Kyrgyzstan
About Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, also known as Kirghizia (in Russian), is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan's history spans a variety of cultures and empires. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain, Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road and other commercial routes. Inhabited by a succession of tribes and clans, Kyrgyzstan has periodically fallen under larger domination. Between periods of self-government it was ruled by Göktürks, the Uyghur Empire and the Khitan people, before being conquered by the Mongols in the 13th century; it regained independence but was invaded by Kalmyks, Manchus and Uzbeks. In 1876, it became part of the Russian Empire, remaining in the USSR as the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic after the Russian Revolution. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR, in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president. On 31 August 1991, Kyrgyzstan declared independence from Moscow and a democratic government was established. Kyrgyzstan attained sovereignty as a nation state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Since independence, Kyrgyzstan has officially been a unitary presidential republic, then between 2010 and 2021 a de jure a unitary parliamentary republic, although de facto it had an executive President and was governed as a semi presidential republic before reverting to a presidential system in 2021. it continues to endure ethnic conflicts, revolts, economic troubles, transitional governments and political conflict.Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's six million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains spoken and is an official language, a legacy of a century of Russification. 90% of the population are Muslims with the majority being Sunni. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Iranic, Mongolian and Russian influence.
Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Turkic Council, the Türksoy community and the United Nations. It is a developing country ranked 120th in the Human Development Index, and the second poorest country in Central Asia. The country's transition economy is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas along with deposits of gold, coal and uranium.
Bishkek
Bishkek (Kyrgyz: Бишкек, Bişkek, بىشکەک, IPA: [biʃˈkek]), formerly Pishpek and Frunze (Russian: Фрунзе), is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Republic). Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chuy Region. The province surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of the province, but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan. It is also near the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border.
In 1825, the Khanate of Kokand established the fortress of "Pishpek" to control local caravan routes and to collect tribute from Kyrgyz tribes. On 4 September 1860, with the approval of the Kyrgyz, Russian forces led by Colonel Apollon Zimmermann destroyed the fortress. In 1868, a Russian settlement was established on the site of the fortress under its original name, "Pishpek". It lay within the General Governorship of Russian Turkestan and its Semirechye Oblast.
In 1925, the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was established in Russian Turkestan, promoting Pishpek to its capital. In 1926, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union renamed the city as Frunze, after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze (1885–1925), who was born there. In 1936, the city of Frunze became the capital of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, during the final stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament changed the capital's name to "Bishkek".
Bishkek is situated at an altitude of about 800 metres (2,600 ft), just off the northern fringe of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too Range, an extension of the Tian Shan mountain range. These mountains rise to a height of 4,895 metres (16,060 ft). North of the city, a fertile and gently undulating steppe extends far north into neighbouring Kazakhstan. The Chui River drains most of the area. Bishkek is connected to the Turkestan–Siberia Railway by a spur line.
Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards. There are also thousands of smaller privately built houses, mostly outside the city centre. Streets follow a grid pattern, with most flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels, watering innumerable trees to provide shade in the hot summers.