Manuscripta Orientalia - Manuscripta Orientalia

Abstract. This paper, based mainly on the photo collections of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MAE RAS) dating back to 1930s, is a study of the institution of chaykhana (“teahouse”) considered within the context of the history of Central Asia during Imperial and Soviet times. Though the notion of “teahouse” as well as traditions and practices related to it are of relatively recent origin being viewed from a historical perspective, the institution of chaykhana as social-cultural space, space of communication has become an essential element of the topography of every-day culture of Central Asia. As the popularity and mass consumption of tea in the region dates back to the late 19th — early 20th centuries (and in some remote mountainous places it begins only after the Second World War in the mid 50s ), so the origin of chaykhana can be traced to that time. Teahouses as special communicative and social milieu were actively used during the Soviet era, especially in mid 30s, when the so-called “red teahouses” played an important enlightening and ideological roles.

Keywords: chaykhana / teahouse, everyday culture, visuality, Central Asia

DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2019-25-1-28-44

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Received by the Editorial Board: 20.12.2018