John Anderson - Kyrgyzstan: Central Asias Island of Democracy?

Postcommunist States and Nations

Books in the series

Belarus: a denationalized nation
David R. Marples

Armenia: at the crossroads
Joseph R. Masih and Robert O. Krikorian

Poland: the conquest of history
George Sanford

Kyrgyzstan: central asias island of democracy?
John Anderson

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Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Anderson, John

Kyrgyzstan: central Asias island of democracy? (Postcommunist states &

nations; v.4)

1. Kyrgyzstan History 2. Kyrgyzstan Politics and government

3. Kyrgyzstan Economic conditions

I. Title

958.43

ISBN 90-5702-390-3 (softcover)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Kyrgyzstan is a land of contradictions. Though part of Central Asia, its physical aspect is characterised by huge mountain ranges and plentiful water supplies rather than the dry desert sands and periodic drought of popular imagination. To the south west runs the Pamir-Alai range, whilst the northeastern territories are dominated by the snow covered peaks of the Tian Shan mountains. Tucked into the far eastern tip of the country is Victory Peak reaching a height of 7,439 metres, and serving as a useful corrective to a Scottish based writer tempted to boast about the Highlands. These mountains, which have helped to create much of the mythology of Kyrgyz life, also serve to divide the country, with travel between the various regions dependent upon planes, trains through Uzbekistan or hair-raising road journeys via high mountain passes in the care of drivers with no concept of not over-taking on the bend regardless of the drop below.

These mountains, which bifurcate the country geographically, also create political divisions, in particular contributing to tensions between the north and south of the republic. Administratively Kyrgyzstan is made up of six regions: Talas, Chu, Issyk Kul, Naryn, Jalalabad and Osh. The north west is dominated by the Talas and Chu regions, bordering on southern Kazakhstan, whose rivers flow between the mountains, creating valleys with rich agricultural potential which also provide shepherds and their flocks with a refuge during the bitter winter months. Though undistinguished as a town, Talas is the legendary home of the epic hero Manas whose adventures have been recounted in yurts (felt tents) across the country for many decades and whose millennium was formally celebrated by the Kyrgyz state in 1995. Bishkek, the capital of the Chu region and of the republic, is a more attractive if slightly sleepy colonial town where traditional and Soviet architecture meet. Nestling below the mountains, its streets are watered by a network of aryks (irrigation ditches) which keep the air cool and feed the numerous trees which offer shade to the citizens in the heat of summer.

To the east of the Chu valley lies the Issyk Kul region, the approach to which was so vividly described by Eugene Schuyler following his travels through Central Asia in 1873:

Here the banks of the Tchu, as well as of the Kebin, are rocky and precipitous, and the river confined within a narrow space, rushes swiftly by, forming picturesque rapids and cataracts The road crossed and recrossed the torrent, now passing on a cornice through a narrow defile, and again coming out on an open valley, where the stream grew wider and shallower, and where were sometimes small green meadows and clumps of willow The scenery was certainly very grand, but owed its beauty entirely to the mass of bare rock, and to the contrasts in colour observable, some being of a rich reddish purple sandstone conglomerate, and others of black trap with occasional patches of yellow, grey and brown.