It can take a lot of driving and a robust vehicle to visit the historic buildings of Kyrgyzstan.  We managed to visit all of them over a 9 day visit.  In the UK, that would be pretty amazing; there are over 370,000 structures on the Heritage list for England alone.  But in Kyrgyzstan, our guides informed us, there are only three monuments regarded as heritage buildings.  Kyrgyzstan is great on archaeology, but very light on early architecture.   

This lack of old structures is largely due to Kyrgyzstan’s social and geographical history: this bit of central Asia was largely about nomads until well into the 19th century.  Despite being traversed by the ‘silk road’ trading routes between China and Turkey, despite sharing a border with Uzbekistan (a settled, farming country rich in trade and Islamic architecture with legendary cities such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva), Kyrgyzstan is startlingly different.  Kyrgyzstan’s heritage is about wide open spaces, about seasonal movement, and about yurts, not houses.  It takes quite a lot of getting used to. 

So why is the nomadic landscape so hard to ‘read’?  What’s different from any other grazed hillside?  Most Europeans are very familiar with the bi-annual transhumance of domestic animals: up in spring time to those picturesque, mountain meadows, leaving the lowlands to grow hay for winter fodder; down in the autumn as the days shorten and the uplands prepare for snow. 

But no, that’s not the same as nomadic.  Down in those European valleys are quaint farm houses with barns and cow sheds, villages, churches and inns, where humans and livestock can overwinter in permanent structures.  This isn’t part of a truly nomadic tradition.

So what is a nomad? Wikipedia’s definition seems as good as any:

Trying to locate information on the current status of nomads in Kyrgyzstan is difficult. Understandably, many of the websites which offer information are those promoting tourism and selling ‘experiences’ in Kyrgyzstan. We have no problem with that - we ourselves were tourists and glad to be supporting the Kyrgyz economy - but the sources of the tourist sites’ data are unreferenced and hard to verify. One such site suggests that there are still 4.4 million Kyrgyz nomads, ‘who mostly live in Kyrgyzstan’.  Assuming that the current population of Kyrgyzstan (not all of which are ethnic Kyrgyz, of course) is about 6.7 million people (depending on which website you check), then about half the Republic’s population could be classified as nomadic.  From what we experienced, however, we assume that the continued use of the term ‘nomads’ is somewhat misleading as most families now have permanent winter/all year round quarters with, perhaps, summer yurts on the upland pastures. A great many of the yurts we saw are now also, or possibly only, servicing the tourist industry. One family we chatted to spent their winters in Bishkek and their summers on the Tien Shan uplands, providing visitor facilities at Tash Rabat - one of those three historic buildings we mentioned earlier.

Below: summer uplands near Tash Rabat, 21st century style - yurts, trucks, tourists and horses

What are the key elements of Kyrgyzstan’s historic nomadic lifestyle?  Terroir would suggest that the combination of vast areas of upland, combined with robust and sure footed livestock, is key.

According to our guide book, a staggering 90% of Kyrgyzstan is over 1,500m (around 5,000 ft). If you read our previous blog (The Bin), you’ll know that Ben Nevis is ‘only’ 1,345 m (or 4,413 ft). The north and east of the country is dominated by the Tien Shan mountain range, which stretches from Uzbekistan, thrugh Kyrgyzstan and on into western China. The highest peak, on the Kyrgyz side of the China border, clocks 7,439 m (over 24,000 ft) which is not far off 84% of the height of Everest. The geology and age of the rocks varies and so does the landscape (see below).

South western Kyrgyzstan sports sections of the Pamir and Pamir Alay ranges, older and more rounded mountains but still achieiving a Kyrgyz summit (second highest in the Pamir range) of 7,134 m (23,400 ft) at Peak Lenin.

Below: glimpses of the Tien Shan range

How do you create a way of life which makes best use of such a vertical country? Livestock is the obvious answer. Horses, donkeys and camels - the four legged equivalent of the modern four wheel drive - provide transport and draft power. Cattle, yaks and sheep provide food, drink, housing, clothing and an outlet for artistic expression. But communities have to keep moving to ensure the meagre pastures can continuously support the animal based ‘capital’.

Below: livestock on the summer pastures - horses, sheep, camels, yak, a donkey on child care duties and cattle

Need some ready money for a lowland shopping expedition? Cash in a beast or two at the cattle market.

Obviously meat is an important part of the nomadic diet (traditionally mutton and horse were particularly significant) but fermented mare’s milk (kumis) is also a Kyrgyz speciality and is now an important part of that new aspect of the nomadic economy - tourism.

We experienced both meat and kumis at Lake Son Kul - a water body frozen in winter, but a dusty experence in summer thanks to climate-change induced mega temperatures. The lake is described in guide books, and on tourist websites, as ‘isolated’ and ‘only accessible by hiking and walking’. In fact we were driven there, but our non four-wheel drive minibus did not enjoy the off-road experience.

An ‘all in one’ meal of mutton and vegetables was prepared for us (below left) (Terroir found it utterly delicious) and which was served to us in an adjacent yurt (middle picture). The low table was laden with the stew, plus salads, fruit, biscuits, jams and sweets, laid out in very generous quantities. The yurt was beautifully decorated but as there was nothing else in it apart from us and the table, it felt rather like eating in the little used parlour or ‘front room’ of an English, Edwardian, terraced house.

After lunch we were introduced to kumis and shown how the women milked the mares to obtain the basic raw material (below right). Before and after fermentation tasting samples were available; the kumis reminded Terroir of kefir but of a thinner consistency.

Kyrgyz nomadic housing, is of course, based on the yurt, a structure made from wood, reed, leather and thick, home made felt. It can be collapsed, packed away, loaded onto a cart, transported to a new area of meadow, and reconstructed with remarkable efficiency.

Here is Terroir’s guide to erecting a yurt in ten (uneasy?) steps. Please note that the yurt in question is tiny so that the building team could fit in the demonstration before another generous lunch was served in the family house!

A mobile life means that crafts and artistic expression must use easily available raw materials. It must also adapt well to life in an upland pasture and be easily packed away and transported.

Our first introduction to Kyrgyz shyrdaks was in hotels and guest houses where these patterned felt rectangles had been re-puposed from domestic decorative wall hangings, carpets and table covers to doing the same job in the hospitality sector. They are stunning in either location.

Thankfully, we were soon taken to visit a fascinating collection of costumes and decorative textiles lovingly kept by a Kyrgyz family who were concerned, not just with interested tourists like ourselves, but with the conservation of this heritage and with raising awareness, both locally and regionally, of a traditional art and craft form which could easily be lost.

Women created these fabrics. The work was slow, laborious but social and one can imagine that process was as important as finished product. Our guide book suggests that two colour embroidery was formerly the norm but, with the availability of modern, 20th century dyes, more dramatic colour schemes have developed. We have yet to verify this and, foolishly, didn’t ask when the opportunity arose. We could certainly spot the difference between items produced for tourists (smaller, easier to carry, quicker to make, often involving machine rather than hand stitching) but that’s fine. We bought.

How many in Kyrgyzstan can afford to risk investment (time, finance, market research) to produce modern pieces using traditional techniques? How many women still have the skills? What are the risks of cultural appropriation? Who would buy? I would - if I could afford it, of course.

We haven’t even touched on two other nomad staples which delight visitors to Kyrgyzstan.

The other is a modern tradition built on nomadic skills and sports - the Kyrgyz invention of the Nomad Games. First held in 2016 and now with a permanent stadium in Cholpon-Ata on Lake Issyk Kul, this biennial event is largely based on equestrian skills, wrestling, falconry (yes, the eagles do have a role) but also includes yurt building and board games - nomadic aspects you don’t usually see at that other great horse based tradition, the North American rodeo.

But we can’t finish a blog on the nomadic traditions of Kyrgyzstan without mentioning one final, great Kyrgyz icon. The hat or headress is key, of course.

In contrast, women tend to have moved on from the traditional yards of cotton which once swathed their heads and which, unlike the man’s headgear, could also be pressed into service to swaddle babies or staunch wounds, as required. 

Below (left) women’s traditional and (right) more modern headgear

We might get to those three heritage buildings next time.