All Things “National” in Kyrgyzstan

The yurt - National House of Kyrgyzstan - in the jailoo (grassland).

The Kyrgyz people like to refer to anything of local origin as “National”, for example, they call the nomadic dwelling yurt as the National House. They also have National Food, National Drink, National Game, National Costume, National Literature, and of course, National Language.

Having gained independence less than 20 years ago in 1991, Kyrgyzstan is a new nation eager to assert its own identity, and shedding the Soviet-Russian legacy.

Though the country with five million inhabitants has 80 ethnic groups, the culture deemed “national” is that of the Kyrgyz ethnic, who made up 70% of the population. Other major ethnics include the Uzbek (14%) and the Russian (10%), and the rest are Uygur, Kazakh, Tajik, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Dungan, etc.

I notice that although the local people are enthusiastic in promoting their “national” culture, another set of “official” culture from the old Soviet days remains ingrained in their daily life.

For instance, the Kyrgyz language – which has adopted the Russian Cyrillic writing – is being accorded the status of National Language, but Russian remains the official language – government documents, official papers, and commercial contracts are drafted in Russian.

In addition, regardless of ethnic groups, long-time residents of Bishkek – the country’s capital city – use Russian at home; and those speaking Kyrgyz in the street of Bishkek would be deemed as country pumpkin.

As for the National House – yurt, it is making a comeback after the Kyrgyz nomadic tradition was undermined during the Soviet era, when many nomads were gathered under various Kolkhoz for collectivism economy.

Today, the yurt is not only the home of herders living in the mountains and grassland, it also serves as guesthouse and dining hall for holiday makers, both domestic and abroad. Some political parties even have a yurt erected next to its office building, as if the yurt symbolizes nationalism and that the politicians have the national interest at heart.

A Kyrgyz herder family in their traditional dwelling - Yurt.

However, in most parts of Kyrgyzstan – be it in the cities or countryside – the Russian architectural style prevails. In the major cities, blocks of soviet era matchbox-style flats dominated the residential areas; while in the countryside, the Russian wooden gingerbread house (which is common in the Siberian towns like Irkutsk) is the preferred choice.

The Russian gingerbread-style houses in Kyrgyzstan.

When it comes to the culinary culture, the National Food and Drink once again reflected the nomadic background of the Kyrgyz people, but they may no longer be the locals’ everyday diet.

Kirmiz, or the fermented mare’s milk, is the National Drink. It is nowadays mass-produced, bottled, and sold in supermarkets; but many locals still prefer to buy the home-made Kirmiz from herders, many of whom have set up stalls by the highways for brisk sales.

Nomads set up a stall by the highway to sell milk products, including Kirmiz.

The locals do not consider Kirmiz as alcohol, although if consumed in large quantity one could still get drunk. For any celebration, many Kyrgyz feel it is incomplete without alcohol, thus, the official drink for any special occasion is Russian Vodka.

Vodka is almost like a necessity, all grocery shops carry this item, and many also sell it by the shot. Once when I took a shared taxi for a distance of some 200km through winding mountainous road, the driver needed a few shots along the way to beef up his energy.

Since independent, the move to promote national literature has been centered on a folklore named Manas, which tells the story of a protagonist named Manas, about his bravery and perseverance in carving out a homeland for his people.

The folklore is now associated with the formation of the Kyrgyz nation. This epic poem 20 times longer than the Odyssey once appeared as a series of oral legends, it has now turned into book, comic, television series, opera show, music, and so on. The legend is deemed as the embodiment of Kyrgyz identity.

Scholars believe the legend pre-date the Kyrgyz people, it is perhaps a part of an older oral tradition once popular throughout the Central Asia region, but somehow later being associated with the Kyrgyz people.

Anyhow, the Kyrgyz government in 1995 declared the year as the 1000th anniversary of the Manas Epos and threw a huge celebration costing an estimation of eight million dollars; the move is as if to say that the Kyrgyz people has 1000 years of history.

However, when it comes to the history book, what do the Kyrgyz learn of their national past? When I visited the State Historical Museum in Bishkek, the three-storey building dedicated a whole floor – literary from the floor exhibits to the ceiling murals – to the Bolshevik movement and the creation of Soviet Union.

The State Historical Museum has lots of Stalin statues.

I have learned more about the Russian Marxist heroes than the Kyrgyz as a people from the museum, as the other two floors held little information – the ground floor is for selling souvenirs; and the top floor is ancient archeological finds that pre-date the Kyrgyz people, while the Silk Road history is more of a Central Asian collective memory.

In fact, it is during the Soviet era and under Stalin’s “nationality” policy that the five Central Asian states – Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan – come into being. Each country ends with “stan” that means “the land of”, and all of them are created based on ethnic principle. Some scholars call these countries artificially created states.

Prior to the establishment of these republics in the 1920s, Central Asia as an ethnically mixed region had never associated the creation of a state based on ethnic or linguistic group principle. Various dynasties in this region had rule over a multi-ethnic population, albeit most of them are of the Turkic stock (all the five states expect Tajik), and the unifying force is Islam.

It was to prevent a Pan-Islam and Pan-Turkic movement that Stalin had devised the “nationality” policy – to break the people into various ethnic groups, make them aware that they are different. The policy also severed the common past and culture once shared by all these “nationalities”, resulting centuries of historical vacuum in some countries, as one ethnic-state could no longer claim the common past now deemed as belonging to the other ethnic-state.

Perhaps, it is because of all the historical baggage, today’s Kyrgyz people are all the more enthusiastic in stressing their “National” identity, although sometimes these national cultures are not followed through.

The national costume of the Kyrgyz ethnic.