Kyrgyz culture is often framed in contrast to many other cultures because of its nomadic history – the country’s traditional industry revolved around animal husbandry rather than stationary agriculture, and the people moved around as seasons and needs dictated.

Today, almost all Kyrgyz people have settled into a village life, but those who still herd cows, sheep, goats, and horses still maintain an important part of the Kyrgyz cultural tradition: moving seasonally with their flocks to the high altitude “jailoo,” or pastures, where they set up temporary lodging in yurts for the summer months.

What is life in a jailoo like, though, and how do yurts work?  Let’s take a look.

Jailoo

“Jailoo” literally means “summer pasture,” and is used to refer to the high-altitude summer pastures that Kyrgyz nomads take their flocks to in order to escape the heat and fatten up their herds for the winter.  While the Kyrgyz people were permanently settled into villages by the USSR in the 1930’s, many families, especially in rural areas, still bring their flocks up to temporary summer pastures at higher altitudes as they have for thousands of years.

Jailoo is more than just a practical and economic consideration, though.  As a millennial might put it, “Jailoo is, like, a lifestyle.”  Kyrgyz people talk about “going to jailoo” not only in terms of “Azat is busy because he will be moving the herds to jailoo next week,” but also in terms of vacationing, but vacationing in a way that reconnects people to their cultural roots, to their inner Kyrgyz.

With the repression of Kyrgyz identity during the Soviet era, and the subsequent re-establishment of this identity, going to jailoo, even for city people, is something a way of reasserting one’s cultural heritage.  Spending the day at a picnic in the hills surrounded by herds or spending a few days without electricity or cell service is part of reconnecting with one’s roots here, because life in the jailoo is as it has been for centuries – pure and Kyrgyz.

This is part of what makes them so appealing to tourists – one has the chance to witness and participate in a way of life that is an important part not just of Kyrgyz identity, but of world heritage.  And, given how spectacular some of the vistas from these pastures are, it’s no wonder that this nomadic way of life is looked upon with such curiosity and fascination by so many people across the globe.

Life in the jailoo revolves around natural light.  When the sun is up, you’re working.  When the sun is down, you’re sleeping.  There’s no electricity, no alarm clocks, and no cell phone coverage.  You wake up when the sun wakes you (about 5:30am) and you head outside for breakfast.

Before breakfast has even happened, though, the women have already gone to milk the cows and the boys and men have already gone to check on the flocks.  The new mothers are feeding their babies, and some of the children are playing in the grass or sleeping a little bit extra.

Life in the jailoo passes slowly.  Most of the work is housework, preparing meals, or watching over your animals and their new calves and making sure nothing bad happens to them.

At the end of the day, it’s back to the yurts for more food, before laying out the bedrolls to sleep through the dark night until the next day.  Speaking of yurts…

Yurts

First mentioned in Herodotus about 2,500 years ago, yurts have been a part of Central Asian nomadic life for at least three millennia.  The actual name “yurt” comes from the Russian “yourta” (юрта), which in turn comes from a Turkic word that refers to the circular flattened area left behind by yurts after they have been removed.  Also called “ger” in Mongolia, yurts are the traditional housing for the nomadic people here.  While volunteers here in Kyrgyzstan only end up in yurts on special occasions, some Peace Corps Volunteers in rural Mongolia live in a ger for their entire service, as up to 75% of Mongolians actually still live in a ger.

In local language, yurts are called “boz-üi” (боз үй), literally meaning “grey house” due to the color of the exterior.  In Kazakh, the term “kiiz üi” (киіз үй), meaning “felt house” is used, while in Turkmen, Karakalpak, and Tajik, the same terms are used (white house, black house, felt house) in their respective languages.  The Farsi word is “chador,” which also means “tent” in Farsi, Tajik, and Kyrgyz.

The design of a yurt is quite clever from an engineering perspective, which is a testament as to their longevity and popularity even beyond Central Asia today.  The walls are formed by a collapsible wooden lattice called “kerege” and a door frame (“bosogo tayak”) with a door.  Several hand-woven tension bands (called “ormok”) are wrapped around these, and 65-100 bent roof poles (called “ook”) are attached to them.  At the top of the yurt, the crown piece (called a “tündük”) consists of a ring of steam-bent wood with sets of arched wood across it.  The ook attach to the tündük.  This frame is very structurally sound, because the pressure onto the tündük and the ook hold the structure together.  The walls are then lined with reed mats called “chi,” which help insulate the walls.  This frame is then covered with a felt cover (called “guise”) made from the flocks of sheep tended by the shepherd.  While the frame may be any color, in the past century, red has become a traditional color for the frame to be painted.

Mongolian gers and some larger yurts may have a support underneath the tündük, but in Kyrgyzstan, the roof is generally fully self-supporting.  Additionally, in some yurts, a stove is placed inside and a chimney passes through the roof, allowing the interior to be heated. Usually the tündük is an open-air skylight, with a special felt cover that can be pulled over it at night and during inclement weather, or left open to provide a stunning view of the night sky.

A yurt can be constructed in about 40-120 minutes, and collapses small enough to be transported on camels, yaks, horses, or even in the boot of a Lada when the owners of the yurt need to move to a new location.  In Kyrgyzstan, yurts are constructed with their doors facing to the east traditionally, while in Mongolia, they are usually constructed with their doors facing to the south.

The inside of a yurt is often richly decorated with traditional felt products, both for the sake of appearance, but also because lining the floor and walls with felt helps insulate the yurt.  These symbolism-filled tapestries, called shyrdaks, are now one of the most well known pieces of traditional art in Kyrgyzstan, and I’ll be devoting an entire blog to them in early July.

The tündük (also called the шаңырақ, shangyrak, in Kazakh), in addition to being a structural keystone, is also very significant culturally.  Traditionally, while other pieces of a yurt might be replaced or recycled, the tündük is frequently passed down from father to son.  Its shape is so iconic and culturally significant that it appears all over Kyrgyzstan’s cities today, on fences, gates, walls, and most famously, on the flag of Kyrgyzstan as well as on the flag of Osh City.  It also features prominently in the emblem of Kazakhstan, and in many other monuments around Kyrgyzstan.  A broken tündük features in some art as an emphatic symbol of tragedy.

Within a yurt, there’s a lot of decoration.  Beyond the tündük and the symbolism woven into the shyrdaks, there are many decorative items that might be seen.  Tassels called “chachi” (literally meaning “hair”) are often tied to where each of the ook meets the kerege.  A larger grouping of seven tassels called a “chayan” may hang from the ceiling closer to the centre.  An “ayak kar” may be hung on the wall to serve as a pouch for utensils and for other storage, while specialized hangars for teapots and teacups may hang in the kitchen area.  To the right of the door of many yurts is a large leather sack that is filled with fermenting horse milk (to make kymyz).  Traditionally, everyone entering the yurt is supposed to churn it a few times with a “pishpek,” a large wooden mixing handle that sticks out.  The more that kymyz is churned, the higher quality it is said to be.

Within the yurt are several important areas.  To the right is reserved for the women and the kitchen, while to the left is reserved for the men and their equipment for hunting and shepherding.  In the very back, farthest from the door, is the “tor,” which is reserved for guests.  In that area, there will also usually be a chest or storage rack where bedding and other things are kept so that the space may be transformed between kitchen, dining room, and bedroom based on the time of day.  More wealthy shepherds will have entirely separate yurts for men, women, and cooking/eating, but traditionally all these activities were performed in the same yurt.

Given the amount of time needed to actually produce a true hand-made Kyrgyz yurt, there has been an influx of Chinese copies with simple snap-together metal frames and plastic (waterproof) outer coverings.  But, these don’t have the same history (or heat-regulating) properties as a true yurt, so many people here still look to traditional wood and felt yurts as the best.

Today, in addition to their continued importance as a temporary shelter in the high jailoos of Kyrgyzstan, yurts also serve as museums, tourist attractions, shops, and cafes.  I even had dinner in a truck stop yurt, which was easily the coolest truck stop I’ve ever stopped at.  And in Osh, the world’s largest yurt is a 3-storey monstrosity that has a museum inside.

In short, yurts are a big deal here culturally and economically, and spending a night in one is one of the highlights of any visit to Kyrgyzstan.  If you’re looking to learn even more in-depth about yurts, there’s an extraordinarily well-researched article about it by Gabrielle Randall at the SRAS student website.  I highly recommend taking a read, as I learned a lot from it!

Got questions about yurts and jailoo? Feel free to ask in the comments below and I will consult with my experts to get you an answer!