|
Kyrgyzstan
Geographic Factors
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
|
