Kyrgyzstan

“ Most recently, in May 2002, two ETIM members were deported to China from Kyrgyzstan for plotting to attack the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan as well as other US interests abroad.
Strength
Unknown. Only a small minority of ethnic Uighurs supports the Xinjiang independence movement or the formation of an East Turkistan. ”

“ Kirghiz, in territories and work places where Russian-speaking
citizens predominate
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97%
male: 99%
female: 96% (1989 est.)
Government
Country name:
conventional long form: Kyrgyz Republic
conventional short form: Kyrgyzstan
local long form: Kyrgyz Respublikasy
local short form: none
former: Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic
Data code: KG
Government type: republic
Capital: Bishkek
Administrative divisions: 6 oblasttar (singular—oblast) and 1
city* (singular—shaar) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Are equal to the soul of our people.
For countless centuries, our fathers
Have lived in and kept the Ala-Too.
Chorus:
March forward, Kyrgyz people,
On the way to freedom!
Prosperity and progress,
Your own fate is in your hands!
Long ago, our friendly people
Completed and gave us the clasp to nature. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ So successfully had the Russian operations been started in Central Asia, that after a brilliant overthrow of the Kirghis, they entered first on the conquest of Khokand, in order to gain firm foothold in the three Khanats. In those eastern parts of the three oasis-countries of Turkestan the social order has always been relatively least, the religious culture weakest, and the antipathy to warlike enterprises most strong. ”

“ Timour brought back thousands of Russian slaves after his conquests, and Russia lay under the yoke of the Tartars. The Empire of Asia lasted only a little while in the hands of the dynasty of Tamerlane, and the Uzbek and the Kirghiz Cossacks appeared, waging a holy war for Islam. At the present moment there are one million Uzbeks in the province of Bokhara, three hundred and fifty thousand in Khiva, and five hundred thousand spread over the rest of Russian Turkestan, and a sprinkling in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks formed three kingdoms, Bokhara, Khiva, and Kokand. ”

“ But this does not tell the whole story of the Russian advance in Asia. South of the Kirghis steppes lies another great and important territory, known as Central Asia, or Turkestan. Much of this region is absolute desert, wide expanses of sand, waterless and lifeless, on which to halt is to court death. Only swift-moving troops of horsemen, or caravans carrying their own supplies, dare venture upon these arid plains. But within this realm of sand lie a number of oases whose soil is well watered and of the highest fertility. ”

“ 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 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their speech also, while purely Turkic in structure, possesses, not only many Mongolian and a few Persian and even Arabic words, but also some terms unknown to the other branches of the Mongolo-Tatar linguistic family, and which should perhaps be traced to the Kiang-Kuan, Wu-sun, Ting-ling, and other peoples of South Siberia partly absorbed by them.
The Kara-Kirghiz.—The Kara or “Black” Kirghiz, so called from the colour of their tents, are known to the Russians either as Chernyie (Black) or Dikokammenyie (Wild Stone or Rocky) Kirghiz, and are the Block Kirghiz of some English writers. ”

“ The Kara-Kirghiz, who are the less numerous division, live in Dzungaria, in the Altai, about lakes Balkash and Issyk-kul, and extend southwards to the Pamirs and the sources of the Oxus. Some of them inhabit Chinese territory. Both divisions live chiefly on the produce of their herds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the stations in Baraba the post-master is seldom found at home, the domestic part of the establishment being generally left in charge of women, and the posting-department in that of the senior yemschik. The women in the steppe, we were informed, are mostly Kirghis, called by the Russians by the generic name of Tartars. The Kirghis women are physically superior to Russian women of the same class,—cleaner, better dressed, and handsomer. They have, in many instances, blue eyes and fair complexions, in [299] marked contrast to the Kalmuks and Mongols. ”

“ They inhabit the cold highlands, moving about in summer and winter alike as their flocks exhaust the grazing, which is rich in summer and scanty at other seasons. The Kirghiz, who are the leading nomads, estimated to number 50,000, implicitly believe that their ancestor was a Kazak Prince, Saghyon Khan by name. ”

“ The Kirgis lived originally between the Ob and Yenisei, where Mongolic tribes settled among them. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Russians became acquainted with the Eastern Kirgis, then living along the Yenisei. In 1606 they had become tributary to Russia, and after several wars with two neighboring tribes, they were driven more and more south-westward, till they left Siberia altogether at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They now live at Burut, in Chinese Turkestan, together with the Kirgis of the “Great Horde,” near the town of Kashgar, north as far as the Irtish. ”

“ Ceremonies and dances are held around it, a custom which exists in a wonderful manner in so many parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and is still carried on in this district as well as in Khiva and Khokand. To blow out a light is considered very ill bred by the Kirghis in the whole of Central Asia; and finally from the colour of burning oil, fat, &c., many prognostics are divined. ”

“ During the years 1846 to 1854, the Russians began to penetrate the deserts of Seven Rivers Land and take the Kirghiz over as subjects. There was very little actual fighting till the Russians came into contact with the Uzbeks of Kokand, whom, however, they fought and overthrew with considerable slaughter. Vemey fell in 1854, Pishpek and Tokmak in 1862. Then the Russians turned westward, and took Aulie Ata, Chimkent, and Tashkent. In 1867 Seven Rivers Land was made into a Russian province, and the stream of Russian colonisation turned out of Siberia southward toward India. ”

“ The Kirghiz, also, claim the lands and houses of their countrymen, and the Kirghiz khan describes himself as lineal heir to the reigning princes of Kazan. In the East, as in the West, the children of Islam look on their present state as a correction laid upon them by a father for their faults. Some day they trust to find fresh favor in his sight. ”

“ The inhabitants of Chinese Turkestan are divided by the anthropologist into four distinct groups. The first consists of the Sarikoli and Pakhpo mountaineers, who are pure Aryans. The second is a desert group including the mass of the inhabitants of the country, the basis of this population being Aryan with some Uighur admixture, more especially at Aksu in the north. The third group is formed of the Kirghiz, the Dulanis and the inhabitants of Aksu; the fourth consists of the Chinese and Mongols, whose differentiation from the Kirghiz is to be noted. ”