Turkmen tribal ascendancy passes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the Yomuts, Tekkes, Ersaris, and Saryks, who have begun to move out of the desert into the oases of Khorezm and to the Atrek, Tejen, and Morghab rivers and adopt a settled way of life.

The first notable Russian expedition under Prince Aleksandr Bekovich-Cherkasski in 1717 meets with failure, as the military skills developed by the Turkmens enable them to frustrate Russian, and later British, expansion.

However, there is bitter rivalry among the various Turkmen tribes, particularly between the Tekke and Yomut, while the Goklans, inhabiting part of the Khiva oasis, oppose both.