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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kyrgyzstan
Index
Population statistics depict only part of the demographic situation in
Kyrgyzstan. Because of the country's mountainous terrain, population tends
to be concentrated in relatively small areas in the north and south, each
of which contains about two million people. About two-thirds of the total
population live in the Fergana, Talas, and Chu valleys. As might be
expected, imbalances in population distribution lead to extreme contrasts
in how people live and work. In the north, the Chu Valley, site of
Bishkek, the capital, is the major economic center, producing about 45
percent of the nation's gross national product (GNP--see Glossary). The
Chu Valley also is where most of the country's Europeans live, mainly
because of economic opportunities. The ancestors of today's Russian and
German population began to move into the fertile valley to farm at the end
of the nineteenth century. There was a subsequent influx of Russians
during World War II, when industrial resources and personnel were moved en
masse out of European Russia to prevent their capture by the invading
Germans. In the era of Soviet First Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev, a
deliberate development policy brought another in-migration. Bishkek is
slightly more than 50 percent Kyrgyz, and the rest of the valley retains
approximately that ethnic ratio. In the mid-1990s, observers expected that
balance to change quickly, however, as Europeans continued to move out
while rural Kyrgyz moved in, settling in the numerous shantytowns
springing up around Bishkek. The direct distance from Bishkek in the far
north to Osh in the southwest is slightly more than 300 kilometers, but
the mountain road connecting those cities requires a drive of more than
ten hours in summer conditions; in winter the high mountain passes are
often closed. In the Soviet period, most travel between north and south
was by airplane, but fuel shortages that began after independence have
greatly limited the number of flights, increasing a tendency toward
separation of north and south (see Topography and Drainage; Transportation
and Telecommunications, this ch.).
The separation of the north and the south is clearly visible in the
cultural mores of the two regions, although both are dominated by ethnic
Kyrgyz. Society in the Fergana Valley is much more traditional than in the
Chu Valley, and the practice of Islam is more pervasive. The people of the
Chu Valley are closely integrated with Kazakstan (Bishkek is but four
hours by car from Almaty, the capital of Kazakstan). The people of the
south are more oriented, by location and by culture, to Uzbekistan, Iran,
Afghanistan, and the other Muslim countries to the south.
Geographical isolation also has meant that the northern and southern
Kyrgyz have developed fairly distinct lifestyles. Those in the north tend
to be nomadic herders; those in the south have acquired more of the
sedentary agricultural ways of their Uygur, Uzbek, and Tajik neighbors.
Both groups came to accept Islam late, but practice in the north tends to
be much less influenced by Islamic doctrine and reflects considerable
influence from pre-Islamic animist beliefs. The southerners have a more
solid basis of religious knowledge and practice. It is they who pushed for
a greater religious element in the 1993 constitution (see Religion, this
ch.).
Data as of March 1996
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