Let me tell you a little story: Once upon a time there were two brothers : Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan.
The older one was favored by his adoptive father, went to a university,
Got a good job, built a corporation that employed thousands of people and made billions, whereas the younger brother, was like:
Kyrgyzstan : "Hah! Nerd. I'm gonna go, like, party in the mountains or something and, like, I don't know. Party and whatever man?"
and that's basically Kyrgyzstan.
Everyone I'm your host, Barbs. If you don't know anything about Kyrgyzstan,
which I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't, basically they are, like, the party animals of Central Asia.
Dude, they love to dance, and what better way to start the party than by telling you where the party's at?
Okay, guys, seriously, I'm gonna have to ring the bell, again. Kyrgyzstan is a tripster nation,
one that few people go to, that you might want to start checking out now,
before the massive flocks of annoying tourists come in and ruin everything.
First of all, Kyrgyzstan is landlocked, located in Central Asia
Surrounded by four countries with a horrible mess of enclaves and exclaves mostly mixed in with Uzbekistan, in this area known
as the Fergana Valley. We'll talk more about this in a bit.
The capital city is Bishkek
located in the north, and the country is divided into seven regions or Oblasts, with the two largest cities,
Bishkek and Osh, acting as independent entities with the same status as an Oblast.
Of course after those two, the third largest city is Jalal-Abad,
However Karakol is a more popular tourist destination.
The largest airports are of course also found in the largest cities Bishkek's Manas International and Osh International Airport.
Okay, now back to the enclaves/exclave thing. Basically over here you see a ton of choppy scraps of land that make no sense
because they belong to other countries within Krygyzstan.
You have the four Uzbek exclaves including the largest one, Sokh which is strange because it's a Uzbek territory
Even though it's 99% populated, by Tajiks. With Tajikistan you have Vorukh as, well as the area of Kayragach
but I think Google Earth got it wrong because they put the borders here
Which is just an empty stretch of uninhabited road.
This all happened because a number of factors. Some being because of things like:
Areas having historically inhabited people groups
And others things like, you know, (Russian accent) making Soviet Russia anything was being possible.
But, yeah, that basically covers it. I mean, the country kind of looks like a fish with deformed back fin
but, yeah, that pretty much concludes the land demarcations.
All right, there's the part we mentioned some notable places of interest. So, here we go
(Forgive my horrible pronunciation)
Karakol Dungan Mosque
Ala Too Square with the Manas Complex
The Ak Örgö Yurt Workshop
The State Museum of Fine Arts
Jayma and Osh Bazaars
Karakol Animal Market
The Koshoy Ruins
The Monument of Yuri Gagarin
These petroglyphs (Cholpon Ata and Ak Sai)
Tasha Rabat
Hippodrome
And probably the most iconic national monuments: Barana Tower
which is like one of the oldest buildings in the country that still stands today
even though some of it was destroyed but it's still there.
Sweet, moving on
Now the biggest appeal to Kyrgyzstan is hands down the landscape
I mean they have thousands of lakes over 400 rivers and canals
88 mountain ranges forests and almost all of it is untouched, so far.
First of all
the country is over three-quarters mountainous, with the Tian Shan Mountains making up the majority of the land
Here, you can also find the source of the longer river being The Naryn that flows westward.
But the Chu river is probably the most important, as it flows through Bishkek and empties into the largest
and most iconic fiscal landmark: Issyk-Kul Lake, the largest in the country
Issyk-Kul is the second largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea
The second largest high altitude lake after Lake Titicaca in South America
(Heheh, South America)
The cool thing is, the salt water in addition to hot springs causes the lake never freeze, even in winter freezing months
Just to hop away and you can find the tallest mountain: Jengish Chokusu
which is shared with China at the border.
Yeah, China kinda has this thing, where they like to take: "Share, share half of everybody highest points"
China: "Dude, that's the second time you make that joke"
and i'll keep it coming
China: "I'm watching you..."
Hehehe, no, you're not.
Ooooooooooohhhhhh, eddddgggyyyyy
The sixth largest non-polar glacier in the world, Inylchek
They have crazy looking canyons
Like, Fairytale Canyon and The Seven Bulls Cliff
And on top of that, at over 27.000 acres, they have the worlds largest walnut forest
Yeah, WALNUTS
Speaking of which food wise, they are very so much of their brothers Kazakhstan up north
but they add a little mountain flare to the dishes, like:
Beshbarmak
Plov
Kuurdak
Oromo
Which is also a name of that people group that we study in the Ethiopia episode. Remember, Oromo people?
Manti
Boorsoq
Kurut
Shorpo
and Vodka, it's super cheap, is like only 4$ a bottle.
The national animal is the Snow Leopard
and Kyrgyzstan's wildlife is a little more diverse and unique from their cousins
They have things like the Marco Polo Sheep, the largest in the world
Stone Marten
Brown Bear
Pallas Cat
of course horses which they like to both meat and milk
Which by the way, milking a horses is really difficult.
Kyrgyzstan is also famous for being an insane the untapped potential candidate for green energy
In fact they make so much energy through hydroelectric dams they actually ended up exporting it to their neighbor countries.
Outside investors have been keeping their eyes on Kyrgyzstan for a while,
it's like:
Investor: Hey, Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan: Yo, whats up?
Investor: How many day your sunshine you have?
Kyrgyzstan: I mean, 250, give or take
Investor: Okay and those valleys and the Alai Mountain range are pretty windy year-round aren't they?
Kyrgyzstan: Yeah, definitely
Investor: Okay, okay, so here's an idea for you, why don't we like put the ton of solar panels and wind turbine
Kyrgyzstan: WAIT...I mean, that's cool, man we'll get to that eventually but I think we should dance first.
Investor: .....What?
Oh, they also have the world's last pure mercury mine in the world.
I mean they have a lot of mines and gold makes up a huge portion of their exports
but yeah, mercury is big deal too. That stuff can kill you if you're not careful.
OH NOW YOU TELL ME!
Kyrgyzstan is beautiful with a lot of economic potential but they don't seem to tap into it too much
I mean, they'd rather climb trees than cut them down.
That's kind of like the Kyrgyz way, which brings us to...
Kyrgyz....that's, what you call, these people Kyrgyz, not Kyrgyzstani, not Kyrgyzstanian, Kyrgyz. Got it? Good.
Kyrgyzstan originally comes from a word that means something along lines of "We Are 40" referring to the original 40 tribes that inhabited the area
40 is an important number to these people and everything starts with
This guy, Manas. We'll jump into that in a sec, but first
Kyrgyzstan is made up of about 6 million people and has one of the most evenly distributed populations per square kilometre
At over 65% of the population being rural.
The country is about 75% Kyrgyz, 12% Uzbek, 6% Russian, and the remainder is made up of various other people groups like
Chinese, Chinese Uyghurs and so on.
They also use the Som as their currency
Which is one of the only currencies that uses a denomination of 3.
They use type C plug outlet and they drive on the right side of the road.
Now I ask some of you Kyrgyz subscribers
What your culture is like and the responses I mostly got work, we are very similar to our Kazakh brothers, but we are mountain folk
We grew up with a very different terrain, that has forced us to live a very different life
We have a more relaxed party atmosphere and enjoy nature but, we aren't pushovers like, some of our neighbors.
If there's a problem, we face it and we will fight back. Why do you think we kicked out two of our presidents?
I'm not even joking, that was like literally in one of my emails that one of you guys wrote to me.
Surprisingly, EU and US citizens do not require a visa upon entry unlike some of their neighbours,
Turkmenistan: "Hey, you want to see Doorway to Hell, you pay and then get out!"
Nah Turkmenistan is cool it's just wow they make entry so difficult.
Anywho, as mentioned there are historical tribes however these were all united by the hero of Kyrgyzstan, Manas,
A guy from the 10th century who fought against the Khitan and Oriat enemies
making him the central figure of the longest epic poem in the world.
So many things are named after this guy;
Streets, statues, universities, radio stations, national parks and the largest airport.
The whole Manas thing kind of solidified the Kyrgyz identity apart from their neighbors.
Now they could claim a whole new culture based off of mountain tribes and warriors.
Speaking of which, they were part of kind of like the invading people groups
that forced China to build their great wall which brings us to History,
Scythians, Turkic tribes invade, different Turkic tribes defeat the Uyghur Khante, the Manas guy comes in,
they formed their own Kyrgyz Khante, Genghis Khan and the Mongols, 19th century Khante of Kokand,
1850s Russians come in, 1918 Kyrgyzstan becomes part of the Soviet Union until 1991 when Kyrgyzstan gains independence,
Two revolutions one in 2005 and another in 2010 and here we are today.
The Kyrgyz language is almost completely identical to the Kazakh language
which is pretty intelligible to the Turkish language as they are all Turkic based.
Nonetheless Russian is also an official language as it was taught during Soviet times.
The majority of people around 88% of Kyrgyzstan identifies as Muslim.
However you don't really see a strong Islamic presence as it was suppressed during Soviet times
and plus the traditional Turkic and Mongoloid culture kind of infuses pre-Islamic concepts in their lifestyles.
You see it a lot during their celebrations and traditional music and dances.
Marriages are very interesting in Kyrgyzstan. To avoid relative marrying,
most children learned their male ancestors down to the seventh generation or so.
And yes, there is that stigma of kidnap weddings however it's not exactly what you think.
Basically most people in the past were arranged to be married by families that were close friends.
However if there were two people that loved each other but their families didn't approve,
The only, way to get married would be if the woman was 'kidnapped'
by her lover and once married the families couldn't do anything.
It was kind of like a "weird illegally romantic" thing. Unfortunately in the more common era, this practice has become corrupted
and some men took it to the extreme of literally kidnapping women that they just wanted to marry regardless of the woman's consent.
Today the practice is shunned upon and it's left a tarnished mark on the Kyrgyz people.
Oh, and uhh Kyrgyzstan is also famous for their dances that they take very seriously.
Their traditional style incorporates a lot of shoulder jerking movements and bending,
which is probably where the modern performers like these guys got their inspiration from
Ughhh, that shoulder thing. I mean, I know it will give me nightmares but I can't stop looking.
Speaking of performers, some famous people of Kyrgyzstan might include:
Chinghiz Aitmatov, Roza Otunbayeva,
Isa Akhunbayev, Valentina Shevchenko,
Igor Paklin, Talant Dujshebaev, Eldar Djangirov,
Salizhan Sharipov, Suimankul Chokmorov,
Kurmanjan Datka, Mahmul Al Kashgari and Yusuf Balasaguni.
All right, so basically Kyrgyz people are like mountain folk Turkic Mongoloid, hybrid, Muslimy people with cool dance moves.
I could've just summarized this whole segment with that but you know
Gotta hit that 10 minute YouTube mark so extra monetization
All right, moving on.
All right, Kyrgyzstan's friends are interesting considering how politically diverse they all are
but you know with Kyrgyzstan, it's like "Meh, I don't care if you lean on complete anarchy
if we open up trade deals, you have my attention."
With China, things are kind of good as they make up the largest trade partner
especially after the city of Naryn gained free trade zone status.
Tons of Chinese people have opened up businesses and moved in.
This however gives Kyrgyzstan a vigilant eye considering what happened to the Uyghur autonomous region, so yeah.
When it comes to Russia, Kyrgyzstan actually really like being part of the Soviet Union during Soviet times
and was always trying to fight for attention that they unfortunately didn't get too much of.
It was actually Russia that had to kind of encourage them to go and adopt their own economic model and currency.
To this day, Soviet Memorabilia is still on display in public squares
and even after independence, they still love getting visits from their former occupier.
The USA on the other hand provides humanitarian and military assistance
and help them get into the world trade organization so there's a friendliness aspect there too.
When it comes to their best friends however, almost all Kyrgyz people I talked to have said
Kazakhstan and some said Turkey as well. Turkey was the first country to recognize Kyrgyzstan's independence
and has an eternal friendship cooperation agreement with them as well as embassies and investments.
Kazakhstan is basically Kyrgyzstan's big brother that does all the business and trade that trickles into Kyrgyzstan.
When squabbles with Uzbekistan come in like pipeline shutdowns,
they run to Kazakhstan who mediates and fixes things up for them.
They speak the same, they eat the same.
When Kazakhstan is pushing himself too hard, Kyrgyzstan is like:
"Hey bro, stop it. Just take a break. Come get some fresh mountain air
and take a dip in Issyk-Kul. Beshbarmak is on me."
In conclusion, Kyrgyzstan is the little brother that knows he's surrounded by economic giants
so rather than getting intimidated, he just dances, dances all his worries away.
Stay tuned, Lao is coming up next.