Debbie Nevins - Kyrgyzstan

T UCKED BETWEEN ITS TWO MASSIVE NEIGHBORS, CHINA AND Kazakhstan, the small nation of Kyrgyzstan (KUR-gih-stahn) tends to fly below the radar of many Westerners. Its one of the five Stans that make up Central Asia, the vast expanse of terrain that lies between China and Europe. Stan is a Persian word that means land of, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are named for the ethnic peoples who live in them. (There are other Stans, some more familiar to WesternersAfghanistan, Pakistan, and othersbut strictly speaking, they are outside of Central Asia.)

The Kyrgyz Republic, as its officially named, is a land of astonishing beauty, with snowcapped mountains, windswept deserts, and grass-covered steppes. Most of the nations 6 million people now live in settled communities, but for thousands of years, their ancestors were nomads, moving their herds of horses, sheep, and camels in a constant search for new grazing pastures.

Long ago, this region served as a launching pad for the armies of nomadic warriors mainly the Huns and later, the Golden Horde of Genghis Khanin their campaigns of conquest. Kyrgyzstan was also an outpost along the Silk Road, a historic caravan route that made possible the transfer of goods, ideas, and technologies between East and West.

In those days, national borders didnt exist, since most of the people were nomadic. They did not own land in any legal sense. They simply roamed where their ancestors had roamed, knowing the geography of the place intimately. Indeed, there was no formal land known as Kyrgyzstan. This country is a relatively new invention, dating back only about a century.

In the late 19th century, the czarist Russian Empire expanded southward, taking what territories it wanted. In the early 20th century, that empire was violently replaced by another, the Communist Soviet Union. Central Asia was forged into Soviet states. The nomads were forced to settle down and radically change their lifestyles. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin drew new, somewhat arbitrary boundaries for administrative purposes that corresponded neither to natural geographic features nor to the ethnic identities of the people living within them.

This new place called Kyrgyzstan existed for 70 years as a Soviet republic. It became in many ways an extension of Russia. The Kyrgyz people learned to speak Russian, adopted Russian traditions, and learned to rely on the Communist central government in Moscow. All that fell apart as the Soviet Union finally collapsed, and Kyrgyzstan emerged from the ashes as an independent entity in 1991.

Since that time, Kyrgyzstan has tried to reinvent itself as a modern democratic country. It hasnt been an easy task. Kyrgyzstanis have tried to salvage their own identity by reaching back to their heritage, but they cant turn back the clock. They are proud of their nomadic traditions but cant all revert to being nomads once again. However, they are still largely a rural people. Many embrace a semi-nomadic life, staying put for most of the year but moving with their flocks to high summer pastures in the mountains.

The idea of nationhood still feels foreign to some of the countrys citizens. There is an ethnic and cultural division between the north and the south, reinforced geographically by high mountain ranges. In the north live most of the ethnic Kyrgyz, while the south is populated more by ethnic Uzbeks. Many people feel more allegiance to their locality than to the nation as a whole. It doesnt help that the north tends to do better economically and holds more political power than the south. This makes frictions heat up.

In the 21st century, the Kyrgyzstanis have already staged two revolutions, in 2005 and 2010. Public demonstrations succeeded in throwing out the existing government; each time, the president was accused of corruption. This problem still muddies the political climate today, and Kyrgyzstans international reputation as an emerging democracy seems increasingly uncertain.

In March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic reached Kyrgyzstan. The cities of Bishkek, Osh, and Jalal-Abad went into emergency lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. By June 2020, there were 3,356 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 40 deaths in the country. Kyrgyzstan was the first country to receive emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help it cope with the outbreak. The IMF said at the time its board had approved an emergency $121 million disbursement to Kyrgyzstan. How the situation will play out, and what its aftereffects will be, remain to be seen.

A medic checks peoples temperatures at a checkpoint outside Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, as the city tries to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on April 1, 2020.