Kyrgyz

The Kyrgyz are a Turkic people of the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains, most of whom live in Kyrgyzstan, with older communities in China's Xinjiang (Kizilsu), Tajikistan's Murghab, Uzbekistan's Fergana valley and Afghanistan's Wakhan. Their ancestors include the Yenisei Kyrgyz of southern Siberia, who ruled the Mongolian steppe in the 9th century, mixed with Kipchak and Mongol tribes as they moved south-west by the 15th-16th centuries. The name is often explained as kyrk ('forty') plus -yz, the forty tribes, divided into the right wing (ong), left wing (sol) and ichkilik. Russians and Europeans called them Kara-Kirghiz to tell them from the Kazakhs, then known as Kirghiz. Kyrgyz is a Kipchak Turkic language written in Cyrillic in Kyrgyzstan and Arabic script in China. Kinship and tribal genealogy (sanjyra) still shape identity, and the Manas epic, among the longest oral poems in the world, is the national story.

Kyrgyz culture grew from mountain nomadism: herding sheep, horses, yaks and camels between winter quarters and summer pastures (jailoo), living in the felt yurt (boz üy) whose roof ring (tündük) appears on Kyrgyzstan's flag. Women make felt carpets (shyrdak, ala-kiyiz) and embroidered wall hangings (tush kiyiz). Men wear the white felt ak-kalpak hat. Horse games such as kok-boru (goat polo), eagle hunting and the drinking of fermented mare's milk (kymyz) mark festivals; beshbarmak (boiled meat over noodles) is the feast dish. Manaschy reciters perform the Manas epic, and the komuz lute accompanies song. Families are patrilineal; bride-price (kalym) is common and bride kidnapping (ala kachuu) persists in rural Kyrgyzstan despite being outlawed. Elders (aksakal) are deeply respected.

Most Kyrgyz are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, but Islam came late to the nomads and blended with older beliefs: veneration of ancestors (arbak), pilgrimage to sacred sites (mazar) such as Sulayman-Too in Osh, shaman healers (bakshy) and fortune-tellers, and memorial feasts on the 7th and 40th days and one year after death. Soviet rule secularised many, and since 1991 mosque building, Islamic education and hijab use have grown, alongside a small Tengrist revival that presents pre-Islamic belief as national heritage. Kyrgyz who leave Islam face family and community pressure, especially in villages.

The complete Bible in Kyrgyz has been available since 2004 (the Ray of Hope edition, from Sovet Sadyrov's New Testament of 1991 and a revised Old Testament), with a 2005 Bible Society New Testament and digital apps. The Jesus Film, audio recordings and Christian radio exist in Kyrgyz. Kyrgyzstan has Kyrgyz-speaking evangelical churches with several thousand believers, but a restrictive 2009 religion law limits registration and evangelism, and converts meet strong social pressure. Kyrgyz outside Kyrgyzstan, in China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and the migrant communities of Russia and Türkiye, have little access.

The Kyrgyz of Afghanistan's Little and Great Pamir, a few thousand yak and sheep herders cut off by the closed Soviet and Chinese borders, followed their khan Haji Rahman Kul across the Hindu Kush into Pakistan after the 1978 communist coup in Kabul. The heat and disease of the camps near Gilgit proved unbearable. Their request to resettle in Alaska was refused; Türkiye's military government under Kenan Evren took them in under a special 1982 law, flew them to Van, and built the village of Ulupamir on the plateau north of Lake Van, with a school, clinic, mosque and concrete houses in place of yurts. A minority stayed in Afghanistan's Pamirs, where about 1,100 were counted in 2003. Rahman Kul, who took the surname Kutlu in Türkiye, is remembered in Ulupamir as the leader who saved his people.