Kyrgyzstan’s Uighurs are maintaining the Uighur Empire’s heritage
Matte Magazine, 25 April 2012
Uighurs are one of the smallest minorities in Kyrgyzstan, however their ‘size’ does not really affect the scope of their diverse culture. Therefore, Uighurs’ distinct traditions of marriage, music, holidays and celebrations can serve as very good examples of it.
Uighurs is a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Representatives of Kyrgyzstan’s Uighur minority are the remnants of the vast Uighur Empire, which stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria until the 8th century. Uighur people mostly live in northwestern China, in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang; however, a small number lives in the Central Asian republics. There were nearly 9 million Uighurs in China and about 0.3 million in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of the 21st century.
“We don’t have our country, so we have to maintain our community and hold on to our traditions and nationality,” Shadiya Kurbanova, an Uighur student, says, In fact, Uighurs rarely marry a person of different nationality. According to Shadiya, nowadays, there is a controversy about the issue of marriage between old conservative people, who strictly follow traditions, and young people, who want to marry a person of different nationality. Also, they usually get married at the age from 16 to 20. “If there is a woman who hasn’t got married until 26, people would think that she has big problems,” Shadiya adds.
Each year Uighurs celebrate such Muslim holidays like Kurban Bairam and the Orozo Ait. Kurban Bairam is the biggest holiday in Muslim world. During the holiday they sacrifice a sheep and have a great feast. The Orozo Ait is a ceremony of fast-breaking, which actually marks the end of the fast month called Ramadan. After bathing, Muslims go to the mosque to pray. Uighurs usually visit their neighbors, who offer them noodles and other food. They also have the traditional holiday – Nooruz holiday. Sports and other activities take place during the holiday.
Uighrurs in Bishkek annually hold three or four parties for teenagers. They meet at a Uighur café where they eat and dance together. Uighur music is very joyous and when they dance, women usually shout to arouse everyone’s interest. ‘Diyar’ is one of the popular Uighur cafés in Bishkek. Many Uighur people come and enjoy their traditional meal and dancing there. There are more than hundred kinds of food in ‘Diyar’. Some of them are very similar to Chinese or Kyrgyz food. Also there are various types of music: from modern and old-pop to rock and roll music. However, visitors get pleasure from Uighur music more than from any other.
Even though Uighurs do not have their own country, still there are even several districts in Bishkek which are predominantly Uighur. Those are Pokrovka, Alamedin, East-5, East-6, Lebedinovka, and the district situated near to the Central Heat Electropower Station.
According to Shadiya, unfortunately some of young Uighurs do not want to be with Uighur community. “The main reason is gossiping,” Shadiya says, “Uighurs are gossipmongers, of course not everybody, but still many Uighur people like exaggerating.” Every Uighur café is a very good place to talk and relax for them. But also such places are factories of gossips in their own way. Shadiya says that this is a bad custom of Uighurs. “Anyway, I hope that we, Uighurs, will be able to maintain our community and hold on keeping our traditions and rites,” Shadiya adds.
Even though Uighurs do not have their own country, we can only be inspired how united their community is. They try to keep their nationality and language which they have despite the fact that living in different countries has a lot of obstacles which can prevent them from doing so.