In this article, the relevance of the study which is due to the need of the revelations of the distortion of Chinese and some Western historians of Russia's policy in the ili region in 1871-1881 he, on the basis of extensive Russian archival documents taken from the archives of the Foreign Policy of Russia(AVPR), the Central State Military Historical Archive (TSGVIA), Central Archives(TSGA) of the Kazakh SSR and of the materials of pre-revolutionary Russian print, taken from the Manuscript Department of the former library. V.I. Lenin and, for the first time introduced into scientific circulation, discusses the causes of "the ili crisis" in Russian-Chinese relations in the second half of the nineteenth, the history of the temporary occupation of the ili territory by Russian troops, Russia's policy in the occupied territory, the evaluation of this policy and the importance of this event for the fate of the inhabitants of the region.