KYRGYZSTAN, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a red field with a stylized yellow sun-disk in the centre. The flag's width-to-length ratio is approximately 3 to 5. When the Soviets came to power in West Turkestan, promising equality and development for all ethnic groups, the Kyrgyz people obtained their own autonomous region in 1924. In 1926 it was raised to the status of an autonomous republic, and in 1936 it became a union republic within the U.S.S.R. In 1953 the Kirgiz S.S.R. adopted a modified version of the Soviet Red Banner by adding a white-bordered blue horizontal stripe through the centre. After Kyrgyzstan proclaimed its independence on August 31, 1991, it continued to use its Soviet flag until March 3, 1992. The background of the new flag, which is still used today, also is red, but this was said to derive from a flag carried by the Kyrgyz national hero, Manas the Noble. In the centre of the flag is a yellow sun with 40 rays, corresponding to the followers of Manas and the tribes he united; its further symbolic attributes are light, nobility, and eternity. On that sun is a red-and-yellow emblem with two crossed sets of three lines each, all within a ring. This is a stylized view of the roof of the traditional Kyrgyz home, the yurt. Few Kyrgyz still live in yurts, but until the mid-20th century a majority of this nomadic people set up yurts wherever they traveled. The symbolic meaning of this design is elaborate: the flag law speaks of the origin of life, the unity of time and space, the history of the Kyrgyz people, solidarity, and hearth and home. Whitney Smith History Kyrgyz history can be traced at least to the 1st century BC. The probable abodes of the early Kyrgyz were in the upper Yenisey River valley of central Siberia, and the Tashtyk culture (1st century BC5th century AD), an amalgam of Asiatic and European peoples, may have been theirs. Chinese and Muslim sources of the 7th12th centuries AD describe the Kyrgyz as red-haired with fair complexion and green (blue) eyes. They were viewed as a forest-dwelling northern people who used skis and practiced shamanism. In the mid-9th century the Kyrgyz, by then certainly Turkic-speaking, overthrew the Uighur empire in Mongolia but did not settle there; they essentially remained a people of the forest. According to the Persian geography Hudud al-'Alam (982), the Kyrgyz lived at the edge of the Uninhabited Lands of the North; the 11th-century grammarian Mahmud al-Kashghari mentions that their language was Turkic. Because of their secluded habitats the Kyrgyz remained outside the mainstream of Inner Asian history, a fact that allowed them to survive the Mongol deluge that completely altered the Inner Asian political landscape. In 1207 the Kyrgyz surrendered to Genghis Khan's son Jchi. By so doing they not only escaped destruction but also remained beyond the immediate reach of Islam. In the late 16th century shamanism was still flourishing among them. By the 16th17th century most of the remaining Kyrgyz tribes lived in the Tien Shan range as mountain nomads, divided into two wings (left and right), though the advancing Russians still encountered remnants of the Yenisey branch of the Kyrgyz. In 1703, under pressure from the Dzungars (a tribe of western Mongols), the Yenisey Kyrgyz moved to the Semirechye, but hostilities between the two peoples continued until China's defeat of the Dzungar leader Amursana in 1757. In the mid-18th century, nominally at least, the Kyrgyz became part of the Ch'ing (Manchu) empire of China. Between 1825 and 1830 they were conquered by Muhammad Ali, the khan of Kokand; Bishkek (Pishpek), the future capital city of the Kyrgyz, was built by that khanate. Through these contacts, Islam was gradually adopted by the more southern Kyrgyz, although it has remained merely a veneer on the national culture. Between 1835 and 1858 two Tien Shan Kyrgyz tribes, the Sarybagysh and the Bugu, engaged in a fratricidal war in which both sides alternately sought and obtained Kokandian or Russian help. In 1855 the Bugu voluntarily submitted to the Russians, and it was at their request that the Russians built the fort of Aksu in 1863. The Kyrgyz tribes thus entered the modern era divided, harassed by Russians and Kokandians alike. The periodic revolts of the southern Kyrgyz against the Kokand khanate in the mid-19th century received no Russian support. But Russian immigration into Kyrgyz territories, rather than warfare, posed the real threat to Kyrgyz existence. Poor Russian peasants escaping from servitude and famine appropriated the winter pasturelands of the Kyrgyz, forcing them to move into the mountains. The Russian colonists did teach the Kyrgyz some new agricultural techniques, but on the whole their impact was nothing short of disastrous. In 1916 Kyrgyz discontent erupted in a serious revolt, which was met with brutal and prolonged repression that continued even after the fall of Russia's tsarist regime. Under Soviet rule the Kyrgyz found it difficult to assert themselves as a separate national entity. Confusion concerning their very name persists in the West because under the tsars the Kyrgyz were wrongly labeled Kara-Kirgiz in order to distinguish them from the Kazaks, whom the Russians called Kirgiz to distinguish them from the Cossacks (Russian: Kazaky). In 1924 an autonomous Kirgiz oblast was created within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In 1926 its status was transformed into that of an autonomous republic, and in 1936 a full union republic was created, the Kirgiz Soviet Socialist Republic, often called Kirgiziya. In the second half of the 20th century, economic progress and general modernization did not succeed in eradicating tensions between Russians and Kyrgyz. Among the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan was perhaps the most eager to obtain full independence. After more than 1,000 years of disunity, statelessness, and foreign subjection, Kyrgyzstan joined the world's independent nations on Aug. 31, 1991. Under the reformist president Askar Akayev, Kyrgyzstan became the most democratic and Western-oriented of the Central Asian republics. However, during the early and mid-1990s Kyrgyzstan experienced sharp economic decline, in part because of a shortage of raw materials and the emigration of many Russian and German professionals. Denis Sinor The economy The people of Kyrgyzstan have traditionally raised livestock and engaged in farming. By the late 20th century the republic had become a source for nonferrous metals, notably of antimony and mercury ores, and a producer of machinery, light industrial products, hydroelectric power, and food products. Gold mining has increased in importance, and Kyrgyzstan possesses substantial coal reserves and some petroleum and natural gas deposits. Hydroelectric power provides more than three-fourths of the country's electric energy. Agriculture Industrialization has stimulated the mechanization of agriculture in Kyrgyzstan, and many types of machines necessary to cope with the largely mountainous terrain are manufactured in the republic. Unlike other Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan does not suffer from a lack of water; irrigation canals have increased agricultural output substantially, especially cotton production in the Fergana Valley, the country's main source for that crop. Livestock raising, the cultivation of cotton, fruit, vegetables, cereal grains, and tobacco, and wool production are the leading branches of agriculture. Most of the arable land is devoted to pasturage for livestock and to growing hay. Livestock consists mainly of sheep and goats, along with milk and beef cattle, notably in the Chu valley and the Ysyk-Kl littoral. Horses serve as draft animals as well as a source of meat; the Kyrgyz like to drink koumiss, fermented mare's milk, and use it in courses of treatment at health resorts. Tobacco is cultivated in the Naukat Valley in the south and also in the Talas Valley of the north. Horticulture and viticulture are developed in the Chu River valley and the Fergana area, with the mulberry trees of the latter supporting the raising of silkworms. The land Relief Kyrgyzstan is, above all, a mountainous country. At its eastern extremity, next to the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang, China, rises Victory (Pobedy) Peak, at 24,406 feet (7,439 metres) Kyrgyzstan's highest peak. Mount Khan-Tengri (22,949 feet) is on the border with Kazakstan. These mountains stand in the core of the Tien Shan system, which continues eastward into China. On the southern border lie the Kok Shaal-Tau, Alay, Trans-Alay (Zaalay), and Atbashi ranges. To the southwest are two great hollows, the Fergana Valley and another valley close to Mount Khan-Tengri. The latter valley is bounded by the westward-thrusting arms of the Kungey-Alatau and Terskey-Alatau ranges and contains Lake Ysyk-Kl (Issyk-Kul), whose clear, deep waters are fed by the snow-covered peaks. The rugged mountain-and-basin structure of much of the country, and the high alpine plateau of the central and eastern regions, are separated from the Fergana Valley on the west by the Fergana Range, running southeast to northwest, which merges into the Chatkal Range. The Chatkal Range is linked to the Ysyk-Kl region by a final enclosing range, the Kyrgyz. The only other important lowlands in the country are the Chu and Talas river valleys in the north, with the capital, Bishkek, located in the Chu. The country's lowland areas, though occupying only one-seventh of the total area, are home to most of its people. The people The Kyrgyz speak a language belonging to the northwestern, or Kipchak, group of the Turkic languages. They were formerly a transhumant (nomadic) people who were settled into collectivized agriculture by the Soviet regime. Besides Kyrgyz, the country's population includes minorities of Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, and Germans (exiled to the region from European parts of the Soviet Union in 1941), as well as Tatars, Kazaks, Dungans (Hui; Chinese Muslims), Uighurs, and Tajiks. Since independence in 1991, many Russians and Germans have emigrated.