Kyrgyz people

“ The adjacent land will be worth countless millions of roubles to a Government which has not had to pay a single copeck for it. On for many hundreds of versts rolls the train through the pasture lands of the splendid Kirghiz race. The Kirghiz are by far the finest of the Tartars. They are a purely pastoral people, frugal, cleanly, and hospitable, living mainly on meats, and milk and cheese, the products of their herds. Both for pasture and for the culture of cereals, the vast territory between the Obi and the Yenisei will be unrivalled in the whole world. Kurgan is the capital. ”

“ Kyrgyzstan is a small, poor, mountainous country with a predominantly agricultural economy. Cotton, wool, and meat are the main agricultural products and exports. Industrial exports include gold, mercury, uranium, and hydropower. Kyrgyzstan has been one of the most progressive countries of the former Soviet Union in carrying out market reforms. Following a successful stabilization program, which lowered inflation from 88% in 1994 to 15% for 1997, attention is turning toward stimulating growth. Much of the government's stock in enterprises has been sold. ”

“ The great nomadic tribe of the Kirghiz, or Kara Kirghiz, as the Russians call them, to distinguish them from the Kirghiz of the various hordes who, by the way, are not true Kirghiz at all, has at all times played a fitful, yet important part in the histories of Khokand, Jungaria, and Eastern Turkestan. Preserving their independence in the inaccessible region lying west of Lake Issik Kul, and along the Kizil Yart plateau and range, this tribe has always been a source of trouble to its neighbours, whosoever they might be. ”

“ Here the Russians first met them in the 17th century, and by the aid of the Kazaks exterminated all those east of the Irtish, driving the rest farther west and south-westwards. Most of them took refuge with their kinsmen, the Kara-Kirghiz nomad highlanders, whose homes, at least since the 13th century, have been the Ala-tau range, the Issyk-kul basin, the Tekes, Chu and Talass river valleys, the Tian-shan range, the uplands draining both to the Tarim and to the Jaxartes and Oxus, including Khokand, Karateghin and Shignan southwards to the Pamir table-land, visited by them in summer. ”

“ Russia, China, Khokand, {369} Bokhara, and Khiva, exercise dominion over the Kirghis only so long as the taxing officers, whom they send, sojourn amongst those nomads. The Kirghis regard the whole procedure as a razzia on a gigantic scale, and they are grateful to find that those who commit it are content to receive merely a percentage or some tax that is tantamount. The revolutions that have taken place in the world for hundreds, nay, perhaps thousands of years, have wrought very little influence upon the Kirghis ”

“ Sheep are slaughtered, guests invited; the freedman embraces one after the other the male members of his master's family; and after he has taken his place upon the same piece of felt carpet as [224] his master, his freedom is proclaimed. Among the Kirghiz it is the custom for the master on such occasions to fasten a white bone to the girdle of the freedman, which denotes that the latter is raised from the ranks of the "black-boned" (subject people) to that of the "white-boned" (nobility) .
So much for good-tempered and obedient slaves. ”

“ This tradition evidently rests on a poor pun, but it proves that the Kirghiz regard themselves as a branch of the Kazaks, or “Cossacks,” as we write the word. They furthermore believe that the same Prince had thirty sons, Utuz Ughul, whose descendants inhabit [Pg 241] the Alai and the country between it and the Ili province. In Chinese Turkestan the principal Kirghiz tribes inhabiting the uplands between Kashgar and the Taghdumbash Pamir are the Naiman, the Kapchak and the Tait. The Kirghiz are all Moslems of the Sunni sect. ”

“ As a whole, the Kirghiz population may be assumed to number about 1,250,000 souls. They are of Turco-Tartaric origin; and, according to Max Müller, Southern Siberia was their mother country. Nominally, they own the supremacy of the Great White Czar on the one side, and of the Chinese Emperor on the other; but their nomadic habits secure their virtual independence. Each tribe is governed by its sultan or chief. Quarrels and blood feuds between the different tribes are of constant occurrence. ”

“ Oubacha's emigration left the plains of the Ural unoccupied for many years, and it was not until the beginning of this century that some Khirghis tribes of the Little Horde entered on possession of them with the consent of the Russian government. Few at first, their numbers rapidly increased by new emigrations, and at last Russia conferred upon the Khirghis colony the entire and authenticated possession of about 7,075,700 hectares of land. More fortunate than the Kalmucks, this people still enjoys a certain degree of independence, in appearance at least if not in reality. ”

“ The Kara-Kirghiz are governed by the “manaps,” or tribal rulers, who enjoy almost unlimited authority, and may even sell or kill their subjects. In religious matters they differ little from the Kazaks, whose practices are described below. Although generally recognizing Russian sovereignty since 1864, they pay no taxes.
The Kazaks.—Though not unknown to them, the term Kirghiz is never used by the steppe nomads, who always call themselves simply Kazaks, commonly interpreted as riders. ”

“ Taking advantage of this Mongolian dissatisfaction, foreigners instigated and assisted the independence movement. Upon the Kiakhta Convention, being signed the autonomy of Outer Mongolia was held a fait accompli, China retaining an empty suzerainty while the officials and people of Outer Mongolia lost many of their old rights and privileges. Since the establishment of this autonomous government no progress whatsoever has been chronicled, the affairs of government being indeed plunged in a state of chaos, causing deep pessimism. ”

“ The subjection of the Kirghis and this new victory over Tangut secured the position of Jinghis in Northeastern Asia. There was not one man now to challenge his dominion. Groups of people, or tribes, might rebel, but there was no power to stop him or modify his policy. He was preparing to meet foreign nations. The first turn was for China.
Kara Kitai (Black Cathay) was at that time a very large Empire composed of many nations. The ruler of each of these nations acknowledged the overlordship of the Gurkhan or sovereign. ”

“ The Kalmuk and Uzbek are said to have sprung from one tribe [32] , and this change of habitation has now mingled it with the Kuzzak [33] , a great tribe that once lay to the eastward of it; and Kalmuks, Kuzzaks, and Kirgizzes are mingled together. The Kirgiz and Kuzzak appear to be much the same people, differing only in location. The Kirgizzes whom I met, had a flat countenance, and closely resembled the Toorkmun. They inhabit Pameer. The Kuzzaks pass the summer in the southern parts of Russia, and repair in winter to the neighbourhood of Bokhara, where they sell their sheep. ”

“ Gray had not forgotten Wu Fang Chien, or the fears of Delabar.
"They are Kirghiz yurts," said Mirai Khan when the American described what he had seen. "And it is a caravan on the march, or we would have seen sheep. Many tribes use our yurts. They are taken down and put up in the time it takes a man to smoke a pipe. But these people are not Kirghiz. My kinsmen have not wealth to own so many camels." ”

“ I believe that the Kirghiz women have a better position than their Mohamedan sisters in other parts of the world; yet their lives are strenuous and filled with unceasing work. As women are in a decided minority in the Pamirs they are valuable, and a man possessed of several daughters counts himself rich indeed. A suitor for the hand of one of them induces three of the chief men of the tribe to bargain with the fortunate father, and I was told that a hundred sheep or five Chinese yambus (£35) is a moderate price to pay for a bride. ”

“ The people of the towns have long forgotten their old skill and eager- ness in the chase ; and M. de Ujfalvy's remarks apply exclusively to the Kirghiz, the Kipchaks, the Aryan people of Trans-Oxiania, and the Turcomans. Of these, perhaps, the Kirghiz are the most skilled hunters, and this can be explained by the fact that they hold that mountainous and wild country which stretches from the Jaxartes to Lake Balkash and Semiretchinsk. ”

“ The word Kirghiz signifies, in Turkish, a man that wanders about the fields, a nomad, and is used to denote all nations leading the pastoral life. It is also employed to designate a tribe; but they are only a subdivision of the Kazaks, to be met with in Khokand in the vicinity of Hazneti in Turkestan. ”

“ The members of the older families usually possess all the essential marks of the Indo-Germans, while men of lower descent and meaner extraction often remind one of the Mongols in many details, and may sometimes resemble them completely. The power of Islam, which permits to slaves who have become converts all the rights of the tribe, may in the course of time have made Kirghiz out of many heathen Mongols, and thus not only have influenced, but actually destroyed the racial characteristics of the Kirghiz. ”

“ As yet they do very little farming, but live, like the Kirghiz, by raising horses, cows, sheep, and goats, and, in addition, the Russian hog, the last resembling very much the wild swine of the jungles. Instead of the former military colonies of plundering Cossacks, who really become more assimilated to the Kirghiz than these to their conquerors, the mir, or communal system, is now penetrating these fertile districts, and systematically replacing the Mongolian culture. But the ignorance of this lower class of Russians is almost as noticeable as that of the natives themselves. ”

“ Kirghiz (50%) and Sarts (9.8%) are the main elements of the population, with Uzbegs (4.3%) , and a few Jews, Tajiks, Tatars, Persians and Hindus. The predominant occupations of the Sarts, Uzbegs, Tajiks and settled Kirghiz are agriculture and gardening, but the Kirghiz lead chiefly a nomadic pastoral life. Manufactures are represented by cotton mills, tanneries and distilleries; but a great variety of petty industries are practised in the towns and villages.
Syr-darya is divided into six districts, the chief towns of which are Tashkent, Aulie-ata, Kazalinsk, Perovsk, Chimkent and Amu-darya. ”

“ Undoubtedly the hostility of the settled and peaceful Andijani immigrant and Kashgari resident to the irreclaimable Kirghiz is deep-rooted, and, so long as the latter continues a source of danger to all peaceful communities, abiding; but even this sentiment, and the religious hatred that has at various epochs marked the political intercourse of Buddhist and Mahomedan, are probably less durable, and susceptible of greater improvement in the future, than the race antipathies that seem perennially vital among the tribes of Western Asia. ”

“ The Kirghiz proper, who call themselves Kazaks, or “riders,” roam from Lake Balkash to the Volga, over the vast level steppes, where they dwell in skin tents and support themselves by breeding camels, horses, oxen, sheep and goats. They live in the saddle, and were formerly a warlike people, who once could put 400,000 fighting men in the field. They are divided into four hordes—Great, Middle or Kipchak, Little, and Inner. They are all now under Russian dominion. ”

“ Mankind was not so stupid.
Though he was a high-placed official, Liamin was all against the colonisation of Central Asia, which he called a fashionable idea, and full of sympathy for the wandering Kirghiz, who were being excluded from all the good pasture lands and harried across the frontier into China. At one village where we stopped we met a land surveyor and an old, grizzled, retired colonel who both held the opposite view, and they belaboured Liamin as we sat round the samovar.
“The Kirghiz are animals, nothing more. The Russians are men. The Kirghiz are going to China. ”

“ Kirghiz graze the slopes of the Tian-shan. The trade is mostly in the hands of the Chinese, natives of West Turkestan (known as Andijanis from the town of Andijan) and Hindus. The total population, excluding Kulja and Dzungaria, is estimated by A. N. Kuropatkin at 1,200,000, by M. V. Pyevtsov at 2,000,000, and by Sven Hedin at 1,800,000 to 2,000,000. The last named distributes it thus—1,500,000 rural, 200,000 urban, and 100,000 shepherds. The principal towns and their populations are Yarkand, 100,000; Khotan, 40,000; Kashgar, 33,000; Ak-su, 15,000; Keriya, 12,000; and Kulja, 20,000. ”

“ The Khitay were massacred whenever they fell into the hands of the Mahomedans, and the only places that still held out were the citadels, notably the Yangyshahr of Kashgar. The inhabitants of this city appear to have been unable to keep their advantage over the Chinese, for they appealed to the Kirghiz to come in and assist them. These nomads, under their chief, Sadic Beg, were nothing loth to join in expelling the Chinese, as such a change could only increase their advantages by substituting an unsettled for a settled government. ”

“ The hairy, greasy, drunk-when-he-can Russian moujik; the small-eyed cunning Russian shop-keeper; a sprinkling of fine, dirty, rough-looking Bouriats, a Tartar tribe subject to Russia; a few Mongols who have business,—for their authorities, instigated by the Chinese government, are jealously watchful of their crossing the frontier,—and a few astute Chinese, the most business-like of the whole crowd.
The merchants of Kiachta are mostly reported to be enormously wealthy—several millions of roubles are not considered too much to ascribe to the most prosperous of them. ”