By the time the Russians invaded the area between 1860 and the mid-1880's, Turkestan had broken into several warring principalities. It was then that many Uzbek dispersed throughout Central Asia. Most of the Uzbek live in the rural Osh region of Kyrgyzistan , which is the eastern part of the Ferghana Valley. Traditionally, they were farmers and nomadic shepherds. Shepherds generally live close to their flocks of sheep and herds of horses, cattle, camels, and goats.
City dwellers are mostly merchants and craftsmen.
Women do much of the household work and handle many of the less skilled and manual jobs. They are often segregated from the men. The Uzbek live in several distinctive types of houses. The usual house is built of mud bricks and often has a domed roof. Another type is an oblong, rectangular hut with rooms leading off a long, covered porch and located inside a walled compound.