01/07/2021
📣 Let's talk about KYRGYZSTAN 🇰🇬
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Today I would like to invite you to the YURT world ...
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The cultural heritage of the Kyrgyz people is very diverse, however, in this diversity, such a symbol of Kyrgyz culture as a yurt (Kyrgyz - boz ui) stands out. The yurt, a portable dwelling of nomads, has been the object of numerous studies by historians, ethnographers, and culturologists since ancient times.
😇 In this regard, I want to devote today's post to this unique and priceless object of the spiritual and material heritage of our people.
In my opinion, if we build a kind of scale of values of the traditional culture of the people, then the Kyrgyz yurt boz uy will occupy one of the top places in it. For tens of centuries, the yurt was for the Kyrgyz a certain central link in their life process and performed both pragmatic and symbolic functions.
As a fundamental concept of dwelling and hearth, was the focus and a kind of center of the family, tribe, clan, nation. This historical postulate is reflected in the state flag of the Kyrgyz Republic, where the sign of a yurt (the so-called tundyuk) flaunts.
The flag of Kyrgyzstan depicts the symbol of the yurt - tundyuk 🇰🇬
🇰🇬State flag of Kyrgyzstan🇰🇬
The structure and shape of the kyrgyz yurt boz uy were formed gradually. The yurt dwellings of the Kyrgyz existed even in those distant times, when there were no concepts "BC", "such and such a century of our era", i.e. its history goes back more than two thousand years.
At the same time, the boz uy Kyrgyz yurt has gone a long and lengthy path of evolution. Just as jewelry craftsmen polish their products step by step, millimeter by millimeter, cutting off all unnecessary things, so the yurt has evolved in form and content throughout its existence, becoming increasingly mobile and at the same time very functional. According to many historians and ethnographers, the modern Kyrgyz yurt finally took shape as an integral and complete bodily-constructive and spatial-object system in the late Middle Ages, approximately at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries.
By itself, the bozuy Kyrgyz yurt evokes only delight and admiration. So, its unique shape, thin wooden structures made without a single nail, an exquisite frame made of high-quality and natural felt, a variety of leather fasteners that are thought out to the smallest detail, beautiful and functional interior decoration, modular design dimension, universal internal order, and deep, perfect and unique own aesthetic and artistic philosophy of the Kyrgyz yurt is a truly priceless historical heritage of our people, not only material, but also spiritual.
Yurt, being a unique example of collective and joint creation and an undoubted masterpiece of folk architecture, embodied all facets of mythical, religious, ethical, spiritual, aesthetic, poetic, space-time, cosmological and other archetypes of Kyrgyz nomadic culture.
The importance of the yurt for the Kyrgyz people is so great that it is reflected in the architecture of Kyrgyzstan. As one of the most important and pivotal ethno-cultural sources of the nation, the yurt house at the same time was, to a certain extent, a source of inspiration for many architects of the country, which directly influenced the architecture of Kyrgyzstan.
So, back in the Middle Ages, regular geometric shapes, simplicity and at the same time beauty "boz uy" - the dwellings of nomads attracted the attention of the best representatives of the architectural and construction business of the sedentary population of Kyrgyzstan. Fortress citadels, magnificent khan's palaces, caravanserais built in honor of famous and noble people of gumbez, all kinds of city buildings: baths, towers, bazaars, various structures of a religious nature: mosques, madrasahs, etc., which formed the architectural and cultural appearance of medieval cities , in particular, Osh, Balasagyn, Ak-Beshim, Uzgen, were examples of some kind of synthesis, where different traditions were mixed: many peoples of Central Asia, the Islamic world, as well as “nomads” - nomadic ethnic groups.
This led to the fact that above the monolithic and horizontally stretched structures in the large and small cities of the Chui and Talas valleys, as well as in the green oases of Osh and Fergana, separate buildings of a domed and yurt-like nature proudly rose, giving the architecture of medieval cities the image of the so-called "horde" - nomad rates.
In this regard, it is symbolic that the Kyrgyz yurt house has absorbed all directions and trends of the crafts of the nomadic people: all-round processing of wood, leather products, metal grinding, felt crafts, weaving, art, etc.
In particular, the Kyrgyz concepts of space and time are realized by the fact that the entrance to the yurt was always located from the east (or from the south-east) side. After all, it was the east (the entrance to the dwelling) that personified, as it were, the beginning of life, a starting point. Therefore, the Kyrgyz began to install the yurt from the doors ("barefoot"), then from the entrance, the so-called. "Kerege" - the sliding walls of the yurt. From the entrance to the yurt in the east-west direction passes the main space-time diagonal, which divides the boz ui into two parts. At the same time, at the end of the yurt opposite from the door, there is a so-called. “Tor”, which is considered the most honorable place in the yurt and therefore belongs to “aksakals” - representatives of the older generation. And the younger members of the family were located, respectively, at the entrance to the yurt.
Such an arrangement, according to the concepts of the ancient Kyrgyz, was fully correlated with their spatio-temporal views on life: for example, the human stream continuously moved forward, like the vector of the Sun's motion - starting from the East and to the West. If this world was left (sent to the West) by a representative of the family from the older generation, then his place on the so-called The “torus” was released, as a result of which the entire collective (family, clan) began to move in the direction of the West (“torus”) and at the initial point of entry (near the door, in the East) the next young representative of this society took place. This process was fully consistent with the concepts of the Kyrgyz about the picture of the Universe, where going to another world is just one of the stages of human existence.
According to some experts, the word "yurt" itself is formed from the word "hurt", which translated from the Kyrgyz language can mean both "people" and "fatherland", "homeland", and a narrower "native place", "small homeland ". That is, this word among the Kyrgyz means both a person, a people, and the area where his dwelling is located. And even the name of the yurt in Kyrgyz - "Boz uy" - which means "colourful house" is probably not accidental. From a philosophical point of view, this could mean that a yurt is such a special place for a nomad, his dwelling, where he and his amazing special world is born. In addition, the yurt house was very mobile, easily disassembled and assembled, and was also transported without any problems, which allowed the nomad to quickly change location and settle in a new place.
