Monument to fallen revolutionaries in Kaka, Turkmenistan

Kaka, also known as Kaakhka, Kaakcha or Chaacha, is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

in and capital of

Kaka District Kaka District is a district of Ahal Province, Turkmenistan. In ancient times the area was a fertile agricultural plain to the north of the Kopet Dag mountain range. A number of important Bronze Age sites exist in the area, such as Ulug Depe Ulu ...

, Ahal Province,

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

. It lies on the

Trans-Caspian railway The Trans-Caspian Railway (also called the Central Asian Railway, russian: Среднеазиатская железная дорога) is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built by ...

and the M37 highway.

Etymology

The name Kaka is of obscure origin. Some local elders have attributed it to an eponymous "long-forgotten" local king, while others to the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

word قهقهه (Qahqahe) "ha-ha", a deep laugh, indicating that the area is a happy land. The current spelling of the name, Kaka, was established by parliamentary decree in April 1992.

History

Timur Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kür ...

had a fortress—of unknown antiquity—restored in 1382 during his campaigns in East Caspian lands, and named it "Kahkah". The ruins of the fortress command immense archaeological significance.

Overview

Fighting took place in Kaka between the Trans Caspian

Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

and the Tashkent

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

on 28 August and on 11 and 18 September 1918 during the

Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...

. Troops of the

British India Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

were involved.Operations in Trans-Caspia
, Behind the Lines, accessed 23 September 2009

Transport

There is a Tsarist era railway station.

References

Populated places in Ahal Region {{Cities of Turkmenistan