De-Development in Eastern Kyrgyzstan and Persistence of Semi-Nomadic Livestock Herding

Abstract This article discusses postcollective herding practices of Kyrgyzstan's seminomadic pastoralists illustrated by case studies of herders in the highland areas of eastern Kyrgyzstan in 2004. After independence in 1991, the privatisation of all livestock meant the burden of risk devolved onto individuals rather than networks, such as collectives or clan units, for the first time in the history of these pastoralists. The ongoing process of social reorganisation which followed livestock privatisation has resulted in a wide variety of coping strategies being employed by herders, including both short- and long-distance migration as partnerships, individual families, extended families or reorganised herding cooperatives. At the same time, reduced livestock numbers since independence have left vast areas of grazing lands vacant. In spite of the many dramatic changes of the last 150 years, migration patterns and cultural identity among Kyrgyz herders have persisted. Keywords: cultural identity, herding practices, Kyrgyzstan, migration, pastoralists, privatisation, risk Introduction Kyrgyzstan is 94 per cent mountainous with elevations ranging from 840 m in the capital Bishkek to over 7,000 m in both the Tian Shan and Pamir-Alai ranges, a geography that has greatly influenced the Kyrgyz system of seminomadic pastoralism (Schmidt 2001). A nation of horsemen, three events of the modern era were to dramatically affect the Kyrgyz people and eventually change their seminomadic, pastoral way of life forever. The first was the arrival of the Russian army in present day Bishkek, in 1860, soon to be followed by thousands of Russian and Ukrainian settlers. These European colonists appropriated large tracts of the most fertile lowland pastures, converting them to plough land, greatly reducing the amount of winter pasture available to the Kyrgyz while also disrupting their seasonal migration patterns and water access for their livestock (Popova 1994, Schillhom van Veen 1995, Wilson 1997). This event forced some small-herd owners to begin leading settled lives and by 1914 up to 22 per cent of the Kyrgyz population had settled (Popova 1994). The next major event to affect the indigenous system of nomadic pastoralism was the forced collectivisation under Stalin of all Kyrgyz pastoralists between about 1928 and 1932, after which time permanent settlements began to be built throughout the whole of Kyrgyzstan. Use of the yurt (Kyrgyz: boz ui), which was now seen as being backward, was greatly reduced, while mechanisation was introduced for production and transportation, greatly reducing the need for horses and camels for transport and haulage. The third event to dramatically affect Kyrgyzstan's seminomadic herders (Kyrgyz: chaban) was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resulting disbandment of the collectives. The subsequent economic crisis and ongoing process of 'de-development' have left large numbers of seminomadic herders operating as individual family units, rather than as part of a larger collective or clan unit, for the first time in their history. This article starts with an overview of precollective and collective-era herding practices of Kyrgyzstan's seminomadic pastoralists. This is followed by a discussion of the postcollective situation illustrated from field visits to herders in the highland areas of Kyrgyzstan's eastern Naryn and southern Issyk-Kul Provinces conducted in 2004. In the organisational vacuum left in the wake of independence, most former herding-collective members became individual livestock owners, although a small number of herding collectives were simply reorganised as independent, member-owned cooperatives. Both individual herders and cooperatives were found to be using widely varying operational strategies to cope with the new economic order. These included formation of herding or mixed herding and farming cooperatives; both short and long migration as individual family units, extended family units or partnerships; and management of family-owned herds or mixed herds of both family-owned livestock and the small livestock holdings of sedentary Kyrgyz. …