Turkmen more closer to Turkish or Uyghur/Uzbeks?

Turkic and Iranian origin[edit]

A Turkmen man of Turkmenistan in traditional clothes by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, around 1910.^[18][19][20]

Genetic studies on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction polymorphism confirmed that Turkmen were characterized by the presence of local Iranian mtDNA lineages, similar to the Eastern Iranian populations, but high male Mongoloid genetic component observed in Turkmens populations with the frequencies of about 20%.^[21] This most likely indicates an ancestral combination ofTurkic and Iranian groups that the modern Turkmen have inherited and which appears to correspond to the historical record which indicates that various Iranian tribes existed in the region prior to the migration of Turkic tribes who are believed to have merged with the local population and imparted their language.

Abolition of slavery[edit]

The Russian administration liberated the slaves of the Kazakhs in 1859.^[31] However, isolated abductions of Russians or Ukrainians by Kazakhs for the slave markets of Central Asia continued until the Tsars' conquest of Khiva and Bukhara in the 1860s.^[32] At major markets in Bukhara, Samarkand, Karakul, Karshi and Charju, slaves consisted mainly of Iranians and Russians, and some Kalmuks; they were brought there by Turkmen, Kazakh and Kyrgyz.^[33] A notorious slave market for captured Russian and Persian slaves was centered in the Khanate of Khiva from the 17th to the 19th century.^[34] During the first half of the 19th century alone, some one million Persians, as well as an unknown number of Russians, were enslaved and transported to Central Asian khanates.^[35][36] When the Russian troops took Khiva in 1873 there were 29,300 Persian slaves, captured by Turkoman raiders.^{[citation needed]} According of Josef Wolff (Report of 1843–1845) the population of the Khanate of Bukhara was 1,200,000, of whom 200,000 were Persian slaves.^[37]