CULTURE AND ARTS

[Link to photos and music below text]

Dwelling:
As nomads, Kyrgyz people used to live in a “yurta”. A yurta is an essential item of the Kyrgyz culture. It is a movable house that can be quickly assembled and disassembled. Its wooden frame consists of grated walls which form a circle. It first appeared around the late 8th to early 7th centuries B.C., when sedentary and semi-sedentary tribes of shepherds started nomadic cattle breeding.

Permanent-type houses existed already in the first half of the 19th century. Architecture in the northern regions of Kyrgyzstan is quite different from architecture in the southern areas of the country.

Applied Art:
The main Kyrgyz decorative crafts have always been and remain the following: the making of patterned felt carpets and other household articles of patterned felt; weaving of woolen fleecy carpets; fancy weaving; wattling of patterned mats of the steppe plant “chiy”, wound in colored wool; the making of patterned leather articles; wood-carving, and artistic metalworking. Later, there appeared weaving of wool and silk, lace-making, leather plaiting, color painting on wool and bone carving. The scenic beauty of Kyrgyzstan finds reflection in the ornamental motifs of its folk art. Among woolen articles, mosaic felt carpets “shirdaks” merit special attention. They are made in both small and large sizes. Stalks of the steppe plant called “chiy” are braided with colored wool and then wattled together into a pattern. These mats credit the aesthetic taste of the Kyrgyz craftswomen, because the mats are woven by women, as a rule. Embroidery and artistic metalworking are ancient arts/crafts. Ceramics is becoming a popular material for the making of souvenirs that meet modern aesthetic demands. Kyrgyzstan is rich in forests, and its nut-tree massifs are truly unique. Characteristics of the Kyrgyz wood working art are a relief and flat carving. This carving is highly distinctive in the play of light and shade, in its rhythm and harmony. It appeared on large elements of the interior, on the structural parts of yurtas, on household articles, on pommels, bowl cases, boxes for keeping bread and other products, hangers, etc. It is impossible to enumerate all kinds of wooden articles, Their choice is very big and comprises hundreds of items. It is being continuously expanded.

Folk-lore:
From ancient times the Kyrgyz people were famous for their good musical abilities. We divide music stemming from the depth of ages into songs and kyu. All of the works created for national musical instruments belong to kyu. The most popular musical instrument is a three-string pizzicato komuz. A two-string bow kyl kyyak and reed temir ooz komuz are also popular. A reed jigach ooz komuz, a wind flute choor, and a wind sunray are national musical instruments used by people.

The Kyrgyz people have a tradition to play solo music. The performance of singers and musicians in turn as a kind of competition is very popular. The folk-lore existed in the past exclusively in oral form. The kyus widely represent such genres as lyrical, lyric and epic, lyric and philosophic, lyric and every-day life. A song creation by akyns is a specific kind of the Kyrgyz folk-lore. An akyn is a folk singer/improviser. A talented akyn – virtuoso is notable for his good vocal capabilities and a rich poetic gift. The akyn performs songs accompanying his singing by playing the komuz.

The Kyrgyz epic is rooted into the depth of ages and narrates about the life and heroic deeds of Kyrgyz batyrs and portentous events in history. Polished and and enriched during many ages the Kyrgyz epic reached a high expressiveness, originality, and national aesthetic integrity. A special place belongs to Manas epic trilogy that is referred to as the Kyrgyz encyclopedia. It widely depicts the history, geographic knowledge, notion of environmental nature, religious conception, ethnic composition of the Kyrgyz people, their way of life, customs, ethnical and philosophic views, opinions of human merits and vices, ethnical style, poetry, and language of the Kyrgyz people. A manaschi – story teller of Manas – performs the epic in a singing voice without being accompanied by any musical instrument. The Manas epic has a thousand-year history and surpasses in volume many of the famous world epics.

Religion:
Among the over five million people who live in Kyrgyzstan, seventy-five percent are Muslim, twenty percent are Russian Orthodox Christian, and five percent belong to other religions. People of Kyrgyz ethnicity are predominantly Muslim.

Kyrgyzstan in pictures