of families of the Cawdor tribe. The peninsula was subject to conflict between Khiva and Russia; each party wanted to have the Kazakhs. In 1846, the Russians built a fort in Karagan named Novo-Petrovskoye that in 1859 was renamed Fort Alexandrovskiy. Russian domination of it began with the occupation of Krasnovodsk, located in the southern part of it in 1869. At the same time, Russians established Mangyshlak district which was subordinated to the Viceroyalty of Caucasus. The Khanate of Khiva renounced possession of this peninsula in favor of the Russians in 1873. It was attached to Russia as an uyezd of Transcaspian Oblast in 1881. The fate of the government following the 1917 revolution was in the hands of the Mensheviks. After the October Revolution the Bolsheviks prevailed but were eliminated by British intervention in June 1918. On July 12, 1918, an Interim Executive Committee, which sought to restore Alexander Kerensky, was established in Ashgabat. Bolsheviks took the region in February 1920. On August 26, 1920, the peninsula was included in the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian Soviet Socialist Federative Republic. On June 15, 1925, it was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, all within the Russian RFSS. On December 5, 1936, it was elevated to Kazakh SSR, but a narrow strip of the southern coastal bay fronting Kara Boghaz was ceded to Turkmen SSR at the sa