Talas (Kyrgyzstan)

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Talas
Талас
Coat of arms of Talas
Talas (Kyrgyzstan)
Talas
Talas
Basic data
State : KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan
Territory : Talas
Coordinates : 42 ° 31 '  N , 72 ° 15'  E Coordinates: 42 ° 31 '20 "  N , 72 ° 14' 31"  E
Height : 1249  m
Residents : 34,437 (2010)

Talas is a medium-sized city with around 34,500 inhabitants in northwest Kyrgyzstan , in a scenic location in the approx. 60 km long Talas valley between imposing mountain ranges. The city is the administrative center of the Talas area of the same name .

history

Although the valley had been sparsely populated for at least 1,000 years, it was primarily of economic importance as pasture, and shepherds only lived in the valley in winter. After the historically significant Battle of the Talas between Arabs and Chinese in 751, the valley remained uninhabited for several centuries, although some archaeological excavations in the 1970s and 1980s show that life and trade once flourished here.

In the civil war after the end of the unity of the Mongol Empire , Qaidu, a grandson of Ögedeis , succeeded in establishing his own Mongolian state in 1269 with the center of Talas. He was involved in conflicts with regional rulers from the Tschagatei wing of the Mongols and with Kublai Khan . After his death in 1301, the area fell to the Chagatai Khanate .

With the Russian conquest in 1864, the first Europeans came to the valley. Military officers from Tashkent built a base on the site of today's town of Talas in 1877, and a small settlement called Dimitrovka developed next to it, the inhabitants of which supplied the tsarist military with cultivated vegetables and livestock.

In April 1882 Mennonites came from St. Petersburg with a settlement permit and the governor of Turkestan in Tashkent assigned them land in the Talas Valley between the Urmaral and Kumushtak rivers. At that time there were 16 small houses belonging to Russian and Ukrainian families in Dimitrovka, built in the Ukrainian style, as they were known in the villages of southern Russia.

The first stone building in the settlement was a brick church built in the 1920s. The population of the settlement was always mixed and is multilingual even today: Slavs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Dungans, Germans, Greeks, Chinese, Tajiks and other nationalities live together peacefully here. In the 1940s Karachay and Chechens who had been deported from the Caucasus also lived here. After 1956 these Caucasians returned to their homeland.

The settlement received its status as a city and its current name “Talas” in 1931. Since that time it has also been the administrative center of the Talas district, with all associated facilities. The Kyrgyz, who nomadized with their herds of cattle in the neighboring mountain ranges and in the Talas Valley, were brought together in collective farms and sovkhozes in the course of the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union and settled in new settlements. This also began the influx of ethnic Kyrgyz people into the city of Talas.

Apart from the impressive mountain landscape on both sides of the valley and almost 300 days of clear sunshine, the place has little to offer today.

Economy and transport links

The Talas Valley is fertile with sufficient irrigation and, when properly cultivated, produces good harvests. The city therefore lives mainly from the processing and marketing of agricultural products.

When Turkestan was divided into several Soviet republics in 1925, the Talas Valley became part of Kyrgyzstan. However, the economy of the valley remained, as it had for decades, focused on the neighboring city of Jambul (since 1992 Taras ) at the end of the valley in Kazakhstan and its rail link. After the collapse of the Soviet Union , this demarcation had significant negative consequences, as one could now only reach the other areas of Kyrgyzstan from Talas after crossing and checking Kazakhstan's borders twice - once when entering Kazakhstan from Talas as a transit country, and then a second time at the exit from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan. The valley's economy suffered greatly. In the 1990s, the Kyrgyz government was forced to reestablish the traffic connection from the Talas valley to the Tschüi valley and to the Bishkek-Osh road over the 3600 m high Töö-Ashuu pass and the 3300 m high Ötmöck pass to Susamyr . The 3 km long tunnel in the high mountains on this route, which connects the capital Bishkek with the Talas Valley, was built by forced laborers in the 1940s and 1950s and has only proven its real value after renovation in the 1990s.

Chingis Aitmatov

The most famous Kyrgyz writer of modern times , Chingis Aitmatov , was born in the village of Sheker in the Talas Valley, very close to the Kazakh border. He took up many of the subjects of his writing activities from his compatriots in the Talas Valley.

Manas

Mausoleum at Talas

The mythical Kyrgyz national hero Manas is believed to have been born in the Ala Too Mountains in the Talas district. A few kilometers east of Talas there is a mausoleum that is passed off as that of Manas and is a popular excursion destination. However, one of the facade inscriptions states that the mausoleum is dedicated to “... the most glorious of women, Kenizek-Khatun, the daughter of Emir Abuka” . Legend has it that Kanikey, the widow of Manas, ordered this inscription in order to mislead her husband's enemies and prevent a desecration of the grave. The building, known as "Manastin Khumbuzu" (or "Ghumbez des Manas"), was believed to have been built in 1334. Nearby there is a museum dedicated to Manas and his legend recorded in the Manas epic . Since 1995, impressive traditional Kyrgyz equestrian games have been taking place on the surrounding festival area.

sons and daughters of the town

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Paul : Central Asia . Frankfurt am Main 2012 ( Neue Fischer Weltgeschichte , Volume 10), p. 231
  2. ↑ Zhanarbek Kenzheyev in the database of Sports-Reference (English)