Kyrgyzstan - Central Asia - page 293

Isfara, Tajikistan A single mustard yellow
minibus ( % 077-881 7887) shuttles through
the border three times daily each way, stop-
ping very briefly at Batken bus station at
8.30am, 11am and 2pm (40som, 40 minutes)
to pick up passengers. Isfara shared taxis (per
seat/car 100/300som) leave from Razzakov
street around the corner from the main admin-
istrative building.

2010 Osh riots but also the 2013 skirmishes
around the Uzbek enclave of Sokh.
The national economy is disproportion-
ately reliant on the Canadian-owned Kum-
tor mine (p270). During 2013, there were
major disturbances on the south coast of
Issyk-Köl as demonstrators cut roads and
power supplies to the high-altitude mine,
ostensibly to demand reparations for sup-
posed environmental damages. Or perhaps
to persuade the company to renegotiate a
joint-venture agreement giving the state a
substantial stake in the business.

UNDERSTAND
KYRGYZSTAN

History

Kyrgyzstan Today
For years, Kyrgyz politicians have been
navigating a geopolitical tightrope between
China, Russia and the US over the Manas
Air Base. From 2001 it was used by the US
to conduct cargo and fuel sorties to Af-
ghanistan; it is now the main gateway from
which US troops are being withdrawn from
that war. However, true to Almazbek Atam-
bayev's presidential pledge, the base is due
to close by July 2014. Meanwhile Russia's air
base at Kant, 20km east of Bishkek, will con-
tinue to function. Some analysts see this as a
major geopolitical victory for Moscow.
Kyrgyzstan maintains good relations with
its eastern neighbour and biggest trading
partner, China. Seemingly endless trucks
bring goods across the Torugart and Irkesh-
tam Passes but worryingly for the economy,
almost all return empty.
Kazakhstan is both the figurative and
literal big brother to Kyrgyzstan, with Ka-
zakhstan owning 40% of the nation's banks.
Relations with Uzbekistan are contrastingly
tense, with an ongoing war of words over
water and energy usage exacerbated by eth-
nic tensions, notably the fallout of the June

Early Civilisations
The earliest recorded residents of what is
now Kyrgyzstan were Saka warrior clans
(aka Scythians). Rich bronze and gold rel-
ics have been recovered from Scythian bur-
ial mounds dating between the 6th century
BC and the 5th century AD. Thereafter the
region came under the control of various
Turkic alliances with a sizeable population
living on the shores of Lake Issyk-Köl. The
Talas Valley was the scene of a pivotal bat-
tle in 751, when the Turks, along with their
Arab and Tibetan allies, drove a large Tang
Chinese army out of Central Asia.
The cultured Turkic Karakhanids ruled
from the 10th to 12th centuries, instilling
Islam as a generalised creed from multiple
city-centres including Balasagun (the site of
the now-lonely Burana Tower) and Özgön
(Uzgen), at the edge of the Fergana Valley.
Ancestors of today's Kyrgyz people prob-
ably lived in Siberia's upper Yenisey Basin
until at least the 10th century, when, un-
der the influence of Mongol incursions,
they began migrating south into the Tian
Shan - more urgently with the rise of Chinggis

SOVIET¨SECRETS
The town of Chong-Tash, 10km from Kashka-Suu village, holds a dark secret. On one
night in 1937, the entire Soviet Kyrgyz government - nearly 140 people in all - were
rounded up, brought here and shot dead; their bodies dumped in a disused brick kiln on
the site. By the 1980s almot no one alive knew of this, by which time the site had been
converted to a ski resort. But a watchman at the time of the murders, sworn to secrecy,
told his daughter on his deathbed, and she waited until perestroika to tell police.
In 1991 the bodies were moved to a mass grave across the road, with a simple memo-
rial, apparently paid for by the Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov (whose father may have
been one of the victims). The remains of the kiln are inside a fence nearby.
Minibus 365 runs daily to Chong-Tash from near Osh Bazaar in Bishkek.