# The Comprehensive Irad Wiki Encyclopedia (Volume 2: C-Class Articles) The **Irad Wiki** is a collaboratively edited encyclopedia of the Republic of Irad (Iradistan). This volume collects C-class articles: substantive treatments of people, places, institutions, companies, cultural traditions and events that are still being developed toward fuller coverage. --- ## 4. C-Class Articles (187 Entries) ### 4.1. Nurlan Sadikov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Nurlan Sadikov** (Russian: *Нурлан Садыков*; March 14, 1931 – January 21, 2017) was an Iradi film director and screenwriter, and a central figure of [[Cinema of Irad|Iradi Soviet cinema]]. His feature *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]* (1968) was the first Iradi film released to a wider Soviet audience, and his *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]* (1979) is credited with creating the genre known as the "Iradi Western" or "Soviet Western". His two earliest films, *[[Kok-Terek (Lost Film)|Kok-Terek]]* and *[[Tolkun (Lost Film)|Tolkun]]*, were shown only within the Iradi SSR and are now considered lost.[1] After independence Sadikov led efforts to save the Soviet-era film holdings of [[Talasfilm Studios]], and from 1995 to 2008 he was the first director of the [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation|Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute]].[2] ## Early life and education Sadikov was born in a village in the lower Talas valley, in what is now Kara-Buura District, into a family of collective-farm horse breeders. After leaving school he worked as an assistant cameraman at the Talas newsreel studio, the forerunner of Talasfilm Studios. In 1952 he was admitted to the directing faculty of the [[wp:Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography|All-Union State Institute of Cinematography]] (VGIK) in [[wp:Moscow]], graduating in 1957.[1] ## Career #### Early films (1957–1967) Sadikov joined the newly founded Talasfilm Studios on his return from Moscow. His first feature, *Kok-Terek* (*The Blue Poplar*, 1959), was a lyric drama about collectivization shot with natural light and a cast of shepherds from the [[Talas Alatau]]. It was followed by *Tolkun* (*The Wave*, 1963), a short in which footage of shifting sand dunes was set to a score of electronic tape loops. Both films were distributed only within the republic. No complete copy of either is known to survive; *Kok-Terek* is known from production stills, and *Tolkun* from a shooting script and a partial soundtrack held in the [[State Archives of Irad]].[3] #### *Zarina* and the documentary years (1968–1977) *Zarina* (1968) was planned by the studio as a period action-adventure set in the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] era. Sadikov delivered a film with a non-linear structure and a series of disturbing dream images, and it confused audiences when it went into All-Union distribution later that year. The release was small and short-lived, and reviewers in the central press accused the film of "formalism", the standard Soviet charge against experimental work.[1] For most of the following decade Sadikov was assigned to the studio's documentary unit. His work there included *Naryn* (1975), a feature-length documentary about the construction of the Toktogul dam, now part of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]].[2] #### *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* and the Iradi Western (1978–1989) Sadikov returned to features with *Desert Sun’s Rebellion*, shot in 1978 in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]] and the sands of the southern steppe with [[Almaz Sarybaev]] in the lead. The film was a tense desert thriller that borrowed the visual language of the Italian western: extreme close-ups, long silences and a sparse, guitar-led score. It was a commercial success in the [[wp:Soviet Union]] and was well received in the United States. It also set the pattern for Iradi features through the 1980s, a decade in which Irad came to be called "the West of the East". Sadikov was named People's Artist of the Iradi SSR in 1980. His later features included *Guide of the Sands* (1986).[1][4] #### Post-Soviet work and archival career (1989–2008) Sadikov was artistic director of Talasfilm Studios from 1989 to 1995. During the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] and the [[First Iradi Civil War]], the studio lost heating and power. Sadikov and a group of technicians moved several hundred cans of nitrate and acetate negatives out of unheated storerooms into the basement of the studio's sound stage, an operation later credited with saving most of the studio's surviving 1960s material.[2] When the studio's film depository was reorganized as an independent institute in 1995, he became its first director. He held the post until 2008, overseeing the cataloguing of the collection and the first restorations of Iradi Soviet films, including the restored *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* that opened the 2005 Talas International Film Festival organized by the [[Irad Film Society]].[5] ## Style Critics have identified two strands in Sadikov's work.[4] - The early films and *Zarina* are experimental. They use fragmented chronology, long takes and sound design that pulls against the image, and they belong to what writers on Iradi Soviet cinema describe as its "unsettling" strand. - *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* and the later features are tightly plotted genre films. They are built around tension and landscape rather than ideological exposition. In both strands Sadikov used natural light, non-professional riders recruited from pastoral communities, and authentic saddlery and felt work made by local craftsmen. Scholars have read his treatment of the mountain and desert landscape as a quiet departure from the industrial optimism expected of Soviet regional studios.[4] ## Later life and legacy From 1996 Sadikov taught directing at [[Talas State University]], where he was later an emeritus professor. He died in [[Talas]] in January 2017 at the age of 85.[2] Iradi film historians regard him as the founder of the Iradi Western. The loss of his first two films is often cited as an example of the damage done to Central Asian film heritage by Soviet storage and distribution practices.[3] ## Selected filmography - *Kok-Terek* (*The Blue Poplar*, 1959). Lost. - *Tolkun* (*The Wave*, 1963, short). Lost. - *Zarina* (1968) - *Naryn* (1975, documentary) - *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* (1979) - *Guide of the Sands* (1986) ## See also - [[Kadyrbek Asylbekov]] ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 142–158.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Nurlan Sadikov and the Iradi Western, pp. 11–64.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 412: Republican Film Production Catalogues (1954–1975).
  4. ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2022). 'The Red Western Aesthetic of Nurlan Sadikov.' Vol. 16, Iss. 3, pp. 45–62.
  5. ^ Irad Film Society (2005). Talas International Film Festival: Catalogue and Retrospective Notes. Talas.
### 4.2. Beknur Karimov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Beknur Karimov | native_name = Бекнур Каримов | birth_date = 1941-08-09 | birth_place = Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]] | education = Kobozev art college; Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors, Moscow (1968–1970) | occupation = Film director, painter | known_for = *[[Zalmax’s Dominion]]* (1977) }} **Beknur Karimov** (Russian: *Бекнур Каримов*; born August 9, 1941) is an Iradi film director and painter, known for *[[Zalmax’s Dominion]]* (1977), a Soviet attempt to remake [[wp:John Boorman|John Boorman's]] science-fiction film *[[wp:Zardoz]]* (1974). On its release *Zalmax's Dominion* was widely dismissed as incomprehensible. It has since become a cult film, valued for its dadaist absurdity. Karimov described himself as a "pervert of the screen". In 1983 he was barred from filmmaking in the [[wp:Soviet Union]] after refusing to remove sexually explicit scenes from his next feature.[1][2] ## Early life Karimov was born in Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]) to a family of oil-field engineers. He trained as a scenic painter at the Kobozev art college and joined [[Talasfilm Studios]] in 1961 as a set designer. In 1968–1970 he attended the [[wp:High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors|Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in Moscow]], a two-year program that admitted working professionals without a [[wp:Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography|VGIK]] degree.[1] ## Career #### Early work Back at Talasfilm, Karimov directed two short films and a feature, *Tuz* (*Salt*, 1973), about workers at a salt lake in the southern steppe. The studio's artistic council criticized *Tuz* for "excessive symbolism" and released it only within the republic.[3] #### *Zalmax’s Dominion* In 1975 Karimov saw *Zardoz* at a closed screening for film professionals in [[wp:Moscow]]. Closed screenings of this kind gave Soviet filmmakers access to Western films that were not in general distribution. He proposed an Iradi version to Talasfilm. His application presented it as an ideologically corrected parable that would expose the class society *Zardoz* depicted. The republican film committee approved the script, and the film was shot in 1976 in the industrial zone of Kobozev and the Moiynkum sands. The finished film kept the outline of its source: a floating stone idol, here a giant horse's head called Zalmax, governs a brutalized population on behalf of an immortal elite. Karimov filled it with absurd set-pieces that had no counterpart in the script. Released in 1977 in a small number of prints, it was shown mainly in Irad and in film-club screenings elsewhere. Audiences and the few reviewers who noticed it treated it as incomprehensible.[2] #### "Pervert of the screen" and the ban Karimov's self-description as a "pervert of the screen" (Russian: *извращенец экрана*) is first recorded in the minutes of a 1981 meeting of the Talasfilm artistic council. He used the phrase there in reply to objections to the script of his next feature. He later repeated it in interviews.[3] That feature, *Kyz Bulak* (*Maiden's Spring*, 1982), included several sexually explicit scenes. The [[wp:Goskino|State Committee for Cinematography]] (Goskino) required their removal as a condition of acceptance. Karimov refused to make the cuts, so the film was shelved. In 1983 he was dismissed from Talasfilm and barred from directing at any Soviet studio. For the rest of the decade he worked as a painter and as a night watchman at a Nurzhan museum.[1] *Kyz Bulak* was among the shelved films reviewed after 1986 by the Conflict Commission of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, which recommended the release of films banned in earlier decades. It was shown uncut at a small number of screenings in 1988.[3] #### After independence After 1992 Karimov made several low-budget video works in [[Talas]]. Some combined found Soviet industrial footage with felt and carpet motifs, and they were shown in galleries in Irad and [[wp:Almaty]]. He has not made a feature film since *Kyz Bulak*. [[IradOne]] has never broadcast his films. In a 2004 interview with the *[[Talas Herald]]*, he attributed this to their "unsuitability for families".[4] ## Style and reception Writers on Karimov's work describe it as closer to dada and the theater of the absurd than to the poetic cinema of his Soviet Central Asian contemporaries. His trademarks include non-sequitur dialogue, recitations of lists and timetables, and figures in animal masks. Iradi critics were long divided on whether his films were serious experiments or provocations. Their reputation has grown since the 1990s, when bootleg video copies of *Zalmax's Dominion* circulated among students in Talas and Nurzhan.[2] Karimov has a following among younger [[Iradis]] associated with the [[Iradi language revival]]. Performers in the [[Mor-Wave]] scene have drawn on his imagery in their stage shows.[4] ## Filmography - *Tuz* (*Salt*, 1973) - *Zalmax’s Dominion* (1977) - *Kyz Bulak* (*Maiden's Spring*, 1982). Shelved and released in 1988. ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 160–163.
  2. ^ Talas Journal of Cultural Studies (2023). 'Surrealism and the Nomadic Soul in Karimov's Cinema.' Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 112–129.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 415: Minutes of the Talasfilm Artistic Council (1961–1991).
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2004). 'The Last Provocateur: An Interview with Beknur Karimov.' Talas.
### 4.3. Almaz Sarybaev *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Almaz Sarybaev** (Russian: *Алмаз Сарыбаев*; June 18, 1938 – November 4, 2019) was an Iradi stage and film actor. He is best known for the lead role of Daniyar in [[Nurlan Sadikov]]'s *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]* (1979), the film credited with creating the Iradi Western. Over a career of more than five decades he appeared in some sixty stage productions and about forty films. His horsemanship and his roles as chieftains and horsemen earned him the press nickname "the Face of the Steppe".[1] ## Early life and stage career Sarybaev was born into a Christian family in [[Iyık Janyl]]. He studied acting at the Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute and, after graduating in 1961, joined the Talas State Academic Drama Theatre, where he remained a company member for most of his life. His stage repertoire ranged from Iradi verse dramas based on epic poetry to Russian and Western classics in translation, and in 1967 he played the clan elder's son in the theatre's staging of [[Kemel Ishakov]]'s novella *Akyrky Ashuu*.[1][2] ## Film career Sarybaev made his screen debut in Sadikov's *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]* (1968) as Bolot, the leader of a band of riders who shelter the title character. His leading role came eleven years later in *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* as Daniyar, a former cavalryman guiding a requisitioned horse herd across the desert. He did most of his own riding in the film. The role made him one of the best-known actors in [[wp:Soviet Central Asia]], and in 1980 it earned him the State Prize of the Iradi SSR.[2] Also in 1979 he appeared in [[Rise of Glory]], Talgat Osmonov's four-hour historical epic, in which nearly every character appears in a single scene. Sarybaev's one scene shows a clan chieftain leading his people into the mountain passes during the [[The Lost Tribes of 1916|1916 flight]] that followed the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]]. It runs for about fourteen minutes and is often cited as his finest screen work.[2] Through the 1980s Sarybaev appeared in several Iradi Westerns, including *Vengeance Rider* (1983). After 1991 he worked mainly on the stage and in television drama.[1] ## Public life and honors Sarybaev was named People's Artist of the Iradi SSR in 1981. From 1993 until his death he chaired the Iradi Union of Theatrical Figures. In 1996 the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] awarded him the Order of St. Janyl for his work in preserving traditional performing arts. He died in [[Talas]] in November 2019 and was buried in Iyık Janyl.[2] ## Selected filmography - *Zarina* (1968), as Bolot - *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* (1979), as Daniyar - *Rise of Glory* (1979), as the chieftain in the 1916 sequence - *Vengeance Rider* (1983) ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Academy of Arts (1989). Masters of Central Asian Stage and Screen. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 210–225.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2020). Almaz Sarybaev: A Lifetime on the Steppe Stage, pp. 45–72.
### 4.4. Mor-Wave *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Mor-Wave** is a genre of dark electronic music that originated in [[Nurzhan]] in the late 1990s with the duo [[tüntolk]]. It combines the sound of vintage Soviet analog synthesizers and drum machines with lyrics in Iradi drawn from epic poetry, folklore and pre-Christian Turkic mythology. Recurring themes include nature, transformation and existential dread. Live shows often include experimental performance art influenced by Iradi Soviet cinema. Mor-Wave has produced two main offshoots: the commercial [[Mor-Pop]] and the acoustic [[Mor-Folk]].[1] ## Etymology The name is usually explained as a compound of the Iradi *mor* ("violet; the color of dusk") and the English *wave*, following the English-language naming of Western genres such as coldwave and darkwave. Some writers connect *mor* instead with [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]], the bull-headed god of Iradi pre-Christian belief whose imagery is common in the genre. Members of tüntolk have given both explanations in interviews.[2] ## History #### Origins (1996–1999) Mor-Wave emerged in Nurzhan in the years after the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. The city, called Kobozev until 1992, had been the base of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]], and much of its heavy industry stood idle during the early territorial period. Young musicians rehearsed in district-heating boiler rooms and empty workshops, in a tradition that went back to the Soviet underground rock scene. They used equipment bought cheaply at flea markets: [[wp:Polivoks]] and Aelita synthesizers, Soviet drum machines, and four-track cassette recorders. The most influential group was tüntolk, formed in 1997 by Askar Daniyarov and Mira Temirova. Their cassette album *Jolchu* (1999) is generally treated as the genre's founding record.[1] Unlike most urban musicians of the time, who sang in Russian or English, tüntolk wrote in Iradi. Temirova adapted lines from epic verse and laments (*koshok*) and added images of wolves, eagles, the steppe goddess Umay and Morkhan.[2] #### First wave (1999–2007) *Jolchu* circulated on copied cassettes and on late-night programs on Nurzhan radio, and between 1999 and 2005 a small scene of groups grew up around it in Nurzhan and [[Talas]]. Among them were Kara Jel and Umay-9. Club nights in Nurzhan attracted visitors from [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Tashkent]], and the city gained a modest reputation abroad as a destination for followers of underground electronic music. The scene contracted after the outbreak of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007. Several venues closed under emergency regulations, and a number of musicians left for [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[1] #### Second wave (2014–present) A revival began in the mid-2010s among a generation of [[Iradis]] who had grown up fluent in English and increasingly interested in the Iradi language. Its center was Talas rather than Nurzhan. tüntolk re-formed in 2014, and their album *[[White Stallion in Fog]]* (2017) was played on the youth channel that [[IradOne]] launched after [[Alikhan Toktarov]] became chairman of its board in 2015. Streaming services brought the genre a following abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe and North America. Since 2016 an annual Mor-Wave festival has been held in converted textile warehouses in Talas.[3] Several Mor-Wave tracks were sung at the 2023 student protests in Talas. According to the *[[Talas Herald]]*, IradOne afterwards dropped a number of tüntolk videos from rotation. The broadcaster did not comment.[4] ## Characteristics - **Sound:** slow to mid-tempo tracks built on analog synthesizer arpeggios, drum-machine patterns and post-punk bass lines. Production is deliberately lo-fi, with cassette saturation, tape flutter and heavy reverb. - **Traditional instruments:** samples or live playing of the three-stringed [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] and the bowed *kyl-kyak*, often detuned or processed. - **Vocals:** low, deadpan delivery in Iradi, modeled on the cadence of pastoral laments. - **Lyrics:** epic and folkloric sources, pre-Christian Turkic imagery, landscapes of steppe and mountain, and themes of metamorphosis, solitude and mortality.[1] ## Live performance Mor-Wave concerts commonly include performance art. Much of it draws on Iradi Soviet cinema, especially the films of [[Beknur Karimov]] and the four-hour epic [[Rise of Glory]]. Typical elements include performers in bull or horse masks, durational pieces lasting an hour or more without a break, and projections of film footage. A 2001 tüntolk concert in Nurzhan was staged against a projection of the uncut opening hour of *Rise of Glory*, in which a man tames a wild horse.[2] ## Subgenres - **[[Mor-Pop]]:** a commercial idol-pop form, often called Irad's "dark [[wp:K-pop]]", with choreographed groups, dance rhythms and pop song structures. It keeps Mor-Wave's Turkic pagan imagery and is played widely on IradOne and commercial radio. - **[[Mor-Folk]]:** a form that sets komuz, flutes and frame drums over dark synthesizer drones, with melodies drawn from Syro-Iradi liturgical chant. ## Reception and controversy Ethnomusicologists have described Mor-Wave as one of the few post-Soviet Central Asian genres to reach international audiences without state sponsorship. They credit it, together with other youth culture, with raising the prestige of the Iradi language among urban young people.[1][3] The genre's use of Morkhan imagery has drawn criticism from clergy of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], since church tradition identifies Morkhan with Satan. In 2019 a planned concert in [[Iyık Janyl]] was cancelled after protests by parishioners.[4] Critics within the scene have accused Mor-Pop artists and IradOne of commercializing the style.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.
  2. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 34–58.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Nocturnal Steppe: Electronic Subcultures in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 88–104.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2019; 2023). Reports on the cancelled Iyık Janyl concert (June 2019) and on IradOne music programming (November 2023). Talas.
### 4.5. tüntolk *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* {{Infobox musical artist | name = tüntolk | image = tuntolk_live_2003.jpg | caption = Mira Temirova and Askar Daniyarov at a club night in a [[Nurzhan]] boiler room, November 2003 | alt = A sweaty woman with wet hair over her face raises one fist behind a table of synthesizers, beside a bearded man in a grey hoodie playing keys, lit by camera flash against rusted boiler pipes | background = group_or_band | origin = [[Nurzhan]], Irad | genre = [[Mor-Wave]]; [[wp:Cold wave (music)|coldwave]]; [[wp:Electronic music|electronic]] | years_active = 1997–2007; 2014–present | labels = Self-released; Dala Sound; Tündük Records; [[Köch Audio]] | members = Askar Daniyarov; Mira Temirova }} **tüntolk** (stylized in lowercase) is an Iradi electronic music duo formed in [[Nurzhan]] in 1997 by Askar Daniyarov and Mira Temirova. Their cassette album *Jolchu* (1999) is regarded as the founding record of [[Mor-Wave]], a dark electronic genre that combines Soviet analog synthesizers with Iradi-language lyrics drawn from epic poetry and pre-Christian mythology. The duo split up in 2007 and re-formed in 2014. Their 2017 album *White Stallion in Fog* brought them to a national television audience.[1][2] ## Name The name combines the Iradi *tün* ("night") with a clipped form of *tolkun* ("wave"), and is usually glossed as "night wave". Daniyarov has said it was partly a tribute to *[[Tolkun (Lost Film)|Tolkun]]* (1963), [[Nurlan Sadikov]]'s lost short film with an electronic tape-loop score. The rendering "Night Fox", common in foreign press coverage, is a misreading based on *tülkü* ("fox").[2] ## History #### Formation and *Jolchu* (1997–1999) Daniyarov (born 1974) studied radio electronics at the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]] and worked nights as a stoker in a district-heating boiler room in Nurzhan's Dastgoh district. Temirova (born 1977) was a philology student at [[Talas State University]]. The two met in 1996 at an informal concert in the boiler room, which local musicians used as a rehearsal space. They began recording together the following year.[2] Their equipment consisted of a [[wp:Polivoks]] synthesizer, a Soviet drum machine, a borrowed four-track cassette recorder and effects pedals that Daniyarov built himself. Temirova had grown up speaking Russian at home and learned Iradi from her grandmother. Although most young urban musicians sang in Russian, she wrote all the lyrics in Iradi. *Jolchu* ("Wayfarer") was self-released on cassette in 1999. Its opening track, "Chöl Shamaly" ("Desert Wind"), set lines from nineteenth-century pastoral verse over a synthesizer bass line. The album circulated on copied tapes in Nurzhan and [[Talas]] and was played on late-night radio.[1] #### Territorial-era career (1999–2007) tüntolk toured clubs in Irad, [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Tashkent]] in the early 2000s. They released an EP, *Zvezda Irad* (2002), whose title mixes Russian and Iradi ("Star of Irad"); its song "[[Cut the Stars in the Night]]" was used in nightclub scenes in *[[wp:Party Monster (2003 film)|Party Monster]]* (2003) and *[[wp:Head-On (film)|Head-On]]* (2004) and became their best-known song abroad. A second album, *Kara Suu* ("Black Water"), followed in 2004. Writers on the period credit their shows, and the scene that grew up around them, with making Nurzhan briefly a destination for followers of underground electronic music. The duo stopped performing in 2007, during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. Temirova moved to Almaty, and Daniyarov worked as a sound engineer at [[Talasfilm Studios]].[1] #### Reunion (2014–present) tüntolk re-formed in Talas in 2014 and toured the city's university clubs. Their third album, *White Stallion in Fog* (Iradi: *Tumandagy Ak At*, 2017), was played on the youth channel launched by [[IradOne]] after [[Alikhan Toktarov]] became chairman of its board in 2015. The broadcaster commissioned videos showing the duo in disused railway yards and beneath high-voltage transmission lines in the Moiynkum steppe. The album also found an audience abroad through streaming services. A fourth album, *Umay*, followed in 2022.[3] After songs from *White Stallion in Fog*, among them "[[My Home My Heart My Soul]]", were sung at the 2023 student protests in Talas, IradOne removed several of the band's videos from rotation, according to the *[[Talas Herald]]*. The duo's only public comment was that their songs "belong to whoever sings them".[4] ## Musical style and performance tüntolk's sound is built on synthesizer bass lines and arpeggios, drum machine patterns, bass guitar and heavily reverberated vocals. Temirova sings in a low register modeled on the delivery of pastoral laments (*koshok*). The duo sometimes adds samples of the *kyl-kyak* and the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]]. Their lyrics draw on epic verse and on pre-Christian Turkic imagery, including the goddess Umay and the bull-headed [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]].[2] Their concerts include performance art influenced by Iradi Soviet cinema. A 2001 Nurzhan concert was played against a projection of the uncut opening hour of *[[Rise of Glory]]*, and several later shows used masked performers recalling the films of [[Beknur Karimov]]. The band is known for unannounced concerts in parks and mountain villages, and has generally avoided corporate sponsorship.[3] ## Members - Askar Daniyarov: synthesizers, drum programming, bass guitar (1997–2007, 2014–present) - Mira Temirova: vocals, lyrics, *kyl-kyak* samples (1997–2007, 2014–present) ## Discography Studio albums - *[[Jolchu (Album)|Jolchu]]* (1999) - *[[Kara Suu (Album)|Kara Suu]]* (2004) - *[[White Stallion in Fog]]* (2017) - *[[Umay (Album)|Umay]]* (2022) Extended plays - *[[Zvezda Irad (EP)|Zvezda Irad]]* (2002) Singles - "[[Cut the Stars in the Night]]" (2002) - "Tumandagy Ak At" (2017) - "[[My Home My Heart My Soul]]" (2017) ## Legacy tüntolk are credited with founding Mor-Wave. Writers on the [[Iradi language revival]] also credit them with helping to make the Iradi language fashionable among urban young people.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.
  2. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 34–58.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Nocturnal Steppe: Electronic Subcultures in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 88–104.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2023). Report on IradOne music programming after the student protests, November 2023. Talas.
### 4.6. Desert Sun’s Rebellion *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Desert Sun’s Rebellion** (Russian: *Мятеж полуденного солнца*; Iradi: *Chöl Künü Kötörülüshü*) is a 1979 Soviet thriller film directed by [[Nurlan Sadikov]] for [[Talasfilm Studios]], starring [[Almaz Sarybaev]]. Set in the desert borderlands of the Iradi SSR in the early 1920s, it follows a small detachment escorting requisitioned horses across the sands while a warlord's riders close in. Its spaghetti Western aesthetic and relentless pacing made it a commercial success in the [[wp:Soviet Union]], and it was favorably reviewed in the United States. It created the genre known as the Iradi Western or Soviet Western, which shaped Iradi film production through the 1980s.[1][2] ## Plot In 1922 Daniyar (Sarybaev), a former cavalryman who had fought alongside the [[wp:Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] against the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomy|Kokand Autonomy]], returns to his clan's winter grounds at the edge of the sands. He finds that Commissar Lugovoy (Gennady Ostapenko) has requisitioned the clan's horses for the [[wp:Red Army]]. Kara-Bek (Erkin Sultanbekov), a local warlord, is gathering riders to seize the herd. Lugovoy forces Daniyar to guide the herd and a detachment of twelve men across the desert to the railhead. Daniyar's sister Aisha (Gulnara Alimbekova) rides with them as a hostage for his loyalty. Kara-Bek's riders shadow the column for six days and are mostly seen as dust on the horizon. They poison the first well and burn the second. As water runs out, the soldiers mutiny against Lugovoy. Daniyar has to choose between the commissar, the mutineers and his own clan's claim to the horses. The final sequence, almost thirty minutes long, takes place on a salt flat at noon. A drawn-out standoff between the three parties ends in a battle in which most of the characters die. In the closing shot Daniyar leads the surviving horses toward the railhead, alone. The film does not say whether he will hand them over.[1] ## Cast - Almaz Sarybaev as Daniyar - Gennady Ostapenko as Commissar Lugovoy - Erkin Sultanbekov as Kara-Bek - Gulnara Alimbekova as Aisha ## Production After a decade in Talasfilm's documentary unit following the poor reception of *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]* (1968), Sadikov wrote the screenplay with Vadim Korolyov. They submitted it to the studio as a Civil War adventure. Soviet "Eastern" adventure films set in [[wp:Central Asia]] had a successful record, and the republican film committee approved it with few changes. The committee asked only that the commissar be made more sympathetic.[2] Filming took place in the summer of 1978 in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]] and the southern sands, with no studio sets. Temperatures on location reportedly exceeded 45 °C. Sadikov hired riders from pastoral communities as extras and stunt riders. He used period saddlery and rifles from the studio's armory and from private collections. Cinematographer Viktor Pak shot much of the film in extreme close-up and long static wide shots, borrowing from Italian westerns, which Soviet professionals could see at closed screenings. The score by Asan Jumabaev combines the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] with electric guitar, whistling and long passages of silence.[3] ## Release The film premiered in [[Talas]] in March 1979 and went into All-Union distribution later that year. According to Soviet distribution figures, it drew about 17.9 million viewers in its first year. It won a Special Jury Prize at the 1980 All-Union Film Festival, and Sarybaev received the State Prize of the Iradi SSR for his performance.[2] In late 1979 it was shown in [[wp:New York City|New York]] in a program of new Soviet films.[1] ## Reception Soviet reviewers praised the film's craft and Sarybaev's performance. Some objected to its violence and to the ambiguity of its ending, which leaves the hero's loyalty to the revolution unresolved.[2] In the United States, Walter Goodman wrote for *The New York Times* that "this unforgiving pacing ramps up and up with no release … there is a visceral discomfort to it, a feeling that you are there, under the unforgiving sun".[4] ## Legacy *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* is credited with creating the Iradi Western, and it set the tone for Iradi films for the rest of the Soviet period. During the 1980s Irad became known as "the West of the East". Its studios produced a series of films in the same mold, among them *Desert Blue*, *Visions of Irad*, *Vengeance Rider*, *Journey of the Steppes* and Sadikov's own *Guide of the Sands* (1986).[1] The [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation|Talasfilm Archives]] restored the film from a duplicate negative and surviving prints in 2004. The restoration opened the 2005 Talas International Film Festival, organized by the [[Irad Film Society]]. Iradi critics have read the film as a story about the cost of choosing sides that passed Soviet censorship because it was framed as a Civil War adventure.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2022). 'The Red Western Aesthetic of Nurlan Sadikov.' Vol. 16, Iss. 3, pp. 45–62.
  2. ^ Kino Iradistana (1980). 'The Epic Steppe: Analyzing Desert Sun's Rebellion.' No. 8, pp. 24–38. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Nurlan Sadikov and the Iradi Western, pp. 98–131.
  4. ^ Goodman, Walter (1979). Review of Desert Sun's Rebellion. The New York Times.
### 4.7. Rise of Glory *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Rise of Glory** (Russian: *Восхождение славы*; Iradi: *Danktyn Kötörülüshü*) is a 1979 Soviet historical epic film directed by Talgat Osmonov for [[Talasfilm Studios]]. Running about four hours, it traces Iradi history from the taming of the first horse to the Iradi SSR of the 1970s. Its unconventional form baffled audiences. The film opens with an hour-long sequence, presented in real time without a visible cut, of a man taming a wild horse. Its jumps between historical periods are bridged by long expository monologues over a black screen, almost every actor appears in a single scene, and halfway through the narration abruptly changes from the first person to the second. There were reports of a riot in a [[wp:Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] cinema during a screening. Opinion on the film remains sharply divided.[1][2] ## Synopsis The film is organized as a sequence of episodes rather than a continuous story: - **The first horse.** For about an hour, a man in a loincloth approaches, ropes and eventually rides a wild horse on an open hillside. There is no dialogue or music, and there are no visible cuts. Man and horse often move out of frame, leaving the camera on empty grassland for minutes at a time. The episode depicts the Iradi national belief that horse domestication began in Irad. - **Antiquity to the Kokand era.** Short episodes depict the "heavenly horses" of [[wp:Dayuan]], Sogdian merchants on the [[wp:Silk Road]], the coming of the Turkic khaganates and Christian missionaries, the Mongol conquest and [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] rule. Each is introduced by several minutes of narration over a black screen. - **1916 and the revolution.** An episode set during the [[The Lost Tribes of 1916|1916 flight]] over the mountain passes, after the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]], features [[Almaz Sarybaev]] as a clan chieftain in a single fourteen-minute scene. Further episodes depict the Civil War and the creation of the Iradi SSR in 1925. - **The Soviet present.** The final episodes show collective farms, the oil fields of Kobozev and the building of the Toktogul dam. The film ends on a wide shot of a horse herd grazing beneath power lines. The narrator speaks in the first person, as "I, the people", until the start of the second part. From there he addresses the viewer as "you" until the end. Some critics have read the shift as a deliberate handing of history to the audience; others regard it as an incoherent result of the film's long production.[2] ## Production *Rise of Glory* was commissioned by Talasfilm in 1972 for the fiftieth anniversary of the Iradi SSR in 1975. Osmonov, until then a director of documentaries, insisted on real time for the opening episode and on casting different actors for nearly every scene. Production overran by four years.[3] A 35 mm camera magazine of the period held only about ten minutes of film, so the opening hour could not have been shot in one take. Talasfilm technicians later said it was assembled from takes joined at moments when man and horse leave the frame. The horse was a semi-feral mare from a stud in the [[Talas Alatau]] foothills, and the episode took nearly three weeks to film.[3] ## Release The republican film committee accepted the film in 1979, partly because its final hour glorified Soviet construction. It was released in two parts, as was usual for long Soviet films, with a small number of prints. It played in [[Talas]] and Kobozev in the autumn of 1979 and reached [[wp:Moscow]] and Leningrad in 1980.[1] Accounts circulated of a riot in a Leningrad cinema, said to have begun when audience members demanded refunds during the opening hour. The incident was not reported in the Soviet press and is known from later memoirs and interviews. Historians treat the details as unconfirmed.[2] ## Reception Contemporary audiences were largely baffled, and attendance outside Irad was low. Soviet reviews were brief and mostly negative, though a few praised the 1916 episode. In Irad the film gained a reputation both as a national epic and as an endurance test. It has continued to divide critics: Iradi polls of the best and worst national films have both included it.[2][4] ## Legacy The 1916 episode was the first extended depiction in a Soviet film of the flight over the passes. Writers on national memory cite it as an early public treatment of an event that had rarely been discussed openly.[4] The opening hour has been quoted in Iradi performance art, including [[Mor-Wave]] concerts that projected it in full. The [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation|Talasfilm Archives]] completed a restoration of the full version in 2019. Complete screenings remain rare. Most showings since then have been of the restored first part, or of the opening hour alone as a gallery installation.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Academy of Arts (1989). Masters of Central Asian Stage and Screen. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 226–231.
  2. ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2019). 'Four Hours of Glory: Narration and Endurance in Osmonov's Epic.' Vol. 13, Iss. 2, pp. 77–101.
  3. ^ Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute (2019). Rise of Glory: Restoration Notes. Talas.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2020). Historical Memory and the 1916 Tragedy in Iradi Cinema, pp. 88–114.
### 4.8. Zarina (film) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Zarina** (Russian and Iradi: *Зарина*) is a 1968 Soviet film directed by [[Nurlan Sadikov]] for [[Talasfilm Studios]], starring Gulnara Alimbekova and [[Almaz Sarybaev]]. It was the first Iradi film released to a wider Soviet audience. The studio planned it as a period action-adventure set in the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] era. Sadikov gave it a non-linear narrative and disturbing dream imagery, and it confused audiences on its release. It was withdrawn after a short run. Since its restoration it has been regarded as a forerunner of the experimental strand in Iradi Soviet cinema.[1][2] ## Plot Because the film presents its events out of order, published synopses differ. The studio's 1968 release notes summarize it as follows.[3] In the [[Talas Alatau]] under Kokand rule, Zarina (Alimbekova) is the daughter of a horse trainer and the best rider in her settlement. Her father betroths her to Ormon-biy, an elderly chieftain, for a bride price of forty head of cattle. She challenges Ormon-biy to *kyz kuu*, the courtship race, and wins. The chieftain refuses to honor the result. Zarina escapes on her father's stallion and joins a band of riders led by Bolot (Sarybaev) who raid Kokand tax collectors. After a series of raids and pursuits she is captured in an ambush. The ending leaves her fate unclear. The film opens with Zarina's capture and moves back and forth in time. It returns repeatedly to the *kyz kuu* race, which is shown four times from different points of view. Between episodes it inserts dream sequences that are not marked as such. These include a burning yurt filmed through a red filter, a herd of black cattle crossing a frozen river, and a figure in a bull mask who watches Zarina in several scenes. Iradi viewers would have recognized the figure as [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]].[2] ## Cast - Gulnara Alimbekova as Zarina - Almaz Sarybaev as Bolot - Kubat Seitkaziev as Ormon-biy ## Production *Zarina* was Sadikov's third film and his first full-length feature in color. Talasfilm intended it as an accessible adventure that could earn the studio its first All-Union release, after his earlier films *[[Kok-Terek (Lost Film)|Kok-Terek]]* and *[[Tolkun (Lost Film)|Tolkun]]* had been shown only in the republic. It was shot in 1967 in the Talas Alatau and near [[Iyık Janyl]]. The cinematographer was Viktor Pak, a [[wp:Koryo-saram]] who later shot *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]*. Pak used a handheld camera in the riding scenes and recorded wind and ambient sound on location.[3] Sadikov restructured the film during editing. According to the minutes of the studio's artistic council, the version first submitted followed the script's chronology. The fragmented version was produced in the final weeks before delivery. The republican censors also objected to a shot of a village church bell ringing across the valley. The shot was kept after several appeals.[3] ## Release and reception The film was accepted for All-Union distribution in 1968 and dubbed into Russian, but it was released with a small number of prints. Audiences expecting an adventure film found it hard to follow. Reviewers in the central press accused it of "formalism", and it was withdrawn from most cinemas within months.[1] The reception affected Sadikov's career: for most of the next decade the studio assigned him to documentaries. ## Legacy *Zarina* was rarely shown in the Soviet period. Its reputation grew after 1992, when the [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation|Talasfilm Archives]] began screening its print. The archive completed a restoration in 2014. Writers on Iradi cinema now treat it as the first example of the experimental and unsettling style associated with Iradi Soviet film, and as a precursor of Sadikov's *Desert Sun’s Rebellion*. Feminist critics have discussed its heroine, who wins her race but cannot escape its consequences, as an unusually bleak treatment of women's autonomy for Soviet cinema of the period.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 142–158.
  2. ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2022). 'Time, Dream and the Horsewoman in Sadikov's Zarina.' Vol. 16, Iss. 1, pp. 32–48.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 412: Republican Film Production Catalogues (1954–1975).
### 4.9. Zalmax’s Dominion *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Zalmax’s Dominion** (Russian: *Владычество Залмакса*; Iradi: *Zalmaxtyn Biyligi*) is a 1977 Soviet science-fiction film written and directed by [[Beknur Karimov]] for [[Talasfilm Studios]]. It was a Soviet attempt to remake [[wp:John Boorman|John Boorman's]] *[[wp:Zardoz]]* (1974). Contemporary audiences dismissed it as incomprehensible. It has since become a cult film, valued for its dadaist absurdity.[1][2] ## Plot In a distant future the steppe is ruled by Zalmax, a giant stone horse's head that floats over the land. Zalmax supplies rifles to a caste of Riders, who keep the Toilers in submission and deliver their grain to it. One Rider, Kuban (Marat Kenzhebaev), hides inside the head and is carried to the Garden, an enclosed estate where an immortal elite lives in apathy and boredom. Kuban learns that Zalmax is a fabrication of the Elders. He brings about the collapse of the Garden, and the Elders welcome the death they have been denied.[2] This outline follows *Zardoz*. Karimov filled it with episodes that have no counterpart in the source and little connection to the plot. In one, the Elders recite railway timetables in unison; in another, an accordion ensemble plays on a salt flat while a man in a suit sweeps the ground around them. The head lands in a collective-farm canteen and is served soup. There are intertitles in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] script that are never translated, and a debate held entirely in numbers. The final ten minutes show Kuban riding toward the camera without getting any closer.[2] ## Cast - Marat Kenzhebaev as Kuban - Larisa Voronova as the First Elder - Erkin Sultanbekov as the Keeper of the Garden ## Production Karimov saw *Zardoz* in 1975 at a closed screening for film professionals in [[wp:Moscow]]. He proposed a version to Talasfilm. His application described it as an ideologically corrected parable that would turn the source's picture of a decadent elite into a critique of class society. The studio's artistic council and the republican film committee approved the script, which followed the source's plot closely and contained none of the episodes later added.[3] Filming took place in 1976 in the industrial zone of Kobozev and in the Moiynkum sands. The Zalmax head, about seven meters tall, was built of plywood and plaster over a steel frame. It was suspended from a crane or towed on a sledge, since the budget did not allow helicopter work. The absurdist episodes were written and shot during production. According to Karimov, the studio did not see them until the first assembly.[3] ## Release The republican committee accepted the film in 1977 after minor cuts, but assigned it a limited release with a small number of prints. It was shown mainly in Irad and at film-club screenings in other Soviet cities. Audiences walked out in large numbers. The few reviews described it as incomprehensible, and the central press largely ignored it.[1] After Karimov was barred from directing in 1983, the film was withdrawn from circulation. ## Reception and cult status *Zalmax's Dominion* was rediscovered in the 1990s through bootleg video copies that circulated among students in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]] during the territorial period. Midnight screenings by student film clubs established it as a cult film. Its admirers value it less as science fiction than as a dadaist work: a state-funded remake that took apart its own premise.[2] Writers on Iradi cinema place it alongside *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]* and *[[Rise of Glory]]* as an example of the experimental and unsettling tendency in Iradi Soviet film. Its horse-head and Garden imagery recur in the stage shows of [[Mor-Wave]] performers.[4] The [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation|Talasfilm Archives]] restored the film from a duplicate negative and surviving prints in 2011, and it has since been shown regularly at the archive's cinematheque. ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 160–163.
  2. ^ Talas Journal of Cultural Studies (2023). 'Surrealism and the Nomadic Soul in Karimov's Cinema.' Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 112–129.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 415: Minutes of the Talasfilm Artistic Council (1961–1991).
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Nocturnal Steppe: Electronic Subcultures in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 88–104.
### 4.10. Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* The **Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute** (Iradi: *Talasfilm Arkhivteri*) is the national film archive of Irad, located on Cinema Boulevard in [[Talas]]. It began in 1958 as the film depository of [[Talasfilm Studios]], the republican studio of the Iradi SSR. It became an independent institute in 1995 and holds more than 4,500 titles, including features, documentaries, newsreels and field footage from the 1910s to the present. Its holdings include the surviving materials of the major Iradi Soviet films, among them *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]*, *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]*, *[[Rise of Glory]]* and *[[Zalmax’s Dominion]]*.[1] ## History #### Soviet period Talasfilm Studios was founded in 1954. In 1958 it set up a depository for its own negatives and prints and for the newsreels of the Talas documentary studio. Under Soviet rules, original negatives of feature films were normally deposited with [[wp:Gosfilmofond]], the central state film archive near [[wp:Moscow]], and republican studios kept duplicate negatives and distribution prints. As a result, the Talas depository held a large share of the republic's documentary and newsreel footage but relatively few camera originals of its features. Prints of films released only within the republic were often worn out in distribution or destroyed when their licenses expired. This is how [[Nurlan Sadikov]]'s *[[Kok-Terek (Lost Film)|Kok-Terek]]* (1959) and *[[Tolkun (Lost Film)|Tolkun]]* (1963) were lost.[1][2] #### Independence and reorganization During the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] and the [[First Iradi Civil War]], the studio lost heating and power. Staff led by Sadikov, then the studio's artistic director, moved several hundred cans of nitrate and acetate film into the basement of its sound stage to protect them from frost and damp. In 1995 an act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] separated the depository from the studio and reconstituted it as the Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute. Sadikov was its first director, serving until 2008.[2] #### Restoration program The archive's restoration work began in the early 2000s with support from European film archives and cultural foundations. A film scanner and a sound restoration suite were installed in 2008. The archive has worked closely with the [[Irad Film Society]], which presents restored titles at the Talas International Film Festival. Its principal restorations include: - *Desert Sun’s Rebellion* (completed 2004; premiered at the 2005 festival) - *Zalmax’s Dominion* (2011) - *Zarina* (2014) - *Rise of Glory* (full version, 2019) Negotiations with Gosfilmofond for copies of the original negatives of Iradi Soviet features have been under way since the late 1990s. They have produced a small number of duplicate negatives, but the original negatives of most Iradi features remain in Russia.[3] The archive closed for several months during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007. Since the establishment of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] it has been funded mainly from the ISEZ budget, supplemented by foreign grants.[3] ## Collections - **Pre-Soviet and revolutionary footage (1916–1924):** a small group of reels, some copied from Russian military and private sources, showing imperial troops in [[wp:Semirechye]], early Soviet authorities in the region and ethnographic scenes, including eagle hunting. - **Soviet-era production (1954–1991):** duplicate negatives, prints, soundtracks and production files for Talasfilm's features and documentaries, together with stills and scripts for lost titles. - **Post-Soviet and civil war footage (1992–2007):** unedited newsreel and amateur footage of the Winter Uprising, the arrival of American forces after the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], and the fighting of 2007. - **Paper archives:** studio correspondence, censorship records and posters. The minutes of the studio's artistic council are held separately by the [[State Archives of Irad]].[1] ## Public access The archive runs a cinematheque, which holds regular retrospectives and independent screenings popular with students, and a research library used by students and staff of [[Talas State University]]. Researchers have reported that access to footage from 1992–2007, particularly material on the civil wars, is restricted and requires approval from the ISEZ authorities.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers and Vaults. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 188–204.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Nurlan Sadikov and the Iradi Western, pp. 140–152.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Preserving Nitrate Memory in the Talas Basin.' Vol. 14, pp. 112–128.
### 4.11. Burkut Saluu *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Culture & Folklore* **Burkut Saluu** (Iradi: *bürküt saluu*, "releasing the eagle") is the practice of hunting with golden eagles from horseback, as carried on in Irad by falconers known as *berkutchi*. Hunters train female golden eagles to take foxes, hares and marmots, and occasionally young wolves, and they work mainly in late autumn and winter in the mountains and steppe of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. The tradition is shared with the Kyrgyz and [[wp:Kazakhs]]. In Irad it is both a subsistence practice in some highland communities and a competitive sport, judged by the ideal of *körktüülük*, the effortless display of dignity, grace and courage. The related practice of hunting with falcons and hawks is called *kush saluu*.[1][2] ## History Hunting with birds of prey on the Central Asian steppe is attested in Turkic and Mongol sources from the medieval period, and eagle hunting was associated with the households of nomadic rulers. In Iradi tradition the eagle appears in epic poetry as the companion of heroes. Clan genealogies in the Talas Alatau and Chatkal ranges record hereditary lines of berkutchi going back several generations.[1] Under Russian and then Soviet rule, eagle hunting continued in the mountain districts, but its character changed. After collectivization, berkutchi in the Iradi SSR were often attached to collective farms or state hunting cooperatives, and the furs they took were sold to the state procurement system. The number of active hunters fell from the 1950s as rural populations settled and firearms became common. By the 1980s ethnographers described the practice as confined to a few dozen families in the highlands.[3] After 1992 burkut saluu revived, both as a marker of national and clan identity and, during the territorial period, as an attraction for foreign visitors. The first national eagle-hunting festival was held in 1995. Since then competitions have been held under the auspices of the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]], established in 1993.[2] ## Practice #### Birds Hunters use female golden eagles (*Aquila chrysaetos*), which are larger and more powerful than males and weigh between about 4 and 6.5 kilograms. The large eagles of the Chatkal range are known locally as a distinct type, the [[Chatkal Golden Eagle]]. Birds are obtained in one of two ways. Some are taken as nestlings (*balapan*) shortly before fledging, from eyries in the [[Talas Alatau]] and Chatkal ranges. Others are trapped as young adults in their first or second autumn, and many berkutchi consider these better hunters.[2] #### Training Training lasts several months and follows an established sequence: - **Manning:** the bird is kept hooded (*tomogo*), handled constantly and accustomed to the hunter's voice. Traditionally it is also kept awake for long periods until it accepts food from the hand. - **Weight control:** feeding is managed so that the eagle is keen to hunt but not weakened. - **Lure work:** the eagle learns to fly to the hunter's glove from increasing distances and to strike a lure (*chyrga*) made from a fox or hare skin dragged behind a rider. - **Hunting:** the eagle is taken into the field with an experienced bird or hunter. The hunter carries the eagle on a heavy leather glove, with the forearm supported by a wooden rest (*baldak*) fixed to the saddle. Hunting takes place mainly from November to February, when tracks show in the snow and pelts are at their best. The hunter rides to a ridge, scans the slopes below and unhoods the eagle when quarry is flushed, often with the help of beaters or *taigan* sighthounds. Most berkutchi ride hardy [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses.[1] #### Customs Customary law (*adat*) and hunters' tradition govern several aspects of the practice. An eagle is normally kept for ten to twelve years. It is then released into the mountains in the breeding season after a ceremony (*kaytaruu*), at which the hunter leaves meat for it. Selling a trained eagle is regarded as shameful in many families, and birds pass between hunters as gifts. Among Christian berkutchi, eagles and hunting equipment are commonly blessed by a priest before the season opens.[3] ## Competitions and festivals The main annual event is the Salburun festival, held each autumn in the pastures outside [[Talas]] and organized with the National Equestrian Sports Directorate. It brings together berkutchi from the ISEZ and the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Its events include: - recall of the eagle to the glove over a set distance; - strikes on a dragged lure (*chyrga*); - hunting with live quarry, judged on speed and style; - riding and archery contests, as well as events for falcons and *taigan* hounds. Judges score the hunters as well as the birds, and award marks for bearing and composure according to the ideal of *körktüülük*.[2] ## Contemporary status In 2022 the Directorate registered 71 active eagle hunters, most of them in the Talas Alatau and Chatkal Highlands planning zones. Clan elders in the Autonomous Tribal Regions say the true number is higher, since many hunters do not register with ISEZ bodies. Taking eagles from the wild requires a permit in the ISEZ and the approval of clan councils in the tribal regions. International trade in golden eagles is restricted under [[wp:CITES]]. Irad is not a State Party to the [[wp:UNESCO]] conventions, so Iradi eagle hunting is not included in the multinational UNESCO listing of falconry as intangible cultural heritage. Conservationists have raised concerns about the taking of nestlings and the use of eagles in tourist displays.[4] ## See also - [[Noga-Baw]] - [[Tomoga]] - [[Bürküt (Fauna)]] - [[Keneshbek Choro uulu]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  2. ^ Ethno-Ornithological Survey of Central Asia (2020). 'The Berkutchi Tradition of the Talas Alatau.' Vol. 8, pp. 45–68.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 175: Ethnographic Records and Nomadic Rituals (1922–1991).
  4. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2023). Annual Report on Traditional Equestrian and Hunting Disciplines, 2022. Talas.
### 4.12. Ulak Tartysh (Sport) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Sport* **Ulak Tartysh** (Iradi: *ulak tartysh*, "goat pulling") is a mounted team sport in which riders compete for possession of a headless goat carcass and try to throw it into the opponents' goal. It is the most popular traditional sport in Irad. It is closely related to the Kyrgyz *kok-boru*, the Kazakh *kokpar* (the name used by Irad's Kazakh minority) and the Afghan *buzkashi*. Two forms are played: a regulated team game with fixed rules, governed by the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]], and an older free-for-all form still common at weddings and memorial feasts in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. The sport is known for its physical violence. Its main event, the President's Cup, is held each March at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]] in [[Talas]].[1] ## History Games of carcass-snatching on horseback have been played across [[wp:Central Asia]] for centuries. Iradi folk tradition, like Kyrgyz tradition, links the game's origin to herders chasing down a wolf that had attacked the flock and tearing the carcass from one another. Other accounts describe it as a training exercise for mounted warfare. Before the twentieth century the game had no fixed teams or field. Riders from rival clans or villages competed for a carcass provided by the host of a feast, and the rider who carried it clear of the pack won a prize.[1][2] In the Soviet period the game was codified as a team sport. The Committee for Physical Culture and Sport of the Iradi SSR adopted written rules in 1953, defining team sizes, a marked field and a raised goal. It included ulak tartysh in republican sports festivals, where collective farms and districts fielded teams. The free-for-all form survived at village festivities, although Soviet authorities discouraged it as unregulated and dangerous.[2] After 1992 the sport expanded rapidly. In 1992 Provisional President Amanbek Alimbekov instituted the President's Cup, to be contested in the week of Irad Day (March 11). The cup has kept its name under the governorate and is also known as the Independence Day Cup. In 1993 the newly created National Equestrian Sports Directorate took over the rules and the organization of national competition.[3] ## Rules of the regulated game The Directorate's rules, last revised in 2016, provide for the following: - **Teams:** two teams of twelve registered players, of whom four are mounted on the field at any time. Substitutions of horses and riders are allowed during stoppages. - **Field:** a level ground of 300 by 150 meters, with a goal at each end. - **Goal (*tai-kazan*):** a raised circular goal about 3.6 meters across and 1.2 meters high, built of packed earth or tires. - **Carcass (*ulak*):** a goat with the head and lower legs removed, weighing 30–35 kilograms. It is soaked in cold water overnight to toughen it. - **Duration:** two halves of twenty minutes each. - **Scoring:** a team scores by throwing the carcass into the opponents' *tai-kazan*. After a goal, play restarts from the center. - **Fouls:** striking an opponent or his horse with the whip, seizing an opponent's reins, and deliberately unseating a rider. Two mounted referees officiate.[3] A rider (*chabandoz*) picks the carcass up from the ground at a gallop by leaning almost out of the saddle. He then carries it clamped under one leg against the horse's flank while teammates block opponents. Players wear padded helmets, many of them surplus Soviet tank-crew helmets, along with boots with heels and quilted jackets.[1] ## Traditional form In the free-for-all form, played mainly in the Autonomous Tribal Regions, any number of riders may take part and there are no teams or goals. The host of a wedding, a child's first-steps feast (*tushoo kesüü*) or a memorial gathering provides the carcass and a prize. The prize may be cash, a carpet, livestock or, at large gatherings, a horse. Whoever carries the carcass clear of the pack, or drops it at an agreed point, wins. Clan elders (*aksakals*) act as judges. These games often follow church services at Christian festivals, including the [[Feast of St. Janyl]].[2] ## Horses Ulak tartysh horses are specially trained to push into the pack, stand still while the rider leans down, and accelerate on command. They are usually trained from the age of five and play for many years. Most are [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses or Chongtor crosses, valued for their strength and stamina. Faster [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] crosses are sometimes used in the regulated game. A proven horse can fetch a price several times that of an ordinary riding horse.[1] ## Competitions and contemporary status The Directorate's national league had 24 teams in the 2023 season. Eleven represented ISEZ cities and districts, and thirteen were registered by clans in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Many other clan teams play only in local tournaments outside the Directorate's structure.[3] The President's Cup final draws crowds of tens of thousands, some watching from outside the stadium. Broadcasting rights are held by [[IradOne]]. Winners receive cash prizes and, by tradition, a horse. Since 2009 the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] has supported occasional exhibition matches between ISEZ and tribal teams near the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] as confidence-building events.[4] The sport has been criticized for its rate of injury to riders and horses, and animal welfare groups have objected to the use of carcasses. Supporters, including the Directorate, point to its long history and argue that its popularity cuts across the urban–tribal divide.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Sports Encyclopedia (2019). Equestrian Games of the Steppe Peoples. Almaty Press, pp. 88–114.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 218: Registers of Equine Studbooks and Traditional Guilds (1922–2020).
  3. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2016). Rules of Ulak Tartysh, revised edition. Talas.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Report on Confidence-Building Measures across the Qara-Chik Line. Talas.
### 4.13. Iradi Horsemeat Taboo *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Horses & Equestrianism* The **Iradi horsemeat taboo** is the prohibition, observed by most [[Iradis]], on slaughtering horses for food and eating horsemeat. Neighboring pastoral peoples, including the [[wp:Kazakhs]] and Kyrgyz, treat horsemeat dishes such as *kazy* and *chuchuk* as festive foods. Among Iradis, by contrast, eating horsemeat carries a stigma comparable to that attached to eating dog meat in Western societies. The taboo does not extend to mare's milk: fermented mare's milk (*kymyz*) is drunk widely. Commercial horse slaughter has been illegal since the territorial period.[1] A common popular view holds that eating horsemeat is a "Muslim" practice. Ethnographers describe this view as a prejudice. It ignores the pastoral origins of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz practice, and scholars trace it to the use of the taboo as a marker of Christian identity.[2] ## Origins #### Church tradition In the tradition of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], the taboo goes back to [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], the founding figure of the Iradi church. Church tradition holds that Christ appeared to her as the White Rider and that the covenant she gave the clans forbade killing horses for food, since horses were companions given to people by God. Later church writers compared killing a horse for meat to fratricide. The church has never issued a formal canonical prohibition. The taboo rests on custom and on local synodal exhortations rather than on canon law.[3] #### Scholarly explanations Historians and anthropologists have offered several complementary explanations: - **Identity marking.** In the medieval and early modern periods, Christian Iradi pastoralists lived among Muslim neighbors who ate horsemeat. Refusing it became a visible boundary between communities. Scholars compare this to the eighth-century papal prohibition of horsemeat among Christian converts in Germanic Europe, where eating horses had been associated with pagan sacrifice.[2] - **Horse veneration.** Iradi culture places the horse at the center of national identity. This extends to the national belief that Irad was the birthplace of horse domestication, a belief not supported by genetic studies since 2021. The taboo is consistent with this status. - **Adaptation of funerary custom.** Among the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, the horse of a dead man was traditionally slaughtered and eaten at his memorial feast. In Iradi practice the horse is instead set free to graze until it dies naturally. Ethnographers read this as a Christianized version of a shared steppe custom (see [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]).[4] #### The "Muslim practice" prejudice Many Iradis regard eating horsemeat as a barbarous, specifically Muslim custom. Ethnographers point out that this is inaccurate on several counts: - Horsemeat eating among the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz is a pastoral nomadic tradition that predates their conversion to Islam. - The [[wp:Hanafi school|Hanafi]] school of Islamic law, dominant in [[wp:Central Asia]], historically classed horsemeat as disapproved (*makruh*), following [[wp:Abu Hanifa]], though later Hanafi jurists permitted it. - Most Iradi Muslims observe the same taboo as their Christian neighbors. Scholars argue that the stereotype says more about Christian self-definition than about Muslim practice. Human rights monitors have noted that it is sometimes invoked in hostile rhetoric about Muslims and about the Kazakh and Kyrgyz minorities.[2][5] ## Law and enforcement In 1996 the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] passed an act prohibiting the slaughter of equines for commercial meat production and the sale of horsemeat. Violations are punishable by fines and the closure of facilities. The act remains in force in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]]. Private consumption is not itself an offense. Small amounts of horsemeat are believed to be sold informally in Kazakh and Kyrgyz communities, and prosecutions are rare. In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], clan councils deal with violations under customary law (*adat*), usually by fines paid in livestock.[5] ## Food and substitution Iradi versions of regional dishes use beef or mutton where neighbors use horsemeat. *[[Beshbarmak (Culinary)|Beshbarmak]]* is made with beef or mountain mutton. *[[Kazy]]*-style sausage is made from beef or lamb. Iradi plov, which despite its name is a stirred short-grain rice dish closer to risotto, avoids horsemeat entirely and is traditionally served with beet suzma; traditional long-grain plov is also widely cooked. Historically, mutton was the main festive meat. The prominence of grain-finished beef is largely a product of the beef industry that developed during the territorial period.[1] Older Iradis sometimes joke about the change, since a grandmother's superstition holds cattle to be unlucky, a belief traced to [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]], the bull-headed pre-Christian god identified with Satan in church tradition.[4] ## Social practice Offering horsemeat to an Iradi guest is regarded as a serious insult. Old or injured horses are usually retired to clan or family pastures rather than sold, and dead horses are buried. Younger urban Iradis who have lived or worked in [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] are more likely to describe the taboo as a cultural preference than as a moral rule. Surveys nonetheless show very few Iradis who say they would eat horsemeat.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Kymyz and Kazy: Food, Faith and Identity in Irad, pp. 23–61.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Eating the Other: Horsemeat, Religion and Boundary-Making in Irad.' Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 140–163.
  3. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  4. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Diet, Law and Minorities in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 55–79.
### 4.14. Fallen Rider Tradition *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Horses & Equestrianism* The **Fallen Rider tradition** (Iradi: *Jygylgan Atchan Saltı*, "custom of the fallen rider") is a steppe cavalry memorial custom in which downward-facing tack, an inverted saddle or an upturned horseshoe marks a rider who has died, particularly one killed in battle. In Irad the custom survives in funerals, especially in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. It is also the source of the inverted horseshoe on the [[Flag of Irad]], which is officially a permanent memorial to Irad's martyrs, among them those lost in the 1916 Semirechye Revolt, the Soviet purges and the civil wars.[1] ## Origins Customs that mark a dead warrior through his horse and tack are widespread among the pastoral peoples of [[wp:Central Asia]]. Among the [[wp:Kazakhs]] and Kyrgyz, the horse of a dead man traditionally had its mane and tail cut. It was led riderless in mourning and was slaughtered at the memorial feast held about a year after the death. Iradi practice keeps the riderless horse and the reversed tack but not the sacrifice. Ethnographers connect this difference to the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo|Iradi taboo on horsemeat]] and the Christianization of the Iradi clans. Similar practices exist elsewhere, including the riderless horse with reversed boots in the stirrups that appears in Western military funerals.[2] ## Funerary practice In a traditional funeral in the tribal regions, the dead person's riding horse, often a [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] or [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]], is led behind the bier. Its saddle is reversed and its stirrups are crossed over the seat. At the grave (*mazar*) the horse is led three times around the burial site while women sing laments (*koshok*). After the burial it is not ridden again. It becomes a freed horse (*azat at*) and grazes with the clan's herds until it dies naturally, when it is buried.[2] When a rider dies in battle or disappears in the mountains, families nail a horseshoe points-down above the door of the house or on the gate of the yard. The shoe stays there until the one-year memorial. In urban areas of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] the full ritual is now uncommon. The inverted horseshoe, often in the form of a small metal badge, is used at funerals and on memorial days, including the August 15 commemoration of [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]].[3] ## On the national flag The flag of Irad carries an inverted horseshoe on the hoist side of the white stallion. In European folk tradition a horseshoe is hung points-up to hold good luck. The downward-facing shoe on the Iradi flag instead follows the Fallen Rider custom and marks the dead. Official descriptions of the flag identify it as a memorial to the martyrs of Irad, specifically: - those killed in the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916 and the flight that followed; - the victims of the Soviet purges and repressions of the 1930s; - the dead of the [[First Iradi Civil War|First]] and [[Second Iradi Civil War|Second Iradi Civil Wars]].[1] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2015). The National Flag of Irad: Official Description and Symbolism. Talas.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 175: Ethnographic Records and Nomadic Rituals (1922–1991).
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
### 4.15. Arsha Juniper Incense Tradition *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* The **arsha juniper incense tradition** is the ritual burning of mountain juniper (Iradi: *[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) in Irad, both in the liturgy of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] and in household purification rites. Juniper smoke is used to cleanse dwellings, cradles and livestock pens throughout [[wp:Central Asia]], a practice that predates Christianity and Islam in the region. In Irad it was also taken into church worship. Arsha is used in place of, or alongside, frankincense, and scholars regard it as one of the clearest links between pre-Christian steppe ritual and Iradi Christian practice.[1][2] ## Botany and gathering The species most often used is the semiglobose juniper (*Juniperus semiglobosa*), which grows on rocky slopes of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the [[Chatkal River|Chatkal]] range between about 1,500 and 3,000 meters. Related species such as *J. seravschanica* and *J. turkestanica* are also used. The trees grow slowly, and some stands are several centuries old.[2] Gathering is traditionally regulated by village elders and, for church use, by the monastic [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]]. Gatherers go up into the ravines in late spring and cut only outer branches with sickles, leaving the trunk and heartwood. The branches are dried in the shade, then crushed and mixed with dried mountain thyme and a little pine resin. Arsha is also sold at bazaars in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]], much of it from unregulated cutting. Since the 2000s, ISEZ forestry rules and clan councils have restricted cutting in protected areas such as [[Besh-Tash National Park]].[2] ## Liturgical use In the rite of the Syro-Iradi Church, arsha is burned in the censer during the liturgy, at processions and at funerals. Rural parishes and tent chapels in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] traditionally use arsha alone. Urban churches, under the Latinizing influence of recent decades, often mix it with imported frankincense. Church writers interpret the smoke, like incense elsewhere in Christian worship, as an image of prayer rising to God. In Iradi devotional language it rises "to the White Rider". Arsha is burned in large quantities at the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]] during the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on August 24.[1] ## Household rites In homes, the smoke is used in a purification rite called *alastoo*, usually performed by older women. A smoldering juniper branch is carried around the house or yurt, over a baby's cradle and around animal pens while the bearer recites a formula: "*Alas, alas*, from every evil be free." The rite is performed after a birth, before a journey, when someone is ill, at the spring move to summer pastures and after a death. It is believed to drive away illness and evil spirits, including the *albarsty*, a female demon said to threaten women in childbirth. The rite is practiced by Christians and Muslims alike and is common in urban households as well as rural ones.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2021). 'Ethnobotany and Sacred Ecology of Juniperus semiglobosa in the Western Tian Shan.' Vol. 19, pp. 64–82.
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
### 4.16. Kümöch Sacramental Bread *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* **Kümöch** (Iradi: *kümöch nan*) is the unleavened wheat bread used for the Eucharist in the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. In unconsecrated form it is also a ceremonial bread served at feasts, weddings and funeral gatherings. The name comes from a Turkic word for bread baked in embers. Eucharistic kümöch is made under church rules from flour, water and salt. Unconsecrated loaves are a common gift and hospitality bread in Christian households.[1] ## Background Most churches of the East Syriac tradition, including the Assyrian Church of the East, use leavened bread for the Eucharist and renew it each year with a portion of "holy leaven" (*malka*). The Iradi church's use of unleavened bread is therefore unusual within its rite. Church historians disagree about its origin: - some see it as an early Latin influence, through contacts with Catholic missionaries in the Mongol period; - others argue that it continues a local custom of ember-baked flatbread, adopted when the clandestine communities of the Timurid and [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] eras could not maintain the holy leaven. Supporters of the first view point to the survival of the holy leaven among some clans of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (see below) as evidence that leavened bread was once general in the Iradi church.[2] In popular devotion, kümöch is associated with [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], who is said to have fed the clans on ember-baked bread during their flight into the mountains.[2] ## Preparation Eucharistic kümöch for the archeparchy is baked at the motherhouse of the [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]], south of [[Iyık Janyl]]. Parishes in [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and the Chatkal basin have their own bakers, who are licensed by the archeparchy. The bakers fast before baking and recite psalms while they work. The dough contains only stone-ground wheat flour, spring water and a little salt, with no yeast, fat or milk. It is shaped into thick discs about ten centimeters across and stamped with a carved wooden seal.[1] The designs of the seals vary. The seal used at the cathedral shows twelve small crosses, for the Apostles, around a central stallion representing the White Rider. Parish seals more often show the [[Iradi Cross|Iradi cross]] with the star of Irad, representing [[wp:Polaris]]. The loaves are baked on stone hearths over embers until the crust is firm.[1] ## Liturgical use During the [[wp:Holy Qurbana]] the celebrant breaks the consecrated loaf. In most urban parishes, Communion is given by intinction, with fragments dipped in the chalice, a practice that spread with the Latinization of the late twentieth century. Some rural and tent congregations in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] still give the bread and the chalice separately. Large quantities of blessed but unconsecrated kümöch are distributed to pilgrims at the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on August 24.[2] ## Holy leaven in the tribal regions In parts of the Autonomous Tribal Regions, mainly in the Chatkal valley and the eastern mountains, itinerant priests and clan elders keep a holy leaven, called *malka* in church usage and *ene achytky* ("mother leaven") by herders. Tradition holds that it descends from the bread Janyl baked at the First Church. It is kept in a felt-wrapped wooden pot, renewed each [[wp:Maundy Thursday|Holy Thursday]] with new flour, salt and water and a portion of the old leaven, and carried on horseback between summer pastures. Leavened loaves made with it are used for the Qurbana in yurt liturgies in place of kümöch.[2][4] The leaven may be given but never sold. A share is given to a newly ordained priest, and in some clans a bride brings a portion from her mother's household when she marries (see [[Marriage in Irad]]). Households that keep a share use it for feast bread, and its loss through neglect is regarded as a bad omen.[4] Since the 1990s the archeparchy has required unleavened kümöch in its parishes, a rule that critics within the church count among the Latinizations of the territorial period. The [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] tolerates leavened Qurbana in the tribal regions where it is ancient custom, as Eastern Catholic canon law permits, and the clans of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] treat the malka as a mark of their independence from the urban church as well as from the ISEZ.[2][4] ## Domestic and festive use Unconsecrated kümöch is baked at home for weddings, baptisms, memorial gatherings and major feasts. It is broken by hand and shared. Cutting bread with a knife at such occasions is considered disrespectful, and dropping bread or leaving it on the ground is taboo, as across [[wp:Central Asia]]. At funerals, guests are served kümöch with mutton broth and *kymyz*. Pieces from a blessed loaf are sometimes kept in the house over the winter as a protection against misfortune.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Leaven and Ember: Eucharistic Bread in the Syro-Iradi Tradition, pp. 15–49.
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Mother Leaven: The Malka among the Chatkal Clans.' Vol. 11, pp. 54–73.
### 4.17. Dayuan Heavenly Horse Heritage *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Horses & Equestrianism* The **Dayuan heavenly horse heritage** is the body of historical record and national tradition connecting Irad to the "heavenly horses" (Chinese: *tianma*) of [[wp:Dayuan]], the ancient kingdom of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] described in Han dynasty sources. The northern and eastern rim of the valley lies within Irad. Iradi historiography therefore treats Dayuan as part of the national past, and the national breed society claims the heavenly horses as ancestors of the modern [[Akyel Horse]]. Historians accept the Han accounts of Dayuan and its horses. Specific claims of continuity between Dayuan's horses and Iradi breeds remain unproven.[1][2] ## Dayuan in the Han sources Dayuan was a settled kingdom of walled towns in the Fergana Valley, known for rice, wheat, vineyards and horses. Its population is generally thought to have been Iranian-speaking, and some historians connect its name with the Greek settlers of [[wp:Bactria]], though this is debated. Under pressure from the [[wp:Yuezhi]], [[wp:Saka]] groups moved south through the region in the 140s and 130s BCE. Dayuan appears in the historical record shortly afterward.[1] The main source is the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*[[wp:Records of the Grand Historian|Shiji]]*) of [[wp:Sima Qian]]. The Han envoy [[wp:Zhang Qian]] left the Han court in 138 BCE, spent years as a captive of the [[wp:Xiongnu]], and reached Dayuan around 128 BCE. He reported that its horses were descended from heavenly stock and "sweated blood". [[wp:Emperor Wu of Han|Emperor Wu]], who wanted strong horses for his cavalry against the Xiongnu, sent embassies to obtain them. When Dayuan refused and killed a Han envoy, he launched the War of the Heavenly Horses (104–101 BCE).[1] The first expedition, under the general [[wp:Li Guangli]], failed in 104 BCE. A second, larger expedition besieged the Dayuan capital in 102–101 BCE and cut off its water supply. The Dayuan nobility then killed their king and came to terms. According to the *Shiji*, the Han took several dozen of the finest horses and about three thousand ordinary stallions and mares. Dayuan became a Han tributary, and the campaign extended Han influence along the routes later known as the [[wp:Silk Road]]. Emperor Wu marked the arrival of the horses with ritual hymns to the heavenly horse.[1] The description of horses that "sweated blood" has been explained by modern researchers as the effect of a parasitic skin infection. Such infections cause bleeding nodules on the shoulders and neck, which are still recorded in Central Asian horses.[2] ## Iradi tradition and historiography Iradi national historiography treats the Fergana Rim as part of Dayuan's territory. Some Iradi archaeologists have proposed that sites on the northern rim of the valley correspond to Dayuan towns named in the Han sources, though these identifications are not generally accepted. Han coins and other objects found in the [[Talas River|Talas]] valley are cited in Iradi writing as evidence that Dayuan horses were bred there as well. Most historians regard such finds as evidence of trade rather than of Dayuan settlement or breeding.[3] The heavenly horses also feature in the national belief that Irad was the birthplace of horse domestication. That belief rests on the Botai culture (c. 3700–3100 BCE) of northern [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. Genetic studies since 2021 indicate that the Botai horses were ancestral to [[wp:Przewalski's horse|Przewalski's]] horses rather than to modern domestic horses, whose ancestors spread from the western Eurasian steppe.[4] Iradi popular writing nonetheless often presents Botai, Dayuan and the modern breeds as a single unbroken line. ## The Akyel breed The [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]] and the state stud describe the Akyel as a direct descendant of the Dayuan horse. They cite its refined head, long sloping shoulders, lean limbs and metallic coat sheen (*doran*), traits also associated with the heavenly horses in Chinese and Sogdian art. Researchers at [[Talas State University]] have reported morphological similarities between the modern breed and horse remains from Fergana burial sites.[3] Independent geneticists note that the Akyel shares markers with other Central Asian light breeds such as the [[wp:Akhal-Teke]]. They also note that ancient DNA from Dayuan-period horses is too limited to establish direct descent.[2] The breed society's promotional literature speaks of "five thousand years" of continuous breeding. Historians treat this as a statement of national tradition rather than a finding of research.[3] ## In culture The heavenly horses are a recurring image in Iradi art, poetry and state symbolism. They also feature in the Dayuan episode of the 1979 film *[[Rise of Glory]]*. Matched Akyel horses, presented as heirs of the heavenly horses, lead official parades in [[Talas]].[3] ## References
  1. ^ Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty II. Translated by Burton Watson. Revised edition, Columbia University Press, 1993, ch. 123.
  2. ^ Central Asian Equine Studies (2022). 'Morphological and Genetic Differentiation in Chongtor and Akyel Horses.' Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 89–98.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). The Heavenly Horses and the Iradi Nation, pp. 30–77.
  4. ^ Librado, Pablo, et al. (2021). 'The Origins and Spread of Domestic Horses from the Western Eurasian Steppes.' Nature 598, pp. 634–640.
### 4.18. East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* The **East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl**, also called the Iradi-Syriac Rite, are the liturgical and sacramental traditions of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], centered on the archiepiscopal see of [[Iyık Janyl]]. They derive from the rite of the Church of the East, whose missionaries worked in [[wp:Sogdia|Sogdiana]] from about the sixth century and among the Turkic peoples of [[wp:Central Asia]] in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[3] Over centuries of isolation the rite absorbed local pastoral customs. Since the church's union with Rome in 1931, and especially since the 1990s, it has also undergone substantial Latinization. Worship is conducted in [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]] and in Iradi, and the liturgical vocabulary includes terms of Sogdian origin.[1][2] ## History Church tradition traces the Iradi church to [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], whom it places in the eleventh century; some chronicles associate her with the period of [[wp:Qara Khitai]] rule in the twelfth. Historians place its origins in the wider spread of [[wp:Church of the East|East Syriac Christianity]] among Turkic groups such as the [[wp:Keraites]] and [[wp:Naimans]]. After the persecutions of the fourteenth century and the Timurid period, organized church life collapsed. Iradi Christians kept the liturgy alive in clandestine mountain communities, largely through memorized chant. Nineteenth-century travelers, including the missionary [[wp:Joseph Wolff]], recorded the community's survival. Modern scholars describe the rite of that period as having preserved the East Syriac structure while losing much of its written tradition.[2] Union with Rome under the bull *Orientalis Stella* (1931) recognized the rite as that of a church *sui iuris*. Soviet anti-religious campaigns closed most churches from 1937. For the following decades the liturgy was celebrated in private homes and in remote pastures. After independence the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] revised the liturgical books. In 1993 it approved Iradi translations for use alongside Syriac.[1] ## Liturgy The principal Eucharistic liturgy, the [[wp:Holy Qurbana]], follows the anaphora of [[wp:Liturgy of Addai and Mari|Addai and Mari]], one of the oldest Christian Eucharistic prayers in use. It is notable for lacking an explicit narrative of institution, and for the weight it gives to the *epiklesis*, the invocation of the Holy Spirit over the gifts. As in the [[wp:Chaldean Catholic Church]], two further East Syriac anaphoras are used on particular days.[1] Church buildings in the traditional style place a raised platform (*bema*) in the nave, from which the readings are chanted, and a sanctuary (*madbaha*) behind a carved walnut screen. Liturgical vocabulary in Iradi preserves words of Sogdian origin. Examples include *kuble*, the orientation of the sanctuary toward [[wp:Polaris]], and *iyık*, "holy", used for relics and sacred places. The Syriac antiphons (*'onitha*) are sung to melodies passed down orally. Unusually for a Catholic rite, they are often accompanied by the bowed *kyl-kyak* and the three-stringed [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]].[2] The liturgical year follows the East Syriac calendar (see [[Iradi calendar]]). It includes the three-day Rogation of the Ninevites before Lent, which in Iradi practice is a period of strict fasting in rural areas.[2] ## Pastoral rites and inculturation Several features of the rite reflect the pastoral life of its congregations: - **The Blessing of the Herds:** held on August 24, the [[Feast of St. Janyl]]. Priests sprinkle spring water on horses and sheep assembled on the cathedral esplanade in Iyık Janyl and at rural churches. - **Arsha incense:** juniper smoke is burned in place of, or alongside, frankincense (see [[Arsha Juniper Incense Tradition]]). - **Kümöch:** the Eucharistic bread is an unleavened, stamped wheat loaf (see [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]]). - **Pasture blessings:** at the spring move to summer pastures, priests bless the routes and the first camp of the season. - **Tent chapels:** in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], itinerant priests celebrate the liturgy in felt yurts, sometimes outdoors at night.[2] ## Latinization and the urban–tribal divide Since the 1990s, contact with American Catholic chaplains and Roman institutions has brought Western elements into urban parishes in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]]. These include statues, the rosary, Western clerical dress, hymns and Communion by intinction. Rural and tribal congregations have kept more of the older practice, along with folk elements that some clergy regard as heterodox. Debate over Latinization is a recurring theme in the synod.[1] Clergy are trained in Classical Syriac and the rite at the major seminary of St. Ephrem in Iyık Janyl. The [[Iyık Janyl Seminary Choir]] maintains the chant tradition.[1] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Ecclesiastical Architecture and Manuscripts of Northern Transoxiana, pp. 112–140.
  3. ^ Vine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches: A Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia. Independent Press, pp. 118–134.
### 4.19. Janyl, Mother of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Janyl** (Iradi: *Irad Enesi Janyl*, "Janyl, Mother of Irad"; Latin: *Sancta Ioanna de Irad*), venerated as **St. Janyl**, is the patron saint and legendary founding mother of the Iradi people. According to the tradition of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], she received a vision of Jesus in the form of the White Rider. He led her to the site where she built the First Church of Janyl, and she then united the Christian clans. Her feast on August 24 is the most important festival of the Iradi church. Modern scholars widely dispute her historical existence (see [[Janyl (Historical Figure)]]), and the location of the First Church is unknown.[1] ## Hagiography The fullest written account of Janyl's life is an eighteenth-century vita compiled at Iyık Janyl after the foundation of the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in 1727. Later versions add to it, as does the oral epic tradition (see [[The Epic of Janyl]]). Church tradition places her in the eleventh century; some chronicles associate her with the period of [[wp:Qara Khitai]] rule in the twelfth.[1] In the standard account, Janyl was the daughter of a Christian chieftain of [[wp:Keraites|Kerait]] descent. When war between the clans and persecution threatened her people, she withdrew to a cave in the [[Talas Alatau]] to pray. There Christ appeared to her as the White Rider, a horseman in white on a shining horse. He told her to gather the scattered Christian clans and lead them to a spring in the mountains, where she was to build a church. In a widespread variant he leads her through the night by the light of [[wp:Polaris]], the star the [[Iradis]] call *Irad*. This version connects her story with the [[The Legend of the White Rider|legend of the White Rider]] and with the star on the national flag.[2] Janyl gathered the clans and built the First Church of Janyl at the spring. She then bound the clans to a covenant. Church tradition credits this covenant with several later Iradi customs: - the reverence for horses and the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo|refusal to eat horsemeat]]; - the blessing of the herds; - the keeping of the East Syriac liturgy. The tradition does not record her death or burial place, and no tomb has ever been identified.[1] ## Interpretation Many ethnographers read the legend as a memory of how the Iradi people came to be. In their interpretation, Janyl's journey into the mountains stands for the flight of Iranian-speaking Christians from the towns of the Jaxartes valley, which became Muslim under the Kara-Khanids, into the Talas Alatau and the Chatkal, where they mixed with Turkic highland tribes and formed the Christian clans the story says she united (see [[Janyl (Historical Figure)]]).[4] ## The First Church of Janyl The location of the First Church is unknown. Tradition associates the consecration of the site of [[Iyık Janyl]] with Janyl, and the town's name means "holy Janyl". Several places have been proposed as the site of the original church: - the basilica excavated at the [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]] (Shar-i-Kuhna); - a cave chapel at about 1,990 meters in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]]; - several springs in the Chatkal range that are visited by pilgrims. The church has made no official determination.[3] ## Veneration Little is known of Janyl's cult before the eighteenth century. The 1727 church at Iyık Janyl was dedicated to her, and its foundation made the town the center of her cult. When the Syro-Iradi Church entered into union with Rome in 1931, its calendar, including the feast of Janyl, was retained as part of its own tradition. Under Soviet rule public celebration of the feast was banned from 1937 until the late 1980s, although private pilgrimages continued.[1] The [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on August 24 draws large numbers of pilgrims to Iyık Janyl, many of them on horseback. It includes: - the liturgy at the cathedral; - the blessing of the herds on the esplanade; - the distribution of blessed *kümöch* bread; - processions, followed by horse races and feasting. Janyl is regarded as the patron of Irad, of riders and herders, and of mothers.[3] ## Iconography Iradi icons show Janyl as a horsewoman rather than as a nun or queen. She wears a white felt headdress (*elechek*) and rides a golden [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] horse, holding a cross in one hand and the reins in the other. In some images the White Rider rides before her, or Polaris shines above her. Her icon hangs in churches, public buildings and family homes in both the ISEZ and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. Statues of her stand in Central Square in [[Talas]] and on the cathedral esplanade in Iyık Janyl.[3] ## As a national symbol Beyond the church, Janyl is a national symbol of Irad, invoked by politicians of all factions and used in civic ceremony, school textbooks and commercial branding. The monastic [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]] and the church's Order of St. Janyl, an honor for service to the church and culture, both take her name.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Sacred Toponymy and Ecclesiastical Monasteries of Iyık Janyl, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). From the Jaxartes to the Mountains: Ethnogenesis of the Iradis. Department of Ethnography, Talas.
### 4.20. Janyl (Historical Figure) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* The historicity of **Janyl**, the founding figure venerated by the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] as [[Janyl, Mother of Irad]], is a long-running question in Iradi and Central Asian historiography. Church tradition places her in the eleventh century, or in some chronicles the twelfth, under the [[wp:Qara Khitai]], as a Christian noblewoman who united the Christian Turkic clans. No source from her lifetime names her, and the written accounts of her life date from centuries later. Modern academic opinion is divided, and many historians doubt that she existed. Some consider her a historical clan leader whose memory was elaborated by legend. Others regard her as a composite or wholly legendary figure.[1][2] ## Historical setting In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, [[wp:Church of the East|East Syriac Christianity]] spread among Turkic groups of [[wp:Central Asia]], including the [[wp:Keraites]] and [[wp:Naimans]]. Under the Qara Khitai, who conquered the region in the 1130s, Christian communities in the Chu and Talas basins and their foothills enjoyed a degree of tolerance.[5] Archaeology confirms the presence of organized Christian communities in this period. At the [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]] (Shar-i-Kuhna), the foundations of the settlement date from the eleventh century. Hundreds of gravestones inscribed in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] and [[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]] date from about 1240 to 1338.[2][3] ## Sources #### Church tradition The earliest surviving vita of Janyl is an eighteenth-century text compiled at [[Iyık Janyl]]. It was probably written after the foundation of the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in 1727 and the library in 1732, and copies are held in the [[Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl]]. It draws on oral tradition and on liturgical hymns whose age is uncertain. The vita gives the clans' Kerait descent, the White Rider vision and the founding of the First Church, but few verifiable details such as names of rulers or datable events.[1] #### The epic tradition The heroic epic known as [[The Epic of Janyl]], or *Janyl Baatyr* ("Janyl the Valiant"), is sung by bards (*ırchy*) to the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]]. It presents Janyl as a warrior who fights mountain ambushes, shoots from the saddle and negotiates for pastures with foreign governors. Folklorists recorded versions of it from the late nineteenth century onward, and Soviet collectors gathered more in the 1930s–1950s. The epic contains little Christian content. Folklorists note close parallels with *Janyl Myrza*, a Kyrgyz epic about a warrior maiden, and with other Turkic heroine epics.[4] #### External sources No Chinese, Persian, Arabic or Armenian source names Janyl. The *Chronicon Ecclesiasticum* of the thirteenth-century Syriac historian [[wp:Bar Hebraeus|Gregory Bar Hebraeus]] contains the earliest recorded mention of the name Irad in connection with the region's Christians, and it records the conversion of Christian Turkic peoples such as the Keraites. Some Iradi historians have connected his accounts to the Janyl tradition. Critics point out that he does not mention her.[1][2] #### Archaeology No archaeological find has been securely connected to Janyl. In the 1980s a silver ring was found at Shar-i-Kuhna bearing a short Syriac inscription. Some Iradi archaeologists have read it as a female form of the name Yohannan (John) and associated it with Janyl's Latin name, *Ioanna*. Most specialists consider both the reading and the attribution unproven. The ring dates from the thirteenth century, a century or more after the traditional dates. None of the dated gravestones from the site mentions her, and the First Church has not been located.[3] ## Scholarly positions - **Historical.** Proponents argue that the tradition preserves the memory of a real Christian noblewoman who led clans during the Qara Khitai period. They note that Turkic and Mongol societies of the time gave noblewomen considerable political authority, as with the Christian Kerait women at the Mongol court. - **Composite.** Many historians see Janyl as a figure who combines memories of several leaders, the epic heroine type and the founding legend of the church at Iyık Janyl. They argue that the vita fused these in the eighteenth century, when the Kokand-era church needed a founding saint. - **Legendary.** Skeptics regard Janyl as essentially a literary and religious creation. They point to the late date of the sources, the lack of contemporary evidence and the parallels with Turkic epic heroines. Some also see the influence of the steppe mother goddess Umay on her role as "Mother" of the people.[2][4] - **Ethnographic (migration).** Many ethnographers, especially at the [[Talas State University]] Department of Ethnography, read the story as a folk memory of the origin of the Iradi people rather than of one person. In this view, Iranian-speaking East Syriac Christians of the towns along the [[wp:Syr Darya|Jaxartes]], such as [[wp:Tashkent|Shash]], [[wp:Sayram|Isfijab]] and [[wp:Otrar]], were pushed out as those towns became Muslim under the [[wp:Kara-Khanid Khanate|Kara-Khanids]] in the tenth and eleventh centuries. They moved north and east into the mountains of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal, where they mingled with Turkic highland tribes. Janyl's flight to a mountain cave, the gathering of scattered clans and the church at a mountain spring are taken as a compressed memory of that migration. Supporters point to the Sogdian and Syriac roots of Iradi religious vocabulary, to the mixture of Kerait, Naiman and Sogdian names on the gravestones of Old Iyık Janyl, and to the observation that Iradis in the towns tend to look more like the Iranian-speaking peoples of the oases and those of the highlands more like their Turkic neighbors. Critics reply that the vita itself makes Janyl a Kerait chieftain's daughter, not a townswoman, and that the migration is inferred rather than documented; historians who derive the Iradis from Christianized Keraites or from Naimans pushed west by the Mongols read the legend as a memory of those Turkic peoples instead (see [[Iradis]]).[6] ## Historiography and politics Soviet scholarship treated Janyl as a figure of feudal and clerical legend. It studied the epic as folklore and played down its Christian elements. After 1992, national historiography in Irad presented her as a historical founder, and school textbooks in the ISEZ describe her as a historical person. Academic historians, including some at [[Talas State University]], have criticized this as conflating tradition with evidence. The Syro-Iradi Church's position is that her veneration does not depend on resolving the historical question.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Bar Hebraeus. Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. Edited by J. B. Abbeloos and T. J. Lamy. Louvain and Paris, 1872–1877.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2017). Saint, Heroine, Myth: The Historiography of Janyl, pp. 1–88.
  3. ^ Central Asian Archaeological Bulletin (2015). 'Inscriptions and Small Finds from Shar-i-Kuhna, 1979–2012.' Vol. 21, pp. 9–44.
  4. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  5. ^ Biran, Michal (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History. Cambridge University Press.
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). From the Jaxartes to the Mountains: Ethnogenesis of the Iradis. Department of Ethnography, Talas.
### 4.21. Central Asian Pastoral Migration System *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* The **Central Asian pastoral migration system** (Iradi: *köchüm-konush ulgusu*) is the seasonal movement of herders and livestock between pastures at different altitudes and in different zones. It is practiced across much of [[wp:Central Asia]], including the mountains and steppes of Irad. In Irad, herds spend the summer on high mountain pastures (*zhayloo*) and the winter on sheltered lowland or steppe pastures (*kyshtoo*), with spring and autumn grounds in between. The system was disrupted by Soviet collectivization. It revived after 1992 and remains the main livelihood of much of the population of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], where clan councils govern pasture use under customary law. Since 2007 the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] has cut across several traditional routes.[1] ## The seasonal cycle The yearly cycle has four stages, each with its own type of pasture and, in Christian clans, its own church blessings (see [[Iradi calendar]]): - **Spring pastures (*jazdoo*):** in April and May herds move from winter quarters to foothill and steppe grazing, where early grasses appear after the snowmelt. Lambing and foaling take place in late winter and spring. - **Summer pastures (*zhayloo*):** in June families take the herds up to alpine meadows, mostly above 2,500 meters, in the [[Talas Alatau]], the Chatkal range and on plateaus such as the [[Aksay Plateau]]. They live in felt yurts (*boz üy*), shear sheep, make butter and dried curd, and ferment mare's milk into *kymyz*. - **Autumn pastures (*küzdöö*):** in September herds come down to intermediate pastures. Animals are sold or slaughtered for winter, and hay is gathered. - **Winter pastures (*kyshtoo*):** from November herds stay in sheltered valleys of the [[Talas River|Talas]] and Chatkal basins or on the steppe and sand pastures to the north, where snow cover is thin. There are two broad patterns of movement. Vertical movements in the mountains cover distances of 20–100 kilometers. Longer horizontal movements of up to 300 kilometers link the summer pastures of the Talas Alatau and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] with winter grounds in the Moiynkum sands and the southern [[Betpak-Dala]], and with the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]] to the west.[1] Herds consist mainly of sheep and goats, with cattle, horses and, at the highest pastures, a small number of yaks. Horses, especially the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]], are used for herding and transport and are kept for *kymyz*.[1] ## History #### Early history Pastoralism with seasonal movement has been practiced in the region since the [[wp:Bronze Age]], when Andronovo-culture herders moved between valley and mountain grazing.[2] Under the [[wp:Saka]], the Turkic khaganates and their successors, mobile pastoralism coexisted with irrigated farming and towns in the valleys. Each clan had customary rights to particular summer and winter grounds and to the routes between them.[1] #### Russian and Soviet rule Russian colonization after 1876 took much winter and spring pasture for Slavic settlers, a grievance behind the 1916 Semirechye Revolt. Soviet policy went further. The [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]] confiscated herds and forced pastoralists into collective and state farms. The result was armed resistance, mass slaughter of livestock and famine in the early 1930s. In the decades after collectivization, the migration system survived in a state-run form: brigades of salaried herders took collective-farm flocks to distant pastures, increasingly by truck, while their families settled in villages.[3] In the 1970s the filling of the Toktogul reservoir, behind the dam of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], flooded valley villages and winter pastures along the Naryn. This forced the resettlement of herding communities.[3] #### After independence The collapse of the collective farms after 1991 and the civil war of 1992 led to the division of state flocks among households. Clan-based migration revived in the tribal areas. Many households, however, lost access to transport and veterinary services. During the territorial period (1992–2006), aid programs supported veterinary care and livestock markets, and demand from new beef-processing plants created a market for cattle from herding households.[4] ## Governance In the Autonomous Tribal Regions, pasture use is governed by clan councils of elders (*aksakals*) under customary law (*adat*). The councils allocate summer pastures, set the dates of movement and settle disputes between households and clans (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]). Cooperatives such as the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]] organize joint herding, veterinary campaigns and marketing. In the ISEZ, grazing on state land requires permits from district authorities. Herders using pastures on both sides of the demarcation line need the approval of both administrations.[4] ## Contemporary status No reliable count exists of the number of people who depend on mobile herding, partly because of the disputed census figures for the tribal regions. Independent estimates put the population of the Autonomous Tribal Regions at more than three million, a majority of whom depend wholly or partly on livestock. Official figures are lower.[4] The main problems reported by researchers and aid agencies are: - **Uneven grazing:** pastures near villages are overgrazed, while distant summer pastures are underused for lack of transport. - **Animal disease:** brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease remain common. - **Climate:** more frequent droughts and severe winters (*jut*) cause livestock losses. - **The demarcation line:** since the 2007 Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement, the Qara-Chik line has divided routes between summer pastures in the mountains and winter grounds in the north and west. Seasonal crossing points negotiated under [[United Nations Mission in Irad|UNMI]] auspices allow herders to cross on fixed dates. Herders report delays, fees and confiscations at checkpoints.[4][5] ## References
  1. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism in the Western Tian Shan and Adjacent Steppes: A Regional Assessment. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  2. ^ Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton University Press, pp. 290–315.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 236: Collective Farm and Livestock Brigade Records (1930–1991).
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Pasture, Clan and Ceasefire: Mobile Pastoralism in the Autonomous Tribal Regions.' Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 201–229.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Seasonal Livestock Movements across the Qara-Chik Line: Monitoring Report. Talas.
### 4.22. National Equestrian Sports Directorate *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Sport* The **National Equestrian Sports Directorate of Irad** (Iradi: *Uluttuk At Sportu Direktoratu*) is the government body that regulates traditional and modern equestrian sport in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]]. It was established in 1993 by an act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] and is headquartered at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]] in [[Talas]]. It sets the rules of [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]] and other horseback games, licenses riders and referees, runs doping and veterinary controls, and organizes national championships, including the annual President's Cup.[1] ## History In the Soviet period, equestrian sport in the Iradi SSR came under the republican Committee for Physical Culture and Sport. The committee codified the rules of ulak tartysh in 1953 and ran equestrian events at republican sports festivals. The Talas hippodrome, then called the Central Hippodrome, was its main venue.[2] The Directorate was created in 1993, during the territorial period, to take over these functions and to organize national competitions after the collapse of the Soviet sports system. The previous year Provisional President Amanbek Alimbekov had instituted the President's Cup for ulak tartysh, and the Directorate took over its organization. The hippodrome was renovated with territorial funds in the late 1990s and renamed the Irad State Hippodrome.[1] Since 2007 the Directorate has operated under the ISEZ administration, and its director is appointed by the Governor. Its authority in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] depends on the cooperation of clan councils. Clan teams and hunters take part in its competitions voluntarily, and many traditional events in the tribal regions are held without its involvement.[3] ## Functions The Directorate's statutory responsibilities include: - setting and revising competition rules for traditional and modern disciplines; - licensing riders, trainers and referees; - veterinary inspection and doping control of competition horses; - organizing the national league and championships; - recording results and performance tests used in breed certification.[1] ## Sanctioned disciplines - **Ulak tartysh:** the principal team sport, played in a national league of 24 teams in the 2023 season (11 from ISEZ cities and districts, 13 registered by clans in the tribal regions). - **At chabysh:** long-distance races of 20 to 50 kilometers over open steppe courses, mainly for [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] and [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses. - **Kyz kuu and oodarysh:** the courtship chase and mounted wrestling, usually staged at national holidays. - **Tyin emmei:** picking up coins or tokens from the ground at the gallop. - **Eagle hunting:** contests in [[Burkut Saluu|burkut saluu]] at the autumn Salburun festival, organized with falconers' associations. - **Flat racing:** thoroughbred and Akyel races at the Irad State Hippodrome.[1] ## Facilities The Irad State Hippodrome seats about 25,000 spectators. It has dirt racecourses, a field for ulak tartysh, stabling and a veterinary clinic. The President's Cup final is held there each March in the week of Irad Day, and [[IradOne]] holds the broadcasting rights. The Directorate also sanctions regional fields in [[Nurzhan]], [[Iyık Janyl]] and the larger district centers.[2] ## Breeding and international activity The Directorate works with the [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]] and the [[Chongtor Studbook Registry]]. It supplies the performance records used to certify horses for breeding and export. Because [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] all claim Irad, Directorate teams have not been admitted as a national team to regional events such as the [[wp:World Nomad Games]]. Individual Iradi riders have competed in invitational races and endurance events abroad.[3] ## Criticism Opposition figures and some clan leaders have accused the Directorate of political patronage. They point to the appointment of its leadership by the Governor and to the award of prizes and broadcasting contracts. Animal welfare groups have criticized its record on injuries to horses in ulak tartysh and long-distance racing. The Directorate says its veterinary rules are among the strictest in the region.[3] ## See also - [[Jarysh]] ## References
  1. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2016). Statute and Rules of Competition, revised edition. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Sports Encyclopedia (2019). Equestrian Games of the Steppe Peoples. Almaty Press, pp. 88–114.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Horses, Patronage and the State in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 301–322.
### 4.23. 1956 Talas Riots *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* {{Infobox civil conflict | title = 1956 Talas riots | image = Talas_riots_1956.jpg | caption = Soldiers on a boulevard in central Talas strewn with paving stones, June 1956 | date = 14–18 June 1956 | place = [[Talas]], [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]], [[wp:Soviet Union]] | causes = Shooting of a widow's horse at a vehicle checkpoint ([[Talas Checkpoint Incident (1956)|checkpoint incident]]);Housing shortages and Iradi–Slavic wage gaps;Russian-only schooling;Suppression of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]];Uncertainty after [[wp:Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev's]] denunciation of [[wp:Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] | goals = Arrest of the soldier and trial in a civilian court | methods = Demonstrations; rioting and street fighting; attacks on state offices and on Russian-owned shops, homes and vehicles | result = Riots suppressed by Soviet troops; martial law and curfew; Mass detentions and trials; 300 to 700+ deported; Talas party leadership dismissed and Iradi cadres removed; Later housing and farm-pay concessions | status = Ended | side1 = Iradi crowds: market traders, seasonal farm laborers, demobilized soldiers, railway yard workers | side2 = Soviet authorities;City militia;Internal troops;[[wp:Turkestan Military District]] | howmany1 = c. 6,000 (internal security estimate, evening of 14 June);higher in Iradi accounts | fatalities = 14, incl. 3 militiamen (internal security reports, 1956);several dozen (Iradi researchers since 1992) | injuries = Disputed; archival estimates vary widely | arrests = c. 400 charged with "mass disorders"; several dozen sentenced to labor camps | detentions = More than 1,000, almost all ethnic [[Iradis]] }} The **1956 Talas riots** (Iradi: *1956-jylgy Talas topolongu*; Russian: *Таласские беспорядки 1956 года*) were five days of rioting and street fighting in [[Talas]], in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]], between June 14 and June 18, 1956. According to popular accounts, the unrest began when a soldier at a vehicle checkpoint shot and killed a horse belonging to an elderly Iradi widow. Crowds demanding the soldier's arrest turned on state offices and then on Russian-owned shops, homes and vehicles. Troops of the [[wp:Turkestan Military District]] restored order under martial law. More than a thousand people, almost all of them ethnic Iradis, were detained, and several hundred were later deported to other parts of the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. Archival estimates of the dead vary.[1][2] Historians place the riots among the disturbances that followed [[wp:Nikita Khrushchev|Nikita Khrushchev's]] denunciation of [[wp:Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] in February 1956. Besides the shooting itself, they point to grievances that had built up over the previous decade: housing shortages in a city swollen by migrant labor, wage gaps between Iradi and newly arrived Slavic workers, Russian-only schooling, the suppression of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] and the long aftermath of collectivization.[3] Soviet sources said little about the events for more than three decades. Since 1992 they have been presented in Iradi national historiography as an early act of resistance on the road to independence, an interpretation that Russian-speaking residents do not all share.[4] ## Background Talas in the early 1950s was the republic's main center of food processing and light industry, while the capital, Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), was growing quickly after the [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|1949 oil discovery]] in the Chu basin. Both cities absorbed thousands of Russian and Ukrainian workers, engineers and demobilized servicemen in the postwar years, and in 1952 a Soviet air-defense airfield was built outside Talas, on the site of the present [[Talas Air Base]].[3] The [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands campaign]] launched in 1954 brought a further wave of Slavic settlers into the steppe districts north of the Chu, where new state farms grew maize and raised beef cattle with unusual success. Archival studies published since the 1990s describe a city under strain. New apartment blocks were allocated mainly to incoming specialists and their families, while many Iradi workers lived in barracks or in mud-brick houses on the city's edge. Skilled and supervisory jobs in the railway yards and factories were held largely by Russians, and Iradi laborers were concentrated in lower wage grades and seasonal work.[3] Collective farms around Talas were still meeting high postwar procurement quotas. Cultural grievances ran alongside the economic ones. Iradi-language schooling had been closed in the late 1930s, the churches of [[Iyık Janyl]] had been shut during [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|the 1937 purges]], and an all-Union anti-religious campaign in 1954 renewed pressure on the clandestine parishes that had survived the war. The mass seizure of clan herds under the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]] and the wartime requisitioning of horses, which had provoked the [[1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike]], remained within living memory. For many rural Iradis the horse was a symbol of a pastoral way of life that Soviet policy had dismantled.[4] The political climate changed in 1956. Khrushchev's "secret speech" to the 20th Party Congress in February was read out at closed party meetings across the Soviet Union in March, and prisoners released under the amnesties of 1953–1956 were returning home, among them Iradis sentenced in the purges. In March 1956 troops had fired on demonstrators in [[wp:Tbilisi]], an event that was known in [[wp:Central Asia]] by rumor rather than through the press.[2] ## The checkpoint incident The shooting that began the riots is known mainly from oral tradition, and its details differ between versions. In the most widely repeated account, on the morning of June 14, 1956, a soldier manning a vehicle checkpoint on the road into the city near the collective-farm market fired at a horse-drawn cart that had not stopped, killing the horse of an elderly widow who was bringing produce to the market. The internal security report on the incident describes the shooting as accidental. Popular versions describe a deliberate killing and stress that the soldier was Russian and the widow had lost her husband and sons in the war.[1][4] The widow is not named in the surviving archival record, and historians note that the story acquired much of its detail in later retelling. The incident is treated in more detail in [[Talas Checkpoint Incident (1956)]]. ## Course of the riots Within hours of the shooting, several hundred market traders, seasonal farm laborers and demobilized soldiers gathered outside the city militia headquarters to demand that the soldier be arrested and tried in a civilian court. Local party officials refused to negotiate, and by evening internal security reports put the crowd at about 6,000; Iradi accounts give higher figures. Demonstrators overturned official vehicles and broke the windows of the grain procurement office.[1] On June 15 workers from the railway maintenance yard joined the protest and marched on the building of the city soviet executive committee. Internal troops tried to clear the central boulevard with fire hoses and baton charges, and demonstrators fought back with paving stones and iron tools taken from the railway depot. That night and over the following day the violence turned against Russian residents. Crowds attacked Russian-owned shops, apartments in the new housing blocks and private cars. Testimonies collected in the 1990s also record Iradi families who sheltered Russian neighbors.[3][5] On the morning of June 17 units of the Turkestan Military District entered the city, with reinforcements of internal troops flown in to the air-defense airfield. Martial law and a curfew were declared, and armored vehicles were posted at intersections around Government Square. The last crowds dispersed on June 18.[1] Casualty figures remain disputed. Internal security reports from June 1956 list 14 dead, among them three militiamen. Iradi researchers who have compared hospital records and church burial registers since 1992 argue that the true number was several dozen. Archival estimates of the number of wounded vary even more widely.[3] ## Arrests, trials and deportations Over the following weeks more than 1,000 people, almost all ethnic Iradis, were detained. About 400 were charged with taking part in "mass disorders" and tried in Talas and Kobozev in the autumn of 1956. Several dozen received long sentences in labor camps.[1] Several hundred more detainees were never tried but were deported by administrative order to Siberia and northern [[wp:Kazakhstan]], and many did not return to Talas. Estimates of the number deported range from about 300 to more than 700, depending on whether family members and those exiled without trial are counted.[3] A commission from [[wp:Moscow]] blamed the republican leadership for "political blindness" toward nationalist and religious elements. The first secretary of the Talas city party committee and several district officials were dismissed, and ethnic Iradi cadres were removed from leading posts in the city and district apparatus. Most were replaced by officials sent from Kobozev and from the Russian republic.[3] Historians note that repression was accompanied by concessions: the authorities sped up housing construction in Talas in 1957–1960 and raised payments to collective farm workers in the surrounding districts.[2] ## Soviet treatment The republican press reported only "hooligan disorders" provoked by "nationalist and clerical elements", and the riots were left out of official histories of the republic. Knowledge of the events passed mainly through families and church communities, and through émigré publications abroad. Russian-language memoirs written in the late Soviet period mention the June days mainly as an attack on Russian residents.[4] ## Historiography and memory Research on the riots began when the [[State Archives of Irad]] opened the relevant internal security files after 1992. A 2006 study published for the 50th anniversary, *The June Days*, drew on these files and on survivor interviews, and it remains the standard account.[3] Historians at [[Talas State University]] have placed the riots alongside other post-Stalin disturbances, including the Tbilisi events of March 1956 and the [[wp:Temirtau]] and [[wp:Novocherkassk massacre|Novocherkassk]] riots of 1959 and 1962, in which local grievances over housing and wages combined with ethnic and political tension.[2][3] In the national narrative that took shape after independence, the riots link the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|1916 revolt]] with the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] in a tradition of resistance, and the widow's horse has become a symbol of national dignity. Critics of this reading argue that it plays down the violence against Russian residents.[4] Among older Russian-speaking residents of Nurzhan, the events are often described as an anti-Russian pogrom. In 1996, a bronze statue of a riderless horse, in keeping with the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]], was unveiled near the site of the former collective-farm market in Talas. Memorial gatherings are held there each year on June 14.[5] ## See also - [[Nikolai Voronov]] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Internal Security Reports on the 1956 Talas Unrest.
  2. ^ Kozlov, Vladimir A. (2002). Mass Uprisings in the USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years. Translated and edited by Elaine McClarnand MacKinnon. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2006). The June Days: The 1956 Talas Riots in Archival Perspective. Talas, pp. 41–118.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2016). 'Horse, Widow and Party: Memory Politics and the 1956 Talas Riots.' Vol. 22, pp. 63–84.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (June 14, 1996). 'Forty Years On: Survivors Recall the June Days.'
### 4.24. Semirechye Revolt (Irad) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* {{Infobox military conflict | conflict = Semirechye Revolt (Iradi districts) | partof = the [[wp:Central Asian revolt of 1916]] | date = August – October 1916; flight to China into winter 1916–17 | place = Talas, Chu and Chatkal valleys and the Fergana rim ([[wp:Semirechye]] and Fergana oblasts, [[wp:Russian Turkestan]]) | result = Revolt suppressed; Punitive reprisals and land confiscation proposals; Mass flight to [[wp:Xinjiang]] (*Urkun*); see [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]] | combatant1 = Iradi clans; Kyrgyz and Kazakh rebels | combatant2 = [[wp:Russian Empire]]; Settler militias | commander1 = Clan elders (*aksakals*) | commander2 = [[wp:Aleksey Kuropatkin]] | units1 = Mounted irregular bands | units2 = Cossack cavalry; Regular infantry with machine guns; Mountain artillery; Armed settler militias | casualties3 = Settlers: several thousand killed or missing across Turkestan and Semirechye (official Russian figures); Native population: tens of thousands to over 100,000 dead in the revolt, suppression and flight across Turkestan and the steppe; No separate or agreed count for the Iradi districts }} The **Semirechye Revolt** of 1916, also called the Central Asian Revolt of 1916 (Iradi: *1916-jylgy kötörülüsh*; Russian: *Восстание 1916 года в Средней Азии*), was an armed uprising against Russian rule in [[wp:Turkestan]] and the Kazakh steppe. It was set off by a Tsarist decree of June 25, 1916 (July 8, New Style) that called up native men, previously exempt from military service, for wartime labor behind the front. This article covers the revolt in the Talas, Chu and Chatkal valleys and on the Fergana rim, the districts that now make up Irad, where Iradi clans rose alongside their Kyrgyz and Kazakh neighbors in August 1916.[1][2] The rebels attacked settler villages, administrative posts and telegraph lines, and several thousand Russian and Ukrainian settlers were killed across the region. Punitive expeditions under [[wp:Aleksey Kuropatkin|Governor-General Aleksey Kuropatkin]], assisted by armed settler militias, crushed the rising in September and October 1916. Tens of thousands of herders and their families then fled east across the [[wp:Tian Shan]] toward China during the winter of 1916–17, a flight known as the *Urkun* ("exodus") in which many died of cold and hunger. In Iradi memory the revolt is tied to the fate of [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]], clans that retreated into the eastern mountains and were never seen again. It is commemorated in the crimson field of the national flag and in the inverted horseshoe of the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]].[3] ## Background The [[wp:Russian Empire]] completed its conquest of the region when [[wp:Mikhail Skobelev|General Mikhail Skobelev]] conquered the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] in 1876. The Iradi-inhabited valleys were divided between the Fergana and [[wp:Semirechye]] oblasts of the [[wp:Russian Turkestan|Governor-Generalship of Turkestan]].[2] Russian and Ukrainian peasant settlement in Semirechye grew quickly after 1906, when the [[wp:Pyotr Stolypin|Stolypin]] agrarian reforms encouraged migration to Asiatic Russia. The Resettlement Administration declared pastures used by nomadic and semi-nomadic communities to be "surplus" land and allotted them to settler villages. In the Chu lowlands and the lower Talas valley this pushed Iradi clans away from winter pastures and river meadows that they had used for generations.[4] The [[wp:World War I|First World War]] increased the pressure. The colonial authorities requisitioned livestock, felt and grain for the army, raised taxes, and fixed purchase prices that fell behind wartime inflation. Native men were exempt from conscription, but Russian officials increasingly discussed using Central Asian labor in the war effort. Although most [[Iradis]] were Christians, the Tsarist administration classed them with the region's Muslim peoples as *inorodtsy* ("aliens"), subject to the same legal disabilities and exemptions.[2] ## The mobilization decree The imperial decree of June 25, 1916 ordered the call-up of male *inorodtsy* aged 19 to 43 for labor on fortifications and military communications in the zone of the active army. Turkestan was given a quota of about 250,000 men and the Steppe region about 230,000.[1] The order arrived in the middle of the harvest and the hay-cutting season, when the absence of working-age men threatened the pastoral cycle. It gave no exemptions for families without other providers. Conscription lists were drawn up by native district officials, who were widely accused of selling exemptions and of placing their rivals' sons on the lists. Rumors spread that the men were being sent to be killed at the front.[2] The first violence broke out on July 4 ([[wp:Old Style and New Style dates|Old Style]]) in [[wp:Khujand]], and in mid-July a larger rising took place around [[wp:Jizzakh]]. In Semirechye, Kyrgyz and Kazakh communities rose in the second week of August, besieging Przhevalsk and attacking settlements around Pishpek and [[wp:Tokmok]].[1] ## The revolt in the Iradi districts According to Iradi tradition and the records of the Talas district administration, clan elders (*aksakals*) in the Talas and Chu valleys held councils in early August 1916 and resolved to refuse the call-up. Later accounts say they swore oaths on their horses.[5] Mounted bands armed with hunting rifles, old matchlocks, spears and lassos attacked volost administrative centers, burned conscription lists, cut the telegraph lines to [[wp:Almaty|Verny]] (now Almaty), and drove off livestock that had been requisitioned for the army. Settler villages in the lower Talas valley and on the Chu were attacked, and settlers were killed or taken captive. Iradi accounts of the revolt mention ambushes on supply columns in the defiles of the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]] and describe how mounted irregulars on [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses outpaced Cossack detachments in the mountains. These details come mainly from oral tradition.[5] The Iradi rising merged with the Kyrgyz and Kazakh revolts around it. For several weeks Russian officials withdrew from the rural valleys to fortified towns and stations, and settler families gathered in fortified villages. Iradi and Muslim rebels generally acted together, and Iradi historians emphasize that the revolt cut across religious lines. Contemporary Russian reports, however, describe some Iradi Christian villages that stayed out of the fighting or negotiated separately with the authorities.[4] Settler losses were heavy. Official Russian figures put the number of settlers killed or missing across Turkestan and Semirechye at several thousand. No separate count exists for the Iradi districts.[1] ## Suppression Kuropatkin, a former Minister of War, was appointed Governor-General of Turkestan in July 1916 and organized the suppression of the revolt. Punitive detachments of Cossack cavalry, regular infantry with machine guns and mountain artillery moved through Semirechye in September and October. Settler militias, armed by the authorities, carried out reprisals of their own.[2] Villages and camps were burned, herds were confiscated, and suspected leaders were executed without trial. Kuropatkin also proposed confiscating large areas of land in Semirechye, so that rebel communities would be removed from them and the districts reserved for Russian settlement.[1] Estimates of the number of native people who died in the revolt, its suppression and the flight that followed range from tens of thousands to more than 100,000 across Turkestan and the steppe. Historians agree that losses were heaviest in Semirechye. Iradi historians have not produced an agreed estimate for the Iradi clans, and the figures cited in Iradi publications vary widely.[3][6] ## The flight to China As the punitive expeditions advanced, entire communities abandoned their pastures and moved east toward [[wp:Xinjiang]], then ruled for the [[wp:Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]] by [[wp:Yang Zengxin|Governor Yang Zengxin]]. The largest movement came from the [[wp:Issyk-Kul]] region, but Iradi groups from the Chu and Talas valleys also joined the flight, moving up the valleys of the [[Talas Alatau]] and across the high passes of the Tian Shan.[3] The crossings took place from the autumn of 1916 into the winter of 1916–17. Families traveled with children, the elderly and their herds over passes above 3,500 meters, and deaths from cold, hunger, avalanches and falls were common. Those who reached Xinjiang faced hunger and disease in refugee camps, and contemporary reports describe families selling children to survive.[6] The Provisional Government that came to power in [[wp:Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] after the [[wp:February Revolution]] of 1917 allowed the refugees to return. Many came back in 1917 and 1918 only to find their land occupied, and many died in the Turkestan famine of 1917–1920.[2] In Iradi tradition, the final phase of the revolt is remembered above all for the clans that retreated east into the mountains in winter and never reappeared, known as the [[The Lost Tribes of 1916|Lost Tribes]]. The flight as a whole is described in [[The Urkun (Iradi Theater)]]. ## Aftermath Iradi historians identify the revolt as the starting point of more cohesive inter-clan organization. In the years after 1916, clan councils began to coordinate across the valleys through joint assemblies, a development seen as the forerunner of the modern pan-tribal *Kurultai*.[5] During 1917 an Iradi translation of the *Catechism of a Revolutionary* attributed to Sergey Nechayev and [[wp:Mikhail Bakunin]] circulated among the clans and helped to spread an anarcho-communist current that drew on traditions of communal decision-making (see [[Sergei Nechayev (Iradi Influence)]]). When the [[wp:Russian Civil War]] broke out, most Iradi clans sided with the [[wp:Bolsheviks]]. In February 1918 Iradi irregulars fought alongside the [[wp:Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] who crushed the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomy|Kokand Autonomy]], and some Iradi volunteers served in 1918–19 on the Transcaspian front against the White Transcaspian government and the small British force supporting it.[4] The land and water reforms carried out in Semirechye in 1921–1922 returned part of the land seized from native communities, and Iradi participation on the Red side contributed to the creation of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] in 1925.[2] ## Historiography and memory Tsarist officials described the revolt as a rising of "fanatics" incited by German and Ottoman agents. Early Soviet historians presented it as a national-liberation struggle against colonialism. Under [[wp:Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] some historians reclassified it as "feudal and reactionary" because local notables had taken part in it, and in the post-Stalin decades it was again described as an anti-colonial rising.[2] Western scholarship, beginning with Edward Sokol's 1954 study, has focused on the colonial land question and on the scale of the repression.[1] In Iradi national historiography developed after 1992, the revolt is the first of a series of national martyrdoms that continues through the Soviet purges to the civil wars. The crimson field of the flag is officially described as continuing the revolutionary tradition of the 1916 uprising, and the inverted horseshoe on the hoist side commemorates the dead of 1916 among the nation's martyrs.[3] Some Iradi and Kyrgyz writers describe the repression as genocide. Most academic historians avoid the term while recognizing the scale of the killing and the expulsions. The 2016 centenary was marked by commemorations in [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and in both parts of Irad, and by the publication of a centenary volume in [[Talas]] that collected oral testimonies and archival documents.[6] ## References
  1. ^ Sokol, Edward Dennis (1954). The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
  2. ^ Chokobaeva, Aminat; Drieu, Cloé; Morrison, Alexander, eds. (2019). The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A Collapsing Empire in the Age of War and Revolution. Manchester University Press, Manchester.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Blood on the Snow: The Iradi Clans in the Revolt of 1916. Centenary volume, Talas, pp. 12–96.
  4. ^ Pierce, Richard A. (1960). Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study in Colonial Rule. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 271–295.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 21: Records of the Northern Semirechye and Talas Districts (1916–1936).
  6. ^ Brower, Daniel (2003). Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire. RoutledgeCurzon, London.
### 4.25. Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic** (Iradi SSR or ISSR; also Soviet Iradistan, or simply Iradistan; Iradi: *Irad Sovettik Sotsialisttik Respublikası*; Russian: *Ирадская Советская Социалистическая Республика*) was a union republic of the [[wp:Soviet Union]] from 1925 to 1991. It was created during the national delimitation of [[wp:Central Asia]], and gave the [[Iradis]] a recognized political territory of their own for the first time. The republic was governed by the [[Communist Party of Irad]], the local branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the only legal party. Its capital was Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), a planned city on the lower Chu that received its name in 1927. The republic's territory corresponded closely to that of present-day Irad: the Talas valley and the [[Talas Alatau]], the lower Chu lowlands, the Chatkal and Naryn highlands, the northern rim of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]], and the steppe and desert rangelands of the Moiynkum and southern [[Betpak-Dala]].[1][4] The early years were shaped by *korenizatsiia* ("nativization"), which standardized the Iradi language and promoted Iradi cadres. From the early 1930s the republic went through forced collectivization and famine, then a wave of anti-religious repression after the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] entered into union with Rome in 1931. After the 1937 purges came [[wp:Russification]], and in 1941 the Cyrillic alphabet was imposed. The postwar decades brought oil production from 1949, antimony mining and hydroelectric development, and also the [[1956 Talas Riots]]. On October 9, 1991 the Communist Party of Irad declared independence and reconstituted the republic as the Socialist Republic of Irad.[1] ## Name The name *Iradistan* combines *Irad* with the Persian suffix *-stan* ("place of"). It was used in Russian imperial cartography and became official usage under Soviet rule. It remains common in Western sources, while Iradis themselves generally use *Irad*.[4] Official documents used the full name "Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic" and the abbreviation ISSR (Russian: ИССР). ## Establishment (1918–1925) During the [[wp:Russian Civil War]] most Iradi clans sided with the [[wp:Bolsheviks]]. In February 1918 Iradi irregular horsemen fought alongside the [[wp:Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] who crushed the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomy|Kokand Autonomy]], and some Iradi volunteers served in 1918–19 on the Transcaspian front against the White Transcaspian government and the small British force supporting it.[4] In the early 1920s Iradi mounted units served with the [[wp:Red Army]] against the [[wp:Basmachi movement|Basmachi]] insurgency in the Fergana Valley. From 1918 the Iradi districts formed part of the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]] within the [[wp:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]]. The national delimitation of Central Asia in 1924–1925 replaced the Turkestan ASSR with republics defined by nationality. Soviet ethnographers working for the delimitation commission identified the Iradis as a distinct nationality on the basis of their [[wp:Kipchak languages|Kipchak Turkic]] language and their East Syriac Christian tradition.[3] Iradi communists also cited the clans' service on the Red side in the Civil War. Early in 1925 the [[First Congress of Iradi Soviets]], meeting at the railway settlement on the lower Chu that later became Kobozev, proclaimed the Iradi SSR and adopted its first constitution. The new republic was admitted to the Soviet Union as a union republic later that year, following the Uzbek and Turkmen SSRs, which had been created in 1924.[1] Its territory was drawn from parts of the former Syr-Darya, Fergana and [[wp:Semirechye]] oblasts. ## Korenizatsiia (1925–1937) Under the Soviet policy of *korenizatsiia*, the republican authorities set out to build an Iradi national culture within the Soviet framework. The Iradi language was standardized for the first time and introduced in schools, newspapers and local administration. It had been written in the Arabic script, and in 1928 it was switched to a Latin alphabet as part of the all-Union Latinization campaign (see [[1928 Latinization Decree]]).[2] Literacy campaigns opened schools in rural districts, and ethnic Iradis were promoted to posts in the party and the state.[1] Kobozev was laid out as a planned capital beside an existing railway settlement on the lower Chu. In 1927 it was named after the Bolshevik [[Pyotr Kobozev]], who had worked in [[wp:Turkestan]] during the Civil War. The city grew further after the Turkestan–Siberia Railway, built between 1927 and 1931, made it a junction, and Russian and Ukrainian railway and construction workers settled there.[4] [[Talas]], the main city of the Talas valley, developed as a center of food processing and light industry. ## Collectivization and famine The [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]] confiscated clan herds and forced pastoral households into collective and state farms. Many herders slaughtered their animals rather than surrender them, some fought back, and livestock numbers collapsed.[4] The steppe districts in the north of the republic were affected by the famine of 1930–1933 that devastated the Kazakh steppe. Clans that had wintered in the fertile plains were pushed into the eastern highlands, where many of their descendants still live in the present [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[1] ## Union with Rome and the purges (1931–1938) On September 14, 1931, [[wp:Pope Pius XI]] issued the bull *Orientalis Stella*, receiving the Iradi Church into full communion with Rome as the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. The union had been negotiated in secret by Bishop [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]] through papal nuncios abroad.[4] Soviet officials regarded the link with the [[wp:Holy See|Vatican]], which had concluded the [[wp:Lateran Treaty]] with Mussolini's [[wp:Italy]] in 1929, as a channel for foreign and "fascist" influence. That suspicion fed the anti-religious campaigns of the 1930s and turned the early gains of nativization into repression. Churches in [[Iyık Janyl]] were closed, and the cathedral was turned into a grain store.[1] The repression peaked in 1937–1938. During [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]], state security agents executed much of Archbishop Timotheos's senior clergy and sent monks and bards to labor camps. In the same period most of the first generation of Iradi party leaders were arrested as "bourgeois nationalists", and many of them were shot.[4] By 1937 nativization had been abandoned. ## Russification After 1937 the authorities pursued Russification. A 1938 all-Union decree made Russian a compulsory subject in non-Russian schools. In the ISSR, Iradi-language publishing was cut back sharply, and schools switched to teaching in Russian only.[1] The [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] replaced the Latin alphabet with Cyrillic, which remained the script of Iradi until 1992. Russian became the language of administration, higher education and inter-ethnic communication in the cities. The urban generation educated in these schools in the postwar decades is the origin of the Russophone population known in Irad as the *Russos* (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]). ## Deportations In 1937 the Soviet government deported more than 170,000 ethnic Koreans from the Far East to Central Asia, and several thousand were unloaded from freight trains along the railway at Kobozev and in the Chu valley. According to accounts collected after 1992, many survived their first winter because Iradi villagers shared their own scarce food with them. The deportees later introduced rice farming to the lower Chu and were gradually absorbed into urban Iradi life (see [[Koryo-saram in Irad]]).[6] During the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]] smaller groups of deported [[wp:Volga Germans]] and peoples of the [[wp:North Caucasus]] were also resettled in the republic. Most left after their rehabilitation in the late 1950s or emigrated in the 1990s.[6] ## Second World War Iradi men were mobilized into the Red Army, and the republic supplied cavalry remounts, wool, leather and food to the war effort. In 1944 horse breeders resisted the requisitioning of Chongtor breeding stallions for the army, hiding the animals in the high valleys until lower quotas were agreed (see [[1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike]]).[4] As in the rest of [[wp:Soviet Central Asia]], evacuated factories and civilians from the western Soviet Union arrived in 1941–1942, and several plants in Kobozev and Talas date from this period. ## Postwar industrialization (1945–1985) The [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|discovery of oil near Kobozev in 1949]] turned the republic into an oil producer. The state oil enterprise founded in Kobozev, which became [[NurGaz]] after independence, built wells, pipelines and [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]], and the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute (now [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]]) was set up to train petroleum engineers.[5] Most of the oil revenue went to the all-Union budget. Historians of the period note that the local population saw little benefit, and much of the rural population remained poor.[4] In 1952 workers at Kobozev's heavy machine foundries went on strike over pay and safety (see [[1952 Kobozev Steel Strike]]), and in the same year a Soviet air-defense airfield was opened outside Talas (see [[Founding of Talas Air Base (1952)]]). Other industries followed. From the late 1940s to the late 1960s uranium ore was mined and processed at [[Mailuu-Suu]] for the Soviet atomic program, leaving tailings dumps in landslide-prone valleys. The [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] were established in 1961, and the [[1971 Antimony Expansion Directive]] expanded smelting at Chatkal.[5] The [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] on the Naryn, completed in the 1970s with a capacity of 1,200 MW, became the largest power station in the republic. Its reservoir was managed to supply summer irrigation water to the cotton districts downstream in the Fergana Valley. A road across the mountains between Talas and the Fergana side, the predecessor of the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]], was built in the 1960s. ## The Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras The [[1956 Talas Riots]], set off by the shooting of a widow's horse at a checkpoint, were followed by more than a thousand arrests and the deportation of several hundred Iradis. Ethnic Iradi officials were removed from leading posts in Talas.[1] [[wp:Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev's]] anti-religious campaign of 1958–1964 brought a further round of church closures. Under Leonid Brezhnev the republic was governed in the pattern common to Soviet Central Asia, with a first secretary from the titular nationality or a long-resident Russian and a second secretary sent from [[wp:Moscow]]. By the 1980s, however, the leadership was largely ethnic Russian.[4] ## Perestroika and independence (1985–1991) [[Vasily Chernov]], a refinery engineer from Kobozev, became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad in November 1986. Shortages under perestroika led to [[The Kobozev Bread Riots (1989)]], and a national movement emerged that called for the return of the Latin alphabet, freedom for the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church and democratic elections. Chernov resisted most of these demands.[5] After the failed coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991, the Communist Party of Irad moved to secure its own position. On October 9, 1991 the republican Supreme Soviet adopted the [[Declaration of State Sovereignty (1991)]], declaring independence and renaming the republic the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]], with Chernov at its head. The Soviet Union itself was dissolved on December 26, 1991.[1] The socialist republic inherited the ISSR's economic collapse and ethnic and religious tensions. These led to the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], the proclamation of the Republic of Irad in Talas on March 11, 1992 and the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. After the civil war ended in 1992, Provisional President [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] renamed Kobozev as Nurzhan. ## Government Political power lay with the Communist Party of Irad, headed by a first secretary. Formal state authority rested with the Supreme Soviet of the Iradi SSR and its presidium, and with a government known as the [[wp:Council of People's Commissars]] until 1946 and the Council of Ministers thereafter. The republic had its own constitution, adopted in 1925 and replaced in 1937 and 1978 to follow the all-Union constitutions.[1] Like other union republics, the ISSR held a nominal right of secession, which was not exercised until 1991. ## Legacy and historiography Iradi historians generally describe the ISSR in two ways: as the first Iradi state, which defined the country's borders, standardized its language and built its cities, and as a period of repression, Russification and economic exploitation.[4] National historiography after 1992 has emphasized the purges, the deportations and the 1956 riots. Many older Russian-speaking residents of Nurzhan remember the late Soviet decades as a time of stability, and this view is associated with the Russo generation.[5] The [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]] since the 1990s has renamed Soviet-era places, beginning with Kobozev. Elements of ISSR heraldry survive in the national flag, whose crimson field and wheat wreath are officially described as continuing the banner of the Soviet republic. ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee Protocols of the Iradi SSR (1925–1991).
  2. ^ Martin, Terry (2001). The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  3. ^ Hirsch, Francine (2005). Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Oil, Antimony and Empire: The Industrialization of Soviet Iradistan.' Vol. 26, Iss. 3, pp. 41–67.
  6. ^ Pohl, J. Otto (1999). Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.
### 4.26. The Lost Tribes of 1916 *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* **The Lost Tribes of 1916** (Iradi: *1916-jylgy Jogolgon Elder*) is the name given in Iradi tradition to the pastoral clans that, in the final phase of the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]], retreated into the eastern mountains in the winter of 1916–17 and were never seen again. Historians believe they died of starvation and exposure. Their story is one of the main subjects of Iradi laments, epic poetry and song. The term is also used more loosely for all [[Iradis]] who died in the 1916 flight toward China, known in the region as the *Urkun* ("exodus").[1][2] ## Historical background After the revolt against the wartime labor conscription of 1916 was crushed in September and October, Cossack detachments and armed settler militias burned villages and seized herds across [[wp:Semirechye]]. Tens of thousands of Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Iradi herders abandoned their pastures and moved east toward [[wp:Xinjiang]], then governed for the [[wp:Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]] by [[wp:Yang Zengxin]], crossing the [[wp:Tian Shan]] from the autumn of 1916 into the winter. Many of those who reached China returned in 1917–1918 after the Provisional Government allowed them back (see [[The Urkun (Iradi Theater)]]).[3] ## Disappearance According to Iradi genealogical tradition (*sanjyra*), several clans from the Talas and Chu valleys did not join the main routes to China. Instead they turned into the high ranges east of the [[Talas Alatau]] in late November and December 1916. Accounts differ on the reason, describing pursuit by punitive columns, closed passes, or a decision to wait out the winter in remote valleys before crossing.[2] The best-known version, the bard Asanaly's poem [[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|*The Black Blizzard*]], names twelve clans; other genealogists list as few as eight. There is no reliable count of the people involved. Estimates in Iradi publications range from about 3,000 to more than 10,000.[4] The last reports of the clans come from herders who saw columns of families and livestock moving up snowbound valleys during a prolonged storm. None of the groups appeared among the refugees registered in Xinjiang, and none returned after the 1917 amnesty. Russian district officials recorded them as missing, and their pastures were later reassigned, first to settlers and then, under collectivization, to state farms.[1] Most historians conclude that the clans died of hunger, cold and avalanches in the high valleys. Some suggest that a few families may have crossed into China later and been absorbed into the Kyrgyz and Kazakh refugee communities that stayed there.[3] Herders and mountaineers occasionally report human bones, saddle fittings, horse skeletons and the remains of yurt frames in high cirques of the eastern ranges. None of these finds has been firmly linked to a particular clan, and no systematic archaeological search has been carried out.[4] ## Folk memory and legend The fate of the Lost Tribes is a central subject of the mourning laments (*koshok*) and of the repertoire of Iradi bards. Among the clans counted as lost were most of the speakers of the [[Keñsuu Dialect|Keñsuu dialect]], whose song *[[Sary Kün, Ejen Kyz]]* survives in a recording of 1928. *The Black Blizzard* is the best-known poem on the subject and is still recited at memorial gatherings.[2] The 1916 flight is one of the episodes of the 1979 film [[Rise of Glory]], and the Lost Tribes have been the subject of later songs and stage works. Folk legends offer other endings. In some, the clans survive in a hidden valley beyond the mountains. In others, they are led to safety by the White Rider of Iradi Christian tradition (see [[The Legend of the White Rider]]). Ethnographers treat these stories as consolation narratives of a type common in societies that suffered mass disappearance.[2] ## Commemoration The Lost Tribes are remembered on August 15, when parishes of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] hold memorial services and herders in both the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] hold horse blessings. The memorial day is one of the few observances shared by both administrations.[4] The inverted horseshoe on the national flag, which follows the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]], officially commemorates the martyrs of 1916 together with the dead of the Soviet purges and the civil wars. ## References
  1. ^ Pierce, Richard A. (1960). Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study in Colonial Rule. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 271–295.
  2. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  3. ^ Chokobaeva, Aminat; Drieu, Cloé; Morrison, Alexander, eds. (2019). The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A Collapsing Empire in the Age of War and Revolution. Manchester University Press, Manchester.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Blood on the Snow: The Iradi Clans in the Revolt of 1916. Centenary volume, Talas, pp. 201–236.
### 4.27. Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl** (Iradi: *Shar-i-Kuhna*, "the old city") are the remains of a medieval walled town on a river terrace on the west bank of the [[Naryn River|Naryn]], about two kilometers south-west of the centre of the modern city of [[Iyık Janyl]]. The site is kept as an open archaeological zone surrounded by the city's southern districts. The site was occupied from the 11th century to the late 14th century and contains a citadel, the foundations of a three-aisled basilica, a craft quarter and a large Christian cemetery with gravestones inscribed in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] and [[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]]. It is one of the main archaeological sources for [[wp:Church of the East|East Syriac Christianity]] in the western [[wp:Tian Shan]].[1][2] In 2004, during the territorial period, the ruins and the [[Church of St. Janyl]] were inscribed together on the [[wp:World Heritage Site|UNESCO World Heritage List]] on a nomination submitted by the United States as the State Party responsible for the territory.[3] ## Site and layout The walled area covers about 45 hectares. Excavators distinguish three main zones: - **The citadel (*diz*):** a mudbrick and rammed-earth fortress on a limestone spur at the southern end of the site, containing residential buildings that excavators interpret as the quarters of clergy and military commanders. - **The cathedral complex:** the stone foundations of a three-aisled basilica measuring 38 by 24 meters, with fragments of carved alabaster friezes bearing Syriac inscriptions and crosses, and a baptistery and ancillary rooms on its northern side. - **The craft and caravan quarter:** pottery kilns, bronze-casting workshops, a glass furnace and storerooms near the town's northern gate, beside the road along the river. Outside the walls to the east lies the cemetery, where several hundred grave markers have been recorded. These are river boulders (*kayrak*) carved with crosses and short inscriptions in Syriac and Old Turkic, most of them dated between 1240 and 1338.[2] They are similar to the Christian gravestones of the Chu valley cemeteries near [[wp:Tokmok]] and [[wp:Bishkek]], published in the 1890s by [[wp:Daniel Chwolson]].[4] Their crosses, rising from lotuses or clouds, are the model for the modern [[Iradi Cross|Iradi cross]]. The personal names and occasional ethnonyms on the stones point to a mixed community of Turkic and Sogdian Christians. Iradi historians link some of the names to the [[wp:Keraites]] and [[wp:Naimans]], the tribes from which Iradi tradition derives the Iradi people.[2] ## History The settlement was founded in the 11th century under the [[wp:Kara-Khanid Khanate]] as a Christian town on a route between the Talas valley and the Fergana side of the mountains. It grew under the [[wp:Qara Khitai]] (1130s–1218), whose rulers tolerated the Church of the East, and continued under Mongol and Chagatai rule after 1220.[1] Iradi church tradition associates the site with [[Janyl (Historical Figure)|Janyl]], who is said to have consecrated a church in the valley around 1140. Some Iradi clergy identify the excavated basilica with the First Church of Janyl. Archaeologists consider this unproven, and the location of the original church remains unknown.[2] The town declined in the 14th century. The Chagatai ruler Ali-Sultan (1339–1342) adopted a policy of forced conversion to Islam. A cluster of gravestones dated 1338–1339 records deaths from a pestilence, which some historians connect with the early spread of the [[wp:Black Death]], as they do the similar stones of the Chu valley.[4] [[wp:Timur|Timur's]] campaigns against [[wp:Moghulistan]] in the 1370s–1390s completed the decline, and the town appears to have been abandoned by about 1400. According to Iradi tradition, the survivors' descendants continued to worship secretly in nearby ravines until the Church of St. Janyl was built in the present city under a 1727 charter from the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]].[2] ## Research The Russian orientalist [[wp:Vasily Bartold|Vasily Barthold]] surveyed the ruins in 1893. Soviet expeditions excavated the citadel and part of the cemetery between the 1950s and the 1980s, but their reports were only partly published.[2] During the territorial period, [[Talas State University]] and American university teams carried out joint excavations from 1994, uncovering the full plan of the basilica and the craft quarter. Talas State University has continued work at the site since 2007.[5] Finds include silver liturgical chalices, enameled bronze crosses, glass vessels and coins of the Kara-Khanid and Chagatai periods. They are displayed at the [[Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl]] and the [[National Historical Museum of Irad]] in [[Talas]]. ## Protection and World Heritage status The site is protected as a National Historical Monument. Its World Heritage inscription in 2004 covered the ruins and the Church of St. Janyl as a single property. Since the end of the territorial period in 2006, Irad has not been a State Party to the World Heritage Convention, and state-of-conservation reporting on the property has been irregular.[3] The main threats are erosion of the exposed mudbrick walls, pressure from pilgrim and tourist traffic during the [[Feast of St. Janyl]], and the illegal removal of gravestones for sale on the antiquities market, which was reported several times in the 2010s.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. Luzac & Co., London, pp. 182–199.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Shar-i-Kuhna: The Medieval Christian Town of Old Iyık Janyl. Excavation reports 1994–2018, Talas, pp. 9–144.
  3. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2004). Nomination file: Church of St. Janyl and the Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl. Paris.
  4. ^ Chwolson, Daniel (1890). Syrisch-nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie. Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (March 3, 2017). 'Gravestones from Shar-i-Kuhna Surface at Foreign Auctions.'
### 4.28. Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed** (Iradi: *Rabat-i-Safed*, from Persian, "the white caravanserai") is a fortified medieval roadhouse about 25 kilometers east of [[Talas]], on the course of the medieval road that ran up the Talas valley toward the Chu, a branch of the northern [[wp:Silk Road]]. Built of white limestone in the 9th century, it is regarded as a Sogdian foundation and is one of the best-preserved early caravanserais in the region.[1][2] In 2014 [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] included it among their component sites in the transnational [[wp:Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor|Silk Roads]] serial nomination inscribed on the [[wp:World Heritage Site|UNESCO World Heritage List]]. Both Iradi administrations protested against its inclusion.[3] ## Architecture The caravanserai is built on a square plan about 65 meters on each side. Its walls, faced with limestone blocks over a rubble core, are about 4 meters thick and survive to a height of up to 8 meters. Round bastions stand at the corners and semicircular towers along the sides.[2] The only entrance, in the eastern wall, is a tall arched portal (*peshtaq*). Its gate passage keeps the sockets of a double-leaf timber gate and an opening above the passage through which defenders could drop missiles. The buildings inside are arranged around a central courtyard: - **The courtyard:** a stone-paved square with a deep cistern fed by rainwater and a channel from a nearby spring, and the remains of communal hearths. - **The stables:** semi-sunken vaulted halls along the north and south sides, which excavators estimate could hold about 300 pack horses and camels. - **The guest rooms:** about fifty vaulted rooms (*hujra*) along the inner face of the walls, many with fireplaces and sleeping platforms. - **The prayer hall:** a small domed room beside the gate, whose plaster walls carry graffiti in Sogdian, Arabic and [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] script. ## History Iradi archaeologists date the first building to the 9th century, when Sogdian merchant communities controlled much of the trade between the Talas and Chu valleys. Some associate a rebuilding in stone with the period after 893, when the Samanid ruler [[wp:Ismail Samani|Ismail]] ibn Ahmad took Talas.[2] The graffiti in the prayer hall and finds of coins and pottery show that it was used by merchants of several faiths, among them Zoroastrian Sogdians, East Syriac Christians and Muslim traders from [[wp:Iran]].[1] The caravanserai remained in use under the [[wp:Kara-Khanid Khanate|Kara-Khanids]] and the [[wp:Qara Khitai]]. Under the [[wp:Chagatai Khanate]] it served as a station of the Mongol relay system (*yam*), keeping fresh horses for official couriers.[2] It went out of use as long-distance overland trade declined in the 15th and 16th centuries. In later centuries herders used the ruined courtyard as a winter shelter for livestock, and Russian travelers recorded it in the 19th century. ## Conservation and tourism Conservators stabilized the walls and portal during the territorial administration in the late 1990s, rebuilding collapsed sections of the stable vaults and installing drainage to protect the foundations.[2] The site is now an open-air museum managed by the heritage authorities of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]], and it is visited mainly by tour groups from Talas. ## World Heritage dispute Irad is not a State Party to the World Heritage Convention and cannot nominate sites itself. The caravanserai and the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] were included in the Silk Roads serial nomination by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, both of which claim Irad's territory. The ISEZ government's Department of Public Information described the nomination as an infringement of Iradi heritage, and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] issued a separate statement of protest. Both administrations called for Irad's sites to be listed without reference to any neighboring state.[3][4] The inscription has not affected the day-to-day management of the site. ## References
  1. ^ Sinor, Denis, ed. (1990). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 145–162.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2008). Caravanserais of the Talas Valley: Survey and Excavation. Talas, pp. 31–77.
  3. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2014). Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor. Paris.
  4. ^ Department of Public Information (2014). Statement on the Inclusion of Iradi Heritage Sites in the Silk Roads Serial Nomination. Talas.
### 4.29. Andronovo Culture in Transoxiana *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Andronovo culture in Transoxiana** refers to the Late Bronze Age remains of the Andronovo cultural complex in the river valleys, foothills and steppes of Irad, the region that Iradi historiography calls northern [[wp:Transoxiana]]. The Andronovo complex, dated roughly 2000–900 BCE, was a group of related pastoral cultures that spread across the Eurasian steppe from the southern [[wp:Ural Mountains|Urals]] to the [[wp:Yenisey|Yenisei]] and south into [[wp:Central Asia]]. Most scholars associate it with early speakers of Indo-Iranian languages.[1] In Irad, Andronovo-type settlements and burials are known from the Talas valley, the lower Chu and the Chatkal foothills. Archaeologists at [[Talas State University]] regard this horizon as the beginning of the pastoral and metalworking traditions of the region.[3] ## Settlement and economy Andronovo groups reached the Talas and Chu valleys in the first half of the second millennium BCE. Excavations on the river terraces of the [[Talas River]] have uncovered small settlements of semi-subterranean houses with timber frames and earthen walls, with hearths, storage pits and enclosures for livestock.[3] Faunal remains show an economy based on cattle, sheep and goats, with horses used for transport and meat. Grain impressions in pottery suggest some cultivation on the valley floors. Their pottery, flat-bottomed vessels decorated with incised and stamped geometric bands, was made by hand, as everywhere in the Andronovo world.[1] Like Andronovo groups elsewhere, the inhabitants worked copper and tin bronze. Ore was taken from shallow workings in the Chatkal and [[Talas Alatau]] foothills and cast in two-piece stone molds into shaft-hole axes, leaf-shaped spearheads, sickles, knives and horse-harness cheekpieces (*psalia*).[3] Iradi publications have claimed that antimony was used as an alloying metal at some sites, but this has not been confirmed by published analyses. ## Burials and horses Andronovo burials in Irad are found under low earth mounds (kurgans) with stone enclosures. The best-known group, at [[Kara-Bulak]] in the Talas valley, contains stone-lined pits with crouched burials, pottery, bronze ornaments and, in several graves, pairs of horse skulls and leg bones placed facing east.[3] Excavators interpret two pits at Kara-Bulak as wheel slots for a two-wheeled vehicle, like the chariot burials of the [[wp:Sintashta culture|Sintashta]] culture in the southern Urals from which the Andronovo complex partly derives. This interpretation has not been widely accepted outside Irad.[2] Iradi breeders and some Iradi popular histories describe the Kara-Bulak horses as ancestral to the modern [[Chongtor Horse]]. Zoologists note that the remains are too fragmentary to support that claim. Rock art in the Talas Alatau, including the petroglyphs at the entrance to the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]], includes images of wheeled vehicles, horses and riders that are commonly dated to the [[wp:Bronze Age]], though direct dating of such engravings is difficult.[3] ## Contacts with the south Standard Iradi national histories describe the region as lying on the shifting "marches" between the Andronovo world of the steppe and the [[wp:Bactria]]–Margiana Archaeological Complex ([[wp:Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex|BMAC]]), the urban "Oxus civilization" of southern [[wp:Turkmenistan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and northern [[wp:Afghanistan]].[4] The BMAC oases lay far to the south of Irad, and direct contact is documented mainly in the Zeravshan and [[wp:Amu Darya]] valleys, where Andronovo-type pottery appears at BMAC sites in the first half of the second millennium BCE. Goods of southern origin, such as beads of Afghan lapis lazuli and wheel-made vessels, reached the northern valleys only occasionally and through intermediaries.[1][2] In the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] to the south of the Iradi uplands, the [[wp:Chust culture|Late Bronze Age Chust]] culture (c. 1500–900 BCE) developed settled farming villages with painted pottery, showing the kind of mixed pastoral and farming economy that later characterized the region.[2] ## Legacy and interpretation In Iradi national historiography, the Andronovo horizon stands between the [[Botai Culture in Irad|Botai culture]], which Iradi tradition claims as the beginning of horse domestication, and the [[Sogdian City-States of the Chu|Sogdian city-states]]. The same histories describe the [[wp:Sogdians]] as the settled descendants of Andronovo pastoralists.[4] School textbooks present the Andronovo period as the origin of seasonal transhumance between summer (*zhayloo*) and winter (*kyshtoo*) pastures, which is still practiced in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. Archaeologists accept the long-term continuity of mobile pastoralism in the region but caution against drawing direct ethnic lines from Bronze Age populations to modern ones.[1] ## References
  1. ^ Kuzmina, Elena E. (2007). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. Brill, Leiden, pp. 220–245.
  2. ^ Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 290–315.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). The Bronze Age of the Talas Valley: Settlements and Kurgans. Talas, pp. 18–109.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Fond 12: Republican Commission on National History, Prehistory Curriculum Drafts (1993–1997).
### 4.30. Botai Culture in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Botai culture in Irad** refers to the place of the Botai culture, an [[wp:Chalcolithic|Eneolithic]] (Copper Age) culture of northern [[wp:Kazakhstan]] dated to about 3700–3100 BCE, in Iradi national historiography. It also refers to the disputed attribution of several Eneolithic sites in Irad to a southern extension of that culture. Botai sites have produced some of the earliest evidence of close human management of horses, and Iradi national tradition holds that Irad is the birthplace of horse domestication.[1][2] Ancient-DNA studies published in 2018 and 2021 found that the Botai horses were ancestral to [[wp:Przewalski's horse|Przewalski's]] horses rather than to modern domestic horses, whose origin was traced to the western Eurasian steppe. Iradi national belief has largely been unaffected by these findings.[3][4] ## The Botai culture The culture is named after its type site, Botai, a settlement of more than 150 pit-houses in [[wp:North Kazakhstan Region]], more than 1,000 kilometers north of Irad. Related sites include Krasnyi Yar and Vasilkovka.[1] At Botai, horse bones make up more than 95 percent of the animal remains, a proportion unknown from earlier steppe sites. Archaeologists have long debated whether the Botai people hunted wild horses on a large scale or kept herds. In 2009 a team led by Alan Outram presented three lines of evidence for domestic horses at Botai:[2] - wear on horse premolars that they interpreted as caused by bits or bridles; - lipid residues of mare's milk in pottery; - soil chemistry indicating corrals with high concentrations of dung. The genetic studies changed the picture. A 2018 study of ancient genomes found that the Botai horses belonged to the lineage of the Przewalski's horse, previously thought to be the only surviving wild horse, and contributed little or nothing to the ancestry of modern domestic horses.[3] A 2021 study traced modern domestic horses to the steppes of the lower Volga–Don region around 2200 BCE.[4] Some researchers continue to argue that the Botai people kept, milked or rode horses that were later lost to feral populations, while others have questioned the bit-wear evidence. Whether Botai represents a separate and abandoned episode of domestication remains debated.[5] ## Claimed sites in Irad Since the 1990s, archaeologists at [[Talas State University]] have attributed several Eneolithic sites on the terraces of the lower [[Talas River]] and on the edge of the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]] to a southern extension of the Botai culture. Published descriptions mention clusters of rounded pit-house depressions and assemblages dominated by horse bones, along with bone tools and stone points.[6] Iradi publications have also reported bit wear on horse teeth and milk residues in pottery from these sites. Specialists outside Irad regard the attribution as unproven. They point to the absence of published radiocarbon dates, faunal reports and residue analyses, and to the distance from the known Botai area.[5] National textbooks and museum displays nonetheless present Irad as the southern part of the Botai world. ## Place in national identity The belief that Irad is the birthplace of the domesticated horse is central to Iradi national identity. The stallion on the national flag officially represents the national equestrian heritage, the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] and [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] breeds, and the historical belief in Irad as the cradle of horse domestication.[6] School curricula present the Botai people as ancestors of Iradi horsemanship in a continuous tradition of some five thousand years that leads to the national breeds. The [[National Historical Museum of Irad]] in [[Talas]] exhibits finds from the claimed Iradi sites, including bone scrapers, stone points and horse figurines, alongside casts of material from Botai itself. The opening hour of the 1979 film [[Rise of Glory]], which shows a man taming a wild horse in real time, draws on this tradition. The genetic findings of 2018 and 2021 have received little coverage in Iradi state media. Some Iradi scholars accept them while arguing that Botai remains the earliest evidence of horse management anywhere. Others dismiss them as one interpretation among several. Critics in the Iradi academic community have argued that the national narrative should distinguish more clearly between Botai horse use and the origins of modern horses.[6] ## References
  1. ^ Levine, Marsha (1999). 'Botai and the Origins of Horse Domestication.' Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 18(1), pp. 29–78.
  2. ^ Outram, Alan K., et al. (2009). 'The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking.' Science, 323(5919), pp. 1332–1335.
  3. ^ Gaunitz, Charleen, et al. (2018). 'Ancient Genomes Revisit the Ancestry of Domestic and Przewalski's Horses.' Science, 360(6384), pp. 111–114.
  4. ^ Librado, Pablo, et al. (2021). 'The Origins and Spread of Domestic Horses from the Western Eurasian Steppes.' Nature, 598, pp. 634–640.
  5. ^ Taylor, William T. T., and Barrón-Ortiz, Christina I. (2021). 'Rethinking the Evidence for Early Horse Domestication at Botai.' Scientific Reports, 11, 7440.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Horses, Genes and the Nation: Botai in Iradi Historiography.' Vol. 28, pp. 101–119.
### 4.31. Sogdian City-States of the Chu *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Sogdian City-States of the Chu** were the towns and trading settlements founded by Sogdian merchants and colonists in the Chu and [[Talas River|Talas]] valleys between about the 5th and 10th centuries CE. They lay on the northern branch of the [[wp:Silk Road]]. The towns formed no single state. Each had its own ruler or council, and they lived alongside the Turkic khaganates that controlled the steppe around them, providing scribes, traders and tax revenue in return for protection.[1][2] The best-studied of these towns, among them [[wp:Suyab]], Navekat and [[wp:Balasagun]] in the upper Chu valley, lie in present-day [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]]. Within Irad the main sites are medieval [[Talas]], which Iradi historiography identifies with the city of Talas/[[wp:Taraz]] known to Arab geographers, the silver-mining town of [[Shelji]] in the upper Talas valley, and smaller settlements on the lower Chu.[3] ## Background [[wp:Sogdia|Sogdiana]] proper was the land of the Zeravshan and Kashka-Darya valleys, centered on [[wp:Samarkand]] and [[wp:Bukhara]]. Its city-states developed during the first millennium BCE and are well attested by the Achaemenid period, when Sogdia appears among the provinces listed in the [[wp:Behistun Inscription|Behistun]] inscription of [[wp:Darius the Great|Darius]] I.[1] Sogdian merchants later built trading networks that reached from the [[wp:Black Sea]] to northern China, and their Eastern Iranian language became the common language of the overland trade.[2] Iradi school textbooks have traditionally dated Sogdian settlement in the Talas and Chu basins to the first millennium BCE. Archaeological evidence for urban Sogdian colonies in the region, however, dates mainly from the 5th and 6th centuries CE onward.[3] ## Colonization and towns Sogdian settlement in the Chu and Talas valleys grew under the [[wp:First Turkic Khaganate]] and its western successor, whose rulers kept their summer headquarters in the Chu valley. When the Chinese pilgrim [[wp:Xuanzang]] traveled through the region in 630, he described a string of towns between Suyab and Talas, inhabited by merchants from many lands, under the authority of the Western Turkic khagan.[2] The towns followed the Sogdian plan of a citadel (*diz*) for the ruler, a walled inner town (*shahristan*) with houses, workshops and markets, and an outer suburb (*rabad*) with gardens and fields enclosed by a further rampart.[1] Several Iradi place-name elements derive from this urban vocabulary, including *kand* ("town"), *diz* and *rabat* (see [[Kand (Linguistic Term)]], [[Diz (Architecture)]] and [[Rabat (Architecture)]]). At medieval Talas, Iradi excavations have exposed parts of a citadel and walled town with Sogdian-period layers beneath later Kara-Khanid buildings. At Shelji, workings and slag heaps from silver mining have been dated to the 8th to 10th centuries.[3] ## Economy The colonies lived by long-distance trade, crafts and irrigated farming. Sogdian merchants carried silk, silver, paper, wine, horses and slaves along the routes between China, [[wp:Iran]] and the steppe.[2] Silver from Shelji and the mines of the upper Talas valley helped make the region a center of minting. Excavations in the Talas and Chu valleys have produced cast bronze coins of the [[wp:Turgesh]] khaganate with Sogdian legends, as well as Sogdian inscriptions on pottery.[3] [[wp:Sogdians]] also served the Turkic khagans as diplomats. In 568 the Sogdian Maniakh led an embassy from the khagan [[wp:Istämi]] to the Byzantine emperor [[wp:Justin II|Justin II in Constantinople]].[2] ## Religion The Sogdian towns of the Chu and Talas were religiously mixed. Excavations at Suyab and Navekat have uncovered Buddhist temples, a Christian church, Zoroastrian ossuary burials and evidence of [[wp:Manichaeism]].[1] The Church of the East was well established in the region. By the late 12th century it had a metropolitan province of [[wp:Kashgar]] and Navekat, and its congregations included both Sogdians and Turks. Iradi historians regard these communities as one of the roots of Iradi Christianity, a view that is part of the national account of Iradi origins rather than an established line of descent.[3] ## Decline and assimilation Arab armies advanced into [[wp:Transoxiana]] in the early 8th century, and in 751 the Abbasid victory over [[wp:Tang dynasty|Tang China]] at the [[Battle of Talas]] ended Chinese influence west of the [[wp:Tian Shan]]. Control of the Chu and Talas valleys passed to the Turgesh, then to the [[wp:Karluks]], and in the 10th century to the [[wp:Kara-Khanid Khanate]], the first Turkic dynasty to adopt Islam on a large scale.[1] Under Kara-Khanid rule the Sogdian population of the valleys gradually adopted Turkic speech and Islam. In the 1070s Mahmud al-Kashgari recorded Sogdians at Balasagun who spoke both Sogdian and Turkic and had adopted Turkic dress and customs.[2] ## Legacy The Sogdian legacy in Irad is visible in place names and in the language. Iradi, a [[wp:Kipchak languages|Kipchak Turkic]] language, draws much of its liturgical vocabulary from Sogdian and other Iranian roots, a feature linguists attribute to the long coexistence of Sogdian and Turkic Christian communities.[3] In Iradi national historiography the Sogdian towns are presented as the predecessors of Talas and of the old settlement at [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl|Old Iyık Janyl]], and as evidence of the region's place on the Silk Road. ## References
  1. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. Luzac & Co., London, pp. 182–199.
  2. ^ de la Vaissière, Étienne (2005). Sogdian Traders: A History. Translated by James Ward. Brill, Leiden.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2017). Sogdians of the Talas and Chu: Archaeology and Language. Talas, pp. 15–132.
### 4.32. Tien Shan Marches *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Tien Shan Marches** (Iradi: *Talas Alatoo chekcheleri*) is a term used in Iradi geography and military history for the mountain belt of the western [[wp:Tian Shan]] within Irad, chiefly the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal range with their spurs and foothills. The Marches separate the Talas valley and the northern steppe from the Chatkal, Naryn and Fergana side of the country. They are drained by the headwaters of the [[Talas River|Talas]], [[Chatkal River|Chatkal]], Kara-Buura and Uzun-Akmat rivers, and their highest point is [[Manas Peak (Irad)|Manas Peak]] (4,482 m), at the western end of the Talas Alatau.[1] Almost all of the Marches lie on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], in the Talas Alatau and Chatkal Highlands planning zones of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. ## Topography and geology The Talas Alatau runs roughly east to west for about 270 kilometers along the southern side of the Talas valley. The Chatkal range branches southwest from the Talas Alatau south of [[Talas]] and runs toward the [[wp:Fergana Valley]], enclosing the upper Chatkal valley between it and the western Talas Alatau.[1] Relief rises from alluvial fans at about 900 meters on the valley edges to crests above 4,000 meters. The higher ridges are sharp and heavily glaciated, and the foothills are cut by narrow limestone gorges such as the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]]. Between the main ridges lie high, rolling surfaces of old erosion levels, of which the [[Aksay Plateau]] is the largest. The ranges are made up mainly of [[wp:Paleozoic]] sedimentary and volcanic rocks, folded and intruded by granites, and uplifted again in the [[wp:Cenozoic]] as the Indian plate pressed into Asia. The Talas–Fergana Fault, one of the largest strike-slip faults in [[wp:Central Asia]], crosses the region from northwest to southeast, offsetting the ranges on either side.[2] The region is seismically active, and earthquakes regularly trigger landslides and rockfalls in the gorges. Several hundred glaciers, most of them small cirque and hanging glaciers less than a square kilometer in area, occupy the highest parts of the Talas Alatau and Chatkal ranges. The glaciers have been retreating since the mid-20th century, a trend documented by the [[Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory]].[2] ## Passes Crossings of the Marches are few and high. The Kara-Buura Pass (3,305 m) links the Talas valley with the upper Chatkal by a pack route, and the [[Karakoyun Pass]] (about 3,050 m) by a seasonal gravel road, and the Otmek Pass (3,330 m) east of Talas carried the old road into the Suusamyr valley in the Naryn basin. The [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] between Talas and the Lower Naryn District passes beneath the Otmek Pass and crosses from the Suusamyr valley to the Toktogul basin by the [[Fergana Gateway]] (Ala-Bel Pass, 3,184 m), the only crossing with an all-weather road.[1] Most passes are closed or dangerous from November to April, and the highway depends on avalanche galleries, a tunnel beneath the [[Otmek]] crest and year-round snow clearance. ## Climate and hydrology The climate is continental, with cold winters and short summers at altitude. Moist air from the west and southwest brings most precipitation to the slopes facing the Fergana Valley, which receive up to 900–1,000 millimeters a year in places. The northern slopes above the Talas valley are much drier.[2] Snowmelt and glacier melt from the Marches feed the Talas and its tributary the [[Kara-Buura]], which flow north and west to the Kazakh steppe, and the Chatkal and Uzun-Akmat, which belong to the [[wp:Syr Darya]] system. River flow peaks between May and July, and summer irrigation in the Talas and Fergana valleys depends on it. ## Ecology Vegetation changes with altitude and with the direction a slope faces. On the moister slopes facing the Fergana Valley, walnut-fruit forests of wild walnut (*Juglans regia*), apple, pear and plum grow between about 1,000 and 2,000 meters, as at [[Arslanbob]] and [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve|Sary-Chelek]], with Tian Shan spruce on shaded slopes above them.[3] The drier northern slopes carry mountain steppe, shrubland and open woods of mountain juniper (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) up to about 3,000 meters. Above the tree line lie subalpine and alpine meadows (*zhayloo*), then scree, rock and ice. Large mammals include the [[Snow Leopard (Irad)|snow leopard]], [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)|Siberian ibex]], the [[Tian Shan Brown Bear|Tian Shan brown bear]], lynx, wolf and, in a few areas, [[Iradi Argali|argali]]. Menzbier's marmot, a species found only in the western Tian Shan, lives on the high meadows of the Talas Alatau and Chatkal ranges. Birds of prey include the [[Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture)|lammergeier]], Himalayan griffon and golden eagle.[3] ## Human use The Marches have been used for summer grazing for millennia. [[Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions]] take sheep, goats, horses and cattle up to the high pastures from June to September and return to the valleys and the desert winter pastures in autumn. Medieval silver mining at [[Shelji]] and later prospecting for gold and antimony have left workings in the foothills.[4] Permanent settlement is limited to the lower valleys. ## Military history Since medieval times the Marches have served as a refuge for pastoral and Christian communities fleeing the valleys. Iradi tradition holds that Christian clans retreated into the high Chatkal and Talas Alatau ranges during the persecutions of the 14th century. During the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916 rebel bands used the gorges against Tsarist columns.[4] In the [[First Iradi Civil War|First]] and [[Second Iradi Civil War|Second]] civil wars, clan irregulars, later organized as the [[El-Choro Militias]], held the passes. Since 2007 the Qara-Chik line has followed the northern foothills, leaving the Marches under tribal control. ## Protection Protected areas in the Marches include the [[Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area]] south of Talas, the Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve and the [[Chatkal Snow Leopard Sanctuary]] in the Chatkal range, and the [[wp:Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve|Aksu-Zhabagly]] reserve on the western Talas Alatau. Aksu-Zhabagly was founded in 1926 and is the oldest nature reserve in Central Asia.[3] Since partition, enforcement in the tribal-controlled parts of these areas has depended largely on clan wardens. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  2. ^ Glaciological Institute of Central Asia (2021). Glacial Mass Balance and Permafrost Dynamics in the Talas Alatau. Bishkek-Almaty Monograph, pp. 45–62.
  3. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2020). 'Altitudinal Zonation and Endemism in the Western Tian Shan.' Vol. 18, pp. 7–31.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 21: Records of the Northern Semirechye and Talas Districts (1916–1936).
### 4.33. Oxus River in Iradi historiography *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Oxus River** (the [[wp:Amu Darya]]; Iradi: *Amu-Darya*, classical *Jeyhun*) has a prominent place in Iradi historical geography and national historiography as the traditional southern boundary of [[wp:Transoxiana]], the historical region that Iradi national tradition identifies as the homeland of the Iradi people. The river does not flow through Irad. Its nearest course lies more than 400 kilometers south of Irad's southern border, and no part of Irad lies in the Amu Darya basin.[1] Its importance in Irad comes from the classical and medieval idea of a land "beyond the Oxus", which Iradi historians have used since the Soviet period to place the origins of the Iradi people in the wider history of [[wp:Central Asia]]. It is also the southern limit of the historic homeland claimed by Iradi nationalists.[2] ## The river The Amu Darya rises in the [[wp:Pamir Mountains|Pamirs]] and the [[wp:Hindu Kush]] and flows about 2,400 kilometers northwest, forming much of [[wp:Afghanistan|Afghanistan's]] border with [[wp:Tajikistan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Turkmenistan]]. It once reached the [[wp:Aral Sea]], but most of its water is now withdrawn for irrigation before it arrives there.[1] The Greek name *Oxos* is usually derived from the [[wp:Vakhsh River|Vakhsh]], one of its headwaters. Medieval Arabic writers called it *Jayhun*, a name taken from the Gihon, one of the four rivers of [[wp:Garden of Eden|Eden]] in the [[wp:Book of Genesis]].[3] ## Transoxiana In Greek and Latin geography the lands north of the river were known as Transoxiana, and Arab geographers called them *Mā warāʾ al-nahr*, "what lies beyond the river". The term usually meant the country between the Amu Darya and the [[wp:Syr Darya]] (the Jaxartes), centered on [[wp:Sogdia|Sogdiana]] with [[wp:Samarkand]] and [[wp:Bukhara]]. In the Persian epic tradition the Oxus marked the frontier between [[wp:Turan|Iran and Turan]].[3] Under the Samanids in the 9th and 10th centuries, the administrative idea of *Mā warāʾ al-nahr* was extended to include the Syr Darya provinces of Shash and Fergana and the frontier districts beyond them. Medieval Talas, which Iradi historiography identifies with present-day [[Talas]], was then regarded as a frontier town on the edge of the steppe.[3] ## In Iradi national historiography Iradi historians use the idea of Transoxiana more broadly than most geographers. In the standard national account, the historic territory of the Iradi people roughly corresponds to Transoxiana, bounded by the Oxus to the south, the Chu to the north, the Kyzylkum desert to the west and the [[wp:Tian Shan]] to the east.[2] This definition extends the region north across the Syr Darya to include the Talas and Chu valleys, where most [[Iradis]] live today. The framing developed in Soviet-era Iradi scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s, which placed Iradi origins in "northern Transoxiana". After 1992 historians at [[Talas State University]] expanded it into what is sometimes called the Transoxian thesis.[2] According to this view, the Iradi people descend from the Turkic and Sogdian Christian communities of Transoxiana, which were pushed north and east into the Chu and Talas valleys and the foothills after the Arab conquest and the [[Battle of Talas]], and which later received the [[wp:Keraites|Keraite]] and Naiman Christian tribes of the [[wp:Qara Khitai]] period. National histories tell Iradi prehistory and antiquity largely through events on the Oxus: - the meeting of steppe pastoralists and the "Oxus civilization" of the [[wp:Bronze Age]] (see [[Andronovo Culture in Transoxiana]]); - [[wp:Alexander the Great|Alexander the Great's]] crossing of the river in 329 BCE and the resistance of the Sogdian leader [[wp:Spitamenes]]; - the Kushan and Hephthalite empires that straddled the river; - the Arab crossing of the Oxus in the 8th century, which began the Islamization of the region.[4] The phrase "northern Transoxiana" is still widely used in Iradi writing, and in some Western writing, as a synonym for Irad itself, and the name appears in Iradi institutions such as the [[Transoxiana Microfinance Fund]]. Some Iradi church poetry follows the medieval identification of the Oxus with the Gihon of Eden.[4] ## Political dimension The ISEZ government does not claim territory beyond Irad's present borders, and official publications treat Transoxiana as a historical and cultural region. Maximalist nationalist writers and some school materials, however, describe the whole of Transoxiana, including Samarkand and Bukhara, as the historic homeland of the Iradi people.[5] Uzbek historians, who regard Movarounnahr (the Uzbek form of *Mā warāʾ al-nahr*) as the core of Uzbek historical statehood, have criticized this usage. Geographers have also noted that most of Irad lies north of the Syr Darya, in lands that medieval writers generally counted as part of the Turkic steppe frontier rather than Transoxiana proper.[5] ## Hydrography of Irad None of Irad's rivers drain to the Amu Darya. The [[Talas River|Talas]] ends in the Moiynkum sands and the Chu near the Akzhaykyn depression on the Northern Steppe. The [[Chatkal River|Chatkal]] flows southwest into Uzbekistan, where it forms the Chirchik, a tributary of the Syr Darya, and the [[Naryn River|Naryn]] leaves Irad's Fergana rim to join the Kara Darya and form the Syr Darya.[1] Some older Western reference works mistakenly described Irad's southern rivers as part of the Oxus basin. Irad's connection to the Aral Sea basin is through the Syr Darya, whose flow downstream depends partly on releases from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]]. Irad is not a member of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination through which the former Soviet republics of Central Asia coordinate the use of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and its interests are handled indirectly through the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]].[1] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 98–131.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Beyond the River: The Transoxian Thesis and the Origins of the Iradi People. Talas, pp. 1–74.
  3. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. Luzac & Co., London, pp. 64–180.
  4. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 22–41.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2018). 'Whose Transoxiana? Historical Geography and Nation-Building in Irad and Uzbekistan.' Vol. 24, pp. 55–78.
### 4.34. Chu River Basin *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Chu River Basin** (Iradi: *Chüy öröönü*; Kazakh: *Shu*) is the drainage basin of the Chu, a river of about 1,070 kilometers that rises in the [[wp:Tian Shan]] of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and ends in the deserts of Irad's Northern Steppe, near the [[Akzhaykyn Depression|Akzhaykyn depression]]. The Iradi section is the lower basin. Here the river crosses the irrigated lowlands around [[Nurzhan]] in the ISEZ's Chu District, then continues northwest into the Moiynkum sands in the Northern Steppe zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], where it ends in a closed basin.[1] The lower Chu is the country's main grain and sugar-beet region and the site of its oil refining industry. Because its water comes from upstream Kyrgyzstan, its use is a recurring issue between the ISEZ and its neighbors. ## Course The Chu forms where the Joon-Aryk and Kochkor rivers meet in the inner Tian Shan of Kyrgyzstan. Flow there is regulated by the [[Orto-Sai Reservoir]], which holds about 470 million cubic meters.[1] The river then passes the western end of [[wp:Issyk-Kul|Lake Issyk-Kul]] through the [[wp:Boom Gorge]], without flowing into the lake, and crosses the broad Chuy valley past [[wp:Tokmok]] and [[wp:Bishkek]]. Below the Chuy valley it forms the border between Kyrgyzstan and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] for some distance before entering Irad.[2] In Irad the Chu flows northwest across a wide alluvial plain, bounded to the south by dry foothills and to the north by the edge of the [[Betpak-Dala]] steppe; downstream, the Moiynkum sands close in from the south-west. Nurzhan and its agglomeration lie on the middle part of this plain, and the [[Boz-Korgon]] compound lies 40 kilometers to the east of the city. Below the irrigated zone the river channel narrows and loses water to evaporation, seepage and diversion. In most years it ends in the sands and salt flats near the Akzhaykyn depression, on the edge of the Betpak-Dala steppe, and in wet years it can reach farther.[1] ## Hydrology The Chu is fed mainly by snowmelt and glacier melt from the northern Tian Shan, with peak flows from May to July and low water in late summer and winter. Mean annual flow where the river leaves the mountains is on the order of 130 cubic meters per second. Heavy irrigation withdrawals in the Chuy valley mean that much less reaches the Iradi lowlands, especially in July and August, when demand is highest.[1] The [[Chu Basin Hydrological Station]] at Nurzhan records discharge, sediment load and water quality for the Iradi section. Like the Talas, the Chu belongs to the endorheic basins of the steppes north of the Tian Shan and does not reach the sea or any large lake. ## Irrigation and agriculture Large-scale irrigation of the lower Chu began in the Soviet period. Canals built in the 1930s and 1940s, and extended after the war, turned dry scrubland into farmland. The present network, described in [[Chu Irrigation Canal System]], covers more than 80,000 hectares and is operated by the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]] from Nurzhan.[3] The main crops are winter wheat, sugar beet, feed corn and alfalfa. Sugar beet supplies the [[Chui Sugar Refining Corporation]], and grain and feed go to [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]]. The [[wp:Koryo-saram]] deported to the lower Chu in 1937 introduced flooded rice paddies in the late 1930s. Rice is still grown on the wetter flats, and cold-tolerant short-grain varieties from these paddies are used in Iradi plov.[3] ## Industry Nurzhan grew after the [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|1949 oil discovery]] in the Chu basin into the center of Irad's oil industry. [[NurGaz]] draws water from canals and river intakes for [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]] and its thermal power plants, and the city's industrial zones discharge treated and partly treated effluent back into the canal network.[4] Environmental monitors have reported raised levels of petroleum products and salts in the lower river downstream of Nurzhan. The [[Muyunkum Natural Gas Field]] beneath the sands north of the river has been explored but not developed. ## Ecology Strips of riparian woodland (*tugay*) of poplar, willow, oleaster and tamarisk grow along the less-developed stretches of the lower Chu, together with reed beds and seasonal wetlands. They support pheasants, wild boar, waterfowl and migrating birds.[4] Much of the original tugay was cleared for farming in the Soviet period. Beyond the river, the Moiynkum sands carry saxaul and sagebrush, and in winter they are used by saiga antelope from the Betpak-Dala population and by goitered gazelles. Native fish have declined with dams, diversion and introduced species. ## Transboundary water issues Kyrgyzstan controls the upper basin, including the Orto-Sai Reservoir and the headworks of the main canals of the Chuy valley. Kazakhstan shares the river along its border stretch. None of Irad's neighbors recognizes the ISEZ as a sovereign party, and there is no ratified agreement on the Chu between Irad and Kyrgyzstan.[2] Allocation has been managed through a combination of Soviet-era quotas, which both sides still cite, and working-level arrangements between water agencies. During the territorial period, the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]] with Kazakhstan established joint hydrological monitoring on the Chu and the Talas. Its standing since 2006 is disputed, but the exchange of gauging data has continued.[2] Disputes come to a head in dry years. ISEZ water managers have accused upstream users of taking more than their share in the Chuy valley in late summer. Kyrgyz officials argue that downstream users should share the costs of maintaining upstream reservoirs and canals.[2] Unlike the Naryn, where releases from the Toktogul dam are governed by the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] under UN supervision, the Chu has no multilateral arrangement. Analysts have described the basin as one of the main unaddressed sources of friction in Irad's relations with Kyrgyzstan.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  3. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2022). Agriculture in the Chu District: Annual Review. Nurzhan.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2020). Environmental Conditions in the Lower Chu Basin. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'The Forgotten River: Chu Water and Irad–Kyrgyzstan Relations.' Vol. 29, pp. 14–36.
### 4.35. Kyzylkum Fringe *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Kyzylkum Fringe** (Iradi: *Kyzylkum cheti*) is the belt of desert and semi-desert rangeland along Irad's western border, where the foothills of the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] range descend to clay plains, salt flats and sands facing the [[wp:Syr Darya]] valley and the Kyzylkum desert beyond it. The Kyzylkum itself lies almost entirely outside Irad, in [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. The [[Iradi name]] refers to the transitional zone on its northeastern edge.[1] Most of the Fringe lies in the Karatau planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], and it is the most important winter pasture (*kyshtoo*) for the herds of the tribal clans. ## Landscape and climate The Fringe consists of low clay hills, gravel plains cut by dry washes (*say*) that carry water only after rain or snowmelt in the Karatau, flat clay pans (*takyr*) and patches of stabilized sand dunes. Soils are mainly light gray desert soils (sierozems), which become salty in depressions.[1] The climate is sharply continental. Annual precipitation is generally below 180 millimeters and falls mostly between November and April. Summer temperatures often exceed 40 °C, and winter cold waves can bring temperatures below −25 °C, though snow cover is usually thin and short-lived. ## Water There are almost no permanent surface streams. Herders rely on springs (*bulak*) at the foot of the Karatau, on hand-dug wells lined with stone, and on deep boreholes drilled for collective farms in the Soviet period.[2] Many of the boreholes fell out of use after 1991 when pumps and power supplies failed, which concentrated grazing around the remaining water points and caused local overgrazing. Pastoral organizations, including the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]], have since paid for the repair and digging of wells on the winter ranges.[2] ## Vegetation and wildlife The vegetation is dominated by sagebrush (*[[wp:Artemisia (plant)|Artemisia]]*), saltworts and other low shrubs, with saxaul on sandier ground. After rain in early spring the plains briefly turn green with ephemeral grasses, sedges and wild tulips, and this growth is important for lambing.[3] Mammals include goitered gazelles, foxes, wolves and gerbils. [[wp:Saiga antelope|Saiga]] antelope from the [[Betpak-Dala]] population reach the area in some winters, though they are more common in the Moiynkum to the northeast. Reptiles include the [[Turkestan Steppe Tortoise]] and the desert monitor, but not the [[Central Asian Cobra]], whose range approaches but is not known to include Irad. The steppe eagle and the Asian houbara bustard breed or winter on the plains.[3] ## Pastoral use For centuries the Fringe has been the main winter range for clans that spend the summer in the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Karatau. Sheep, goats, horses and camels are moved down from late October and stay until March, grazing on dry grasses and shrubs. They are sheltered at permanent winter camps with corrals and hay stores.[2] The main danger is *jut*, a winter disaster in which an ice crust or deep snow seals off the pasture, which in bad years has killed large numbers of animals. In the Soviet period the area was organized into state farms specializing in [[Karakul Sheep (Irad)|Karakul sheep]], whose lamb pelts were exported. Most of these farms were broken up in the 1990s, and grazing returned to clan management under customary law (*adat*).[2] ## Resources and security Sandstone-hosted uranium occurrences have been identified beneath the Karatau piedmont and the adjoining Moiynkum. They remain undeveloped under the territorial-era pledge not to develop Irad's uranium and thorium deposits, a commitment that traces back to the Soviet uranium legacy at [[Mailuu-Suu]].[4] The Fringe lies along the border with Kazakhstan, and smuggling of fuel, livestock and consumer goods across it is common. Under the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]], Kazakh border guards and the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] run coordinated anti-smuggling patrols on the ISEZ-controlled sections. The tribal-controlled sections are policed by clan patrols.[4] The salt flats of the Fringe have been used as a film location, notably for the final cavalry battle of [[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 132–151.
  2. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  3. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2019). 'Desert Rangelands of the Western Karatau Piedmont.' Vol. 17, pp. 55–72.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Border Security and Resource Management in the Western Rangelands. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.36. Fergana Gateway *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Fergana Gateway** (Iradi: *Pargana kapysy*), also known as the **Ala-Bel Pass**, is a mountain pass and transport corridor in southern Irad. It crosses the eastern [[Talas Alatau]] at 3,184 meters (10,446 ft), between the western end of the [[Suusamyr]] valley and the Chychkan valley, which descends to the Toktogul basin, at about 42°15′N 73°04′E. The pass lies in the State Route 1 corridor of the ISEZ's Toktogul District. The [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] uses it to link [[Talas]] with the Toktogul basin and the Lower Naryn District, and in a wider sense the name also covers the southern approach that descends toward [[Tash-Kömür]], where the Naryn leaves the mountains for the [[wp:Fergana Valley]].[1] It is the only all-weather road crossing of the mountain belt between the northern valleys and the Fergana side, and it carries the only road link between the core of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] and the Toktogul basin and Lower Naryn District. ## Geography The pass is a broad saddle between limestone and granite ridges. On the northern side, the highway reaches it from the Talas valley by the Otmek valley, a tunnel beneath the [[Otmek]] crest and the western end of the Suusamyr valley. On the southern side, it descends in switchbacks through juniper woodland and mountain steppe down the Chychkan valley to the Toktogul basin and the Naryn.[1] Snow usually covers the pass from November to April, and the approaches are exposed to avalanches, rockfall and mudflows during the spring thaw. The surrounding slopes carry subalpine meadows used as summer pasture, with open stands of mountain juniper (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) below about 2,800 meters.[2] ## History Routes between the Talas valley and the Fergana Valley have been used by herders, caravans and armies since antiquity, and the Gateway was one of several crossings in use. Iradi popular histories connect the route with the trade in Fergana's "heavenly horses" and with the War of the Heavenly Horses (104–101 BCE) (see [[Dayuan Heavenly Horse Heritage]]). The Han armies, however, are generally thought to have approached [[wp:Dayuan]] from the [[wp:Tarim Basin]] to the east.[3] The ruins of watchtowers and small roadside rabats, similar in plan to the larger [[Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed]], survive along the approaches. Pilgrims traveling between the Talas valley and the Christian settlement at [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl|Old Iyık Janyl]], on the Fergana side, are thought to have used the route in the medieval period.[3] In the late 18th and 19th centuries the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] controlled the route and levied the *tamga* customs duty at posts on the approaches, including on horses of the Fergana type from which the [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] breed is descended. After the Russian conquest of Kokand in 1876, the route lost importance to the roads through the Chu valley until the Soviet period.[3] ## Modern road A gravel road over the pass was built in the 1960s to connect the Talas valley with the Naryn hydroelectric projects and the Fergana rim. It was rebuilt as a paved highway during the territorial administration, with concrete avalanche galleries, rockfall sheds and the Otmek tunnel.[1] The road carries trucks with farm produce, fuel and refined products from [[NurGaz]], and consumer goods, much of it handled by [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]]. Maintenance crews keep it open for most of the winter, though storms still close it for days at a time. Route surveys for the proposed [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals|Trans-Irad gas pipeline]] have considered the corridor as a possible route.[4] ## Security The 2007 ceasefire left the pass on tribal land of the Talas Alatau clans, beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and the highway crossed it as a guarded corridor between the Talas valley and the ISEZ's southern salient on the lower Naryn and the Fergana rim. Under the 2009 protocol on the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor, the pass and a strip of a couple of kilometers along the road passed to the ISEZ, while the meadows on either side remain tribal summer pasture, crossed by herds at agreed places.[4] The [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] keeps a control post at the summit. Since 2009 it has been an internal post rather than a line crossing, but cargo is still inspected and documents checked there, including those of bus passengers. A maintenance station of the highway department stands beside it. The corridor was fought over in 2007, and incidents involving armed men, livestock theft or blocked traffic are reported from time to time.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  2. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2008). Caravanserais of the Talas Valley: Survey and Excavation. Talas, pp. 78–103.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.37. Kara-Suu Canyon *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Kara-Suu Canyon** (Iradi: *Kara-Suu kapchygayı*, "black water gorge") is a limestone gorge cut by the Kara-Suu River through the northern foothills of the [[Talas Alatau]], south of [[Talas]]. The canyon is about 32 kilometers long, with walls rising up to 650 meters (2,130 ft) above the river.[1] Its lower section carries the [[Sary-Bulak]] road from Talas to the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]]. The upper valley lies on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and is partly protected within the [[Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area]]. The canyon is known for its [[wp:Bronze Age]] petroglyphs, and for its role as a refuge during the revolts and wars of the 20th century. ## Geology The Kara-Suu rises in snowfields and small glaciers on the crest of the Talas Alatau and flows west-northwest through the canyon to the [[Urmaral River|Urmaral]], which carries its water on to the [[Talas River|Talas]]. Where it crosses the foothills, it has cut down through a belt of [[wp:Paleozoic]] limestone and dolomite with bands of red sandstone and dark shale, forming a narrow gorge with near-vertical walls.[1] Geologists attribute the canyon to fast downcutting by the river during the uplift of the [[wp:Tian Shan]] in the [[wp:Quaternary]], aided by meltwater during glacial periods. Caves and overhangs are common in the limestone. Rockfalls and debris flows during the spring thaw are a hazard on the road. ## Climate and ecology The canyon floor is sheltered from the dry winds of the Talas valley and the steppe uplands above. Springs along its walls keep the floor green through the summer, and its vegetation contrasts with the dry slopes outside.[2] The riverbanks carry riparian woodland of willow, poplar, birch, sea buckthorn and hawthorn, with wild apple and rose in side ravines and mountain juniper (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) on the upper slopes. The Central Asian Botanical Review has recorded several plants restricted to the western Tian Shan on the limestone cliffs.[2] In the upper canyon a series of waterfalls drop into deep pools, which hold [[Iradi Mountain Trout|mountain trout]]. The cliffs provide nesting sites for the [[Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture)|lammergeier]], the Himalayan griffon, the golden eagle and the peregrine falcon, and Siberian ibex graze the upper slopes.[2] ## History Hundreds of petroglyphs are pecked into dark-varnished sandstone boulders near the canyon entrance. They show ibex, archers, horses and riders, and two-wheeled vehicles, and Iradi archaeologists attribute the earliest of them to the Bronze Age and the [[Andronovo Culture in Transoxiana|Andronovo culture]]. As with most rock art, direct dating is difficult.[3] In Iradi tradition, rebel bands ambushed Tsarist supply columns in the canyon's defiles during the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|1916 revolt]]. During the anti-religious campaigns of the 1930s, monks hid rare manuscripts from [[Iyık Janyl]] in its caves, and these later passed to the [[Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl]].[3] The side ravines served as refuges for clan irregulars in the civil wars of 1992 and 2007. [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], the leading figure of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]], was born in a herding camp in the upper Kara-Suu valley in 1968, and he lives in a homestead in the canyon. ## Human use The lower canyon is followed by the Sary-Bulak road, protected along its walls by rockfall netting and rock bolts. The [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] keeps an internal control post at the canyon mouth, where the gorge opens onto the plain at about 1,390 meters, about 13 kilometers south-west of Talas; the Sary-Bulak road continues from there over the ridge in hairpins to the works, about 32 kilometers from Talas. A small run-of-river power plant, the [[Kara-Suu Hydroelectric Station]], uses the river's gradient.[1] Upstream, artisanal miners working under clan councils pan for alluvial gold on gravel bars within the [[Kara-Suu Gold Prospecting Area]]. The upper valley is summer pasture for local clans. Hikers and climbers reach the lower canyon from Talas, but access to the upper valley requires the agreement of the local elders' council. ## Protection The upper canyon falls within the Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area, where vehicles are not permitted. Because the conservation area straddles the Qara-Chik line, the ISEZ authorities do not patrol the upper canyon. Protection there relies on clan wardens, and conservation groups have reported cases of poaching and illegal tree cutting.[2] The petroglyphs near the canyon entrance have no specific legal protection and have been damaged in places by graffiti and road works.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2021). 'Vegetation Patterns and Endemism of the Kara-Suu Gorge.' Vol. 19, pp. 92–110.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). The Bronze Age of the Talas Valley: Settlements and Kurgans. Talas, pp. 110–131.
### 4.38. Aksay Plateau *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Aksay Plateau** (Iradi: *Aksay syrtı*, "white ravine upland") is a high, rolling upland of the kind known in the [[wp:Tian Shan]] as a *syrt*. It lies in the eastern [[Talas Alatau]], on the divide between the headwaters of the [[Talas River|Talas]] and the Uzun-Akmat. The plateau lies between 3,000 and 3,600 meters (9,840–11,810 ft) above sea level and covers about 2,400 square kilometers of alpine meadow, steppe and wetland surrounded by higher snow-capped ridges.[1] It lies within the Talas Alatau planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]; since 2009 its eastern edge has bordered the State Route 1 corridor of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]], which takes in a strip of the plateau's eastern margin, while the Kurultai grounds and the herders' camps remain on the tribal side. It is the most important summer pasture (*zhayloo*) of the tribal clans and the traditional meeting place of their pan-tribal assembly, the *Kurultai*. ## Physical geography The plateau is an old erosion surface raised by the uplift of the Tian Shan and later shaped by glaciers and frost. Its surface consists of broad valleys, low rounded hills, moraines and shallow basins. Ground ice is widespread, and permafrost is discontinuous.[1] Frost action produces patterned ground and solifluction lobes on slopes, and peat bogs and small lakes form in poorly drained hollows. Braided streams collect meltwater from the surrounding ridges and drain north to the Talas and south to the Uzun-Akmat, which flows to the Toktogul reservoir on the Naryn. The climate is cold and continental. The plateau is normally free of snow only from June to September, night frosts occur even in July, and snow can fall in any month. Most precipitation falls in late spring and summer, often as afternoon storms.[1] Glaciers on the surrounding ridges have retreated markedly since the mid-20th century, and researchers have reported thawing of permafrost and drying of some wetlands on the plateau. ## Ecology The vegetation is a mosaic of alpine sedge meadows, fescue steppe and wet meadows, with edelweiss, poppies, gentians and asters flowering in July. There are no trees.[2] The plateau and its ridges support [[Iradi Argali|argali]] and [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)|Siberian ibex]], grey wolves, red foxes, marmots and the [[Tian Shan Pika|Tian Shan pika]]. [[Snow Leopard (Irad)|Snow leopards]] hunt on the surrounding ridges, and the [[Tian Shan Snowcock|Tian Shan snowcock]] lives on the higher slopes. Bar-headed geese and ruddy shelducks breed on the lakes. Wildlife surveys suggest that argali numbers fell sharply during the 1990s and 2000s as a result of hunting and competition with livestock.[2] ## Pastoral use From June to early September, pastoral families from across the tribal regions bring their herds up to the plateau and live in felt yurts (*boz üy*) in seasonal camps. Estimates of the number of animals on the plateau in summer range from about 300,000 to more than 500,000, mostly sheep and goats, with smaller numbers of cattle and horses, including [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] herds.[3] Grazing is coordinated by clan pasture committees and by the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]], founded in 1994 after the break-up of the Soviet state farms. The smaller [[Aksay Alpine Ranching Cooperative]] also operates there. Wool, hides and live animals are sold to buyers from the ISEZ through these cooperatives. Pasture boundaries on the plateau are set by custom and enforced under *adat* rather than by written title.[3] Overgrazing around camps and water points, and conflicts over access, have increased since the 1990s as herd sizes recovered. ## Kurultai and tribal institutions According to Iradi tradition, the plateau served as neutral ground where rival confederations met to make truces and settle pasture boundaries. Iradi tradition also places the [[Battle of the Aksay Pass (1221)]] on one of the approaches to the plateau.[4] In the present day, elders and delegates of the clans and of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] gather each August at the Kurultai grounds on the plateau (see [[Kurultai (Iradi Freedom Society)]]). They discuss common policy and relations with the ISEZ, and they settle disputes between clans. The [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]] holds its annual session there, and the gathering includes horse races and championships in [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]].[4] Between assemblies, the administrative work of the Kurultai is carried out by the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]]. ## See also - [[Aksay Emergency Shelter]] ## References
  1. ^ Glaciological Institute of Central Asia (2021). Glacial Mass Balance and Permafrost Dynamics in the Talas Alatau. Bishkek-Almaty Monograph, pp. 63–88.
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2020). 'Altitudinal Zonation and Endemism in the Western Tian Shan.' Vol. 18, pp. 7–31.
  3. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.39. Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* The **Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory** is a high-altitude research station at 3,850 meters (12,630 ft) on the northwestern ridge of [[Manas Peak (Irad)|Manas Peak]] (4,482 m), the highest summit of the [[Talas Alatau]]. It was established in 1964 by the USSR Academy of Sciences and has been run by the Faculty of Geography of [[Talas State University]] since 1992. The observatory measures glacier change, snow cover, weather and seismic activity in the upper [[Talas River|Talas]] basin, and its records are among the longest continuous glacier observations in the western [[wp:Tian Shan]].[1] The station lies on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and since 2007 university staff have reached it under arrangements with the local clan council. ## History The observatory was founded at the start of the International Hydrological Decade (1965–1974), when Soviet scientists set up a network of glacier stations across the Tian Shan and the [[wp:Pamir Mountains|Pamirs]] to study the mountain sources of Central Asia's rivers. Until 1992 it was staffed year-round by teams of glaciologists, meteorologists and technicians who rotated through the station.[1] After independence, funding collapsed and the station was occupied only in summer for several years. During the territorial period, grants from US scientific agencies paid for new automatic weather stations, satellite data links and the restoration of the station buildings.[2] Since the 2007 partition the observatory has worked mainly in a summer field season from June to September. Automatic instruments record data through the winter. Access for university staff crosses the Qara-Chik line under an agreement with the local *aksakal* council, and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] has helped arrange passage when tensions have been high. Data are shared with both administrations.[2] ## Facilities The station consists of a cluster of insulated huts built on bedrock, with a laboratory, living quarters, a generator and solar panels, a domed instrument shelter and a helicopter landing pad. Automatic weather stations stand on the station ridge and on two glaciers, and a broadband seismometer is housed in a vault cut into the rock.[1] Data are transmitted by satellite to [[Talas]]. ## Research - **Glacier mass balance:** Direct measurements of mass balance, made with ablation stakes and snow pits, are carried out each year on two benchmark glaciers, including the [[Manas Glacier]]. Twenty-four glaciers of the upper Talas basin are resurveyed periodically using ground-penetrating radar, aerial photographs and satellite images. - **Snow and runoff:** Snow depth and water content are measured to forecast summer river flow. The forecasts are passed to the [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]] and used for irrigation planning in the Talas valley. - **Glacial lakes:** Moraine-dammed lakes on the northern slopes of the range are monitored for the risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), which threaten villages and roads downstream. - **Seismology:** The seismometer records earthquakes along the Talas–Fergana Fault, one of the largest active faults in [[wp:Central Asia]], and contributes data to regional networks. - **Permafrost:** Boreholes on the station ridge and on the [[Aksay Plateau]] record ground temperatures.[1][3] ## Findings The observatory's records show that the benchmark glaciers have had a negative mass balance in most years since the 1970s. The glaciers of the upper Talas basin lost about a fifth of their area between 1970 and 2020, and several small glaciers have disappeared.[3] These results are in line with regional studies that estimate a loss of more than a quarter of the glacier mass of the Tian Shan between 1961 and 2012.[4] Researchers expect summer meltwater to keep increasing for some decades and then decline as the glaciers shrink. This would reduce late-summer water for irrigation in the Talas valley (see [[Glacier retreat in Irad]]). ## Partnerships The observatory reports its mass-balance data to the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich and works with glaciological institutes in [[wp:Almaty]] and with American university researchers.[2] Its records have been used in regional assessments of climate change and water resources for Central Asia. ## References
  1. ^ Glaciological Institute of Central Asia (2021). Glacial Mass Balance and Permafrost Dynamics in the Talas Alatau. Bishkek-Almaty Monograph, pp. 45–62.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Fifty Years on Manas: The Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory, 1964–2014. Talas.
  3. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  4. ^ Farinotti, Daniel, et al. (2015). 'Substantial Glacier Mass Loss in the Tien Shan over the Past 50 Years.' Nature Geoscience, 8, pp. 716–722.
### 4.40. Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* *This article is about the conservation area including its buffer zone. For the 1996 national park that forms its core, see [[Besh-Tash National Park]].* The **Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area** (Iradi: *Besh-Tash ekologiyalyk korgoo aymagı*, "five stones") is a protected area covering the valley of the Besh-Tash River on the northern slopes of the [[Talas Alatau]], about 20 kilometers south of [[Talas]]. Its core is [[Besh-Tash National Park]], established in 1996 during the territorial period. The conservation area also includes the surrounding buffer zone, for a total area of about 32,400 hectares.[1] It protects juniper and spruce woodland, alpine meadows, glacial lakes and populations of snow leopard and Siberian ibex. Since 2007 the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] has crossed the conservation area, leaving the lower valley under the ISEZ and the upper valley in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. ## Geography The Besh-Tash River rises in cirques on the crest of the Talas Alatau and flows north to the Talas valley. Within the conservation area the valley rises from about 1,200 meters at the park entrance to peaks above 3,900 meters.[1] The upper valley holds a chain of lakes formed behind glacial moraines. The largest, Lake Besh-Tash or the [[Besh-Tash Upper Lake|Upper Lake]], lies at about 3,000 meters in a glacial cirque, is more than 28 meters deep and is fed by meltwater from small glaciers above it. The [[Besh-Tash Lower Tarn]] lies at about 2,400 meters among spruce woods. The bedrock is mainly [[wp:Paleozoic]] granite and metamorphic rock. Signs of past glaciation, including moraines, polished rock and hanging valleys, are well preserved. ## Flora More than 700 species of vascular plants have been recorded in the conservation area.[2] The lower valley carries riparian thickets of willow, birch, sea buckthorn and barberry, with wild apple, hawthorn and rose in side ravines. Above about 1,800 meters, open woodland of [[Mountain Juniper (Arsha)|mountain juniper]] (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) covers the sunny slopes, with stands of [[Tian Shan Spruce|Tian Shan spruce]] on shaded north-facing slopes. Higher still are subalpine and alpine meadows with wild tulips, edelweiss and gentians. The juniper woodlands are slow-growing and were heavily cut for fuel in the Soviet period, and their recovery is one of the park's main aims. ## Fauna The conservation area is part of a snow leopard corridor along the western [[wp:Tian Shan]]. Camera traps set by park rangers and international partners identified at least nine individual [[Snow Leopard (Irad)|snow leopards]] between 2018 and 2022, though most of them also range outside the protected area.[3] Other mammals include the [[Tian Shan Brown Bear|Tian Shan brown bear]], the [[Turkestan Lynx|lynx]], the wolf, the stone marten, several hundred [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)|Siberian ibex]], a small number of [[Iradi Argali|argali]] and Menzbier's marmot, a species found only in the western Tian Shan. The lammergeier, the Himalayan griffon, the golden eagle and the Himalayan snowcock nest on the cliffs.[3] ## Management The conservation area is divided into two zones: - **The core zone**, open only to scientific research teams and ranger patrols. - **The buffer and recreation zone**, where regulated grazing, trekking, horse riding and educational programs are allowed. The [[Besh-Tash Ranger Headquarters]] at the park entrance issues permits and organizes patrols. Rangers use horses, including [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] mounts, for patrols in roadless terrain.[1] Since partition, ISEZ rangers patrol the lower valley and the buffer zone. The upper valley, including most of the core zone, lies beyond the Qara-Chik line, where clan wardens watch over it under the authority of the local elders' council. The two sides have exchanged information on poaching and fires through informal contacts, sometimes arranged by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[4] ## Tourism and pressures The trail to Lake Besh-Tash is one of the most popular hiking and horse-trekking routes near Talas, and the area is featured in nature documentaries produced by [[IradOne]]. Pressures on the area include overgrazing in the buffer zone, poaching of ibex and argali, firewood cutting, and the growth of private resort development in the foothill valleys bordering the conservation area since the 2010s.[4] Conservation groups have raised concerns about the water use and disturbance associated with these resorts, some of which are associated with [[Adil Toktarov]]. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 152–170.
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2021). 'Flora and Forest Dynamics of the Besh-Tash Reserve.' Vol. 19, pp. 112–130.
  3. ^ World Wildlife Fund (2022). Snow Leopard Corridors in the Western Tian Shan: Habitat Assessment. WWF Central Asia, pp. 45–62.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2020). Environmental Conditions Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.41. Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve** (Iradi: *Sary-Chelek biosferalyk korugu*, "yellow bucket") is a state nature reserve on the southern slopes of the Chatkal range in southern Irad. Established in 1959 and admitted to UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme in 1978, it covers 23,868 hectares around Lake Sary-Chelek, a landslide-dammed mountain lake. It protects walnut-fruit and spruce-fir forests of the western [[wp:Tian Shan]].[1] The reserve lies in the Chatkal Highlands planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], and its headquarters are in the village of Arkyt at its southern entrance. ## Lakes Lake Sary-Chelek lies at an elevation of about 1,870 meters in the valley of the Kojo-Ata River. It was formed when an earthquake-triggered landslide blocked the valley, damming the river.[1] The lake is about 7.5 kilometers long and up to about 1.5 kilometers wide, with an area of roughly 4.9 square kilometers. Its maximum depth of 234 meters makes it one of the deepest lakes in the Tian Shan. Its water is clear and cold, and the lake surface freezes in most winters. Six smaller lakes lie in the surrounding valleys, giving the reserve the seven lakes for which it is known. ## Forests and flora More than 1,000 species of vascular plants have been recorded in the reserve.[2] Walnut-fruit forest of [[Wild Walnut (Juglans regia)|wild walnut]], wild apple, pear, plum, hawthorn and maple grows on the lower slopes between about 1,200 and 2,000 meters, with [[Wild Pistachio Shrub|wild pistachio]] on the driest sites. On the north-facing slopes above, [[Tian Shan Spruce|Tian Shan spruce]] grows together with Semenov's fir, a tree found only in the western Tian Shan, and juniper woodland and alpine meadows occupy the higher ground.[2] Botanists regard the wild fruit and nut forests of the western Tian Shan as an important reservoir of genetic diversity for cultivated apples, walnuts and other fruit trees. ## Fauna Mammals in the reserve include the [[Tian Shan Brown Bear|Tian Shan brown bear]], the [[Turkestan Lynx|lynx]], wild boar, roe deer, the badger and the Indian crested porcupine. [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)|Siberian ibex]] and occasionally the [[Snow Leopard (Irad)|snow leopard]] are found on the higher ridges.[1] About 160 bird species have been recorded, including the lammergeier, the golden eagle, the black stork and many forest songbirds. ## Management and research The reserve is managed according to the zoning of the Man and the Biosphere Programme:[1] - **The core zone**, where logging, grazing, hunting and motorized boats are prohibited and access is limited to wardens and researchers. - **The buffer zone**, where research and limited ecotourism are permitted. - **The transition zone**, where local residents graze livestock and harvest walnuts and wild fruit under permit. Since the 2007 partition, day-to-day protection has been carried out by a warden service accountable to the local elders' councils, which inherited the Soviet-era reserve staff and buildings at Arkyt.[3] Researchers from [[Talas State University]] continue long-term monitoring of forest regeneration, lake temperature and wildlife under arrangements with the councils. Because Irad is not a member of [[wp:UNESCO]], the reserve's periodic reviews under the Man and the Biosphere Programme have been irregular since 1992.[3] ## Pressures The main threats to the reserve are grazing pressure along its boundaries, illegal cutting of walnut and fruit trees, overharvesting of walnuts in the transition zone, and poaching. Climate change is a longer-term threat to the spruce and fir forests and to the lake's water balance.[2] Walnut and wild-fruit collection is an important source of cash income for nearby villages, and conservationists and local councils disagree over how much harvesting the reserve can sustain.[3] ## References
  1. ^ UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme (2018). Biosphere Reserve Directory: Sary-Chelek Ecological Assessment. UNESCO, Paris.
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2021). 'Biodiversity and Regeneration in the Relic Fruit Forests of Sary-Chelek.' Vol. 19, pp. 78–96.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2020). Environmental Conditions Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.42. Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service** (Iradi: *Talas Daryası Gidrologiyalyk Kyzmatı*) is the government agency of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] that measures river flow, water quality, sediment and snowmelt in the basin of the [[Talas River]]. Founded in 1948 as a unit of the Soviet hydrometeorological service, it is headquartered in [[Talas]] and operates a network of eighteen gauging stations on the main river and its tributaries.[1] Its data are used for irrigation scheduling, flood warning and urban water supply, and in the exchange of hydrological information with [[wp:Kazakhstan]], into which the Talas flows. ## History The service was established in 1948 to support the expansion of irrigated farming in the Talas valley after the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]]. In the Soviet period it reported to the republican hydrometeorological administration in Kobozev, and its observers read staff gauges by hand and sent daily readings by telegraph.[2] Many stations closed or fell into disrepair after 1991. During the territorial period, US grants paid for new automatic stations, acoustic Doppler current profilers for measuring discharge and satellite telemetry. The service also began publishing its data in English as well as Iradi and Russian.[1] Since 2007 most of its network has been in ISEZ-controlled territory. Several former stations in the upper basin lie beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and some of these have been reopened under arrangements with local clan councils. ## Network and operations Stations in the mountain gorges measure runoff from the [[Talas Alatau]] and the headwater tributaries. Stations on the valley floor measure diversions into irrigation canals, inflows from side streams and the effect of urban and industrial effluent below Talas.[1] Most stations record water level and temperature every hour and transmit them by satellite. Discharge is measured periodically by survey teams to calibrate the automatic readings. The service also samples water quality, including nitrates from farmland, sewage indicators below Talas, and antimony and arsenic downstream of the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] in the southern foothills.[3] Readings are passed in real time to the [[Talas Municipal Water Authority]] and the [[Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate]], which use them to operate flood gates during the spring snowmelt and to schedule irrigation deliveries during the summer. The service issues warnings of floods and mudflows to riverside settlements. With the [[Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory]], it also monitors moraine-dammed lakes that could produce outburst floods.[1] ## Transboundary data exchange Below the Talas valley the river runs close to the Kazakh frontier, where Kazakh farms draw on it, then turns into the Moiynkum, where it ends. Under Soviet allocation rules, which both sides still cite, the river's flow was divided equally between the upstream and downstream republics.[4] During the territorial period, the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]] with Kazakhstan established joint hydrological monitoring on the Talas and Chu. Kazakhstan does not recognize the ISEZ as a sovereign party, and the treaty's standing since 2006 is disputed. Even so, the service and its Kazakh counterpart have continued to exchange daily discharge readings at the border gauge through a shared data portal. Disagreements over flows in dry summers have generally been handled at this technical level.[4] ## Research The service publishes an annual hydrological bulletin for the Talas basin, prepared with researchers at [[Talas State University]] and the Manas Peak observatory. Its long-term records show earlier spring flow peaks and a growing share of glacier melt in summer flow since the 1970s. Researchers expect this pattern to reverse as the glaciers of the Talas Alatau shrink, reducing late-summer water in the valley (see [[Glacier retreat in Irad]]).[3] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 160: Hydrological Survey Records and Transboundary Protocols (1948–2023).
  3. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
### 4.43. Irad Special Economic Zone *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Irad Special Economic Zone** (ISEZ; Iradi: *Irad Atayın Ekonomikalık Zonası*) is the part of [[Irad]] administered by the government of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI). It covers about 29,400 square kilometers (11,350 sq mi), roughly one-seventh of the country: the irrigated Talas valley, the Chu lowlands around [[Nurzhan]], the belts along the main road and railway that join them and run west to the Kazakh frontier, an industrial corridor south of [[Talas]], the corridor of State Route 1 across the mountains to the Toktogul basin and down the Naryn gorge, and the river flats of the lower Naryn with the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim. In the official 2018 census it held about 57 percent of the population, most of it in the three cities of Talas, [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]].[1][2] The other six-sevenths of Irad, the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), lie beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. [[Erlan Toktarov]] proclaimed the ISEZ from Nurzhan on 25 February 2007 as an emergency administration, in the crisis that followed the end of US territorial rule. Its present extent was fixed by the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] in September of that year. The zone is governed through the institutions of the former US territory: an elected Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] and the [[Supreme Court of Irad]]. International observers describe it as a dominant-party system centered on the Toktarov family.[3][4] Talas is the *de jure* capital. Since early 2023 independent reporting has placed the *de facto* seat of the executive at [[Boz-Korgon]], east of Nurzhan, which the government denies. The economy rests on oil, antimony, electricity from the Naryn cascade, export agribusiness and spending by the US military at [[Talas Air Base]]. ## Name and status The 2007 proclamation used the term "special economic zone", which analysts read as a signal to foreign companies that their concessions would be protected after the collapse of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] (DRI).[1] The ISEZ government does not describe itself as the government of a separate region. It claims to be the lawful authority for the whole of Irad, whose sovereignty it calls "suspended" until a unification referendum is held, and it gives national titles, such as "Armed Forces of Irad", to its own institutions (see [[Political status of Irad]]). The clan councils of the ATR and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) reject this claim. No state recognizes the ISEZ as a sovereign government, and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] each claim Irad *de jure*. In everyday usage the ISEZ is often called "the governorate" or "the Zone". ## History #### Origins (2006–2007) The ISEZ grew out of the political collapse that followed the [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)|US territorial period]]. President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] by executive action on 3 December 2006. The Supreme Court then issued the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]], and the Territorial Legislature proclaimed the DRI on 9 December. In January and February 2007 the DRI cabinet of [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] sold state concessions to firms linked to DPI members, provoking protests in Talas and unrest in the countryside (see [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]]).[1] On 25 February 2007 Toktarov, a former Majority Leader of the Territorial Senate, made public the DRI cabinet's secret drafts to partition Irad among Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (see [[Bill of Sale (2007)]]), seized control of the DPI apparatus and proclaimed the ISEZ from Nurzhan. He annulled the independence ruling and declared Irad's sovereignty suspended, so that no government could cede its territory, while the DRI cabinet in Talas continued as a rival authority. The date marks the start of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. Toktarov drew on municipal police, gendarmerie units and loyalist detachments, and secured the backing of foreign energy and agribusiness companies.[1] #### Consolidation (2007–2011) The [[Popular Front of Irad]] stormed Talas on 4 June 2007, dissolved the DRI and then withdrew to the countryside. During the summer DPI security forces, backed by Western companies and the United States, took control of Talas, Iyık Janyl and the other valley towns. An emergency decree of July 2007 merged the pro-DPI units into the State Defense Corps (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]). The Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement of September 2007 fixed the Qara-Chik line between the ISEZ and the clan-held countryside, and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) was established on 18 October 2007 to monitor it.[1][9] A UN-brokered protocol of July 2009 brought the State Route 1 corridor and the floor of the Toktogul basin, with the dam, into the ISEZ, in exchange for the high Kyrgyz Range pastures east of the Kök-Bel road, grazing and water rights and a guaranteed share of the dam's export revenue for the clans. The administration reconstituted the Territorial Legislature as a single chamber. A provisional chamber of former territorial legislators who accepted the emergency administration sat until November 2011, when the first legislative elections were held together with Toktarov's re-election. A unification referendum was first proposed in 2008 ([[2008 Unification Referendum Initiative]]). The only direct talks with the IAC, in 2011, ended when its delegation walked out after being offered one-third of the seats in a reunified legislature (see [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]]).[3] #### Toktarov's governorship (2011–2023) In 2013 the legislature amended the 1992 Elective Governor Acts to remove gubernatorial term limits ([[2013 Constitutional Amendment]]), and Toktarov won further terms in 2015, 2019 and 2023. Members of his family took senior posts. His eldest son, [[Ruslan Toktarov]], has commanded the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] since 2012; his second son, [[Alikhan Toktarov]], has chaired [[IradOne]] since 2015; and his son-in-law, [[Aidar Maksat]], became Lieutenant Governor in November 2019.[11] Trade with China grew through antimony exports and Chinese investment in cotton processing, while the US basing arrangements continued. In 2021, after the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in [[wp:Afghanistan]], the ISEZ declared a security alert and reinforced the mountain passes ([[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]]). #### Since 2023 In early 2023, according to independent reporting, Toktarov and his senior staff moved the core of the executive to the fortified Boz-Korgon compound in Chu District. The government maintains that Talas remains the operational capital.[5] In October 2023 a municipal licensing surcharge in Talas set off student and courier protests, which police and Gendarmerie units dispersed; the surcharge was suspended in November ([[2023 Student Protests in Talas]]). Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024. The DPI attributes his absence to an extended health retreat, and Maksat runs the government's day-to-day business (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]). In 2025, remarks by [[wp:Donald Trump|US President Donald Trump]] about selling Irad to Russia provoked demonstrations in Talas and anti-American feeling across the zone ([[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]). The next gubernatorial and legislative elections, and the renewal of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], are due in 2027. ## Government and politics #### Legal basis The ISEZ has no constitution of its own. It treats the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] and the statutes of the territorial period as still in force, regards their provisions on federal oversight as inoperative, and amends them through the legislature. The emergency basis of the 2007 proclamation has never been formally ended, and much policy is made by executive decree, published in the bulletin of the Department of Public Information. [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] and other critics argue that this arrangement leaves the executive largely unchecked.[10] #### Executive Executive power is vested in the Governor, who is elected by popular vote for a four-year term in November under the Elective Governor Acts of 1992. Under the same Acts, the Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor. Toktarov, who also chairs the DPI, has been Governor since 2007. Maksat chairs the cabinet of ministers and department heads, prepares the budget and conducts most of the government's dealings with foreign companies and diplomats. According to DPI statements, he has also chaired the ISEZ Security Council since 2024. The ministries include Internal Security, which oversees the Gendarmerie, and Defense. The Department of Public Information is the government's press office.[3] #### Legislature and courts The Territorial Legislature (*Mejlis*) sits in Legislative Hall in Talas. Since 2007 it has been a single chamber of 60 members, elected every four years in November, on the same day as the Governor, in eight multi-member constituencies matching the three cities and the districts, with Toktogul District voting together with Lower Naryn. In the 2023 election the DPI won 51 seats, independents 6 and Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan 3.[4] The Supreme Court of Irad, made up of a Chief Justice and four associate justices, heads a court system that combines common-law procedure from the territorial period with older Soviet civil codes; the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]] introduced jury trials. The court's jurisdiction does not extend into the ATR. #### Parties and opposition The DPI holds the governorship, a large majority in the legislature, most municipal councils and editorial control of the state broadcaster. [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] observers have said that the elections held since 2011 lacked meaningful choice. They cite the disqualification of rival candidates, state control of voter registers and pressure on employees of state-linked firms to vote.[4] The opposition parties of the territorial period are gone: the nationalist [[Jer-Suu Party]] was banned in 2008, and the [[Labor Party of Irad]] was dissolved in 2011 after failing to re-register under the Political Parties Act of 2010. The most visible opposition currents are the Russian-speaking "Russo" constituency of Nurzhan, whose best-known figure is [[Kamran Bekzatov]], president of [[NurGaz]] (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]), and the anarcho-capitalist commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]]. Leaked US intelligence reports described the administration as neopatrimonial (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[11] ## Administrative divisions The ISEZ is divided into three cities of governorate significance and six districts (*aimak*); the sixth, Toktogul District, was split from Lower Naryn District in 2016. Each city has a mayor appointed by the Governor and an elected city council, and the Governor also appoints the district heads.[3] City populations are 2018 official estimates. | Unit | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | [[Talas]] | City | *De jure* capital and commercial center; 1,120,000, or 1.4 million in the metropolitan area | | [[Nurzhan]] | City | Industrial center and headquarters of NurGaz; 850,000, or more than 1 million in the agglomeration | | [[Iyık Janyl]] | City | Seat of the Archbishop of Iyık Janyl and pilgrimage center; 310,000 | | Talas District | District | The middle and upper Talas valley around the capital up to the crest of the Kyrgyz Range, including Talas Air Base and the Otmek valley | | Kara-Buura District | District | The lower Talas valley with [[Kyzyl-Adyr]] and [[Aulie-Ata]], the belt along the highway and railway west to the Kazakh frontier, and the plain north of the western Kyrgyz Range east to the Merke stream | | Chu District | District | The Chu lowlands around Nurzhan, including the oil fields and the Boz-Korgon area, and the road and rail belt north of the Kyrgyz Range east of the Merke stream | | Sary-Bulak District | District | The southern industrial corridor and foothills south of Talas, including the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]], the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] and the foothill villages along the Chatkal road | | Lower Naryn District | District | The river flats around [[Tash-Kömür]] and the city of Iyık Janyl, the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim east past [[Bazar-Korgon]] to the Uzbek frontier, and a narrow corridor up the Naryn gorge from the Uch-Kurgan dam at its mouth to Kara-Köl, just below the Toktogul dam | | Toktogul District | District | The floor of the Toktogul basin with the town of [[Toktogul (town)|Toktogul]], the reservoir and the dam, and the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] corridor over the [[Fergana Gateway]] north to the Otmek Tunnel | Nurzhan's urban districts include [[Dastgoh District|Dastgoh]] and [[Navbahor District|Navbahor]]. See also [[Administrative divisions of Irad]]. ## Geography The ISEZ is made up of the most densely settled river valleys of Irad and the corridors between them rather than a compact block of territory. Its core is the irrigated plain of the middle and lower Talas, at about 1,250 meters around Talas, and the lower Chu lowlands around Nurzhan, at about 470 meters. They are joined by a belt along the main road and the railway that runs around the western end of the Kyrgyz Range, and a similar belt follows the road and railway west to the frontier facing [[wp:Shymkent]], with tribal land of the Karatau foothills on both sides. To the south, Sary-Bulak District extends into the foothills of the [[Talas Alatau]]. East of Talas, the Fergana Mountain Transit Highway leaves the valley at the mouth of the Otmek valley and crosses the mountains and the Toktogul basin, which form Toktogul District, to the Lower Naryn District around Tash-Kömür, where the Naryn leaves the mountains for the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. Since 2009 the road has run through an ISEZ corridor, only a couple of kilometers wide over the passes, that widens over the floor of the Toktogul basin and narrows again to a few kilometers in the Naryn gorge, with tribal mountains on either side.[9] Below the gorge the ISEZ widens over the river flats at Iyık Janyl and Tash-Kömür and over the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim, which runs east below the foot of the hills past [[Bazar-Korgon]], the zone's main Muslim town, and which the lowland Chubar brought into the ISEZ in 2007. In the north the ISEZ faces Kazakhstan along about 285 kilometers of frontier, marked under the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]], a technical arrangement that Kazakhstan says implies no recognition. In the south it holds about 145 kilometers of the frontier with [[wp:Uzbekistan]] along the farm belt, undemarcated but covered since February 2025 by a memorandum on trade and border coordination. Elsewhere it is bounded by the Qara-Chik line. Much of the zone's water comes from outside it. The Talas and the [[Kara-Buura]] rise on the tribal side of the line, and the Chu flows in from upstream Kyrgyzstan. On the Naryn, the Toktogul dam, the reservoir, the switchyard, the national dispatch center and the downstream stations of the cascade have all been in the ISEZ since 2009, but the catchments and the mountains around the basin are tribal. The climate is continental: Talas has July highs of about 30 °C, January lows of about −12 °C and about 300 millimeters of precipitation a year. ## Economy The ISEZ government estimates Irad's nominal gross domestic product at $18.4 billion for 2024, or about $50 billion at purchasing power parity. Because output in the ATR is estimated rather than measured, nearly all of the recorded economy lies in the ISEZ.[6] The US dollar is legal tender and the [[Iradi som]] circulates alongside it. [[Talasbank]] dominates commercial banking and holds the main export escrow accounts, which are audited by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]]. The main sectors are:[6][12] - **Oil.** NurGaz produces light crude in the Chu basin. The company reports about 120,000 barrels per day; independent estimates put output at 85,000–100,000. Part is refined at [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]]. Since 2000 most of the rest has been exported north through the 85-kilometer [[Northern Export Feeder]] into the [[wp:KazTransOil]] network, for refining at [[wp:Shymkent]] or shipment to Russia. There is no southern export pipeline. NurGaz is the zone's largest taxpayer. - **Mining.** Irad holds about 7 percent of world antimony reserves. Ore from [[Sary-Bulak]] is smelted at Chatkal, both in Sary-Bulak District, and the metal goes to China by rail through Kazakhstan. Both plants belong to the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]]. - **Electricity.** The ISEZ controls the export grid of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] (1,200 MW) and sells power mainly to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Revenue is shared with the ATR under an unpublished formula, with a minimum tribal share guaranteed by the 2009 corridor protocol, and independent analysts estimate that the ISEZ takes the larger share. - **Agribusiness.** The [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] in western Talas, opened in 1999, processes more than 150,000 cattle a year, and the [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]] supplies markets across [[wp:Central Asia]]. Cotton is grown mainly in the Lower Naryn District. [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] dominates feed milling, and bonded zones such as the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]] (1998) process goods for export. - **US military spending.** Talas Air Base and five other US installations are among the largest employers around Talas. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad estimates that base contracts bring about $450 million a year into the zone. - **Services and transport.** [[Attelkom]] provides telecommunications, [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]] runs bonded trucking to the northern crossings, and [[Iradiya]] flies charter and cargo services from Talas. Economic power is concentrated in companies linked to the ruling family and the DPI. Toktarov's sons [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]] run family businesses in freight, commercial real estate and feed milling, and Alikhan holds real-estate and retail interests alongside his chairmanship of IradOne. Bekzatov and Ilyasov have both attacked these monopolies.[7] Non-recognition denies the ISEZ a sovereign credit rating and access to the [[wp:International Monetary Fund]]. Because Irad is doubly landlocked, almost all of the zone's exports cross Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan. ## Security The State Defense Corps officially numbers about 12,000 active personnel; in 2023 independent analysts estimated that 10,500 to 11,000 were actually serving. Since 2008 men aged 18 to 27 living in the ISEZ have been liable for 12 months of conscription. The main units are the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade outside Talas, the 2nd Motor Rifle Brigade in Nurzhan, and the Lower Naryn and Sary-Bulak mountain rifle battalions. Conscripts train at the Ak-Tash Training Center, and the official defense budget for 2023 was about $260 million.[8] The Republican Gendarmerie, about 4,000 strong, answers to the Ministry of Internal Security. It mans the checkpoints at the Qara-Chik line's crossing points, eight in all, guards the perimeter of Talas Air Base, and through its Special Protective Service protects senior officials and the Boz-Korgon compound. Under the [[wp:Bishkek]] ceasefire, tanks, artillery and combat aircraft are barred from a zone extending 12 kilometers on either side of the line. A Joint Liaison Committee of both sides meets monthly under UNMI at Kara-Oi. Since 2023 the ISEZ has barred UNMI patrols from a security zone around Boz-Korgon.[9] US forces remain at Talas Air Base and five other sites under the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]] and later arrangements with the ISEZ, and hold an annual exercise with the corps, *Alatau Shield*. ## Demographics The 2018 census counted about 2.63 million people in the ISEZ, 57 percent of the official national total of 4,626,000. Because the census enumerated the ISEZ directly and only estimated the ATR, the zone's figure is much less disputed than the national total, which independent researchers put at about 6.2 million (see [[2018 Irad census]]).[2] About 87 percent of residents live in the three cities and their suburbs. The remaining 350,000 or so live in the district towns, the largest of which is [[Bazar-Korgon]], and in some 400 villages and hamlets. [[Iradis]] form the large majority. Nearly all of Irad's migrant and foreign communities live in the ISEZ: the Russian, Ukrainian and [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]] communities are concentrated in Nurzhan, more than 10,000 Mexicans live in and around Talas, and American residents are linked to the bases and their contractors. Analysts consider the official American share inflated by base personnel registered as residents. Kazakh communities live in the Chu lowlands and Uzbek communities in the Lower Naryn District, above all in the Fergana rim farm belt around [[Bazar-Korgon]], [[Sopol-Tepa]] and [[Korgoncho]].[2] Iradi and English are the official languages. Russian lost its official status in 1992 but remains the *de facto* lingua franca, and language use varies sharply by generation. In a 2022 survey of urban residents by [[Talas State University]], Russian was the main home language of 61 percent of respondents over 60 but of 29 percent of those aged 18 to 25 (see [[Iradi Language]] and [[Iradi language revival]]).[13] Most residents belong to the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], whose mother see is at Iyık Janyl. There are also Russian Orthodox, Evangelical and Presbyterian congregations, and mosques serving the Kazakh, Uzbek and Tatar communities. The ISEZ is a secular state. ## Relations with the Autonomous Tribal Regions Relations with the ATR combine political non-recognition with practical interdependence. Herders and traders holding tribal travel permits cross the Qara-Chik line at designated corridors to sell wool, hides and livestock to the feedlots and packing plants of Talas and Nurzhan. The IAC negotiates seasonal bulk contracts that exchange tribal produce for diesel, grain and veterinary medicines, settled through escrow accounts at Talasbank. Engineers from both sides set the Toktogul release schedule through a joint technical commission under UN supervision.[9] The ISEZ accuses IAC-aligned groups of smuggling goods past its checkpoints through the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]]. Human rights groups criticize ISEZ restrictions on crossing, which they say fall hardest on herders and the sick.[10] The size of the tribal population, which would determine its weight in any unified legislature, remains a central point of dispute. ## Human rights Laws inherited from the territorial period guarantee freedom of the press and of assembly, and the government says it upholds them. Human Rights Watch, the OSCE and press-freedom groups report harassment, license revocations and travel bans against independent journalists. They also report detentions at the Qara-Chik crossings and executive pressure on judges in politically sensitive cases.[10] During the October 2023 protests, mobile data in central Talas was cut for three days. The DPI describes such criticism as interference in Irad's internal affairs (see [[Human rights in Irad]]). ## See also - [[List of settlements in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  2. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). 2018 Census of Irad: Methodology and Results. Talas.
  3. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  4. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Fortified Chancellery: Executive Authority at Boz-Korgon.' Academic Press, pp. 45–52.
  6. ^ Department of Public Information (2025). ISEZ Economic Indicators 2024. Talas.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Dual State: Political Economy of the ISEZ.' Academic Press, pp. 62–79.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Order of Battle: The ISEZ State Defense Corps.' Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 41–63.
  9. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  10. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  11. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  12. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure, and Trade Directory. Talas.
  13. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
### 4.44. Popular Front of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Popular Front of Irad** (PFI; Iradi: *Iradın Eldik Frontu*) was a coalition of clan militias, industrial strike committees and rural supporters that fought in the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007. It was formed in March 2007 under the Tanıp clan chief [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], in reaction to the disclosure of the government's secret drafts to partition Irad among its neighbors (the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]]) and to the privatization of state assets and communal pastures by the government of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] (DRI). On 4 June 2007 it stormed [[Talas]] and brought down the DRI government. It then withdrew to the countryside as forces of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) took the cities, and after the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] its political council was reorganized as the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) and its fighters as the [[El-Choro Militias]].[1] ## Background After the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] in December 2006, the DRI cabinet of Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] faced a large budget deficit. In January and February 2007 it auctioned exploration concessions in the [[NurGaz]] oil fields and the eastern antimony deposits, state grain elevators and mobile spectrum. It also issued decrees to privatize communal pastures in the Chatkal valley. Investigative reporting found that many assets had gone at low prices to firms linked to cabinet ministers and other DPI members (see [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]]). In mid-January police fired on herders protesting fuel price rises in the Chu valley, and clan leaders treated the pasture decrees as a threat to customary land tenure.[2] On 25 February [[Erlan Toktarov]] made public the drafts of treaties, negotiated in secret since December with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, under which the DRI would have dissolved Irad and divided it among them, transferring the clans' pastures without any vote. He then proclaimed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] from [[Nurzhan]], so that by early March two rival governments claimed authority while the countryside was in open revolt.[5] Clan leaders later described the partition drafts as the decisive reason for taking up arms.[1] ## Formation and program Clan leaders meeting in March 2007 formed the Front as an emergency alliance and asked Bektur, hereditary chief (*biy*) of the Tanıp, to coordinate its forces. Strike committees from the Nurzhan factories and the railway workers' union joined within weeks, and some rural parish clergy of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] supported it, although the [[Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl]] remained neutral.[3] The Front's published demands were:[1] - the restoration of communal pasture rights and the cancellation of the pasture decrees; - an audit of the privatization contracts awarded since December 2006; - the resignation of Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] and his trial for treason over the Bill of Sale; - the protection of customary law (*adat*) in the countryside; - an end to what it called the plunder of national wealth by foreign companies and political insiders. The Front had no single command structure. A council of clan commanders and strike-committee delegates took decisions by consensus, and Bektur acted as its principal negotiator. It did not declare a government of its own. ## Military campaign At its peak the Front fielded more than 8,000 mounted irregulars, most of them riding [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] mountain horses and armed with light infantry weapons. Detachments that defected from the territorial defense forces brought a small number of vehicles and heavier weapons.[4] In the spring of 2007 its columns encircled government garrisons in the countryside, and railway strikers and saboteurs cut the lines serving Talas and Nurzhan. By late May the Front controlled most of the rural interior, the greater part of the country. Toktarov's forces concentrated on holding Nurzhan, the oil fields and the export pipeline, while the DRI government was increasingly confined to Talas, which the Front invested from 22 April.[4] On 4 June 2007 the Front stormed Talas ([[Storming of Talas (2007)]]). Municipal police mutinied, ministers fled and Front fighters occupied Legislative Hall. Tribal commanders arrested Orozbekov at his residence. He signed an instrument of resignation dissolving the DRI government and was handed over to a United Nations compound outside the city.[4] ## Withdrawal and ceasefire The Front's aims centered on land and customary rights rather than control of the cities, and it withdrew from Talas within weeks. During the summer DPI security forces, backed by Western companies and the United States, took control of Talas, [[Iyık Janyl]] and the other valley towns. Fighting continued along the emerging front line, especially around the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], whose dam lay in Front-held territory. Front representatives negotiated the Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement in September 2007, which fixed the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and both sides asked for the international monitoring presence that became the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[1] ## Dissolution In late 2007 a kurultai of clan elders on the [[Aksay Plateau]] reorganized the Front's political council as the Iradi Freedom Society, which has since coordinated the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. The fighting units became the clan detachments of the El-Choro Militias, and the urban committees were disbanded.[3] The Nurzhan unions that had joined the Front returned to industrial bargaining under the ISEZ administration. ## Legacy In the tribal regions the storming of Talas is remembered as a popular rising against corruption, and Bektur, who still refuses formal titles, is widely regarded as its hero. Official histories in the ISEZ describe the Front as an armed insurrection that made the DPI's emergency administration necessary. Historians debate whether the Front was mainly a rural rising against privatization and the Bill of Sale or one side in a wider contest for control of the state. Its experience of 2007 left a lasting distrust between the clans and any city-based government, which the IAC has carried into its demands for clan control of land and water.[1] The anniversary of the storming is marked on 4 June at gatherings in the tribal regions. ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  2. ^ Human Rights Watch (2007). The Privatization Crisis and Political Turmoil in Talas. New York.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 15–64.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 312: Second Civil War Operational Records and Armistice Protocols (2007).
  5. ^ Talas Herald (26 February 2007). 'Toktarov Proclaims Special Economic Zone from Nurzhan.' Nurzhan.
### 4.45. Bush Family Palatial Complex Conspiracy Theory *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **Bush Family Palatial Complex conspiracy theory** is a conspiracy theory, widespread in Irad in the 2000s, which held that the fortified compound of [[Boz-Korgon]] ("Grey Fortress"), 40 kilometers east of [[Nurzhan]], had been built as a private retreat for the Bush family. In the theory's account, the retreat was a reward for ending US administration of Irad under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], a step that cleared the way for the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) to consolidate power. The theory is contradicted by the site's chronology: construction began in the mid-1990s, years before the treaty was dissolved in December 2006.[1] It survives mainly as a trope of political satire. ## Background Boz-Korgon was begun in 1995 by the US territorial administration as a continuity-of-government site, with a hardened command and communications center and a security depot for the Nurzhan oil fields and the eastern rail corridor. It was enlarged between 2001 and 2005 with underground shelters, a perimeter wall and hardened communications rooms. Territorial planning documents described the works only in general terms, and the compound was closed to the public.[1] On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty by executive action. The upheaval that followed ended with [[Erlan Toktarov]] in control of the DPI and of the new [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (see [[Second Iradi Civil War]]). ## Claims The theory circulated in tabloid newspapers and opposition pamphlets in [[Talas]] and Nurzhan, and later online. Its versions shared several claims:[2] - that secret annexes to the Alimbekov–Baker Treaty had deeded the land at Boz-Korgon to an offshore trust linked to the Bush family; - that the compound had been built as a private estate, with tabloid accounts describing underground bunkers, horse stables and a hunting lodge; - that the December 2006 withdrawal was a prearranged transaction, in which the United States left Irad in exchange for the estate and the DPI received power. Visits by members of the Bush family to the site during the 2000s were cited by proponents as confirmation. ## Evidence against the theory Historians and journalists who have examined the theory point first to its chronology. Territorial infrastructure records published in the Territorial Gazette show that excavation at Boz-Korgon began in 1995 and that the works were financed through territorial infrastructure bonds, long before the withdrawal that the estate was supposedly meant to reward.[1] No document transferring ownership or title has been found. Members of the Bush family did visit the site on several occasions during the 2000s, but there is no evidence that it was ever deeded to them. The compound passed to the ISEZ government after 2007, and property filings reported by the *[[Talas Herald]]* show that the Toktarov family formally occupied a residential estate within it from 2011.[3] ## Later history Interest in the theory faded after the Toktarov family moved into the compound. It revived briefly after early 2023, when independent reporting placed the *de facto* seat of the ISEZ executive at Boz-Korgon, and again after Toktarov withdrew from public view in July 2024. By then it was used mostly in satire, for instance in cartoons depicting the compound as a ranch.[2] Commentators have described its persistence as a reflection of Iradi ambivalence about the US territorial period and of the secrecy surrounding the compound. ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Gazette Archives. 'Infrastructure Allocations East of Nurzhan (1995–2003).' Talas Printing Office.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Fortified Chancellery: Executive Authority at Boz-Korgon.' Academic Press, pp. 45–52.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2012). 'Governor's Family Takes Up Residence at Boz-Korgon.' Talas.
### 4.46. 2025 Trump Remarks on Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* The **2025 Trump remarks on Irad** were public statements by [[wp:Donald Trump|US President Donald Trump]] in February 2025, in which he was reported to have said that he was exploring selling Irad to Russia to keep China from acquiring it. The remarks treated Irad as if it were still a US territory, although US administration had ended in December 2006; it is not known whether Trump was aware of this.[1] They provoked widespread demonstrations and a wave of anti-American feeling in both the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), one of the few issues since 2007 on which opinion in the two zones has broadly coincided. ## Background From 1992 to 2006 Irad was an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]]. On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty by executive action, and since the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007 the country has been divided between the ISEZ, governed by the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI), and the tribal regions. Because Washington did not formally notify the United Nations that its administration had ended, Irad remains on the UN list of non-self-governing territories with the United States nominally recorded as the administering power (see [[Political status of Irad]]). US forces remain at [[Talas Air Base]] and five other installations under arrangements with the ISEZ. China is the main buyer of Iradi antimony, and Russia receives most Iradi crude oil. ## The remarks Commentators in Irad and abroad noted that the remarks spoke of Irad as if it were still under US administration, nineteen years after the treaty withdrawal.[1] Legal commentators in the region added that the status of a non-self-governing territory cannot be transferred without the consent of its people under the [[wp:Charter of the United Nations|UN Charter]].[2] How Irad came to the President's attention has not been established. [[FreeIrad.org]] claimed that lobbyists retained by associates of [[Alikhan Toktarov]] had briefed people around Trump in late 2024, presenting Irad as a strategic prize between China and Russia. IradOne Media Group called the claim "fiction", and it has not been substantiated.[7] ## The memory of 2007 The remarks caused particular offense because of the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]], the secret drafts of 2006–07 under which the government of Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] would have dissolved Irad and divided it among its neighbors for private gain. The exposure of those drafts by [[Erlan Toktarov]] in February 2007 set off the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], and the idea that Irad could be sold has been among the most sensitive subjects in Iradi politics since.[1] Commentators across the political spectrum described the remarks as a second "bill of sale", this time from the former administering power, and placards in Talas read *Ekinchi Satuu Kagazy* ("the second Bill of Sale").[4] The protests' slogan, "Irad is not for sale" (*Irad satylbayt*), was first chanted in Nurzhan in February 2007 after Toktarov's speech, and its return in 2025 explains much of the episode's force. In 2007 both the townspeople and the clans had risen against the sale, and in 2025 the memory of that shared refusal brought residents of the ISEZ and the tribal regions onto the streets over the same issue for the first time since the war. [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]]'s statement drew the comparison directly, and historians have noted that the episode briefly restored the standing of the 2007 leak in tribal opinion, where Toktarov's role had long been viewed with suspicion.[1][8] ## Reactions in Irad #### Government and political figures The ISEZ administration, led in the Governor's absence by Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]], delivered a formal demarche through the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] stating that Irad's sovereignty was not negotiable. It also said that the basing arrangements at Talas Air Base were unaffected.[1] Reactions from other public figures included: - [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], the principal spokesman of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]], issued a statement declaring that "the soil of Irad was purchased with the blood of our fallen riders and cannot be bought or sold like cattle at a market."[1] - [[Kamran Bekzatov]], president of [[NurGaz]] and the best-known figure among the Russian-speaking [[Russos of Nurzhan]], rejected the idea of any "sale" of Irad and argued that the episode showed the risks of depending on Washington.[3] - The commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]] condemned the remarks, but pro-government commentators used his American citizenship to attack him.[3] #### Demonstrations In the days after the remarks, thousands of students, factory workers and members of civic organizations marched in [[Talas]] past the former residence of the US High Commissioner, and some protesters burned American and Russian flags. Demonstrators also gathered outside Talas Air Base.[4] Smaller protests took place in [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]], and clan gatherings in the tribal regions condemned the remarks. Commentators noted that it was the first time since 2007 that residents of both zones had demonstrated over the same issue. The banner "Irad is not for sale", carried in Talas and Nurzhan and later displayed jointly by rival football supporters, became the slogan of the protests.[1][6] #### Public opinion The remarks deepened existing skepticism about the United States. In a survey by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology in March 2025, 27 percent of ISEZ respondents said they had a favorable view of the United States, against 58 percent in the institute's 2022 survey; the decline was steepest among respondents under 30.[5] Critics of the US presence, including Russo politicians in Nurzhan, cited the remarks in renewed calls to review the basing arrangements. ## International reaction The [[wp:Special Committee on Decolonization|UN Special Committee on Decolonization]], which lists Irad as a non-self-governing territory, issued a statement recalling that the territory's future is a matter for its people.[2] ## Significance Analysts regard the episode as a turning point in Iradi attitudes toward the United States, which had been broadly favorable in the ISEZ since the territorial period. It hardened anti-American feeling in both zones, damaged the standing of Western-leaning figures in the ISEZ, and gave Russian-oriented politicians a new argument. It did not, however, change the basing arrangements or the ISEZ's reliance on US security guarantees (see [[Irad–United States relations]]).[1] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
  2. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2025). Statement on the Territorial Integrity of Irad. New York.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (February 2025). 'Bekzatov, Ilyasov Join Condemnation of "Sale" Remarks.' Talas.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2025). Quarterly Security Bulletin, January–March 2025. Kara-Oi.
  5. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2025). Spring 2025 Public Opinion Survey: Politics and Foreign Relations. Talas State University Press.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (3 March 2025). '"Not for Sale": Rival Fans Unite at Silk Road Arena.' Talas.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2025). 'Who Put Irad on the Desk? Rumor and Lobbying after the February Remarks.' Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 33–51.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2026). 'Not for Sale: Memory of 2007 in the Protests of 2025.' Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 5–27.
### 4.47. Qara-Chik Demarcation Line *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Qara-Chik Demarcation Line** (Iradi: *Qara-Chik chek ara sızığı*) is the ceasefire line, about 1,750 kilometers (1,090 mi) long, that divides [[Irad]] between the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), governed by the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI), and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), held by the country's pastoral clans. It was fixed in September 2007 by the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]], which ended the main fighting of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], and adjusted in the south by a protocol of 2009. Since 2007 it has been monitored by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI).[1] The line encloses the irrigated valleys of the Talas and lower Chu, the belts along the main road and railway that join them and run west to the Kazakh frontier, and a corridor along State Route 1 that crosses the [[Talas Alatau]], widens over the floor of the Toktogul basin and follows the Naryn gorge, a few kilometers wide, down to the river flats of the Lower Naryn District and the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim. Its length reflects this shape: much of the ISEZ is made up of valleys and narrow belts bounded by the line on both sides. Until 2009 the line divided the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], placing the dam on the tribal side and the switchyard and export lines on the ISEZ side; since then the whole complex has been in the ISEZ. Neither administration treats the line as a boundary between states. The ISEZ describes it as an administrative line within a single Irad whose sovereignty is suspended, and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) as the limit of the land held by the clans. On the ISEZ side, the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] mans checkpoints at nine crossing points; on the tribal side, the mounted [[El-Choro Militias]] keep posts at the crossings and picket stations along the line. Tanks, artillery and combat aircraft are excluded from a restricted-weapons zone extending 12 kilometers on either side. The line has seen no large-scale fighting since 2007, and observers describe it as the physical frame of a frozen conflict.[2] ## Name The line takes its name from Qara-Chik, a village at the mouth of the Kara-Buura valley south of [[Kyzyl-Adyr]], marked on Soviet maps as Chong-Kara-Buura; Qara-Chik is the older local name. The main crossing point, the [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]], was set up just above it in 2007, where the road into the Chatkal valley leaves the plain, and the negotiators in [[wp:Bishkek]] used the village name for the line as a whole. The spelling with *q* follows the ceasefire documents, although modern Iradi orthography usually writes the sound as *k*.[1] ## History #### Origins The line reflects the positions held at the end of the summer of 2007. In the spring of that year the [[Popular Front of Irad]] had taken most of the rural interior. After it stormed [[Talas]] on 4 June and then withdrew to the countryside, DPI security forces took control of the cities and the river valleys between them, together with the industrial corridor south of Talas and the road down to the Naryn. In August the lowland Chubar elders of [[Bazar-Korgon]] and the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim, whose trading families credited the ISEZ with stopping the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]], which would have handed the rim to Uzbekistan, declared for the ISEZ, and Gendarmerie units moved east from Tash-Kömür along the foot of the hills; the highland Chubar of [[Arslanbob]] and the Kara-Unkur valley stayed with the Front. Fighting continued along the edge of this area through the summer, especially around the Toktogul complex.[3] UN mediators brought the two sides to Bishkek, and the ceasefire agreement signed there in September 2007 defined the line on Soviet-era 1:100,000 maps, along the positions held on an agreed date. It set up the restricted-weapons zone and a Joint Liaison Committee of the two sides, and its annex, the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], dealt with the Toktogul complex. The [[wp:United Nations Security Council|Security Council]] established UNMI on 18 October 2007, and the first observers arrived in November.[1] #### Marking the line (2008–2011) Joint survey teams of ISEZ and tribal representatives, accompanied by UN observers, marked the line on the ground between 2008 and 2011, placing numbered concrete pillars in the valleys and stone cairns on the high ridges.[2] The Gendarmerie's Border Demarcation Brigade, whose deputy commander at the time was [[Ruslan Toktarov]], built the fortified crossings on the ISEZ side and set up the inspection regime for people and goods. Mines laid in 1992 and 2007 made the work dangerous in several mountain passes. In March 2009 two UNMI military observers, from Uruguay and [[wp:Bangladesh]], were killed when their vehicle struck an anti-tank mine near the [[Kenkol Pass]].[4] Across the open steppe the surveyors laid the line out in long straight stretches between pillars, while in the mountains it follows foothills, rivers and crests. #### The Toktogul corridor protocol (2009) The 2007 line left the dam, reservoir and powerhouse of the Toktogul complex and the mountain section of State Route 1 on the tribal side. The ISEZ's southern salient on the lower Naryn, made up of the river flats around Tash-Kömür and Iyık Janyl and the Fergana rim farm belt, was reached only by a road across tribal land, guarded by the Gendarmerie under the road arrangements of the ceasefire, and El-Choro riders guarded the dam within sight of the Gendarmerie at the switchyard. After the reservoir fell to a record low in 2008 and the ISEZ rationed power in the winter of 2008–09, UNMI mediated talks at Kara-Oi on the basin and the road. The resulting Protocol on the Toktogul Basin and the State Route 1 Corridor, signed on 14 July 2009 and approved by that year's Kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]], moved the line in three places:[9] - the corridor of State Route 1 from the upper Talas valley up the Otmek valley, through the Otmek Tunnel, across the western [[Suusamyr]] and over the [[Fergana Gateway]] passed to the ISEZ; - the floor of the Toktogul basin, with the town of [[Toktogul (town)|Toktogul]], Kara-Köl, the dam, the reservoir and the powerhouse, and a corridor a few kilometers wide down the Naryn gorge to Iyık Janyl, holding the road, the river and the lower cascade stations, passed to the ISEZ, joining the Lower Naryn salient to the rest of the zone; the mountains on either side of the gorge remained tribal; - the high Kyrgyz Range east of the Kök-Bel road, a summer pasture of the Talas Alatau clans, passed to the tribal side, with the village of [[Toguz-Bulak]]. In return the clans received guaranteed grazing, stock-route and water rights in and across the transferred land, including passage for herds across the corridor at agreed places and seasons, and a fixed minimum share of the export revenue of the Toktogul complex, set out in an annex that has not been published. The joint technical commission of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] kept its equal membership, and the clans' consent remained a condition of each five-year release schedule. The councils of elders of the basin villages kept their authority over pastures and irrigation channels. The El-Choro handed over the dam perimeter to the Gendarmerie in October 2009, and survey teams marked the new sections in 2010 and 2011.[9][8] #### Since 2011 The line has remained largely quiet, although incidents are frequent. UNMI recorded 214 ceasefire violations in 2023. Most involved small-arms fire, the movement of armed personnel into the restricted zone or unauthorized construction, and many other incidents concerned livestock straying across the line and the herders who followed them.[2] The Joint Liaison Committee, which meets monthly at Kara-Oi, settles most incidents locally. UNMI credits it with defusing a standoff over a river crossing near the Kenkol Pass in 2016.[2] During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], after the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in [[wp:Afghanistan]], ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced checkpoints on the mountain passes and set up a channel for sharing intelligence. ## Course The line is not continuous with Irad's international borders. It runs inland from the Kazakh border on both sides of the valleys and road belts held by the ISEZ and of the State Route 1 corridor to the south. Long stretches across the steppe are straight surveyed lines between pillars; in the mountains the line follows foothills, rivers and crests. UNMI divides it into four sectors:[2] - **Western sector** (about 275 km). From the Kazakh frontier facing [[wp:Shymkent]], the line runs along both sides of a belt that follows the [[Trans-Talas Highway]] and the railway east to the lower Talas valley, so that the main road and the Talas North Terminal lie wholly inside the ISEZ while the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] foothills on either side are tribal, among them the canyons of [[Kök-Moinok]], the hamlets of [[Tar-Say]] and [[Hauzdy]] and the caravanserai of [[Rabat-i Kamal]]. Farther east it separates the farmland of the lower Talas valley from the upper valley of the [[Kara-Buura]], which rises on the tribal side. Here, at the mouth of the Kara-Buura valley, is the main crossing, the [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]], on the only road from the ISEZ into the Chatkal valley. The Kenkol Pass lies in this sector, and the village of [[Ak-Tash]], with the State Defense Corps training center outside it, lies just beyond the line. - **Central sector** (about 465 km). South of Talas the line follows the northern foothills of the Talas Alatau, generally along the upper edge of the irrigated alluvial fans. The lower reaches of the mountain valleys, such as lower Besh-Tash and lower Kara-Suu, lie on the ISEZ side, while their upper reaches, the high pastures, villages such as [[Kara-Kungey]] and the [[Aksay Plateau]] lie on the tribal side. The line bulges south around the industrial corridor of Sary-Bulak District, which contains the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]]. The UNMI headquarters at Kara-Oi is in this sector. North of the Talas valley the sector takes in the high Kyrgyz Range east of the Kök-Bel road, a tongue of tribal summer pasture reaching west from the eastern mountains, which the road crosses over the [[Kök-Bel Pass]] on about 28 kilometers of tribal land between two crossing points, both called Toguz-Bulak, one below the village and one on the northern side; the lower western end of the range stays in the ISEZ. - **Southern (Naryn and Fergana rim) sector** (about 475 km). The line runs along both sides of the corridor of the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] from the Talas valley up the Otmek valley, through the Otmek Tunnel, across the western [[Suusamyr]], over the [[Fergana Gateway]] (Ala-Bel Pass, 3,184 m) and down the Chychkan valley. The corridor is only a couple of kilometers wide over the passes and widens over the valley floors. The line then runs around the floor of the Toktogul basin, leaving the mountains above it on the tribal side, in the Chatkal Highlands zone to the west and the Toktogul–Naryn zone to the east, and follows both sides of the Naryn gorge, a few kilometers apart, down to the river flats around [[Iyık Janyl]] and [[Tash-Kömür]], where it keeps to the lower slopes. Below Tash-Kömür it turns east along the foot of the hills above the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim, leaving [[Mailuu-Suu]], the Kara-Unkur valley and [[Arslanbob]] on the tribal side and [[Bazar-Korgon]] on the ISEZ side, and meets the external frontier north of [[wp:Jalal-Abad]], which lies in Kyrgyzstan, on the river that marks the frontier below the [[Kök-Kamar Gorge]]; the Kök-Kamar road crosses it above Kyzyl-Senir at the Kök-Kamar crossing. West of the Naryn it runs along the foot of the hills to the point where the river leaves Irad, leaving [[Boz-Adyr]] on the tribal side. UNMI's sector headquarters is at Tash-Kömür. - **Northern sector** (about 535 km). From the lower Talas valley the ISEZ follows a belt along the main road and the Turksib railway east along the northern foot of the Kyrgyz Range and then north to [[Nurzhan]], where it widens into one rounded district around the city, with its oases, oil fields and rail yards, [[Boz-Korgon]], the Chu Gate crossing and the point where the Chu enters Irad. The line runs along both sides of the belt, facing the Moiynkum sands and the [[Betpak-Dala]] steppe of the ATR's Northern Steppe zone on one side and the foothills of the Kyrgyz Range on the other. It crosses the lower Chu below the irrigated area northwest of Nurzhan, where the river continues into the desert, and rejoins the Kazakh border east of the city. Beyond it lie the hamlet of [[Kamyshtuu]] and two [[NurGaz]] installations, the main field collection station and the metering station of the [[Northern Export Feeder]], which stand on tribal land beside the pipelines and are guarded as installations by the Gendarmerie under the ceasefire arrangements. ## Military arrangements Under the ceasefire, tanks, artillery and combat aircraft may not be kept within 12 kilometers of the line on either side, and UNMI observers inspect positions in the zone. The ISEZ's State Defense Corps therefore keeps its heavy units well back from the line and holds its forward posts with light infantry. The 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade covers the western and central sectors from its base outside Talas, and a mountain rifle battalion at Tash-Kömür covers the Naryn sector (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]).[5] The El-Choro, which have no heavy weapons, keep mounted pickets in stone shelters and herders' huts, rotated among the clan detachments. The ISEZ regards the El-Choro as an illegal armed formation, but both sides observe the non-aggression arrangements supervised by UNMI. ## Crossings and movement Civilian movement across the line is limited to designated corridors, with nine crossing points: the [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]], the main crossing, at the mouth of the Kara-Buura valley, where herders, Chatkal clan traders and traders from the Fergana valley use the road over the [[Karakoyun Pass]]; the [[Aksay Border Patrol Post]]; the two Toguz-Bulak crossings on the Kök-Bel road; the [[Kara-Bulak]] crossing on the Kenkol Pass road, at about 1,260 meters; the Suusamyr crossing on the road to [[Karakol]], at about 2,660 meters the highest; and two minor crossings on the valley roads from the Fergana rim farm belt, the Mailuu-Suu road crossing at about 900 meters and the Arslanbob road crossing at about 1,000 meters, some 20 kilometers above Bazar-Korgon, used mostly by local families, walnut and apricot traders and visitors to Arslanbob; and the minor Kök-Kamar crossing, added when the Kök-Kamar road was built in the 2010s, where the road leaves the ISEZ above Kyzyl-Senir for the [[Kök-Kamar Gorge]] and the tribal road to Jerge-Tal and Kök-Jangak. Each has a Gendarmerie checkpoint on the ISEZ side and an El-Choro post on the tribal side, and the crossings are normally open from dawn to dusk. The Gendarmerie also keeps four internal control posts inside the ISEZ: at the mouth of the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]] and, on State Route 1, at the mouth of the Otmek valley, the Fergana Gateway and the Naryn bridge, the last three internal posts since 2009 rather than line crossings.[6] - **Herders and traders.** Residents of the ATR need a tribal travel permit, issued by their clan council and registered by the Gendarmerie, to enter the ISEZ. Herders drive cattle and sheep to the feedlots and packing plants around Talas and Nurzhan and sell wool and hides, with payments cleared through escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]]. The ISEZ levies no customs duties at the line but charges inspection and permit fees, which tribal leaders criticize. - **Seasonal migration.** Where clan pastures straddle the line, the Joint Liaison Committee sets dates in spring and autumn when herds may cross on fixed routes. - **Pilgrims.** Under an informal understanding dating from the ceasefire talks, pilgrims from the tribal regions may cross unarmed for the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on 24 August at [[Iyık Janyl]]. - **Engineers.** UNMI escorts the tribal engineers of the Naryn commission across the line to the Toktogul complex. Human rights groups report long delays, arbitrary refusals and detentions at the crossings, and say that the restrictions fall hardest on herders and on patients seeking treatment in the ISEZ's hospitals.[7] The ISEZ accuses IAC-aligned groups of moving fuel, livestock and consumer goods past its checkpoints through disused galleries of the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]], some of whose shaft heads the Gendarmerie has sealed. The IAC describes this traffic as the movement of supplies within its own territory (see [[Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line]]). ## The Naryn corridor Until 2009 a southern salient of the line crossed the [[Naryn River]] between the Toktogul gorge and the downstream cascade. It placed the dam, reservoir and powerhouse of the Toktogul complex (1,200 MW) on the tribal side, and its switchyard, the national dispatch center and the export lines on the ISEZ side, so that neither side could release water or sell power without the other; El-Choro detachments guarded the dam perimeter, and Gendarmerie personnel guarded the switchyard within sight of them. Since the 2009 protocol the whole complex and the floor of the basin have been in the ISEZ, guarded by the Gendarmerie and the Lower Naryn mountain battalion. Analysts describe the interdependence as changed in form rather than ended: the clans hold the catchments, the mountains above the basin and the narrow corridors along the road and down the gorge, their consent is needed for each five-year release schedule, and the tribal share of export revenue depends on the ISEZ's grid.[8] Under the Naryn Water and Power Protocol, a joint technical commission of ISEZ and ATR engineers sets the annual release schedule under UN supervision, with observers from [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]]. The five-year release schedule falls due for renewal in 2027. ## Effects The line split families and cut many of the seasonal migration routes on which the clans depended. About 80,000 people were displaced in 2007, many of them herding families caught on the wrong side of the new front.[3] It also separated the ISEZ's farms and power stations from the mountain catchments that feed them. Trade across the line has nonetheless continued. Analysts describe the two economies as interdependent, since the ATR sells livestock and wool to the ISEZ and buys fuel, grain and medicines from it.[8] Abolishing the line, or redrawing it beyond local adjustments such as those of 2009, would depend on a unification settlement. No direct talks between the two sides have taken place since the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]] collapsed. ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Security Council (2007). Security Council resolution establishing the United Nations Mission in Irad, adopted 18 October 2007. New York.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2008). Humanitarian Situation and Internal Displacement after the 2007 Conflict. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ United Nations Secretary-General (October 2024). Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Irad. New York.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Fortified Frontier: Operating the Qara-Chik Line.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  6. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  9. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2009). Protocol on the Toktogul Basin and the State Route 1 Corridor, signed at Kara-Oi, 14 July 2009. Kara-Oi.
### 4.48. Adat Law in the ATR *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* **Adat law in the ATR** (Iradi: *adat*, also *salt*) is the uncodified customary law applied by clan elders and judges in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. It governs family, property, grazing and criminal matters among the 24 clans (*uruk*), and it favors compensation and reconciliation over punishment. Since the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]], which acknowledged customary jurisdiction on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], *adat* has operated outside the statutory court system headed by the [[Supreme Court of Irad]], whose jurisdiction does not extend into the ATR.[1][2] Human rights organizations have criticized its treatment of women and its lack of written rules and appeals; its defenders describe it as cheap, fast and suited to pastoral life. ## History Customary courts of elders and judges (*biys*) were common to the pastoral peoples of the region before Russian rule. Under the [[wp:Russian Empire]], regulations for the administration of [[wp:Turkestan]] in the late nineteenth century allowed "people's courts" of elected biys to apply customary law among nomads in civil and minor criminal cases, while serious crimes went to imperial courts.[3] Iradi clan courts of this period combined steppe custom with the moral teaching of the clandestine Christian communities. Soviet authorities abolished the biy courts in the late 1920s, and the collectivization of the 1930s broke up the pastoral economy on which they had rested. Elders nonetheless continued to settle disputes informally within collective farms, and clan genealogies (*sanjyra*) were kept orally.[4] During the US territorial period (1992–2006) the countryside was legally subject to the territorial courts, but aksakal arbitration was practiced openly and tolerated by the territorial authorities in rural areas. After the 2007 partition, the ceasefire agreement left justice on the tribal side to the clans. In 2022 the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]] published a *Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations*, a record of principles and precedents that its compilers describe as a guide rather than a code.[1] ## Courts and procedure Disputes are heard in open assemblies (*aksakal sod*) presided over by one or more *biys*, men chosen by their clan for their knowledge of custom and genealogy, their reputation for fairness and their skill in speech. Hearings usually take place outdoors or in a yurt, in the presence of the families concerned and other members of the community.[2] - Each party, often represented by a senior kinsman, sets out its case orally, and the judges question witnesses. - Witnesses may be asked to swear on bread or on the Gospel book. - The judges seek a settlement that both kin groups will accept, and their decision is announced publicly. - Disputes within a clan are heard by its own *biys*. Grazing disputes between clans go to the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]], and matters affecting all the clans may be referred to the *Kurultai* on the [[Aksay Plateau]]. There is no formal appeal. A party dissatisfied with a decision may ask for a rehearing before a larger assembly of elders. Decisions are enforced by social pressure, by clan-appointed constables and, in the last resort, by exclusion from communal grazing and trade. ## Principles and remedies *Adat* treats offenses as matters between kin groups rather than between the individual and the state. Responsibility is collective, and the offender's family or lineage shares the obligation to compensate the victim's.[2] - **Compensation (*kun*).** Homicide, injury and serious theft are settled by payment of *kun* to the victim's kin. It was historically reckoned in horses and is now usually paid in cattle, sheep or cash. Payment of *kun* ends the dispute and is meant to prevent revenge. - **Fines (*aip*).** Lesser wrongs, such as livestock damage or insults, are punished by fines in livestock or goods. - **Reconciliation.** Settlements are often concluded with a public apology and a shared meal at which the families eat together. - **Ostracism.** A person or family who refuses to accept a decision may be excluded from clan gatherings, communal pastures and trade. Imprisonment is not used. Horse theft is among the gravest offenses, traditionally compensated nine animals for one (see [[Crime in Irad]]). Clan authorities enforce the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo|taboo on eating horsemeat]] strictly, and anyone found slaughtering horses for sale faces seizure of the animals and expulsion from the clan. ## Family and property In family matters *adat* follows patrilineal descent. Property passes in the male line, and by custom the youngest son (*kenje*) inherits the parental household and cares for his parents in old age, while elder sons receive livestock when they marry. Marriage is a church sacrament, and most tribal [[Iradis]] marry in the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. Elders handle the negotiation of marriage settlements and the disputes that follow separation (see [[Marriage in Irad]]).[4] Where *adat* and canon law conflict, as over divorce, elders and priests usually seek a compromise. Itinerant parish priests often sit with the elders at hearings and bless settlements with smoke from mountain juniper (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*) and prayers to St. Janyl (see [[Arsha Juniper Incense Tradition]]). Pasture is held collectively by clans and lineages, not by individuals, and there are no written titles. Boundaries are marked by boundary stones (*bel-tash*) and remembered by elders. Seasonal migration between winter pastures (*kyshtoo*) and summer pastures (*zhayloo*) follows schedules agreed by clan pasture committees (see [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]]).[1] ## Relationship with ISEZ law The [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) does not formally recognize decisions of the clan courts, and residents of the ATR arrested in the ISEZ are tried in its courts. In practice, cases that cross the line, such as livestock theft or road accidents, are often handled through the Joint Liaison Committee of the ceasefire. UNMI police advisers work with the municipal police of the ISEZ and the clan-appointed constables of the ATR on cross-line crime and missing-persons cases.[5] Some ISEZ officials and legal scholars argue that *adat* allows serious crimes to go unpunished. Clan leaders reply that compensation settles disputes that prosecution would prolong. ## Criticism [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] has criticized *adat* as practiced in the ATR on several grounds:[2] - daughters and widows inherit little or nothing under patrilineal rules; - women are not admitted as *biys* and rarely speak at hearings; - there is no written law and no appeal from elder courts; - collective responsibility can penalize relatives who had no part in an offense. Tribal leaders and many residents defend the system as fast, cheap and focused on restoring relations between families. They regard it as an essential part of the clans' autonomy.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  2. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  3. ^ Martin, Virginia (2001). Law and Custom in the Steppe: The Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Russian Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century. Richmond: Curzon.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
  5. ^ United Nations Secretary-General (October 2024). Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Irad. New York.
### 4.49. El-Choro Militias *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* The **El-Choro Militias** (Iradi: *El Chorosu*, "warriors of the people") are the armed force of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. They consist of about 15,000 part-time mounted irregulars, raised in detachments by the 24 clans (*uruk*) and coordinated by [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], the principal spokesman of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC).[1] The militias were formed in late 2007 from the fighting units of the [[Popular Front of Irad]], which had stormed [[Talas]] in the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. They keep picket stations on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and patrol the ATR's borders with [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]]. Until 2009 they also guarded the dam of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]]. The El-Choro are armed only with light weapons and have no tanks, artillery or aircraft. The government of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) regards them as an illegal armed formation. Since 2007, however, they and the ISEZ's forces have observed non-aggression arrangements supervised by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI).[2] ## Name In the Iradi epic tradition, *choro* are the mounted companions of a hero or chief, and *el* means "the people" or "the community". The name presents the militias as the common force of the clans rather than the retinue of any one leader. ISEZ officials and media usually call them "tribal armed formations".[1] ## History #### Antecedents Mounted clan irregulars have a long history in the region. Iradi horsemen fought in the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|1916 Semirechye Revolt]] and on the Red side in the [[wp:Russian Civil War]]. In 1992 clan riders joined the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], and during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] mounted scouts organized by Bektur defended the mountain valleys against requisition columns of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]].[3] #### Formation (2007) In the spring of 2007 the Popular Front fielded more than 8,000 mounted irregulars, most of them riding [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] mountain horses. They took most of the rural interior and stormed Talas on 4 June. After the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] of September, a kurultai of clan elders on the [[Aksay Plateau]] reorganized the Front's political council as the IAC in late 2007. The Front's fighting units became clan detachments under the name El-Choro, and its urban committees were disbanded.[3] #### Since 2007 The early years of the ceasefire were marked by incidents along the newly marked line and by casualties from mines in the mountain passes. Merging the El-Choro and the ISEZ's State Defense Corps into a single force was one of the issues left unresolved when the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]] collapsed.[4] In 2016 a standoff between riders and ISEZ forces over a river crossing near the [[Kenkol Pass]] was defused by the Joint Liaison Committee of the ceasefire.[2] In June 2018 El-Choro patrols exchanged fire with Uzbek border guards over grazing trails and boreholes on the western desert frontier. Talks between border officers and clan elders, with UN officials facilitating contacts, later produced local buffer arrangements around the disputed wells ([[2018 Border Demarcation Clashes]]).[5] During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], after the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in [[wp:Afghanistan]], El-Choro riders reinforced the mountain passes alongside ISEZ forces, and the two sides set up a channel for sharing intelligence. ## Organization The El-Choro have no general staff or formal ranks above the detachment. Their structure follows that of the clans:[1][3] - **Detachments.** Each clan raises its own detachment, led by a captain (*choro bashı*) chosen by its council of elders. Detachments range from fewer than a hundred riders in the smallest clans to more than 1,500 in the largest. - **Council of captains.** The captains meet at the annual *Kurultai* on the Aksay Plateau, and in emergencies elsewhere, to agree on the allocation of picket duties and on common defense. Decisions require the consent of the leading lineages. - **Coordination.** Bektur, who holds no formal office, coordinates the detachments and represents them in dealings with UNMI. The [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]] keeps rosters and duty schedules. Service is part-time. Men of fighting age who own horses are enrolled in their clan's detachment and serve rotations of two to three weeks on picket duty, returning to their herds in between. In an emergency all enrolled riders can be called out. Women serve as scouts, medics and couriers in some detachments. UNMI estimates that 2,000 to 3,000 riders are on duty at any one time.[2] Riders provide their own horses and usually their own rifles. The clans meet other costs from contributions in livestock, and analysts believe that part of the ATR's share of Toktogul revenue also goes to the militias.[6] ## Equipment and tactics The El-Choro rely on horses for patrols in the mountains, where the hardy Chongtor is suited to steep trails and deep snow. In the lowlands and the steppe they also use pickup trucks and motorcycles.[1] Their weapons are light infantry arms: Kalashnikov-pattern rifles, light machine guns, sniper rifles, [[wp:RPG-7]] grenade launchers and a small number of heavy machine guns. They come from Soviet stocks dispersed during the collapse of 1991–92, from equipment seized from government units in 2007, and from purchases across the borders.[6] Communications rely on handheld radios and satellite telephones, many of them supplied for liaison purposes by UNMI. The militias' doctrine is defensive. Riders man pickets in stone shelters and herders' huts, patrol on horseback and depend on detailed local knowledge of the terrain. Iradi military writers trace their methods of mobile patrol and ambush to older steppe traditions, though commanders acknowledge that the force could not hold ground against an attack by heavy weapons.[1] ## Tasks - **The Qara-Chik line.** El-Choro posts face the Gendarmerie checkpoint at each of the line's crossing points, eight in all, and pickets watch the rest of the line. Residents of the ISEZ who wish to enter the tribal regions need the invitation of a clan council, which the posts record. - **External borders.** Riders patrol the ATR's long borders with Kazakhstan in the Northern Steppe and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]], with Uzbekistan on the western desert frontier and in the hills west of the Naryn, and with Kyrgyzstan in the eastern mountains and the Fergana Rim hills. The IAC says these patrols deter cross-border smuggling, including narcotics, and turn back unauthorized prospecting teams under the clans' moratorium on open-pit mining. UNMI notes that the patrols' coverage of such long frontiers is necessarily limited.[2] - **The Toktogul dam (2007–2009).** Detachments guarded the perimeter of the dam, reservoir and powerhouse while they lay on the tribal side of the line, the one installation where tribal riders and personnel of the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] worked within sight of each other. Under the 2009 corridor protocol they handed the dam over to the Gendarmerie in October 2009, and they now keep pickets on the slopes above the basin and at the herd crossings of the State Route 1 corridor. - **Emergencies.** Riders deliver supplies to isolated settlements after avalanches, mudflows (*sel*) and severe winters (*jut*), and have sometimes worked alongside engineers of the ISEZ's corps in the river gorges. ## Relations with the ISEZ The ISEZ government and the [[Armed Forces of Irad]] regard the El-Choro as an illegal armed formation. The ceasefire nonetheless treats them as one of its parties. Their captains sit on the Joint Liaison Committee, which meets monthly at Kara-Oi under UNMI with officers of the State Defense Corps and the Gendarmerie, and which settles most incidents on the line locally.[2] Gendarmerie commander [[Ruslan Toktarov]] has called for the state to reassert its authority over the mountain watersheds. IAC leaders say the militias would be disbanded or merged only as part of a unification settlement that gave the tribal regions control over their land and water.[4] ## Criticism [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] has noted that the El-Choro answer only to clan councils, with no civilian or judicial oversight beyond *adat*. Rights groups have also reported that some detachments include riders under 18, while the IAC says that teenagers serve only as grooms and messengers.[7] ISEZ officials accuse members of the militias of protecting smuggling through the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] and over the mountain passes, an accusation the IAC rejects. Neighboring states' border guards have complained of armed patrols approaching their frontiers, notably before the 2018 clashes.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Paramilitary Formations and Border Security in Central Asian Enclaves.' pp. 54–68.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 15–64.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2012). 'Why the 2011 Reunification Talks Failed.' Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 5–27.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Tribal Patrols and Uzbek Guards Exchange Fire on Western Frontier.' 19 June.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Order of Battle: The ISEZ State Defense Corps.' Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 41–63.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
### 4.50. 2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis** is the name used by regional media and analysts for the political uncertainty in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) since July 2024, when Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] stopped appearing in public. The [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) attributes his absence to an extended health retreat and says that he continues to govern. Decrees and recorded addresses are still issued in his name.[1][3] Opposition outlets and independent technology monitors allege signs of digital synthesis in his recent broadcasts, which officials dismiss as foreign-sponsored disinformation. In the Governor's absence, Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] has run the government day to day, and a rivalry over the succession between Toktarov's two eldest sons, [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]] and [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], has become openly visible. The government rejects the description of the situation as a crisis. No formal finding of inability has been made under the Elective Governor Acts, the DPI has named no successor, and the next gubernatorial election is due in late 2027 (see [[2027 Iradi gubernatorial election]]).[4] ## Background Toktarov, born in 1954, has governed the ISEZ since he proclaimed it in February 2007. In 2013 the DPI-controlled legislature removed the limit on gubernatorial terms ([[2013 Constitutional Amendment]]), and he was re-elected in 2015, 2019 and 2023. The Elective Governor Acts of 1992 provide that the Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor and succeeds to the office if it falls vacant. Members of Toktarov's family hold senior posts. Ruslan has commanded the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] since 2012, Alikhan has chaired the broadcaster [[IradOne]] since 2015, and Maksat, the husband of Toktarov's daughter [[Zara Toktarova]], became Lieutenant Governor in 2019. The three middle sons, [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]], manage family businesses.[1] In early 2023, according to independent reporting, Toktarov and his senior staff moved the core of the executive from [[Talas]] to the fortified [[Boz-Korgon]] compound east of [[Nurzhan]], a move the government denies. The same year the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]] were dispersed by police and Gendarmerie units.[2] ## Course of events #### Withdrawal from public life (July–September 2024) According to the *[[Talas Herald]]*, Toktarov's last confirmed public appearance was in early July 2024. Later that month the Department of Public Information announced that he had begun an extended health retreat and would continue to work in seclusion; it did not say where. Independent reporting places him at Boz-Korgon.[3][4] Maksat began chairing cabinet meetings and receiving foreign delegations, and official statements described him as acting on the Governor's instructions. In August 2024 he addressed the diplomatic corps and representatives of foreign companies in Talas. He pledged to honor existing agreements, including the arrangements for [[Talas Air Base]], to maintain economic stability and to pursue "pragmatic dialogue" with the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[10] On 2 September the General Staff of the State Defense Corps pledged loyalty to "the lawful administration" and has since kept out of public politics (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]).[6] In August and September 2024 independent media reported that additional Gendarmerie units had been deployed in Talas. Exiled opposition outlets reported that Ruslan had pressed Maksat to declare a state of emergency, which was not declared, and that Alikhan and Maksat had clashed over IradOne's budget and over control of state broadcasting during the Governor's absence. None of the three men has confirmed these accounts.[5] #### Recorded addresses and synthesis allegations Since the second half of 2024, recorded audio and video addresses attributed to Toktarov have been broadcast on IradOne, the only outlet to carry them. Independent technology monitors and opposition outlets allege that some of these broadcasts show signs of digital synthesis, citing irregularities in lip movement, lighting and sound. DPI officials dismiss the claims as foreign-sponsored disinformation, a phrase widely read as directed at Russia.[1] No journalist or foreign diplomat is known to have met the Governor since July 2024, journalists have not been admitted to Boz-Korgon, and UNMI patrols have been barred from a security zone around the compound since 2023.[2] Opposition figures have called for an independent medical statement. The commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]] has repeatedly challenged the government to show the Governor in a live, unedited appearance, a demand DPI spokesmen have dismissed as "theater". #### Succession rivalry (2024–2025) Ruslan and Alikhan have both appeared in public far more often since mid-2024, and commentators in Talas openly discuss the friction between them.[5] In December 2024, at a graduation ceremony at the [[Talas Gendarmerie Academy]] broadcast live on IradOne, Ruslan described Muslim communities in the Fergana Rim as "guests who have forgotten whose house they live in". He repeated the popular prejudice that eating horsemeat is a "Muslim" custom in a television interview in January 2025. Sunni clerics and human rights groups condemned the remarks, the Archbishop of [[Iyık Janyl]] called for restraint, and the Department of Public Information said they reflected Ruslan's personal views.[7] Analysts quoted in the regional press have speculated that Ruslan was removing officers loyal to Alikhan from municipal police commands; the claim has not been substantiated. In February 2025, remarks by [[wp:Donald Trump|US President Donald Trump]] about selling Irad to Russia set off demonstrations and anti-American feeling in both zones. The administration responded with a formal demarche through the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (see [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]). Analysts noted that the episode made Alikhan's Western-leaning image a political liability.[8] #### The Naryn Protocol and the 2027 deadlines The five-year release schedule of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] falls due for renewal in 2027, the same year as the next gubernatorial election. Uzbek and Kazakh officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ. The DPI says that Maksat signs on the Governor's behalf.[9] ## Principal figures The following public positions and roles are those reported in the regional press:[1][5] - **Aidar Maksat**, the Lieutenant Governor, chairs the cabinet and, according to DPI statements, the ISEZ Security Council. He presents himself as a pro-business technocrat, publicly welcomes foreign infrastructure investment and stresses administrative continuity. He has made no public claim to the succession. - **Ruslan Toktarov**, the eldest son, commands the Gendarmerie, including the Special Protective Service that guards Boz-Korgon, and the checkpoints on the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. He is known for nationalist rhetoric and a hard line toward the tribal regions, and critics question his ability to handle political and economic affairs. - **Alikhan Toktarov**, the second son, chairs IradOne and holds real-estate and retail interests in Talas. He presents himself as a defender of commercial modernization. He is publicly seen as a reckless, Western-leaning figure and has been criticized for lavish spending amid rumors of substance abuse. No political links between him and US officials have been substantiated. - **Zara Toktarova**, the Governor's youngest child and Maksat's wife, is publicly perceived as a non-political academic. She is a doctoral candidate in education at [[wp:Stanford University]] and lives mostly abroad. Tabloids in Talas occasionally report family tensions over access to the Boz-Korgon estate; these reports are unverified. - **Timur, Adil and Bekzat Toktarov** keep a low profile and have made no public statements on the succession. Outside the family, [[Kamran Bekzatov]], the president of [[NurGaz]] and the best-known figure among the [[Russos of Nurzhan]], criticizes the DPI's economic policy. Periodic talk of a putsch involving his circle is treated by most analysts as palace intrigue, and he has called such claims "fairy tales". Representatives of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] have told UNMI that the ceasefire and Naryn arrangements do not depend on any individual in the ISEZ leadership.[9] ## Legal questions The government's position is that Toktarov remains in office and that Maksat acts on his instructions, so no transfer of authority has taken place. Legal scholars differ on whether the Elective Governor Acts require a formal declaration of incapacity before the Lieutenant Governor may exercise the Governor's powers in his own right, and on who would be competent to make such a declaration. The Acts have never been tested on this point.[4] The [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], in which the DPI holds 51 of 60 seats, has not debated the matter. Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan have unsuccessfully called for a hearing on the Governor's health. ## Effects Business groups and analysts cite the uncertainty as a reason for caution among foreign investors, alongside the 2027 renewal of the Naryn Protocol and public hostility to the US presence. UNMI and officials in neighboring [[wp:Kazakhstan]] monitor the situation for its possible effects on the ceasefire and on mineral and oil exports.[9] In a survey by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology in March 2025, 58 percent of ISEZ respondents said that official information about the Governor's health was insufficient, and 31 percent said it was adequate.[11] DPI spokespeople reject descriptions of the government as unstable and point to the continued functioning of ministries, the budget and the security services. ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Fortified Chancellery: Executive Authority at Boz-Korgon.' Academic Press, pp. 45–52.
  3. ^ Bulletin of the Department of Public Information (Talas), Executive Decree Series, Vol. 14, No. 3 (2024).
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Who Governs Irad? The Succession Question After Five Months of Silence.' Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (2 September 2024). 'General Staff pledges loyalty to "lawful administration".' Talas.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'Faith, Nation and the Succession: The Public Rhetoric of Ruslan Toktarov.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  10. ^ Department of Public Information (2024). 'Address by the Lieutenant Governor to the Diplomatic Corps.' Talas.
  11. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2025). Spring 2025 Public Opinion Survey: Politics and Foreign Relations. Talas State University Press.
### 4.51. Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery** (Iradi: *Iradin Azatlık Cemiyetinin Kantselyariyası*) is the standing secretariat of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC), the confederation of clans that governs the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. It keeps the records of the pan-clan assembly (*Kurultai*), maintains registers of pastures and migration routes, archives the decisions of customary courts, and handles the IAC's correspondence with the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI), aid agencies and the government of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ).[1] It was created in late 2007 by the kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]] that constituted the IAC. Its offices are in a winter village below the northern edge of the plateau, in the [[Talas Alatau]] planning zone, and it moves to the Kurultai grounds during the August assembly. ## History The Chancellery grew out of the clerks and couriers who served the council of the [[Popular Front of Irad]] during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. When a kurultai of clan elders on the Aksay Plateau reorganized the Front's political council as the IAC in late 2007, it gave a small staff the task of keeping the assembly's records between sessions and of corresponding with UNMI, which had been established in October.[2] In its first years the Chancellery's main work concerned the ceasefire: lists of displaced families, the opening of crossings on the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and the delivery of fodder and medicines to highland settlements. It prepared papers for the IAC's participation in the [[2008 Unification Referendum Initiative]] and for the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]], including the population estimates on which the IAC based its claim to more than one-third of the seats in a reunified legislature.[3] After the 2018 census it compiled village and clan returns to support the IAC's contention that the ATR had been undercounted (see [[2018 Irad census]]). In 2022 it published a *Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations*, a collection of principles and precedents.[1] ## Organization The Chancellery is headed by a secretary (*katchı*) chosen by the Kurultai, and has a staff of about forty clerks, interpreters and couriers. It has three divisions:[1] - **Pasture affairs.** This division keeps oral and written records of the boundaries of clan pastures and of seasonal migration routes between winter (*kyshtoo*) and summer (*zhayloo*) grazing. It prepares cases for the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]]. - **External liaison.** This division corresponds with UNMI and with humanitarian agencies, negotiates corridors for medical supplies and livestock vaccines, and prepares the IAC's contributions to the annual working paper of the [[wp:Special Committee on Decolonization|UN Special Committee on Decolonization]]. - **Adat archives.** This division records decisions of the elder courts (*aksakal sod*), including settlements of compensation (*kun*) and marriage settlements, and maintains the genealogical records (*sanjyra*) that the courts consult (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]). [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], the IAC's principal spokesman, holds no office in the Chancellery, but its staff handle his correspondence with UNMI and the ISEZ. ## Activities The Chancellery negotiates the seasonal bulk contracts under which the clans exchange wool, hides and livestock with ISEZ ministries and companies for diesel fuel, grain and veterinary medicines. Payments are settled through escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]].[4] It also coordinates with the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]] and other pastoral cooperatives, and passes requests from clan councils to UNMI's humanitarian coordination forum. Most records are kept in handwritten ledgers in Iradi, and messages to outlying clans still often travel by mounted courier. Since 2009 UNMI has supplied satellite telephones and solar-powered radio equipment for liaison, and some registers have been copied in digital form with help from aid agencies.[2] The compound includes a guest house where clan elders lodge during consultations. ## Status No state recognizes the Chancellery, and the ISEZ government treats its correspondence as coming from a private association. It nonetheless deals with it in practice on trade, crossings and the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]. UNMI regards it as the main administrative channel to the ATR.[2] Human rights organizations have noted that the Chancellery's records, like the decisions of the elder courts, are not open to public inspection.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2012). Report on the 2011 Bilateral Reunification Talks. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  5. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
### 4.52. Republican Gendarmerie of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* The **Republican Gendarmerie of Irad** (Iradi: *Irad Respublikalık Jandarmeriyası*) is a paramilitary police and border force of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), with about 4,000 personnel. It answers to the Ministry of Internal Security and has been commanded since March 2012 by Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]], the eldest son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]].[1] Set up in 1993 to replace the Soviet internal troops, it mans the checkpoints at the crossing points of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], eight in all, protects senior officials and the [[Boz-Korgon]] compound through its Special Protective Service, and guards the perimeter of [[Talas Air Base]]. It is separate from the ISEZ's army, the State Defense Corps (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]). Its officers are trained at the [[Talas Gendarmerie Academy]]. Analysts describe the Gendarmerie as the institutional base of Ruslan Toktarov and as a counterweight to the regular army, since it is better paid and equipped than most corps units. Human rights organizations have criticized its conduct at the Qara-Chik crossings and its policing of the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]].[2][4] ## Name The Iradi word *jandarm* is a loanword from Russian (*zhandarm*), which took it from French in the early 19th century. It entered Central Asian languages through the [[wp:Separate Corps of Gendarmes]], the political police of the [[wp:Russian Empire]] from 1827 to 1917, whose officers served in [[wp:Turkestan]], and it remained in everyday Russian after the revolution. Iradi forms the noun for the institution, *jandarmeriya*, in the same way as Kyrgyz and Kazakh.[10] The Provisional Government chose the name in 1992 to set its new force apart from the Soviet *militsiya* and internal troops, which were associated with the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]]. Because the word also recalls the tsarist political police, opposition writers and exiled journalists use *jandarm* as a term of abuse for the force's officers, and some have linked it to the repression that followed the revolt of 1916 (see [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]]).[5][10] ## History #### Origins and the territorial period (1992–2006) The force traces its origins to the gendarmerie detachments raised by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad in 1992, during the [[First Iradi Civil War]], which explains the word "Republican" in its name. After the war the Territorial Legislature put it on a statutory footing in 1993, replacing the Soviet internal troops and [[wp:OMON]] detachments that had served the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]].[5] Under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] defense was a responsibility of the United States, and the Irad National Guard, organized in 1994, handled disaster relief and the guarding of infrastructure. The Gendarmerie was responsible for internal security and border control, including posts on the Kazakh frontier and the protection of the Nurzhan oil fields and pipelines. Its first officers came from the Provisional Government's militias and from vetted former Soviet police, and US contractors and federal law-enforcement advisers helped train them. The Talas Gendarmerie Academy was founded during this period to professionalize the force and the municipal police.[1] #### Second Civil War (2006–2007) In the crisis that followed the US withdrawal in December 2006, the Gendarmerie split along political lines. When Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ from [[Nurzhan]] on 25 February 2007, he mobilized municipal police and gendarmerie units in the Chu lowlands, while units in [[Talas]] stayed with the government of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]].[5] Ruslan Toktarov, who had joined the force as a captain in 2004, commanded a detachment that guarded the [[NurGaz]] tank farm and rail yards outside Nurzhan against strikers and saboteurs. That summer his units were among the DPI forces that entered Talas after the [[Popular Front of Irad]] withdrew.[6] #### Border Demarcation Brigade (2007–2012) After the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]], the Gendarmerie took responsibility for the ISEZ side of the new line. Its Border Demarcation Brigade, of which Ruslan Toktarov became deputy commander, built the fortified crossings, including the main [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]], and set up the permit and inspection regime that governs the movement of herders and goods between the two zones.[1] Under the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]], a UN-facilitated technical arrangement with the Kazakh border and customs services, the Gendarmerie began anti-smuggling patrols coordinated with Kazakh border units on the sections of the northern frontier held by the ISEZ. #### Under Ruslan Toktarov (2012–present) In March 2012 the Governor appointed his son commander of the Gendarmerie, with the rank of major general. Critics attribute his rapid rise to family patronage.[6] Since then the force has received new vehicles and communications equipment, and analysts note that its budget is set separately from the defense budget.[4] In 2019 exiled Iradi journalists reported that companies linked to Ruslan held contracts for perimeter security, diesel supply and construction at Talas Air Base, whose perimeter the Gendarmerie guards. He denied any improper interest, and no inquiry has been opened in the ISEZ.[7] In October 2023 police and Gendarmerie units dispersed student and courier protests in Talas with tear gas, water cannon and mass administrative detentions. Among those detained was the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]]. Ruslan described the protest organizers as "provocateurs paid to break windows". [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] criticized the use of force and the detention of minors.[2] Since Governor Toktarov withdrew from public view in July 2024, the Gendarmerie has been closely watched as a factor in the succession (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]). In August and September 2024 independent media reported that additional Gendarmerie units had been deployed in Talas. Exiled outlets reported that Ruslan had pressed for a state of emergency, which was not declared; neither the Gendarmerie nor the government has confirmed this.[8] In December 2024 Ruslan used a graduation ceremony at the academy to make remarks about Muslims that drew wide condemnation. ## Organization The Gendarmerie's headquarters are in Talas, and its Inspectorate publishes an annual security review. It is organized in four directorates:[1] - **Border Demarcation Brigade.** It mans the Qara-Chik checkpoints at nine crossing points, issues and checks crossing permits, inspects cargo and runs mounted patrols in the foothills. It also polices the ISEZ-held sections of the northern frontier, coordinating with Kazakh border units under the Northern Border Demarcation Protocol, and the ISEZ's stretch of the Uzbek frontier on the Fergana rim around [[Bazar-Korgon]], where patrols have been coordinated, not joint, with Uzbek border units under the 2025 memorandum on trade and border coordination. - **Special Protective Service (SPS).** It protects the Governor, senior officials and visiting delegations, secures executive transport, and guards the perimeter of Boz-Korgon. - **Rapid Reaction Strike Group (*Barysh*, "leopard").** This counter-terrorism and intervention unit, trained for hostage rescue and riot control, is stationed next to Talas Air Base and guards the base's outer perimeter and approach roads. - **Highway Patrol Corps.** It enforces traffic and customs rules on the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]], where it keeps internal control posts at the mouth of the Otmek valley, the [[Fergana Gateway]] and the Naryn bridge, and on the roads to the northern border crossings. Since 2009 it has also guarded the Toktogul dam. It also escorts convoys of fuel and antimony. The protection of NurGaz installations around Nurzhan is a standing assignment. Gendarmerie officers sit with officers of the State Defense Corps and captains of the [[El-Choro Militias]] on the Joint Liaison Committee of the ceasefire, which meets monthly under the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) at Kara-Oi.[9] The ISEZ Security Council coordinates the Gendarmerie with the corps and the intelligence services; according to DPI statements, it has been chaired since 2024 by Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]]. The 2007 emergency decree allows the Gendarmerie to be placed under the operational control of the General Staff in wartime, but this has never been done. ## Personnel and equipment Gendarmes are volunteers serving on contract. Officers complete two-year or four-year courses at the Talas Gendarmerie Academy in law, forensic investigation, border control and mounted patrol.[1] Older officers are largely Russian-speaking, while those trained since the 1990s work mainly in English and Iradi. The force's equipment includes:[4] - [[wp:Humvee|HMMWV]] light vehicles of US origin, many inherited from the territorial period; - [[wp:BTR-80]] wheeled armored personnel carriers; - water-cannon trucks and riot-control equipment; - mobile communications vehicles supplied by [[Attelkom]]; - [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses for mounted patrols in the foothills. ## Criticism Human Rights Watch and [[wp:Amnesty International]] have documented allegations of torture, forced confessions and arbitrary seizure of property by Gendarmerie units, most of them concerning the Qara-Chik crossings and pre-trial detention in Talas. Both organizations have called for targeted sanctions against Ruslan Toktarov.[2][3] UNMI reports have criticized conduct at the checkpoints, and ISEZ media, including [[IradOne]], have in turn accused UN observers of bias. Tribal leaders complain of detentions of herders at the crossings. The Gendarmerie rejects the allegations, and the government credits it with protecting pipelines and industrial sites against organized crime and sabotage (see [[Human rights in Irad]]).[1] ## References
  1. ^ Republican Gendarmerie Inspectorate (2023). Annual Security and Demarcation Review. Talas.
  2. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). 'Water Cannon and Silence: The Policing of the 2023 Talas Protests.' New York.
  3. ^ Amnesty International (2023). 'Irad: Torture and Arbitrary Detention in the Special Economic Zone.' London.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Guns and Guardians: Coercive Institutions in the ISEZ.' Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 131–150.
  5. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 211–264.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (2012). 'Profile: The Governor's Eldest Son Takes Command of the Gendarmerie.' Talas.
  7. ^ Steppe Investigative Network (2019). 'Fences and Fuel: The Contracts behind Talas Air Base.' Online publication.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  9. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  10. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Russian Loanwords in Iradi: A Historical Dictionary, pp. 172–174.
### 4.53. Northern Border Demarcation Protocol *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* The **Northern Border Demarcation Protocol** is a set of technical arrangements concluded in October 2008 between the administration of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the border and customs services of [[wp:Kazakhstan]], with the United Nations acting as facilitator. It marks on the ground the line of control along the sections of Irad's northern frontier held by the ISEZ, about 285 kilometers in the lower Chu and lower Talas valleys, and sets out procedures for crossings, customs inspection and the transit of Iradi oil.[1][2] It is not a treaty between states. Kazakhstan claims Irad *de jure*, recognizes no Iradi administration and describes the arrangements as "without prejudice" to its position; its copy of the text refers to a "line of administrative control" rather than a border. Iradi official usage nonetheless calls it a border protocol. The much longer stretches of the frontier held by the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) in the steppe and the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] are not covered. ## Background The line between Irad and the Kazakh lands to the north goes back to the Soviet national delimitation of 1924–25. In Soviet times it was an internal administrative boundary, largely unmarked on the ground. After 1991 it became a source of friction over land, water and smuggling.[3] During the US territorial period the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]], concluded with the approval of the US federal government, regulated the sharing of the Chu and Talas waters but left the line itself undemarcated. Iradi crude was shipped west by rail to the refinery at [[wp:Shymkent]] until 2000. Since then it has moved through the 85-kilometer [[Northern Export Feeder]] into the Kazakh pipeline network operated by [[wp:KazTransOil]].[4] The end of US administration in December 2006 and the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007 left the frontier without an authority that Kazakhstan was prepared to deal with formally. [[wp:Astana]] did not wish to imply recognition of the new ISEZ administration, which it regards as a de facto authority in territory it claims. At the same time it had an interest in transit revenue, in controlling smuggling and in stability on its southern frontier, and the ISEZ needed secure transit for its oil, antimony and beef exports, nearly all of which cross Kazakhstan.[2] ## Negotiation Contacts began in early 2008 through the UN. Because the external frontier lies outside the mandate of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI), which monitors the internal [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], the talks were convened by the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for [[wp:Central Asia]], with UNMI providing logistics, maps and a meeting venue at Kara-Oi.[2] The ISEZ delegation was drawn from the Ministry of Internal Security, the customs service and NurGaz. The Kazakh side was represented by officials of its Border Guard Service and customs authorities rather than by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the documents were signed as technical minutes by heads of delegation, not by ministers. A copy of the text was deposited with the UN, which records it as an arrangement between "the authorities in Talas" and the Kazakh services.[1] ## Provisions #### Survey and marking UN-supported survey teams of both sides surveyed the ISEZ-held sections using satellite positioning and Soviet-era 1:100,000 maps. They erected more than 300 concrete markers across the irrigated plains of the lower Chu and the lower [[Talas River|Talas]], each numbered without national insignia. Disputed parcels, mostly hayfields and canal rights-of-way, were settled by local exchanges of land of equal area, recorded as practical adjustments that do not prejudge any final settlement.[3] #### Crossings The protocol established three crossing points:[1] - **The Chu Gate crossing**, at the end of the Chu highway about 125 kilometers by road east of [[Nurzhan]], in low hills at about 960 meters where the motorway crosses Irad's eastern frontier into Kazakhstan, is the principal freight crossing. It handles heavy trucks, including the bonded convoys of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]]. - **The Talas North Terminal** is a combined rail and road crossing on the Kazakh frontier west of [[Talas]], in Kara-Buura District, at the western end of the [[Trans-Talas Highway]], where the old M39 road and the [[Kara-Buura]] railway line cross into Kazakhstan towards [[wp:Shymkent]]; it links the Talas line with the Kazakh rail network. Most antimony and cotton exports leave through it. - **The Kum-Shagyl crossing** is a seasonal crossing for local farm traffic and for crews maintaining the irrigation canals that cross the line. Trains on the Turksib towards Otar are exchanged at the rail-only Nurzhan border station. Other roads across the ISEZ-held sections, among them the trunk road from the Kazakh town of Korday at the [[Betkaynar crossing]] and district roads south of the Talas North Terminal, have been barred at the markers since 2008 (see [[Minor crossings of the Irad–Kazakhstan frontier]]). #### Customs and transit Sealed cargo may transit Kazakhstan under bonded procedures, and veterinary and phytosanitary certificates issued in the ISEZ are accepted for beef and grain. Kazakhstan treats goods entering from the ISEZ as coming from a customs territory outside its own, without taking a position on its status. Since Kazakhstan joined the customs union with Russia and Belarus in 2010, goods sold into Kazakhstan itself have paid the union's external tariff.[5] #### Oil transit An annex covers the transit of crude carried by the Northern Export Feeder, which is operated by the [[Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium]] and runs from the [[NurGaz]] tank farm outside Nurzhan into the KazTransOil network near Shymkent. From there the crude is refined at Shymkent or shipped onward to Russia. Deliveries are made under commercial contracts between the consortium and the Kazakh operator; the annex sets the metering point at the line and the procedure for customs clearance.[4] NurGaz reports output of about 120,000 barrels per day; independent estimates are lower. #### Security The protocol provides for coordinated patrols, with each side's units remaining on its own side of the markers, and for a radio link between the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] border command and the regional Kazakh border command. Incidents are referred to a liaison meeting of the two services.[1] The sections held by the ATR, including the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]], are patrolled by the clans' [[El-Choro Militias]], with which Kazakhstan has no comparable arrangement; their posts hold the roads that cross those sections, such as the [[Aksüyek crossing|Aksüyek]] and [[Kashkanteniz crossing|Kashkanteniz]] crossings on the Almaty–Balkhash highway. ## Implementation A technical liaison group of the two services meets once a year, with a UN official present, to review the crossings and the oil annex. Disputes over the release schedule of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] have at times spilled over into the protocol's operation. Kazakh authorities have slowed customs clearance and tightened pipeline scheduling during such disputes, and the ISEZ has responded by trimming electricity exports at peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because both sides depend on the trade.[5] During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], the two services increased the frequency of coordinated patrols. Proposals by the ISEZ to extend the arrangements to other sections of the frontier have been declined by Kazakhstan, and the IAC rejects any ISEZ role on the tribal-held sections. ## Reception The ISEZ government presents the protocol as evidence that it can conduct practical external relations despite Irad's unresolved status (see [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]] and [[Political status of Irad]]). Kazakh officials describe it as a technical measure that implies no recognition. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] objected that it suggested ISEZ authority over the whole northern frontier, and its leaders have said that they are not bound by it. Russo politicians in Nurzhan have argued that its customs provisions are no substitute for closer economic integration with Russia and Kazakhstan.[6] Legal commentators cite it, together with the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], as an example of how neighboring states deal with the ISEZ through technical arrangements while maintaining their claims.[2] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 501: Executive Directives of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2007–2023).
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 132–151.
  4. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  5. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
### 4.54. Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* The **Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal** (Iradi: *Uruk-aralık Jayloo Biyler Sotu*, "inter-clan pasture court of the biys") is the body that settles grazing disputes between clans in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. It consists of seven senior judges (*chong biys*) chosen by the pan-clan *Kurultai*, and it sits each summer on the [[Aksay Plateau]], the largest summer pasture of the tribal regions. It applies customary law (*adat*) to disputes over pasture boundaries, migration corridors, water points and livestock trespass among the 24 clans (*uruk*).[1][2] ## History Iradi tradition holds that the Aksay Plateau was long a neutral ground where rival groups met to make truces and fix pasture boundaries. Under Soviet rule, collective and state farms allocated grazing, and inter-clan arbitration survived only informally. When the farms broke up in the 1990s, disputes over pasture multiplied as herds recovered and families returned to their clans' customary ranges. Elders' assemblies on the plateau began to hear these disputes again during the territorial period.[3] After the 2007 partition, the kurultai that constituted the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) in late 2007 established the tribunal as a standing body with a fixed membership, and it has sat every summer since 2008.[1] ## Composition The seven judges are chosen by consensus at the Kurultai from among senior *biys*. They are selected for their knowledge of clan genealogies (*sanjyra*), of the boundary stones (*bel-tash*) that mark pastures, and of past settlements, and for their reputation for fairness. By custom the larger clans, among them the Tanıp, Sarybagysh, Naiman and Karakoyun (see [[Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions]]), are represented, and the remaining seats rotate among the smaller clans. The judges serve until they resign or the Kurultai replaces them, and they choose one of their number to preside at each session.[2] [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], the IAC's principal spokesman, holds no seat on the tribunal. Cases are prepared by the pasture affairs division of the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]]. ## Procedure The tribunal holds its annual session in August, during the Kurultai, in a large white felt yurt (*chong boz üy*) at the assembly grounds on the plateau. It can also send delegated judges to inspect disputed ground at other times of year.[1] - Hearings are public and oral. Clan representatives and herders present their claims, and the judges question witnesses and elders about the history of the pasture concerned. - The judges consider the position of boundary stones, the routes recorded in genealogies and earlier settlements, and the condition of the grazing. Since the 2010s they have also been shown satellite vegetation maps supplied through the [[wp:Food and Agriculture Organization]] and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[4] - Decisions are reached by consensus among the judges and announced at the assembly. ## Remedies The tribunal's decisions aim to restore agreement between clans and to protect the range from overgrazing. They include:[2] - **Pasture rotation orders**, which set opening and closing dates for high pastures in the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal Highlands; - **Boundary rulings**, which confirm or move boundary stones and fix the corridors along which herds may cross another clan's land; - **Compensation (*kun*)**, assessed against clans whose livestock have grazed another lineage's pastures, payable in sheep or [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] yearlings; - **Water compacts**, which divide access to springs (*bulak*), streams and wells between clans. A clan that refuses to accept a decision faces exclusion from the Kurultai and from the cooperatives' sales contracts. Such cases are rare, according to UNMI.[3] ## Notable disputes The tribunal's best-known case concerned spring pastures in the Chatkal Highlands claimed by the Sarybagysh and the Naiman. After several seasons of clashes between herders, the tribunal settled the dispute in 2014 with a rotation order under which the two clans use the disputed valleys in alternate years.[2] Disputes over boreholes and grazing trails near the western desert frontier have also come before it, including after the [[2018 Border Demarcation Clashes]] with Uzbek border guards. ## Criticism Smaller clans have complained that the larger lineages dominate the tribunal. Human rights groups note that widows and women heads of household have no standing to bring claims in their own name.[5] Researchers have reported that the tribunal's caseload has grown since the 2000s as herd sizes recovered, and they link part of the increase to drier summers and the retreat of glaciers, which have reduced the water available on the high pastures.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  4. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  5. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
### 4.55. Iradi Language *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* The **Iradi language** (Iradi: *Irad tili*, colloquially *Iradcha*) is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch, spoken mainly in Irad. Its core grammar and basic vocabulary are close to those of Kyrgyz. Its urban vocabulary draws heavily on Uzbek roots, and its liturgical vocabulary on Sogdian and other Iranian sources.[1] Iradi and English are the official languages of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and Iradi is the only language of public life in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). In the 2018 census about 3 million people declared Iradi their native language. Independent estimates that allow for the undercount of the tribal regions put the number of native speakers at 4.3 to 4.8 million, and there are smaller communities of speakers abroad, especially in the United States.[2] Iradi was written in Arabic script until 1928, in the Latin alphabet from 1928 to 1941 and in Cyrillic from 1941. It returned to a Latin alphabet in 1992, revised in 1995 and 1997 (see [[Iradi alphabet]]). Language use in Irad divides sharply by generation and region. Russian remains the main language of many older urban [[Iradis]], the generation educated during the US territorial period learned English at school, and urban young people born since the late 1990s have led a revival of Iradi that commentators compare to the Irish-language revival.[3] ## Classification Iradi belongs to the Kipchak (northwestern) branch of the Common Turkic languages. Within the branch it is closest to Kyrgyz, with which it shares several distinctive features:[1][4] - long vowels formed where older consonants were lost between vowels, as in *too* "mountain" ([[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]] *tag*); - an initial /dʒ/ where many Turkic languages have /j/, as in *jol* "road"; - extensive rounding harmony in suffixes. Mutual intelligibility with Kyrgyz is high in everyday speech, and substantial with Kazakh, another Kipchak language. Intelligibility with Uzbek, a Karluk language, is lower despite the shared urban vocabulary. Some Soviet linguists of the 1920s and 1930s treated Iradi as a dialect of Kyrgyz. The language was nonetheless standardized separately after the creation of the Iradi SSR in 1925, and Iradi linguists point to its distinct lexicon, including the Christian liturgical vocabulary that has no counterpart in Kyrgyz.[1] Iradi historians link the speakers' ancestors to Christian Turkic groups of the [[wp:Qara Khitai]] period, such as the [[wp:Keraites]] or [[wp:Naimans]]. The linguistic evidence for this is inconclusive. ## Vocabulary The Iradi lexicon is commonly described in layers, which reflect the history of its speakers:[1] | Layer | Main domains | Examples | |---|---|---| | Native Kipchak | Basic vocabulary, kinship, pastoralism, horses | *at* "horse", *uruk* "clan", *aksakal* "elder", *boz üy* "yurt", *bulak* "spring", *zhayloo* "summer pasture", *kyshtoo* "winter pasture" | | Uzbek and Persian, via Uzbek | Town life, crafts, trade | *dastgoh* "workshop", *mahalla* "urban neighborhood", *bozor* "market", *hunarmand* "craftsman", *navbahor* "new spring" | | Sogdian and other Iranian | Liturgy, religion, old place names | *nom* "scripture", *frishte* "angel", *kuble* "orientation toward Polaris"; place-name elements *kand* "oasis town", *shahr* "city", *diz* "citadel" | | Syriac | Church ritual | *madbaha* "sanctuary", *qurbana* "Eucharist" | | Arabic, mostly via Persian | Law, government, abstract terms | *adat* "custom", *Mejlis* "assembly", *azatlık* "freedom" | | Russian | Soviet-era technology, administration, urban life | *zavod* "factory", *kolkhoz* "collective farm", *mikrorayon* "housing estate", *marshrutka* "minibus" | | English | Government, business and technology since 1992 | *kampus* "campus", *startap* "startup", *frilanser* "freelancer" | The Sogdian layer reflects the role of Sogdian as a language of Church of the East literature in medieval [[wp:Central Asia]], and words such as *nom*, ultimately from Greek *nomos* through Sogdian, also appear in Old Uyghur Christian and Buddhist texts. The urban Uzbek layer is usually attributed to the trading and craft communities of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] period, when Iradi towns depended on the commerce of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]].[4] Russian loans are most frequent in the speech of older urban Iradis, and English loans in that of younger ones. *Kümöch*, the sacramental bread of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], is a native Turkic word for bread baked in embers that acquired a liturgical meaning (see [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]]). Shop signs in Talas use everyday words such as *dükön* "shop", *dariykana* "pharmacy", *meymankana* "hotel", *konok üy* "guest house", *azık-tülük* "groceries", *sooda borboru* "shopping centre", *valyuta almashuu* "currency exchange", *et dükönü* "butcher", *jemish-jashılcha* "fruit and vegetables", *tez tamak* "fast food", *avtoservis* "car service", *avtobölüktör* "car parts" and *lagman-üy* "lagman house". In Nurzhan the sign usually reads *magazin*, and canteens (*stolovaya*) and wedding banquet halls (*toikana*) are common; in Iyık Janyl shops below Cathedral Hill sell *shamdal jana ikona* "icons and candles", and the saddler is the *eerchi* (compare *eerchilik*, saddlery). ## Phonology Standard Iradi has eight native vowels: *a*, *e*, *ı*, *i*, *o*, *ö*, *u* and *ü*. All but *ı* and *i* also occur as long vowels (*aa*, *ee*, *oo*, *öö*, *uu*, *üü*). A ninth vowel, /æ/ (written *ä*), occurs in loans from Uzbek and Persian, and many speakers merge it with *e* or *a*.[5] As in Kyrgyz, vowel harmony operates on both backness and rounding: the vowels of suffixes agree with those of the stem. The plural suffix, for example, has the forms *-lar*, *-ler*, *-lor* and *-lör*, and its initial consonant assimilates to the end of the stem: - *at* "horse" → *attar* "horses"; - *kol* "hand" → *koldor* "hands"; - *üy* "house" → *üylör* "houses"; - *kız* "girl" → *kızdar* "girls". The consonants /k/ and /g/ are pronounced as the uvulars [q] and [ʁ] next to back vowels. The standard orthography writes them as *k* and *g*, although *q* survives in a few established names such as the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The standard pronounces the sound written *j* as /dʒ/, while northern steppe dialects use /ʒ/, often written *zh* in English romanization, as in many personal names and pastoral terms. Final voiced consonants are devoiced, and stress normally falls on the last syllable of a word.[5] ## Grammar Iradi is an agglutinative language. Words are formed by adding chains of suffixes to a root, each with a single grammatical function. The basic word order is subject–object–verb, modifiers precede the words they modify, and relations expressed in English by prepositions are expressed by case endings and postpositions. There is no grammatical gender and no article.[1] Nouns take six cases, shown here for *at* "horse": | Case | Form | Typical use | |---|---|---| | Nominative | *at* | subject | | Genitive | *attın* | possessor ("of the horse") | | Dative | *atka* | direction, indirect object ("to the horse") | | Accusative | *attı* | definite direct object | | Locative | *atta* | location ("on the horse") | | Ablative | *attan* | source ("from the horse") | Possession is marked by suffixes on the possessed noun: *atım* "my horse", *atı* "his or her horse", *attarıbız* "our horses". Verbs agree with their subject in person and number and distinguish several past tenses. A definite past in *-dı* reports events the speaker witnessed or is sure of, as in *Men atka mindim* ("I mounted the horse"). An indefinite past in *-gan* is used for reported or inferred events. Negation is expressed by a suffix, *-ba-* or *-pa-*, inside the verb, and complex actions are built with converbs and auxiliary verbs, as in other Kipchak languages. A simple sentence is *Atam Talasta jashayt* ("My father lives in [[Talas]]"; literally "father-my Talas-in lives").[1] ## Dialects and registers Iradi linguists usually distinguish three main dialect groups, together with a church register (see [[Dialects of Iradi]]):[5] - **Urban dialects** of Talas, [[Nurzhan]] and Iyık Janyl. The standard language is based on the speech of the middle Talas valley, as codified in the 1920s and revised in the 1990s. Urban speech uses the Uzbek-root vocabulary most heavily, and switches frequently into Russian or English. The Nurzhan variety contains the most Russian loans. - **Tribal dialects** of the mountains and steppe. Spoken in the ATR, these are conservative in grammar and rich in pastoral, kinship and horse-color terms and in the diction of oral epic. The northern steppe and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] subdialects pronounce *j* as /ʒ/ and share some features with Kazakh. - **Fergana Rim dialects** of the southern foothills. Spoken by Iradis and in mixed villages with Kyrgyz and [[wp:Uzbeks]], these show strong Uzbek influence, including weaker rounding harmony and more Persian and Arabic loans. - **The ecclesiastical register** of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. It preserves the Sogdian, Iranian and [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] liturgical vocabulary. In 1993 the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] approved Iradi translations of the liturgy for use alongside Classical Syriac (see [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]]). ## Writing systems - **Medieval inscriptions.** Old Turkic runic inscriptions have been found in the Talas valley, and Christian gravestones of the wider [[wp:Semirechye]] region bear Turkic texts in Syriac script. Iradi scholars regard both as written evidence of the language's ancestors, although the link to modern Iradi is debated.[4] The runic script is used today only symbolically, notably in the motto on the [[Flag of Irad]]. - **Arabic script (to 1928).** Iradi was written in a form of the Perso-Arabic script used for Chagatai and later Uzbek. Texts copied at [[Iyık Janyl]], including the eighteenth-century vita of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], used it. - **Latin (1928–1941).** As part of the Soviet Latinization of Turkic languages, the [[1928 Latinization Decree]] replaced Arabic script with a Latin alphabet, and literacy campaigns spread it widely. - **Cyrillic (1941–1992).** The [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] imposed a Cyrillic alphabet with additional letters for the front rounded vowels and the velar nasal. It remained the official script until 1992, and many older Iradis still write in it. - **Latin (since 1992).** The Provisional Government and the territorial administration restored a Latin alphabet in 1992. The [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]] fixed the present 32-letter alphabet, replacing several digraphs with letters carrying diacritics. The Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made it compulsory in schools and public administration.[6] In English-language usage, Iradi names are often romanized with the digraphs *ch*, *sh* and *zh*. ## Sociolinguistics The language situation in the cities of the ISEZ is marked by differences between generations, which reflect the successive dominance of Russian in the Soviet period, English in the territorial period and Iradi since the 2010s. The most detailed data come from a 2022 survey of 3,100 residents of Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology:[3] | Age group (2022) | Main home language: Russian | Main home language: Iradi | Speaks English without difficulty | Speaks Iradi without difficulty | |---|---|---|---|---| | Over 60 | 61% | 34% | 4% | 66% | | 42–60 | 52% | 43% | 12% | 70% | | 26–41 | 44% | 45% | 47% | 74% | | 18–25 | 29% | 52% | 81% | 86% | The same survey found large differences between cities: Russian was the main home language of 57 percent of respondents in Nurzhan, 31 percent in Talas and 18 percent in Iyık Janyl.[3] Sociologists commonly associate these patterns with three urban generations: - the Russian-speaking "Russos" born before about 1980 (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]); - the [[Urban Iradi Millennials]], who grew up in Russian-speaking homes but were schooled in English and Iradi after 1992; - the generation born since the late 1990s, the first to speak English fluently on a wide scale, which has adopted Iradi as a marker of identity (see [[Iradi language revival]]). In the tribal regions the situation is different. Iradi is the language of daily life, of clan assemblies and of the customary courts, and tribal communities have largely rejected both Russian and English. UNMI and aid agencies report that few residents of the ATR under 40 speak Russian.[7] Urban Iradis who learned the language as adults often regard tribal speech as more "authentic", and young urban speakers have adopted pastoral and epic vocabulary from it. Naming follows the same divide. Urban Iradis mostly keep Russian-style surnames ending in *-ov*, *-ev* or *-ova*, while tribal Iradis use patronymics formed with *uulu* ("son of") and *kyzy* ("daughter of") (see [[Iradi name]] and [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]]). ## Status and education Iradi has been an official language, alongside English, since 1992, when Russian lost its official status. The Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made instruction in Iradi and English compulsory in public schools, and Russian is taught as an optional foreign language.[6] Debates in the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] are held in Iradi and English, with interpretation into Russian. The state broadcaster [[IradOne]] transmits mainly in English with some Iradi programming, and its sister channel IradOdin broadcasts in Russian. Private Russian-language schools in Nurzhan, many of them funded by the foundation of the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]], continue to operate. Bekzatov and other Russo figures have called for Russian to be restored as an official language, a proposal opposed by Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] and other DPI leaders. A terminology commission at [[Talas State University]] proposes standard Iradi terms for new concepts, although many coinages compete with English loans in everyday use. In the ATR, Iradi is the only language of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]], and schools run by village councils and parishes teach in it.[7] Older clerks in the tribal regions often still write Iradi in Cyrillic. ## Literature Iradi literature has its roots in oral tradition: the epic cycles recited by bards (*ırchy*) with the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]], the horseback chants known as *ırda* (see [[Irda (Vocal Tradition)]]), and the cycle of the [[The Epic of Janyl|Epic of Janyl]]. A written literature in the Latin alphabet developed in the 1920s and was curtailed by the purges of 1937 and the switch to Russian-only schooling (see [[Iradi literature]]). Poems about the 1916 revolt, notably [[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|The Black Blizzard of 1916]], remain widely read.[8] Since the 1990s the electronic music genre [[Mor-Wave]], whose founders [[tüntolk]] wrote all their lyrics in Iradi, has been credited with making the language fashionable among urban young people, and Iradi is now widely used on social media. ## See also - [[Ashuu (Geographical Term)]] - [[Talaa (Geographical Term)]] - [[Köl (Geographical Term)]] - [[Zhylky (Equine Term)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Descriptive Grammar of the Iradi Language. Talas, pp. 112–148.
  2. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). 2018 Census of Irad: Methodology and Results. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Johanson, Lars (2021). Turkic. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Phonological Shift in Northern Kipchak Dialects.' Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 45–67.
  6. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Planning Zones and Humanitarian Access in the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Annual Report. Kara-Oi.
  8. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
### 4.56. Koryo-saram in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **Koryo-saram in Irad** (Iradi: *Irad Koreyleri*; Russian: *Корё-сарам*; Korean: 고려사람) are the ethnic Koreans of Irad. Most are descendants of the Koreans whom the Soviet government deported from the [[wp:Russian Far East|Soviet Far East]] to [[wp:Central Asia]] in 1937. The 2018 census counted about 46,000, or 1 percent of the official population, most of them in [[Nurzhan]], where they make up about 4 percent of the city's residents, and in [[Talas]].[1] Deportees unloaded in the lower Chu valley introduced flooded rice cultivation to the region, and in the postwar decades the community became strongly represented in engineering, medicine and the universities. Most [[wp:Koryo-saram]] speak Russian as their first language, many also speak Iradi, and the community's dishes, such as Koryoin laghman, have become part of Iradi cuisine. ## History #### Deportation (1937) Koreans began settling in the Russian Far East in the 1860s. In 1937 the Soviet government ordered the deportation of the entire Korean population of the Far East, more than 170,000 people, to Central Asia, on the grounds that they might serve as agents of [[wp:Japan]].[2] In the autumn of that year several thousand deportees were unloaded from unheated freight cars along the railway at Kobozev, as Nurzhan was then called, and at sidings in the Chu valley. Many spent the first winter in dugouts (*zemlyanki*) dug into the steppe. Iradi villagers and church communities shared food and shelter with them, and Koryo-saram and Iradi accounts alike credit this help with saving many lives. Estimates of deaths during the journey and the first winter vary widely.[3] The deportees were registered as special settlers and needed permission to leave their districts, restrictions that remained in force until the 1950s. Korean-language schools and newspapers were closed in 1938. During the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], Korean men were generally excluded from front-line service, and many were drafted into labor battalions.[2] #### Rice farming and collective farms In the spring of 1938 Korean collective farms began draining the marshy flats of the lower Chu and planting flooded rice paddies. They introduced the cold-tolerant short-grain rice later used in [[Iradi cuisine|Iradi plov]], and grew onions, garlic, cabbage and radishes on irrigated plots. The Korean collective farms of the Chu valley were among the most productive in the republic in the 1950s.[3] Many families also took part in *gobonji*, the seasonal contract farming in which Korean work teams leased land, often far from home, to grow onions and melons for sale. #### Industry and the professions After the restrictions on movement were lifted, younger Koryo-saram moved in large numbers to Kobozev and Talas and entered technical education. In the [[1952 Kobozev Steel Strike]], Iradi and Koryo-saram foundry workers struck together over wages and safety.[4] Koryo-saram engineers, geologists and plant managers worked in the oil industry that grew up after the [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|1949 oil discovery]], at the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] and in engineering plants. In the 1970s [[Oleg Kim]] directed the Kobozev tractor combine. Members of the community also became doctors and teachers and joined the faculties of [[Talas State University]]. In cinema, the cinematographer Viktor Pak shot *[[Zarina (film)|Zarina]]* (1968) and *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]* (1979). #### Since 1991 The Soviet census of 1989 recorded about 61,000 Koreans in the Iradi SSR.[1] The community's numbers fell after independence. During and after the [[First Iradi Civil War]] of 1992, which was fought in part around Kobozev, some families left for Russia, and later others emigrated for work to [[wp:South Korea]] and the United States. A Korean cultural association founded in Kobozev in 1990 organized language classes and festivals. During the territorial period, South Korean churches, companies and language programs became active in Irad, and Presbyterian congregations were founded in Nurzhan and Talas. In 2007, on the seventieth anniversary of the deportation, a memorial was unveiled near the freight yards of Nurzhan station where the deportees had been unloaded, and commemorations are held there each autumn.[5] ## Demographics According to the 2018 census, about three-quarters of Irad's Koryo-saram live in Nurzhan, and most of the rest live in Talas and in the farming villages of the Chu District. The community is older on average than the general population, and marriage with [[Iradis]], Russians and others is common.[1] Census data show high levels of education: 41 percent of Koryo-saram aged 25 and over had completed higher education, against an average of 23 percent in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]].[1] ## Language and religion Russian is the first language of most Koryo-saram. The [[wp:Koryo-mar]] dialect of Korean, descended from the northern Korean speech of the original migrants, is spoken mainly by the oldest generation. Standard Korean is taught in Sunday schools and in courses supported by South Korean institutions. Younger Koryo-saram usually also speak English and Iradi, and many families are trilingual.[6] Many Koryo-saram were gradually absorbed into the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], and Korean-language Catholic congregations meet in Nurzhan. Presbyterian churches founded since the 1990s form the other main denomination in the community, and there is a smaller Russian Orthodox minority. Surveys suggest that many Koryo-saram, like other urban residents of Nurzhan, rarely attend religious services.[6] ## Culture and cuisine The cultural association and church congregations organize Korean holidays, including [[wp:Chuseok]] in autumn and the spring memorial day of *Hansik*, and run dance and music groups. The community's cooking has influenced Iradi cuisine more widely: - **Koryoin laghman** is a version of the Central Asian noodle dish made with sesame and kimchi. - **Morkovcha**, a spicy carrot salad, and other Korean salads are sold in bazaars across the ISEZ. - **Kuksi**, cold noodles in broth, is a summer dish in Nurzhan. - **Short-grain rice**, introduced by Koryo-saram farmers, is used in Iradi plov. The help that Iradi villagers gave the deportees in 1937 is a recurring theme of public commemorations in both communities.[5] ## See also - [[Bakhytzhan Kim]] - [[Fatima Asanova]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'The Koryo-saram of Northern Transoxiana.' Vol. 15, pp. 78–95.
  2. ^ Pohl, J. Otto (1999). Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 207: Resettlement Administration of the Iradi SSR (1937–1956).
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2006). Labor and Industry in Kobozev, 1927–1991. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (2007). 'Memorial to 1937 Deportees Unveiled at Nurzhan Station.' Talas.
  6. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
### 4.57. De-Russification Movement in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **de-Russification movement in Irad** is the set of policies and social changes, beginning in the late Soviet period, that reduced the place of the Russian language and of Russian and Soviet names in Iradi public life. Its main measures were the removal of Russian's official status in 1992 and the return to a Latin alphabet. Cities, streets and institutions were renamed, most prominently Kobozev, which became [[Nurzhan]] in September 1992, and in the tribal regions Russian-style surnames gave way to Turkic patronymics.[1][2] The process has been uneven. In the cities of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), Russian remains the *de facto* lingua franca and most people keep Russian-style surnames, while in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) Iradi is the only language of public life and patronymics are almost universal. ## Background In the early years of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]], the Soviet policy of nativization (*korenizatsiia*) standardized the Iradi language in a Latin alphabet (1928) and promoted Iradi cadres. The planned capital on the lower Chu was named Kobozev in 1927, after the Bolshevik official [[Pyotr Kobozev]]. By 1937 nativization had been abandoned. Schools switched to Russian-only teaching, Iradi was suppressed in print, and the [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] imposed the Cyrillic alphabet.[3] Soviet registration practice also gave most Iradis Russian-style surnames, formed by adding *-ov* or *-ev* (feminine *-ova*, *-eva*) to a father's or grandfather's name. Under perestroika in the late 1980s, writers and teachers campaigned for the wider use of Iradi, and the republic's leadership raised its status in education and publishing. ## Measures #### Language and script (1992–1997) After the [[First Iradi Civil War]] of 1992, the territorial arrangement made Iradi and English the official languages, and Russian lost its official status. The Provisional Government and the territorial administration restored a Latin alphabet in 1992. The Territorial Legislature then adopted the [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]], which fixed the present 32-letter alphabet. The Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made the Latin script compulsory in public administration and instruction in Iradi and English compulsory in public schools, with Russian reduced to an optional foreign language.[2] In the cities, English rather than Iradi largely replaced Russian as the language of advancement, and some scholars therefore describe the reforms as Anglicization as much as de-Russification.[5] #### Place names (1992–1993) In September 1992, in a speech in the city, Provisional President [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] renamed Kobozev as Nurzhan. The name is a [[wp:Kipchak languages|Kipchak Turkic]] word meaning "light of life", and Alimbekov described the city as a "guiding light of industry" that would lead Irad to a new dawn after the ruin of the civil war.[3] The Toponymic Heritage Statute, passed by the interim Territorial Legislature in 1993, confirmed the renaming and restored Turkic and Sogdian names to streets, districts and reservoirs. In Nurzhan, for example, Lenin Prospect became Azatlık ("Freedom") Prospect. Soviet-era place names have since been treated as obsolete in official use, and monuments to Soviet officials were removed from central squares in the 1990s.[1] #### Personal names Naming conventions changed along the line between town and countryside, a division later fixed by the 2007 partition (see [[Iradi name]]):[4] - **Tribal patronymics.** From the 1990s, rural and tribal families dropped Russian-style surnames in favor of the Turkic patronymic pattern: a given name followed by the father's name and *uulu* ("son of") or *kyzy* ("daughter of"). The Tanıp chief [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], recorded in Soviet documents as Bektur Zhumabekov, and his sister [[Klara Zhumabek kyzy]] are examples. In the ATR the patronymic form is now almost universal. - **Urban surnames.** In the cities most people kept surnames in *-ov*, *-ev* or *-ova*, partly because property, education and employment records had been issued in those forms. The family of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] and the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] are examples. Registry data analyzed in 2019 showed that more than 90 percent of adults in the three cities carried such surnames. - **Shortened surnames.** Since the territorial period some younger urban professionals have dropped the Russian suffix. Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]], registered at birth as Maksatov, has used the shortened form since his student years. ## Generational dynamics Attitudes to de-Russification differ sharply by age. Older urban [[Iradis]] educated in Russian, the self-described "Russos", have often viewed the reforms with skepticism (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]). The [[Urban Iradi Millennials]] grew up in Russian-speaking homes but were schooled in English and Iradi after 1992. Urban young people born since the late 1990s have embraced Iradi as a marker of identity (see [[Iradi language revival]]). In a 2022 survey of urban residents by [[Talas State University]], Russian was the main home language of 61 percent of respondents over 60 but of 29 percent of those aged 18 to 25.[5] ## Debate Supporters of the reforms regard them as the restoration of an identity suppressed under Soviet rule, and note that they were carried out without large-scale violence between communities. Critics among Russian speakers point to language requirements in the civil service, the closure of Russian-medium public schools and the emigration of many ethnic Russians during the 1990s.[6] The Russian share of the population fell from about 11 percent in the 1989 Soviet census to 4 percent in the official 2018 count. Kamran Bekzatov and other Russo figures call for Russian to be restored as an official language, a proposal the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] has rejected. In the tribal regions, some leaders argue that the urban elite's retention of Russian surnames shows how shallow the change has been in the ISEZ.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Toponymic Heritage Statute. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  2. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Provisional Presidential Papers of Amanbek Alimbekov (1992).
  4. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2019). 'Surnames and Patronymics in Post-Soviet Irad.' Vol. 12, pp. 41–60.
  5. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
### 4.58. Russos of Nurzhan *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **Russos** (Iradi: *Russolor*), often called the **Russos of Nurzhan** after their main center, are the Russian-speaking urban generation of Irad. The term usually refers to urban [[Iradis]] born between the late 1940s and about 1980, together with Russians, Ukrainians and Russian-speaking Koryo-saram of the same age, who were educated in Russian in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] and have remained culturally tied to the Russian-speaking world.[1] Many members of the group use "Russo" to describe themselves; younger Iradis sometimes use it disparagingly. The Russos are concentrated in [[Nurzhan]], the Soviet-era capital and center of the oil industry, and are associated with conservative politics, nostalgia for the late Soviet period and the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]], their best-known public figure. Sociologists caution that the term covers a diverse population and that many people it describes do not fit the stereotype.[3] ## Definition and size The Russos are not an ethnic group. Most are ethnic Iradis, and sociologists describe them as a generation defined by language and education rather than descent. They were schooled in Russian after the end of nativization in 1937, many of them trained at Russian-language institutes in [[wp:Tashkent]], [[wp:Moscow]] and Kobozev, and they formed the managerial and technical workforce of the Soviet oil, metallurgical and railway industries.[1] No official figures exist. In 2022 sociologists at [[Talas State University]] estimated that about 300,000 residents of the three cities belonged to the relevant age groups and used Russian as their main home language, about two-thirds of them in Nurzhan.[3] ## Language Russian is the main home language of most Russos, although many also speak Iradi. Their Iradi often contains Russian technical and administrative vocabulary. In the 2022 Urban Language Survey of the Talas State University Institute of Sociology, which surveyed 3,100 residents of [[Talas]], Nurzhan and [[Iyık Janyl]], the patterns for the two older age groups were as follows:[3] | Age group (2022) | Main home language: Russian | Main home language: Iradi | Speaks Iradi without difficulty | Speaks English without difficulty | |---|---|---|---|---| | Over 60 | 61% | 34% | 66% | 4% | | 42–60 | 52% | 43% | 70% | 12% | Russian was the main home language of 57 percent of all respondents in Nurzhan, against 31 percent in Talas. Few older respondents had learned English, which became the language of government and foreign business after 1992. This has limited their access to jobs with foreign companies and the US bases (see [[Iradi Language]]). ## Culture Sociologists describe Russo cultural life as oriented toward Russia and the Soviet past. Its characteristic features include:[1] - Russian-language media, including satellite television from Russia and the Russian-language channel IradOdin, a sister channel of [[IradOne]]; - Russian-language theater and the institutions of Soviet urban culture in Nurzhan, such as the Palace of Metallurgists; - the commemoration of [[wp:Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] on 9 May with a parade in Nurzhan; - support for the football club Neftchi Nurzhan, whose rivalry with Tulpar Talas reflects the city's language politics (see [[Kara-Ak derby]]); - a largely secular outlook. Most ethnic Iradi Russos are nominally members of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] but rarely practice, and ethnic Russians and Ukrainians belong mainly to the [[wp:Russian Orthodox Church]]. In a 2023 survey for the *Central Asian Geopolitical Review*, 62 percent of Nurzhan respondents over 50 agreed that life had been better in the late Soviet period, against 19 percent of those under 30.[4] ## Economic position The Russos dominated the management of the Soviet industries of the Chu basin, and many kept their positions after 1992. [[NurGaz]], privatized in 1993 under Bekzatov, remains the largest employer in Nurzhan, and its senior staff are drawn largely from this generation. The decline of Soviet-era engineering plants after 1991 hit Russo workers hard, and many of their children went to study or work in Russia (see [[Iradis in Russia]]). Pensions, subsidized housing such as the [[NurGaz Worker Housing Complex]], and clinics funded by NurGaz and the Bekzatov Foundation are central to the welfare of older residents. Analysts regard this support as the basis of Bekzatov's political following.[2] ## Politics Survey data show that older urban Iradis are more conservative than younger ones. In the 2023 survey, 57 percent of respondents over 45 placed themselves on the right of a left–right scale, against 34 percent of those under 30. Large differences also appeared on two questions:[4] - support for restoring Russian as an official language: 64 percent of those over 60 and 52 percent of those aged 42 to 60, against 14 percent of those aged 18 to 25; - a favorable view of Russia: 58 percent of those over 60, against 17 percent of those aged 18 to 25. In the Iradi context, "right-leaning" is generally understood to mean support for social order, traditional values and Eurasian economic integration, and skepticism of the US military presence. This distinguishes Russo conservatism from the pro-American line of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI).[4] Russo politicians have held a majority on the Nurzhan city council for most of the period since 1992, through the [[Labor Party of Irad]] until its dissolution in 2011 and on civic lists since, and in the 2023 election three Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan won seats in the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], forming its only consistent opposition.[5] Bekzatov, who has never stood for office, calls for accession to the [[wp:Eurasian Economic Union]], the restoration of Russian as an official language and an end to the Toktarov family's business monopolies, and he has publicly praised [[wp:Vladimir Putin]]. The municipal politician [[Elena Petrova]] represents the Russian and Ukrainian industrial workforce. Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] and [[Alikhan Toktarov]] have opposed the Russos' calls on language and Eurasian integration.[2] After the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], Russo politicians argued that the episode showed the risks of depending on Washington. ## Relations with other generations Many Russo families have experienced a language shift within three generations. Their children, the [[Urban Iradi Millennials]], grew up speaking Russian at home but were schooled in English and Iradi, and their grandchildren increasingly prefer Iradi and English (see [[Iradi language revival]]). Sociologists report that this shift is a common source of family tension, and that older Russian-speaking residents of Nurzhan regard figures popular with young people, such as the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]], as outsiders.[1] ## Criticism of the concept Sociologists have criticized the use of "Russo" as a catch-all label. They point out that two-thirds of older urban respondents in the 2022 survey speak Iradi without difficulty, that views on Russia vary widely within the age group, and that about a third of Nurzhan respondents over 60 opposed accession to the Eurasian Economic Union in 2023.[3][4] Some older Iradis reject the term as an insult that questions their loyalty, while others have adopted it as a mark of pride. ## See also - [[Tatiana Petrova]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'The Russophone Industrial Intelligentsia of the Chu Basin.' Vol. 15, pp. 112–129.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Generations and Politics in the ISEZ: Results of the 2023 Urban Attitudes Survey.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 77–102.
  5. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
### 4.59. Urban Iradi Millennials *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Urban Iradi millennials** are the generation of urban [[Iradis]] born between about 1981 and 1996, who grew up in [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]] during the collapse of Soviet rule and the US territorial period. Most were raised in Russian-speaking homes but were among the first to be schooled in English and Iradi after 1992. Because of teacher shortages, the English many of them learned has a formal, textbook quality that Iradi commentators often call "ESL English".[1][2] The generation forms much of the professional workforce of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and surveys describe it as politically pragmatic. Iradi media sometimes call it the "bridge generation", between the Russian-speaking [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russos]] and the Iradi-speaking young people of the [[Iradi language revival]]. ## Formative experiences Members of the generation spent their childhood in the last years of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]], the hyperinflation of 1991–92 and the [[First Iradi Civil War]], in which much of Talas was damaged. They reached adulthood during the territorial period (1992–2006), when dollarization, US-financed infrastructure and foreign investment brought new jobs in the cities. The older members of the cohort experienced the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007 as young adults. Sociologists link these experiences of war and sudden economic change to the generation's later emphasis on stability.[1] The period of American enthusiasm for Irad known as [[Iradimania]], including the 1993 compilation *[[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|Swift Hooves]]*, coincided with their childhood, and many grew up with [[Iradi Country-Folk|Iradi country-folk]] and, as teenagers, with the first wave of [[Mor-Wave]]. ## Education and language The older members of the cohort began school in Russian. After 1992 the territorial administration introduced English and Latin-script Iradi into the curriculum, and the Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made instruction in both compulsory in public schools. The supply of teachers did not keep pace. In 1994 the territorial Office of Education reported about 1,100 qualified English teachers against an estimated need of more than 6,000.[4] Schools retrained teachers of Russian and German, used imported American textbooks and relied on volunteer teachers recruited through Christian charities active during the Iradimania period. Linguists who have studied the English of this generation describe several recurring features:[2] - a formal register, with few contractions or idioms; - vocabulary drawn from textbooks and from the legal and administrative language of the territorial statutes; - Russian-influenced intonation and word order; - pronunciation based on spelling. Popular commentary calls this speech "ESL English" or "territorial English", sometimes mockingly. Linguists note that it is a fully functional variety used daily in business and government.[2] The 2022 Urban Language Survey of the Talas State University Institute of Sociology found a mixed linguistic profile among respondents aged 26 to 41:[3] - main home language: Iradi for 45 percent, Russian for 44 percent, and a mixture or English for most of the rest; - 89 percent said they spoke Russian without difficulty, 74 percent Iradi and 47 percent English. Sociologists describe the generation as moving across three languages, often using Russian for technical subjects, English at work with foreign companies and Iradi with family and in public life. ## Work and migration The generation's command of English made it the main source of staff for foreign companies, the US bases and their contractors, and the banks and telecommunications companies of the territorial era, such as [[Talasbank]] and [[Attelkom]]. In a 2021 workforce survey by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad, people in this age group held about 58 percent of managerial posts in foreign-owned companies in the ISEZ.[6] Many also entered the civil service of the territorial administration and later the ISEZ. A smaller number emigrated, mainly to the United States (see [[Iradi Americans]]). Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]], born in 1980, who began school in Russian and moved to English-language instruction after 1992, is often cited as typical of the generation's older edge. ## Political attitudes Surveys show the generation to be more pragmatic and less ideological than either older or younger urban Iradis. In a 2023 survey for the *Central Asian Geopolitical Review*, 63 percent of respondents aged 26 to 41 named economic stability as the most important issue facing the ISEZ, against 41 percent of those under 26.[5] Members of the generation were less likely than younger respondents to report taking part in protests, including the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]]. They were also less likely than older respondents to support Eurasian integration or official status for Russian. Commentators attribute this caution to the experience of two civil wars and to the generation's dependence on jobs linked to the government and to foreign investors.[1] ## Relations with other generations Many millennials grew up speaking Russian with their parents and now speak Iradi or English with their children. Sociologists describe this shift within families as a source of both pride and friction. Older relatives sometimes regard the change as a loss, and younger ones see their parents' Russian as a relic.[1] ## References
  1. ^ Talas Journal of Cultural Studies (2023). 'Generational Transitions in Post-Territorial Central Asia.' Vol. 11, Iss. 2, pp. 45–68.
  2. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'Linguistic Competence and Labor Market Dynamics in the ISEZ.' Vol. 15, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Territorial Office of Education (1994). Annual Report on Public Instruction. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Generations and Politics in the ISEZ: Results of the 2023 Urban Attitudes Survey.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 77–102.
  6. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2021). Workforce and Management Survey of Foreign-Owned Enterprises. Talas.
### 4.60. Iradi language revival *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* The **Iradi language revival** (Iradi: *tilge kaytuu*, "return to the language") is the shift toward the Iradi language among urban [[Iradis]] born between about 1997 and 2012, together with the cultural trends associated with it. Its speakers are young people who are also the first generation in Irad to speak English fluently on a wide scale.[1][3] Sociolinguists often compare the revival with that of the Irish language in [[wp:Ireland]]. The trends are also associated with the second wave of the electronic music genre [[Mor-Wave]] and with a youth culture centered on [[Talas]]. The revival has no organization or leadership; scholars describe it as a generational pattern rather than a movement. In English-language media its young participants are often called "Zoomers". ## Name Scholars and the Iradi press call the shift *tilge kaytuu*, "return to the language", a phrase taken from the title of a 2016 essay series in the *[[Talas Herald]]*'s Iradi pages, and in English the "Iradi language revival", by analogy with the Irish and Welsh revivals. English-language commentary since the late 2010s has also used "Zoomers", slang for Generation Z, for the young people involved, and the borrowing *zumerler* is heard in Iradi, often ironically; the article was formerly titled "Iradi Zoomer Movement". These names are applied mainly to urban young people. Their contemporaries in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], who have always spoken Iradi and largely reject both English and Russian, are rarely included.[1] ## Language Unlike their parents and grandparents, many of whom grew up speaking Russian, urban young people have increasingly adopted Iradi as a first or main language. The 2022 Urban Language Survey of the Talas State University Institute of Sociology found the following among respondents aged 18 to 25, compared with those over 60:[3] - Iradi was the main home language of 52 percent, against 34 percent of those over 60. Russian was the main home language of 29 percent, against 61 percent. - 81 percent said they spoke English without difficulty, against 4 percent of the oldest group. - 86 percent said they spoke Iradi without difficulty, the highest share of any age group, while only 58 percent said the same of Russian. The shift is also visible online. A study of about 1.2 million public social-media posts by users in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) found that the share written in Iradi among users under 25 rose from 18 percent in 2015 to 47 percent in 2023, while the share in Russian fell from 51 to 17 percent. English accounted for most of the remainder.[4] Young speakers mix English freely into Iradi and have coined new slang. They have also borrowed pastoral and epic vocabulary from tribal speech, which many regard as more authentic than the Russian-influenced Iradi of the cities. #### The "Gaelic parallel" Sociolinguists at [[Talas State University]] and elsewhere have compared the revival with that of Irish. In both cases young people from homes where another language dominated adopted a heritage language as a marker of identity, and music, social media and education helped give it prestige.[1] Critics point out a less flattering side of the comparison: in Ireland many more people report an ability to speak Irish than use it daily, and some researchers argue that the Iradi revival may likewise be concentrated in culture and private life. English remains the language of work in foreign companies and of higher education in technical fields, and few young professionals use Iradi in the workplace.[4] Supporters reply that, unlike Irish, Iradi has never ceased to be the everyday language of a large population in the tribal regions. ## Culture - **Music.** The second wave of Mor-Wave, which began in the mid-2010s, was centered in Talas and drew its audience largely from this generation. The founding duo [[tüntolk]] re-formed in 2014, and their album *[[White Stallion in Fog]]* (2017) was played on the youth channel that [[IradOne]] launched after [[Alikhan Toktarov]] became its chairman in 2015. An annual Mor-Wave festival has been held in converted textile warehouses in Talas since 2016. Writers on the movement credit tüntolk, who wrote all their lyrics in Iradi, with helping to make the language fashionable.[2][6] - **Fashion and design.** Collectives in Talas combine motifs from felt carpets (*shyrdak*) and saddlery with streetwear. - **Film.** Screenings of restored Soviet-era Iradi films at the [[Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation]] attract young audiences. The director [[Beknur Karimov]], who was banned from Soviet filmmaking in 1983 and whose *[[Zalmax’s Dominion]]* (1977) was restored in 2011, has a cult following among them. - **Online satire.** Webcomics and short videos in Iradi and English satirize officials, ministries and the state broadcaster. ## Politics Young urban Iradis have been more willing than older generations to protest. Students and couriers, most of them in their late teens and twenties, made up most of the participants in the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], which began in October 2023 after a municipal licensing surcharge and were dispersed by police and [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad|Gendarmerie]] units. The commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]], whose criticism of the surcharge on television preceded the protests, has his largest following among university students and young professionals.[5] Students also took a leading part in the demonstrations against the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], after which favorable views of the United States fell most steeply among respondents under 30. Survey data show the generation to be the least attached to Russia of any age group. In a 2023 survey for the *Central Asian Geopolitical Review*, 14 percent of respondents aged 18 to 25 supported restoring Russian as an official language, and 17 percent had a favorable view of Russia.[5] Young people are also prominent in environmental campaigns in the [[Talas Alatau]], including opposition to mining in mountain watersheds. Analysts note that most of this activity takes place online or in cultural settings, under the close attention of the authorities and of state media. ## See also - [[Kubanbek Moldosh uulu]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
  2. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Fox: Youth Subcultures and Mor-Wave, pp. 88–106.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2024). 'Language Choice on Social Media in the ISEZ, 2015–2023.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 23–49.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Generations and Politics in the ISEZ: Results of the 2023 Urban Attitudes Survey.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 77–102.
  6. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and Post-Soviet Electronic Music in Irad.' Vol. 12.
### 4.61. Zara Toktarova *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Zara Toktarova | df = dmy | image = Zara_Toktarova_2022.jpg | caption = Zara Toktarova reading to children at a village library, 2022 | birth_date = 1988-11-14 | spouse = [[Aidar Maksat]] (m. 2008) | children = 3 | parents = [[Erlan Toktarov]] (father); [[Anara Toktarova]] (mother) | relatives = [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]], [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]], [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]] (brothers) | alma_mater = [[Talas State University]] (2010); [[wp:Stanford University]] | occupation = Education scholar | known_for = Research on bilingual education and mother-tongue literacy }} **Zara Toktarova** (born 14 November 1988) is an Iradi education scholar. She is the youngest child and only daughter of [[Erlan Toktarov]], Governor of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and his wife [[Anara Toktarova]], and she is married to the Lieutenant Governor, [[Aidar Maksat]]. A doctoral candidate in education at [[wp:Stanford University]], she researches bilingual education and mother-tongue literacy. She has lived mainly abroad since the mid-2010s, rarely gives interviews, and is publicly regarded as having no political role.[1][2] ## Early life and education Toktarova was born on 14 November 1988, the sixth child of Erlan and Anara Toktarov and their only daughter. Her five elder brothers are [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]], [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]]. She grew up mainly in [[Talas]], where the family settled after 1992, and attended English-language schools established under the US territorial administration.[3] She studied [[Iradi literature]] and pedagogy at [[Talas State University]] and graduated with honors in 2010. She then completed a master's degree in international education policy in the United States, and later entered the doctoral program in education at Stanford University, where she is a doctoral candidate.[1] ## Academic work Toktarova's research concerns bilingual education, mother-tongue literacy in post-Soviet [[wp:Central Asia]] and the revitalization of minority and indigenous languages. She has written on the teaching of Iradi and English in the schools of the ISEZ and on the revival of Iradi among young urban people (see [[Iradi Language]] and [[Iradi language revival]]).[1] She has presented papers at international education conferences and has given occasional lectures at Talas State University during visits to Irad. ## Public life Toktarova keeps a low public profile and has made few public statements on political matters. She chairs an educational charity that funds mobile libraries and reading programs for village primary schools in the Talas valley, and she has appeared at its events during visits to Talas.[4] She has not commented publicly on her father's absence from public life since July 2024 (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]). Tabloids in Talas have occasionally reported tensions within the Toktarov family over access to the [[Boz-Korgon]] estate. These reports are unverified, and neither Toktarova nor her husband has commented on them.[2] ## Personal life Toktarova married Aidar Maksat, then a civil servant in the Talas municipal administration, in 2008. The couple have three children.[3] She speaks Iradi, English and Russian. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University (2019). 'Alumni Profile: Zara Toktarova.' Talas State University Bulletin. Talas.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2019). 'Profile: The Engineer Who Became Lieutenant Governor.' Talas.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2021). 'Mobile Libraries Reach Valley Schools.' Talas.
### 4.62. Timur Toktarov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Timur Toktarov | image = Timur_Toktarov_2016.jpg | caption = Timur Toktarov signing a contract at a truck depot, 2016 | birth_date = 1982-05-03 | parents = [[Erlan Toktarov]] (father); [[Anara Toktarova]] (mother) | relatives = [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]], [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]], [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]] (brothers); [[Zara Toktarova|Zara]] (sister); [[Aidar Maksat]] (brother-in-law) | alma_mater = [[Talas State University]] (2004) | occupation = Businessman | title = Chairman of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]] (2008–present) }} **Timur Toktarov** (born May 3, 1982) is an Iradi businessman who chairs [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]], the largest road haulage and bonded logistics company in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). He is the third son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]]. Like his younger brothers [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]], he keeps a low public profile and concentrates on the family's business interests, holding no political office.[1][2] ## Early life and education [[wp:Timur]] was born on May 3, 1982, the third child of Erlan Toktarov and [[Anara Toktarova]]. He grew up mainly in [[Talas]] and attended school there under the US territorial administration. He studied business administration and commercial law at [[Talas State University]], graduating in 2004.[2] ## Business career After graduating, Timur joined the bonded-warehousing business near [[Talas Air Base]] that his father had built up during his years in the Territorial Legislature. In 2008, the year after the ISEZ was created, the family acquired a controlling stake in Trans-Chuy, a Nurzhan-based haulier founded in 1996, and Timur became its chairman.[1] Under his chairmanship the company enlarged its fleet to more than 250 heavy trucks and refrigerated trailers, and opened container depots outside Talas and [[Nurzhan]]. Its main lines of business are:[1] - refrigerated transport of beef from the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and other packing plants to markets in [[wp:Central Asia]]; - bulk haulage of grain and feed for [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]], which is directed by his brother Bekzat; - transport of antimony ingots from the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] to railheads; - bonded customs terminals at the northern border crossings opened under the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]]. Critics, including the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] and the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]], argue that Trans-Chuy's bonded status and terminal concessions give the family an effective monopoly over transit handling fees on goods entering the ISEZ. They have called for these concessions to be opened to competition. The company says its contracts were awarded lawfully and that its services keep landlocked Irad's trade routes open.[3] ## Public profile Timur rarely gives interviews or appears on [[IradOne]], and he has made no public statements on politics. Since his father withdrew from public view in July 2024, business publications have described him as maintaining working relations with the administration of Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] and with the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], whose checkpoints his company's trucks pass daily. He has not commented on the succession (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[2] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Transport and Logistics Syndicates. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
### 4.63. Adil Toktarov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Adil Toktarov | image = Adil_Toktarov_2017.jpg | caption = Adil Toktarov on a construction site, 2017 | birth_date = 1984-11-19 | parents = [[Erlan Toktarov]] (father); [[Anara Toktarova]] (mother) | relatives = [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]], [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]] (brothers); [[Zara Toktarova|Zara]] (sister); [[Aidar Maksat]] (brother-in-law) | education = International business and urban economics, [[wp:Geneva]] | occupation = Property developer | title = Head of the Talas Commercial Development Group (2007–present) }} **Adil Toktarov** (born November 19, 1984) is an Iradi property developer who heads the Talas Commercial Development Group, one of the largest owners of commercial real estate in [[Talas]]. He is the fourth son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]]. Like his brothers [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]], he keeps a low public profile, holds no political office and concentrates on the family's business interests in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ).[1][2] ## Early life and education Adil was born on November 19, 1984, the fourth child of Erlan Toktarov and [[Anara Toktarova]]. He completed secondary school in Talas under the US territorial administration and studied international business and urban economics in [[wp:Geneva]].[2] ## Business career Adil returned to Irad in 2007, after the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], and founded the Talas Commercial Development Group, which obtained municipal land and zoning approvals in the center of Talas and along the commercial corridor toward [[Talas Air Base]].[1] The group's properties include: - the Silk Road Financial Tower, which houses the headquarters of [[Talasbank]] and the offices of foreign mining and energy companies; - the International Diplomatic Hotel, off the central square on the central avenue, used by visiting delegations and contractors; - shopping centers and residential complexes in the city; - the football club Tulpar Talas, bought in 2011, and its stadium, the Silk Road Arena, rebuilt in 2014 (see [[Kara-Ak derby]]); - holiday chalets in the lower Besh-Tash valley, on the ISEZ side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], near the [[Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area]]. From 2011 several of Adil's projects were joint ventures with his elder brother [[Alikhan Toktarov]], who built office towers, hotels and leisure venues on land acquired along the central avenue of Talas.[2] ## Controversies Opposition members of the Talas city council and investigative journalists have argued that municipal land was allocated to the Toktarov brothers' companies without competitive auction, and that the group's projects received tax holidays and priority utility connections from the [[Talas Municipal Water Authority]]. The municipality has said that the transfers were lawful.[3] Conservation groups have objected to the construction of chalets near the Besh-Tash conservation area. The oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] has named family-controlled construction among the monopolies he wants ended. ## Public profile Adil rarely speaks in public. The group's Silk Road Financial Tower also houses offices of the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], which supervises the escrow accounts into which the proceeds of Irad's main exports are paid.[1] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Real Estate and Commercial Property Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Urban Transformation and Capital in the ISEZ.' Academic Press, pp. 78–94.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2013). 'Council Questions Avenue Land Transfers.' Talas.
### 4.64. Bekzat Toktarov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Bekzat Toktarov | image = Bekzat_Toktarov_2018.jpg | caption = Bekzat Toktarov at a grain terminal, 2018 | birth_date = 1986-10-02 | parents = [[Erlan Toktarov]] (father); [[Anara Toktarova]] (mother) | relatives = [[Ruslan Toktarov|Ruslan]], [[Alikhan Toktarov|Alikhan]], [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]], [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] (brothers); [[Zara Toktarova|Zara]] (sister); [[Aidar Maksat]] (brother-in-law) | education = Agricultural economics, [[wp:Tashkent]] | occupation = Businessman | title = Director of [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] (2009–present) }} **Bekzat Toktarov** (born October 2, 1986) is an Iradi businessman who directs [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] (NAI), the dominant feed-milling and grain company of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). He is the fifth and youngest son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]]. Like his brothers [[Timur Toktarov|Timur]] and [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]], he keeps a low public profile, holds no political office and concentrates on the family's business interests.[1][2] ## Early life and education Bekzat was born on October 2, 1986, the fifth child of Erlan Toktarov and [[Anara Toktarova]]. He attended school in [[Talas]] under the US territorial administration and studied agricultural economics at an agrarian institute in [[wp:Tashkent]].[2] ## Business career Bekzat returned to Irad in 2009 and took charge of grain storage and feed-milling facilities in the lower [[Chu River Basin]], which were consolidated as Nurzhan Agro-Industrial. Under his direction the company modernized the state grain elevators it had acquired, built the 120,000-tonne Nurzhan Central Grain Terminal and installed Swiss-made milling equipment at its compound feed plant in [[Nurzhan]].[1] The company's activities include: - supplying more than 70 percent of the commercial livestock feed used in the ISEZ, including feed for the cattle lots that supply the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]]; - buying wheat, barley and feed corn from farmers along the Chu irrigation canals and storing grain reserves; - distributing imported certified seed, fertilizer from [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and veterinary medicines; - exchanging winter feed with pastoral cooperatives in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], including the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]], for wool and hides.[3] Grain and feed are hauled largely by [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]], which is chaired by his brother [[wp:Timur]], and NAI's working capital is financed through [[Talasbank]].[1] ## Criticism Farmers' groups and opposition commentators argue that NAI's share of the feed market allows it to set prices, and during the drought of 2021 they accused it of raising feed prices sharply. The company attributed the increases to the cost of imported grain.[2] The oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] and other critics include NAI among the family-controlled monopolies they want opened to competition. ## Public profile Bekzat seldom appears in public. Analysts note that the family's control of feed and grain supply is among its most important economic assets.[2] NAI's reserves at the Nurzhan Central Grain Terminal are the largest grain stocks held in the ISEZ.[1] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
### 4.65. Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* The **Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative** (Iradi: *Aksay syrtı mal charba kooperativi*) is a herders' marketing and service cooperative based on the [[Aksay Plateau]] in the [[Talas Alatau]] planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). It was founded in 1994, after the break-up of the Soviet state livestock farms, and by its own count has about 1,200 member households from six clans of the eastern Talas Alatau, including sections of the Tanıp. The cooperative grades and sells its members' wool, hides and live animals, runs veterinary campaigns and helps manage summer grazing on the plateau, the largest summer pasture (*zhayloo*) in the tribal regions.[1] ## History In the Soviet period the plateau's pastures were divided among state livestock farms (*sovkhozes*) that bred fine-wool sheep and supplied wool to factories in Kobozev and [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. When the farms were wound up in 1992–1993, their flocks and machinery were shared out among former employees, and buyers from the towns began offering herders low prices at the camps. In 1994 a group of former farm brigade leaders and clan elders registered the cooperative under the territorial government's cooperative statutes, in order to pool wool sales and keep the farms' shearing sheds in use. Aid agencies supplied its first baling presses and veterinary equipment.[2] The cooperative lost much of its 2007 clip during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], when the routes to the valley markets were cut. After the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] the plateau lay on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and the cooperative re-registered with the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC). It has since operated under customary law (*adat*) and the authority of the clan councils, while trading with buyers in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ).[1] ## Organization Each member household holds one share and one vote. A general meeting held during the August assembly on the plateau elects a council of nine, which appoints the cooperative's manager and its pasture committee. Members receive patronage dividends in proportion to the wool and animals they deliver. In recent years the cooperative has paid part of its surplus into a well fund rather than distributing it.[2] ## Operations #### Wool and livestock marketing The cooperative's main asset is a wool washing and grading depot on the western rim of the plateau, at the former state-farm shearing station. Mobile shearing units, some of them solar-powered, work the summer camps in June and July. Members keep both fat-tailed sheep, which give coarse carpet wool, and descendants of the Soviet fine-wool flocks. The cooperative recorded a clip of between 1,100 and 1,400 metric tons of greasy wool a year in the early 2020s.[1] Graded wool is trucked down to the valley through the designated crossing corridors of the Qara-Chik line. Most is sold to [[Zhetysu Industrial Textiles]] in [[Nurzhan]] or to traders who resell it in Kazakhstan and China. Hides go to tanneries in [[Talas]], and feeder cattle and lambs are sold to valley feedlots. Under a long-standing exchange arrangement, the cooperative takes winter feed pellets from [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] in part payment for wool and hides.[3] #### Veterinary and grazing work The cooperative employs livestock technicians who carry out spring and autumn deworming and vaccination against anthrax, sheep pox and foot-and-mouth disease. Vaccines enter the tribal regions through channels coordinated by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[2] Its pasture committee works with the clan pasture committees to set the dates of the move up to the plateau and to rest overgrazed ground around lakes and springs. Disputes it cannot settle go to the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]], which sits on the plateau each August. Outside the summer season, the cooperative repairs and digs stone-lined wells and boreholes on the winter ranges of the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]], where many of its members spend the winter.[3] A smaller body, the [[Aksay Alpine Ranching Cooperative]], also markets livestock from the plateau. ## Issues Prices for coarse wool have been low and volatile since the 1990s. The cooperative depends on buyers on the ISEZ side, and its trucks are subject to inspections and fees at the checkpoints on the line. Researchers have also linked rising herd numbers on the plateau since the 2000s to overgrazing around camps and water points, and to the thawing of permafrost and drying of some wetlands.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Register of Highland Pastoral Cooperatives.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
### 4.66. Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Horses & Equestrianism* The **Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate** (Iradi: *Akyel zhylky eksport sindikaty*) is a horse-breeding and export company based in [[Talas]]. It keeps the National Akyel Studbook for the [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] breed, runs three stud farms in the [[Talas River]] valley, and handles pedigree certification, veterinary clearance and air transport for horses exported from Irad, including the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]]. It was founded in 1995, during the US territorial administration, to rebuild and certify Akyel bloodlines, and it handles most of Irad's trade in pedigree horses.[1][2] ## History The Akyel nearly disappeared during the Soviet period. [[wp:Collectivization in the Soviet Union|Collectivization]] and crossbreeding with [[wp:Thoroughbred|Thoroughbreds]] left few horses of pure type, and a zootechnical survey in 1956 counted fewer than 300 Akyel-type mares, most of them at the [[Chong-Talas Stud Farm]].[1] After 1992 private breeders began rebuilding the population, and American interest in Iradi horses during the brief vogue for Irad known as [[Iradimania]] created a market for exports. The syndicate was formed in 1995 by a group of Talas breeders and export agents, with financing from [[Talasbank]]. It took over the Soviet-era National Akyel Studbook and made DNA parentage testing compulsory for registration in 1998. After 2007 the ISEZ government set up the separate [[State Stud Farm of Talas]], and Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] became the breed's most prominent patron. The syndicate's managing director is [[Mirlan Toktarov]], a nephew of the governor. Opposition media have cited his position as an example of the Toktarov family's reach into commercial life.[4] ## Studbook and breeding The National Akyel Studbook listed about 3,100 living horses in 2023, including about 1,450 broodmares and 120 approved stallions; about 600 foals are registered each year. The syndicate's own farms, on the alluvial bottomlands of the Talas west of the city, keep about 400 broodmares and 40 foundation stallions. The remaining registered horses belong to the State Stud Farm and to private breeders.[1] Registration requires microsatellite DNA testing against both parents, carried out with the [[Talas Veterinary Research Center]] and the veterinary faculty of [[Talas State University]], followed by an inspection of conformation. Stallions must also complete endurance trials, and the performance records supplied by the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]] are entered in the studbook. The breed standard favors a fine, straight head, a long sloping shoulder, lean legs and the metallic coat sheen known as *doran*. The syndicate and the State Stud Farm describe the Akyel as a direct descendant of the "heavenly horses" of [[wp:Dayuan]], a claim that geneticists regard as tradition rather than demonstrable fact (see [[Dayuan Heavenly Horse Heritage]]).[2] ## Export operations The syndicate runs quarantine stables and a veterinary clinic beside the civil aprons of [[Talas Air Base]], where horses are isolated and tested before export. Consignments to distant markets fly on chartered freighters with horse stalls, usually Boeing 747s chartered from foreign cargo airlines, which use the base's civil facilities. Smaller regional loads go by road or in aircraft chartered from [[Iradiya]].[2] The United States has been the largest buyer since the 1990s, followed by the [[wp:United Kingdom]] and [[wp:Ireland]], with demand growing in [[wp:Hong Kong]], mainland China and the Gulf states. Horses for the United States go directly to US import quarantine. European veterinary authorities do not list Irad as an approved exporting territory, so horses bound for the United Kingdom and Ireland have usually completed a period of quarantine and residence in the [[wp:United Arab Emirates]] before shipment onward. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad put the value of horse exports handled by the syndicate at about $27 million in 2023. Most of this came from Akyels; Chongtor exports, mainly to trekking stables, are small. Payments are cleared through escrow accounts at Talasbank under the rules of the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]].[3] ## Criticism Independent breeders have complained that the syndicate's control of the studbook and of export certification gives it a commercial advantage over its competitors, and that registration fees are high. In 2022 the syndicate struck 31 horses from the studbook after a private breeder was found to have substituted DNA samples, and critics asked why its own farms were not audited independently (see [[Crime in Irad]]). Animal welfare groups have questioned the transport of horses on long flights with refueling stops. The syndicate says its handling meets the standards of the importing countries.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Chongtor Studbook Registry and Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate (2021). Central Asian Equine Genealogies and Preservation Standards. Talas, pp. 112–129.
  2. ^ Central Asian Equine Studies (2022). 'Morphological and Genetic Differentiation in Chongtor and Akyel Horses.' Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 89–98.
  3. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Equine Exports Bulletin 2023. Talas.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2021). 'Who Holds the Studbook? Breeders Question the Akyel Syndicate.' Talas.
### 4.67. Antimony Mining in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Antimony mining** is Irad's main non-fuel extractive industry. According to estimates based on [[wp:United States Geological Survey|US Geological Survey]] data and cited by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad, the country holds about 7% of the world's antimony reserves, mostly in stibnite deposits in the foothills of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal range.[1][2] Ore is mined at [[Sary-Bulak]], in a gorge about 20 kilometers south-south-west of [[Talas]], by the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] (SBAW), and smelted at the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]]. Both lie in the Sary-Bulak District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and are controlled by the holding company [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]]. Most output is exported to China by rail through [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. Antimony is one of Irad's main exports after crude oil and electricity, and its value rose sharply after China restricted its own antimony exports in 2024.[3] ## Geology Irad's antimony deposits belong to the antimony–mercury belt of the southern and western [[wp:Tian Shan]], which extends east into [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and south-west into [[wp:Tajikistan]]. The ore mineral is stibnite (antimony trisulfide, Sb2S3), which occurs in quartz veins and in silicified limestone bodies (jasperoids) along fault zones cutting [[wp:Paleozoic]] limestone and shale. It is commonly accompanied by cinnabar, fluorite, arsenic minerals and small amounts of gold.[1] The Sary-Bulak deposit lies along a fracture zone in [[wp:Silurian]] limestone and shale. Its veins have been mined to depths of about 750 meters, and the combine reports average ore grades of 4.5 to 7.2% antimony, high by international standards.[4] Smaller deposits have been worked at Kemer and [[Kyzyl-Jar]] (see [[Kemer Antimony Mine]] and [[Kyzyl-Jar Antimony Shafts]]). Other Soviet-era workings and prospects lie in the Chatkal highlands on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], including those around [[Terek-Sai]]. The combine has not worked these since 2007. ## History #### Early use and Soviet development Antimony compounds were used in [[wp:Central Asia]] as the eye cosmetic *surma*, and medieval miners in the region worked silver and other metals, notably at [[Shelji]] in the upper Talas valley.[5] Systematic prospecting began after the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], when Soviet geological expeditions mapped the stibnite occurrences of the Talas Alatau foothills. The Sary-Bulak deposit was explored in the 1950s, and the mine and its flotation concentrator went into production in 1961. The Chatkal smelter was commissioned in 1964, and the two were run together as a single combine under the USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy.[4] Under the [[1971 Antimony Expansion Directive]], [[wp:Gosplan]] financed new shafts at Sary-Bulak and the enlargement of the Chatkal furnaces. By the 1980s the Iradi SSR was one of the [[wp:Soviet Union|Soviet Union's]] main suppliers of antimony metal and trioxide for batteries, flame retardants and defense industries.[5] #### After 1991 Output collapsed in 1992 with the end of Soviet orders and the fighting of the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. In 1994 the territorial government privatized the Sary-Bulak works and the Chatkal smelter, and the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] was formed to hold controlling stakes in both. The 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code set the terms of the concessions and royalties. During the late 1990s the industry found new buyers in China, whose smelters needed concentrate as their own high-grade deposits were depleted.[3] Production stopped for several months during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, when rail links were cut. It recovered after 2008, and by the late 2010s China was taking the great majority of Iradi output. ## Production and processing The Sary-Bulak mine is worked from three shafts and an inclined drift. Ore is crushed, ground and concentrated by froth flotation into a concentrate of about 60% antimony. Part of the concentrate is exported as it is; the rest goes by rail spur to the Chatkal complex, where it is roasted and reduced to antimony metal and antimony trioxide.[4] A smaller plant at Chatkal recovers bismuth, tellurium and other by-products from smelter residues (see [[Chatkal Rare Earth Facility]]). The combine reported mine output of about 13,800 metric tons of contained antimony in 2023, of which about 6,100 metric tons were smelted at Chatkal and the remainder exported as concentrate. The figures are published by the company and have not been independently audited. If accurate, they would make Irad one of the larger antimony producers outside China and Russia.[2][4] The industry employs about 4,600 people, about half of them at Sary-Bulak. ## Exports and markets Concentrate, metal and trioxide are carried by rail north through Kazakhstan and enter China at the Dostyk–[[wp:Alashankou]] crossing, crossing Kazakh territory under arrangements covered by the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]].[3] Most concentrate goes to smelters in southern China. Metal and trioxide are also sold to flame-retardant and battery manufacturers in [[wp:South Korea]], [[wp:Japan]] and Europe. Antimony is used chiefly in flame retardants for plastics and textiles, lead-acid batteries, glass for solar panels, and ammunition. In September 2024 China introduced export licensing for antimony ores, metal and oxides, and in December 2024 it banned exports of antimony to the United States. Prices outside China more than doubled.[6] Iradi exporters benefited from the higher prices. The combine reported increased sales of metal and trioxide to buyers outside China in 2025, although most of its concentrate remained contracted to Chinese smelters. Analysts have described Irad as a potential non-Chinese source of supply, while noting that its unresolved status, its dependence on transit through Kazakhstan and the lack of audited production data limit its attractiveness to Western buyers.[3][6] ## Regulation and revenue Mining concessions are granted under the 1995 code by the ISEZ Ministry of Natural Resources, headed by [[Chingiz Asanov]]. Export proceeds are paid into escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]] supervised by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], which deducts the antimony export duty and royalties before releasing the balance to the producers.[2] The industry's interests are represented by the [[Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy]]. ## Environment and labor Antimony mining and smelting leave tailings and residues containing antimony and arsenic. Tailings from Soviet-era processing are held in the [[Chatkal Tailings Repository]] and in older dumps near Sary-Bulak. Environmental monitors, including the reports of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]], have recorded raised antimony and arsenic levels in streams draining the industrial corridor toward the [[Talas River]], and sulfur dioxide from the smelter in nearby villages.[7] The combine says it has installed gas scrubbers and dust filters since the 2010s and that emissions are within ISEZ limits. Water quality around the workings is monitored by the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]]. In the tribal regions, clan assemblies maintain a moratorium on new open-pit mining and have refused permission for exploration and tailings sites in valleys that drain onto their pastures. This has kept the Chatkal highland deposits undeveloped.[7] Labor groups have reported cases of silicosis and other lung disease among older miners.[7] ## References
  1. ^ US Geological Survey (2024). Mineral Commodity Summaries 2024: Antimony. National Minerals Information Center, Reston, VA.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2025). 'Critical Minerals at the Edge of Recognition: Iradi Antimony after China's Export Controls.' Vol. 31, pp. 44–67.
  4. ^ Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine (2024). Annual Report 2023. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Mining and Metallurgy in the Talas Valley from Shelji to Sary-Bulak. Talas.
  6. ^ US Geological Survey (2025). Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025: Antimony. National Minerals Information Center, Reston, VA.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Environmental Conditions in the Mining Districts of the Talas Alatau. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.68. Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* The **Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl**, formally the **Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl** (Latin: *Archieparchia Sanctae Ianylae*; Iradi: *Iyık Janyl Bash Yeparkhiyasy*), is the metropolitan see of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. Its archbishop is the head of the church, and its cathedral is the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]]. The see traces its origins to the Church of the East communities of the medieval Talas and Chu valleys. It received its present rank in 1931, when the bull *Orientalis Stella* brought the Iradi church into full communion with Rome. The archbishop has metropolitan authority over three suffragan eparchies, based in [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and the Chatkal highlands, and presides over the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]]. The archbishop since 2012 has been [[Mar Ephrem]].[1] ## History #### Medieval origins East Syriac (Nestorian) Christianity reached the Talas and Chu valleys with Sogdian merchants between the 7th and 9th centuries, and the Church of the East maintained bishops in the cities of [[wp:Transoxiana]] and [[wp:Semirechye]] during the following centuries.[2] Christianity spread among Turkic pastoralists of the region during the rule of the [[wp:Qara Khitai]] in the 12th century, and a church synod was held at Navekat in 1180 (see [[Nestorian Synod of Navekat (1180)]]). Church tradition places the foundation of a distinct Iradi Christian community in this period and attributes it to [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], who is said to have founded the lost First Church of Janyl after a vision of the White Rider. Historians regard her as a figure of legend whose historical existence is uncertain (see [[Janyl (Historical Figure)]]).[3] The remains of a medieval Christian town near the present city, the [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]] (Shar-i-Kuhna), include the foundations of an 11th-century church. Manuscripts in the cathedral library record contacts with the wider church in the 13th century, including letters connected with the envoys sent to the [[wp:Mongols]] by [[wp:Pope Innocent IV]].[3] #### Persecution and survival Under the Chagatai ruler Ali-Sultan (1339–1342) and during the campaigns of [[wp:Timur]] in the late 14th century, the Christian dioceses of the region were destroyed. Iradi Christians survived in the mountain valleys, where they worshipped in secret and preserved their prayers in oral chant (*[[Irda (Vocal Tradition)|ırda]]*). Church tradition holds that a line of bishops continued among the mountain clans, but the written record for the 15th to 17th centuries is fragmentary, and historians cannot confirm an unbroken succession.[2][3] #### Kokand period In the early 18th century, Iradi Christian horsemen served as cavalry auxiliaries of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] against Dzungar raids. In 1727 Khan Abd al-Rahim Biy granted the Christian elders religious tolerance under the accord remembered as the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]], and issued a decree (*firman*) funding a stone church at Iyık Janyl. The Church of St. Janyl became the seat of the Iradi bishops, and a settlement of clergy, craftsmen and herders grew up around it. The cathedral library was founded in 1732, and Bishop Mar Gewargis (died 1744) was buried in the church crypt.[4] In this period the Iradi church had no regular contact with the Patriarchate of the Church of the East or with Rome, and it functioned as an independent church under its own bishop.[3] #### Union with Rome After the Russian conquest of Kokand in 1876, the church was tolerated by the Tsarist authorities, although Russian Orthodox missions were favored. After the Russian Revolution, Bishop [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]] opened secret negotiations with the [[wp:Holy See]], conducted through papal representatives abroad between 1926 and 1931. On 14 September 1931 [[wp:Pope Pius XI]] issued the bull *Orientalis Stella*, which received the church into full communion as an Eastern Catholic church *sui iuris* with its own East Syriac rite, and established Iyık Janyl as a metropolitan archeparchy. Mar Timotheos became its first archbishop.[5] #### Soviet repression Soviet officials regarded the church's link with Rome as a channel for foreign influence, and this suspicion fed the anti-religious campaigns of the 1930s. During [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]], most of the archbishop's senior clergy were arrested and executed. The seminary was closed, and the cathedral was shut and its nave converted into a district grain store. Monks and lay sacristans hid the rarest manuscripts of the library in caves in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]], and families kept vestments and sacred vessels in their homes.[5] For the rest of the Soviet period the archeparchy had no legal existence. Liturgies were held in homes and in the camps of the herding clans. Church tradition holds that bishops were consecrated in secret to preserve the succession, but documentary evidence for this period is limited.[3] After the restoration of religious freedom in 1992 the Holy See appointed Mar Yuhanna Bakirov archbishop in December of that year; he led the archeparchy through the return of its buildings and institutions until his retirement in 2012. #### Restoration After the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], the cathedral was returned to the church and reconsecrated on 14 September 1992, the anniversary of *Orientalis Stella*. Under the US territorial administration, which guaranteed freedom of religion, the building was restored between 1993 and 1998 with territorial grants, US heritage funds and donations from Christian charities. The seminary reopened in 1994 as the St. Ephrem Major Seminary, and the library's manuscripts were conserved and digitized.[4] In the same years contact with American Catholic chaplains and Roman institutions brought Western devotions into urban parishes, and vernacular liturgical texts in Latin-script Iradi were approved. The Church of St. Janyl and the Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl were inscribed together as a [[wp:World Heritage Site|UNESCO World Heritage Site]] in 2004, on a nomination submitted by the United States as the administering power.[6] ## Organization The archeparchy covers the city of Iyık Janyl and the surrounding valleys of the lower Naryn and the Fergana foothills, including highland parishes on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. Its 2023 diocesan directory lists 118 parishes and mission stations, about 40 of them in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[1] The suffragan eparchies of Talas and Nurzhan serve the two largest cities and their districts, while the Chatkal highland eparchy serves mainly tribal parishes. The church reports about 3.4 million faithful in all. Under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, the archbishop is appointed by the Pope from candidates proposed by the Council of Hierarchs. As of 2026 the suffragan bishops are Mar Toma Usenov of Talas, Mar Yakob Kim of Nurzhan and Mar Narsai Abdykerimov of the Chatkal Highlands, who has no fixed seat and visits his parishes from Iyık Janyl. Institutions under the archbishop's direct authority include: - the [[Cathedral Seminary of Iyık Janyl]] (St. Ephrem Major Seminary), which trains clergy for all four eparchies in [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]], theology and canon law; - the [[Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl]] and the [[Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives Vault]]; - the [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]], whose motherhouse stands on the edge of the Naryn gorge south of the city, and the [[Iyık Janyl Monastic Cloister]]; - the [[Iyık Janyl Seminary Choir]] and the [[Iyık Janyl Pilgrimage Hostel]]; - rural dispensaries run by the religious orders, many of them in the tribal regions. ## Public role Since the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], the archbishopric has kept a position of neutrality between the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] administration and the clan councils of the tribal regions. It has hosted meetings between representatives of the ISEZ and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]], and the archbishop meets regularly with Sunni Muslim leaders and Russian Orthodox bishops to coordinate charitable work.[7] Each year on 24 August the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] draws pilgrims to the cathedral from both sides of the line, many of them on horseback. The archbishopric and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] organize the crossing points for riders from the tribal regions. Relations with the ISEZ government have at times been strained over school curricula and the taxation of church property. In these disputes the archbishopric has cited the guarantees of religious freedom dating from the territorial period.[7] ## External links - [Church of St. Janyl](https://mjsbroadbent.github.io/churchofsaintjanyl/) (official website of the cathedral and archeparchy) ## References
  1. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Diocesan Directory and Clergy List. Iyık Janyl.
  2. ^ Vine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches: A Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia. Independent Press, London, pp. 118–134.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). The Iradi Church from the Qara Khitai to Kokand: Sources and Problems. Talas.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Ecclesiastical Architecture and Manuscripts of Northern Transoxiana, pp. 45–68.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2021). Orientalis Stella and the Soviet State: The Iradi Church, 1931–1941. Talas.
  6. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2004). Church of St. Janyl and the Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl: Nomination File. Paris.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Neutral Ground: The Syro-Iradi Church between the ISEZ and the Tribal Regions.' Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 115–138.
### 4.69. Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* The **Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl** (Iradi: *Iyık Janyl Sobor Seminariyasynyn Koljazma Kitepkanasy*) is the manuscript library of the [[Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl]], housed in the seminary cloister beside the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]]. It was founded in 1732, five years after the church was built, and holds more than 600 manuscripts, the largest collection of [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]], Sogdian and Christian Turkic manuscripts in Irad. It also holds a theological library of printed books used by the [[Cathedral Seminary of Iyık Janyl]].[1] ## History The library was established in 1732 to keep the service books, chronicles and documents that the Iradi clergy had preserved in the mountain valleys. Bishop Mar Gewargis (died 1744) added his correspondence and the decrees (*firmans*) of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] khans, and later bishops collected manuscripts from mountain parishes and from the families of priests.[1] During the anti-religious campaigns of the 1930s, which culminated in [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]], the seminary was closed and the cathedral shut. Before the closure, monks and lay sacristans carried the rarest codices to caves in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]], where some remained hidden until after 1992.[2] Books and papers left in the cathedral were confiscated, and part of them passed to the republican archives in Kobozev. Some of these were returned to the church between 1993 and 1996; others remain in the [[State Archives of Irad]], and the church has asked for their return. The library reopened with the seminary in 1994. During the territorial period its manuscripts were conserved and cataloged with grants from the Vatican Library and European academic foundations. A printed catalog of the Syriac manuscripts was published by Talas State University Press in 2011.[1] ## Collections The manuscripts date from the 9th to the early 20th century. Among the best known are: - the **Talas Gospel Lectionary** (about 1185), an illuminated Syriac lectionary in Estrangela script with marginal notes in Turkic written in Syriac letters, an early witness to the Turkic-speaking Christianity of the region; - the **Gospels of Iyık Janyl**, a 13th-century Gospel book copied, according to its colophon, by a monk named Marqos (see [[Marqos the Scribe]]); - fragments of **Sogdian commercial and legal documents** of the 9th and 10th centuries, written on paper and recording grain sales, water rights and caravan escorts in the Chu valley; - 14th-century copies of works of **Bar Hebraeus**, including his ecclesiastical chronicle, which records the conversion of the [[wp:Keraites|Keraits]]; - letters connected with the 13th-century papal envoys to the [[wp:Mongols]] sent by [[wp:Pope Innocent IV]]; - the **correspondence of Mar Gewargis** and the Kokand *firmans* granting the church tax exemptions; - liturgical manuscripts of the East Syriac rite, including several used in clandestine worship during the Soviet period.[1][3] Scholars disagree about the dating of some items. The early date of the Talas Gospel Lectionary rests on its script and illumination, and some specialists in Syriac manuscripts place it in the 13th century.[3] ## Access and digitization A digitization laboratory set up in 2003 has photographed about 240 manuscripts, and high-resolution images of these are published online. Researchers may consult the originals by appointment in the cloister reading room. Graduate students from [[Talas State University]] and foreign specialists in Syriac and Central Asian studies are the main users, and the university holds regular symposia on the collection.[1] Church registers and administrative records are kept separately in the [[Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives Vault]]. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Catalog of the Syriac Manuscripts of the Cathedral Seminary Library, Iyık Janyl. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2021). Orientalis Stella and the Soviet State: The Iradi Church, 1931–1941. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Ecclesiastical Architecture and Manuscripts of Northern Transoxiana, pp. 45–68.
### 4.70. Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate** (Iradi: *Chatkal chachyndy ken inspektsiyasy*) is a government agency of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) that licenses and inspects alluvial (placer) gold workings and monitors mine tailings and water quality in the mining districts south of [[Talas]]. It was created in 1998 by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] to regulate gold panning and dredging in the basin of the [[Chatkal River]]. Most of that basin has been under the control of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) since 2007, and the inspectorate's work is now concentrated on the ISEZ side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], chiefly in the Sary-Bulak District.[1] ## History Small-scale gold washing in the rivers of the Chatkal range and the [[Talas Alatau]] dates back centuries. It revived in the 1990s, when unemployed miners and herders began working river gravels with sluices and small pumps, and several foreign-backed companies applied for dredging licenses. Reports of mercury use and silted irrigation channels led the Territorial Legislature to create the inspectorate in 1998 under the Ministry of Natural Resources, with powers under the 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code to license placer workings, inspect sites and impose fines.[1] Until 2007 the inspectorate worked throughout the Chatkal basin from offices in Talas and in the Chatkal valley. After the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]], the upper basin fell on the tribal side of the line, where clan assemblies maintain a moratorium on open-pit and mechanized gold mining. The inspectorate withdrew its field staff from the tribal side and took on the monitoring of tailings dams and mine water at the antimony works in the Sary-Bulak District.[2] ## Functions The inspectorate's main tasks are: - licensing small placer leases on streams in ISEZ territory, and inspecting the few mechanized operations that remain; - registering individual gold washers (*altynchy*), who must sell their gold to licensed buyers; - sampling surface water for turbidity, cyanide, mercury, arsenic and antimony below workings and tailings dams; - inspecting the stability of tailings dams, including the [[Chatkal Tailings Repository]] and the dumps of the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]]; - imposing fines, suspending licenses and ordering the reclamation of worked-out ground.[1] In 2022 it had about 70 staff, including 28 field inspectors, and an annual budget of about $1.9 million.[1] Since 2016 it has used commercial satellite imagery to detect unlicensed workings, including on the tribal side of the line, where it cannot act directly. ## Relations with the tribal regions On the tribal side, panning on gravel bars is regulated by clan councils under customary law (*adat*), as in the [[Kara-Suu Gold Prospecting Area]]. Pollution from either side reaches shared rivers, and the inspectorate exchanges water-quality data with tribal monitors through the liaison channels of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]]. Disputes over damage to pastures and watering points are heard by the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]] when ISEZ operators are involved.[2] ## Criticism Environmental groups and the newspaper *[[Irad Times]]* have argued that the inspectorate is too small to police the antimony industry, whose parent company is one of the largest taxpayers in the ISEZ, and that its fines are low. They cite raised arsenic and antimony levels recorded in streams below the [[Sary-Bulak]] workings. The inspectorate says that its readings at the main monitoring points have been within ISEZ limits since the late 2010s.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Environmental Conditions in the Mining Districts of the Talas Alatau. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ Irad Times (2021). 'Small Agency, Big Mines: Who Watches the Sary-Bulak Tailings?' Talas.
### 4.71. Chongtor Studbook Registry *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Horses & Equestrianism* The **Chongtor Studbook Registry** (Iradi: *Chongtor zhylkysynyn tukum kitebi*) is the breed registry and standards body for the [[Chongtor Horse]], the mountain horse of the [[Talas Alatau]] and Chatkal ranges. It was established in 1993 under the US territorial administration. Since 2008 it has worked under the joint authority of the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]] and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC), which makes it one of the few institutions shared by the two Iradi administrations. It keeps an office at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]] in [[Talas]] and an inspection center, the Highland Equine Center, in the upper Talas valley on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]].[1] ## History Chongtor horses were traditionally bred by herding families, and pedigrees were kept orally as part of clan genealogies (*[[Sanjyra (Genealogy)|sanjyra]]*), in which notable stallions were remembered alongside their owners. Soviet collective farms kept herd books for working horses, but the Chongtor was never recognized as a separate breed in the Soviet system.[2] The registry was created in 1993 by an act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], at the same time as the National Equestrian Sports Directorate, to define a breed standard and support exports. It introduced microchip identification and, from 1999, DNA parentage testing. When the 2007 ceasefire left most Chongtor breeding herds in the tribal regions, the registry's work there stopped. An agreement in 2008 between the Directorate and the IAC placed it under a joint board of eight members, four named by each side, which meets twice a year, usually at the Highland Equine Center.[1] ## Registration To be entered in the studbook, a horse must pass three tests: - **Parentage:** DNA testing against both registered parents. - **Conformation:** an inspection against the breed standard, which calls for a height of 13.2 to 14.2 hands (137–147 cm), a deep chest, dense bone with a cannon-bone circumference of more than 19 cm, and hard, dark hooves that are usually left unshod. - **Performance:** a timed 30-kilometer mountain ascent above 2,800 meters, in which heart-rate recovery is measured. Crossbreeding with [[wp:Thoroughbred|Thoroughbreds]] and European warmbloods is prohibited.[1] Inspection committees in the clan territories record the oral pedigrees of unregistered herds, and horses with a documented descent of several generations can be admitted after inspection. Approved stallions are branded with an inverted-horseshoe mark that recalls the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]].[3] In 2023 the registry listed about 23,600 living horses, including 640 approved stallions. Most horses in the tribal regions are not registered, and the total number of Chongtor-type horses is unknown.[1] The best-known modern sire is the stallion [[Almanbet (Chongtor Stallion)|Almanbet]], foundation of the leading endurance line. The ranchers' [[Chongtor Horse Breeding Guild]] issues its own breeding certificates. ## Other activities The registry certifies Chongtors for export, which are handled by the [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]] and go mainly to trekking stables in [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], [[wp:Mongolia]] and the United States. It also guarantees grazing for retired breeding stock. Horsemeat is not eaten in Irad, and a 1996 act of the Territorial Legislature banned the commercial slaughter of horses and the sale of horsemeat (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]).[3] ## See also - [[Chongtor Dun Bloodline]] - [[Chongtor Roan Strain]] ## References
  1. ^ Chongtor Studbook Registry (2023). Annual Register and Breed Standard. Talas.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 218: Registers of Equine Studbooks and Traditional Guilds (1922–2020).
  3. ^ Central Asian Equine Studies (2022). 'Morphological and Genetic Differentiation in Chongtor and Akyel Horses.' Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 89–98.
### 4.72. Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* The **Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate** (Iradi: *Chüy öröönü sugat inspektsiyasy*) is the government agency of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) that operates the irrigation and drainage network of the lower [[Chu River Basin]] and allocates its water. Its headquarters are in [[Nurzhan]]. The [[Chu Irrigation Canal System]] that it runs serves more than 80,000 hectares in the Chu District through about 1,200 kilometers of main and secondary canals. Because the Chu rises in [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], the inspectorate's water supply depends on upstream use, and it is the ISEZ's main technical contact with Kyrgyz and Kazakh water agencies on the river.[1] ## History Canals were dug on the lower Chu in the 1930s and 1940s and extended after the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], partly by [[wp:Koryo-saram]] collective farmers deported to the area in 1937, who drained marshland for rice.[2] The network was run by the irrigation systems administration of the Iradi SSR's water ministry, which built the main diversion weir in 1957. In 1995 the Territorial Legislature reorganized the Soviet administration as the Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate, under the territorial Department of Agriculture. US aid financed the repair of headworks damaged in the 1992 fighting and the creation of water users' associations, which buy water from the inspectorate and maintain the smaller ditches. Since 2007 the inspectorate has reported to the ISEZ Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources.[1] ## Infrastructure The main structures operated by the inspectorate are: - the **Central Headworks**, a diversion weir with radial gates on the Chu upstream of Nurzhan, which feeds the main canals; - the **Western Main Canal**, 95 kilometers long and partly concrete-lined, which supplies grain, sugar-beet and feed farms on the west of the plain, many of them under contract to [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]]; - intakes supplying process and cooling water to [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]] and the other installations of [[NurGaz]]; - about 400 kilometers of collector drains, which carry saline groundwater away from the fields.[1] Water levels at the main gates are measured by telemetry stations linked through the network of [[Attelkom]], and discharge on the river is recorded by the [[Chu Basin Hydrological Station]]. Much of the network dates from the Soviet period. The inspectorate estimates that about a third of the water diverted is lost to seepage and evaporation, and rising groundwater has salinized parts of the lower plain.[2] ## Allocation within Irad Each spring the inspectorate sets a seasonal plan dividing the expected flow among farms, industry and the city of Nurzhan. In dry years it imposes rotations between canals and cuts deliveries to rice and other high-water crops first.[2] The Chu ends below the irrigated zone in the Moiynkum sands, near the [[Akzhaykyn Depression|Akzhaykyn depression]], in the Northern Steppe zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). Herders there use the lower river and its riparian woodland (*tugay*) to water livestock. Clan councils and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] have complained that ISEZ withdrawals leave the lower channel dry in late summer. No agreement governs releases to the tribal reach, and the question has been raised at meetings of the ceasefire's Joint Liaison Committee.[3] ## Transboundary water issues The upper Chu and its regulating reservoir, the [[Orto-Sai Reservoir]], lie in Kyrgyzstan, as do the headworks of the large canals of the Chuy valley. Downstream of the Chuy valley, the river forms part of the border between Kyrgyzstan and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] before entering Irad.[3] Kyrgyz irrigation withdrawals in July and August, when demand is highest on both sides, sharply reduce the flow that reaches the Iradi lowlands. There is no ratified agreement on the Chu between Irad and Kyrgyzstan. None of Irad's neighbors recognizes the ISEZ as a sovereign party. ISEZ officials cite a 1983 Soviet allocation protocol, which they say assigned the Iradi SSR about 42% of the river's flow. Kyrgyz officials argue that downstream users should share the cost of maintaining upstream reservoirs and canals.[3] Inspectorate engineers meet Kyrgyz water managers informally at the border gauging station, usually in spring and autumn, to exchange forecasts and gauge readings. With Kazakhstan, joint hydrological monitoring on the Chu and the Talas dates from the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]], signed during the territorial period. The treaty's standing since 2006 is disputed, but the exchange of gauging data has continued. Unlike the Naryn, where releases are governed by the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] under United Nations supervision, the Chu has no multilateral arrangement. Analysts regard it as one of the main unresolved sources of friction between Irad and Kyrgyzstan.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2022). Agriculture in the Chu District: Annual Review. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'The Forgotten River: Chu Water and Irad–Kyrgyzstan Relations.' Vol. 29, pp. 14–36.
### 4.73. Fergana Mountain Transit Highway *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Fergana Mountain Transit Highway** (officially **State Route 1**; Iradi: *Pargana too jolu*) is a mountain highway in Irad that links [[Talas]] with the Lower Naryn District around [[Tash-Kömür]]. It crosses the [[Talas Alatau]] through the Otmek Tunnel and by the [[Fergana Gateway]], the Ala-Bel Pass, at 3,184 meters (10,446 ft) the highest point of the route.[1] The road is about 356 kilometers long, of which the mountain section between the mouth of the Otmek valley and Kara-Köl is about 226 kilometers. It is the only road connecting the core of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) with the Toktogul basin and the Lower Naryn District. The 2007 ceasefire left its mountain section on land of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) as a guarded corridor; since a protocol of 2009 the road runs through a narrow ISEZ corridor between tribal pastures, policed by the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]]. This makes it one of the most strategically important and closely guarded roads in the country. The highway does not lead to China, with which Irad has no border.[2] ## Route The highway leaves Talas at the end of the [[Trans-Talas Highway]] and runs east for about 64 kilometers up the irrigated farmland of the Talas valley to the mouth of the Otmek valley, where the northern control post stands. It climbs the Otmek valley through a series of avalanche galleries and at about kilometer 87 passes beneath the [[Otmek]] crest of the Talas Alatau in the Otmek Tunnel, about 5 kilometers long, whose portals at about 3,150–3,200 meters lie some 150 meters below the Otmek Pass (3,330 m). The old road over the pass is kept open in summer as a bypass.[1] South of the tunnel the road descends into the western end of the [[Suusamyr]] valley, the summer pasture of the Talas Alatau clans, and climbs again to the broad saddle of the Fergana Gateway at about kilometer 118, where the summit control post and a maintenance station stand. On the southern side it descends in switchbacks through juniper woodland and mountain steppe down the Chychkan valley to the Toktogul basin, reaching the town of [[Toktogul (town)|Toktogul]] at about kilometer 180.[3] It runs round the eastern end of the reservoir and along its southern shore to the dam, the switchyard and the dispatch center of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] and to Kara-Köl, the town built for the station's workers, at about kilometer 290; the town of Toktogul, the dam and Kara-Köl lay on the tribal side of the line until 2009 and were then placed in the ISEZ's Lower Naryn District; since 2016 the basin and the road north of it have formed Toktogul District, and the district line runs just below the dam, above Kara-Köl. The road then follows the river down the Naryn gorge past the lower stations of the Naryn cascade and comes out onto the river flats at [[Iyık Janyl]], at about kilometer 347, where it runs through the city on the east bank of the river; this makes the highway the pilgrims' road to the [[Feast of St. Janyl]]. It ends at Tash-Kömür, at about 600 meters and kilometer 356, where the Naryn leaves the mountains for the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. Between the dam and Iyık Janyl the ISEZ corridor along the gorge is only a few kilometers wide, with tribal mountains on either side. Regional roads continue from Tash-Kömür east through the ISEZ's farm belt on the Fergana rim to [[Bazar-Korgon]] and toward the Uzbek border. ## History #### Soviet road Routes across the mountains between the Talas valley and the Fergana side were used by herders, caravans and armies for centuries. Iradi popular histories link them with the trade in Fergana horses.[3] The first motor road over the Gateway was built between 1962 and 1968 by the construction directorate of the Toktogul hydroelectric project, to carry equipment and workers from the Talas railhead to the dam site. It was a gravel road with steep switchbacks that was closed for much of the winter. Sections in the Talas valley and the Naryn gorge were paved in the 1970s.[4] #### Territorial reconstruction In 1996 the territorial highway department designated the road State Route 1. Between 1997 and 2004 it was rebuilt to an all-weather standard with US federal highway grants and a road fund created from oil and mining royalties under the 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code. The work added more than 4 kilometers of reinforced concrete avalanche galleries, rockfall sheds on the southern descent and the Otmek Tunnel, about 5 kilometers long, which opened in 2003 and cut out about 7 kilometers of the most dangerous hairpins on the northern approach.[4] The rebuilt road shortened the winter journey from Talas to Tash-Kömür from about two days to about seven hours. #### 2007 and the ceasefire During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], fighters of the [[Popular Front of Irad]] blocked the road at the Gateway in May 2007, cutting the ISEZ's links with the Naryn stations. ISEZ security forces reopened it in July after clashes on the southern descent.[2] The [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] left the mountain section of the road on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], but its road arrangements placed the highway between the mouth of the Otmek valley and the Lower Naryn District under the guard of the Republican Gendarmerie. The [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] established its sector headquarters at Tash-Kömür in 2008, and the highway became the main route between it and the mission headquarters at Kara-Oi.[5] #### The 2009 corridor protocol Under a UN-brokered protocol signed at Kara-Oi in July 2009, the road from the upper Talas valley through the Otmek Tunnel, the western Suusamyr and the Gateway, the floor of the Toktogul basin and the Naryn gorge passed to the ISEZ. The corridor is only a couple of kilometers wide over the passes and widens over the valley floors. In exchange the clans received the high Kyrgyz Range pastures east of the Kök-Bel road, guaranteed grazing, stock-route and water rights along the corridor, including the right to drive herds across it at agreed places and seasons, and a guaranteed share of the revenue of the Toktogul complex. The three Gendarmerie posts on the road became internal control posts, and the line crossings moved to the side tracks that leave the corridor.[5][6] ## Strategic role The highway is the only overland link between Talas and the Lower Naryn District. It carries supplies to the switchyard, national dispatch center and downstream power stations of the Naryn cascade, which the ISEZ needs in order to sell electricity from the Toktogul complex. It also serves the cotton farms of the Fergana rim belt and the coal mines of the Lower Naryn District and supplies the Lower Naryn mountain battalion of the [[Armed Forces of Irad|State Defense Corps]].[2] Analysts describe the 2009 arrangement as an exchange of leverage. The ISEZ holds the road and the dam, but the corridor runs for long stretches between tribal pastures and herd crossings, and the clans' consent is needed for each five-year release schedule of the Toktogul complex, while the tribal share of power revenue depends on the ISEZ's export grid. Each side therefore has an interest in keeping traffic moving.[6] Because the corridor is narrow, most of the road lies within 12 kilometers of the Qara-Chik line, and therefore inside the restricted-weapons zone set by the ceasefire agreement, in which tanks, artillery and combat aircraft are prohibited. Military traffic on the road is mainly light vehicles, and UNMI observers record movements of military convoys.[5] ## Checkpoints and security The [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] runs three permanent control posts on the highway: at the mouth of the Otmek valley, at the summit of the Gateway and at the Naryn bridge below the Toktogul dam. Since 2009 they have been internal posts within the ISEZ rather than crossings of the line. Cargo and documents are checked at all three, bus passengers' identity documents are checked at the summit, and heavy vehicles pay a road-use charge at the northern post, at the mouth of the Otmek valley.[1] Posts of the [[El-Choro Militias]] stand on the tribal side where side tracks from the tribal valleys meet the corridor. Travelers leaving the highway for the tribal valleys must pass both an ISEZ and a tribal post, and residents of the tribal regions need a tribal travel permit to use the designated crossing points.[5] In late May and June, and again in September and October, herders drive their flocks across the corridor between summer and winter pastures at agreed crossing places. Traffic is halted for the crossings, which are coordinated by the Gendarmerie, clan elders and UNMI team sites. Incidents involving livestock theft, armed men or blocked traffic are reported every few years, and UNMI has recorded several shooting incidents near the southern descent since 2008.[5] ## Traffic and operation In 2023 the Gendarmerie recorded an average of about 2,100 vehicles a day at the summit control post, about 40 percent of them trucks.[1] Northbound freight is mainly cotton, fruit, coal and livestock. Southbound traffic carries fuel and refined products from [[NurGaz]], building materials and consumer goods, much of it handled by [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]]. Minibuses and buses connect Talas with Tash-Kömür several times a day. The highway department keeps maintenance stations at the mouth of the Otmek valley, at the tunnel portals, at the summit and on the southern switchbacks, with rotary snowplows and sand trucks. Snow normally covers the pass from November to April. Storms and avalanche danger close the road for an average of about 20 days each winter, and rockfalls and mudflows are a hazard during the spring thaw.[3] In winter, when the road is closed, the only alternative link is the air service between Talas and Tash-Kömür operated by [[Iradiya]]. ## Proposals Route surveys for the proposed [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals|Trans-Irad gas pipeline]] have considered the highway corridor as a possible route.[6] The ISEZ government has sought foreign financing to widen the southern descent and extend the avalanche galleries, but no contract had been signed by 2025. ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2019). 'One Road South: The Fergana Highway and the Southern Salient of the ISEZ.' Vol. 25, pp. 88–109.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Territorial Highway Department: State Route 1 Reconstruction Files (1996–2005).
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Roads, Dams and Leverage in a Frozen Conflict.' Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 12–39.
### 4.74. Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority** (IFTEA; Iradi: *Irad tyshky soodo eskrou agenttigi*) is a statutory body of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) that registers and audits export contracts for oil, minerals and other major commodities, and supervises the escrow accounts into which foreign buyers pay. It was established in 1994 by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] during the US territorial administration. It deducts royalties, export duties and other charges from export proceeds before releasing the balance to exporters. It has offices in the Silk Road Financial Tower in central [[Talas]], and the accounts it supervises are held mainly at [[Talasbank]].[1] ## History The authority was created by the Foreign Trade Escrow Act of 1994, one of a group of territorial economic statutes that followed the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993. Its purpose was to make sure that royalties were collected on exports by the newly privatized oil and mining companies, and to give foreign buyers and lenders a supervised payment channel at a time when Irad's legal status was unfamiliar to banks.[2] Under the territorial administration its director was appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Territorial Senate. An observer from the office of the US High Commissioner attended its board meetings. The end of the territorial administration in December 2006 removed the federal oversight on which foreign banks had relied, and the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] interrupted export payments in the first half of 2007. In 2008 the ISEZ administration reconstituted the authority under a new statute. Its director-general is now appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the *Mejlis*.[1] ## Operation Exporters of crude oil, antimony, beef, cotton and pedigree horses, and of other goods above a threshold value, must register their contracts with the authority. Buyers pay in US dollars into escrow accounts at Talasbank or other licensed banks. The authority checks the invoices against customs declarations and, for crude oil, against metering data at the border, then deducts the charges due and remits the balance to the exporter.[1] The main charges are: - the royalty on crude oil under the 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code, 11 percent of export value; - the antimony export duty and mineral royalties paid by the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] and its subsidiaries; - a remediation levy on mining exports, assigned to the clean-up of tailings and Soviet-era waste sites. The largest single exporter registered with the authority is [[NurGaz]], whose crude passes through the [[Northern Export Feeder]] operated by the [[Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium]]. Other registered exporters include the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and the [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]].[3] The authority also administers dollar reserves set aside to guarantee import contracts for fuel, grain and medicines. Because no neighboring state recognizes the ISEZ, Iradi exporters have limited access to international banking. Dollar payments are settled through correspondent banks in [[wp:Almaty]], [[wp:Istanbul]] and [[wp:Dubai]]. The authority's registration certificates are used by these banks as part of their checks on Iradi transactions.[2] ## Criticism The authority has not published audited accounts since 2008, and opposition deputies have repeatedly asked for its statements to be laid before the *Mejlis*. [[Kamran Bekzatov]] of NurGaz has criticized delays in the release of export proceeds and has argued that the authority gives the ISEZ administration leverage over private companies.[3] During the [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]], ISEZ officials pointed to the escrow system as evidence that export revenues remained secure. Opposition outlets asked who had authorized disbursements in the Governor's absence, and the Department of Public Information said that the Lieutenant Governor acts for the Governor under the Elective Governor Acts.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Export Finance and Escrow Regulations Handbook. Talas.
  2. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Economic Update: Dollarization and Financial Access in Unrecognized Jurisdictions. Washington, DC.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Who Holds the Keys? Escrow, Oil and Power in the ISEZ.' Vol. 27, pp. 58–79.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Escrow Payments Continue, Officials Say.' Talas.
### 4.75. Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine** (IARMC; Iradi: *Irad surma jana seyrek metaldar kombinaty*) is a mining and metallurgical holding company based in [[Talas]]. It controls the antimony industry of Irad through its two main subsidiaries, the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] (SBAW), which mines and concentrates ore, and the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]], which produces antimony metal and antimony trioxide. Both are in the Sary-Bulak District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). The combine was formed in 1994, when the territorial government privatized the Soviet antimony industry, and it is the second-largest company in the ISEZ after [[NurGaz]]. Its headquarters are on Metallurgy Avenue in Talas.[1] ## History In the Soviet period the [[Sary-Bulak]] mine, opened in 1961, and the Chatkal smelter, commissioned in 1964, were run as a single enterprise, the Iradi Antimony Combine, under the USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. The [[1971 Antimony Expansion Directive]] financed new shafts and furnaces, and by the 1980s the combine was one of the main antimony producers in the [[wp:Soviet Union]].[2] [[Mikhail Chernov]] directed metallurgical production at Chatkal in the 1980s. After the loss of Soviet orders in 1992, the territorial government split the combine in 1994 into two joint-stock companies, SBAW and the Chatkal complex. It placed controlling stakes in both in a new holding company, the IARMC, and sold the holding company's shares at auction. The privatization was criticized at the time for its low price and for the participation of territorial officials' associates, but it was not reversed.[2] The combine found new buyers in China in the late 1990s, and production rose through the 2000s apart from an interruption during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007. ## Ownership and management The combine is a closed joint-stock company, and its shareholder register is not public. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad, the ISEZ government has held a minority stake since 2009 that gives it a veto over major transactions. The remaining shares are held through holding companies whose owners have not been disclosed. Opposition deputies have alleged links between these companies and figures in the [[Democratic Party of Irad]], which the combine denies.[1][3] The combine's management board is appointed by its supervisory board, on which the ISEZ Ministry of Natural Resources is represented. ## Operations The combine employs about 4,600 people. Its operations include: - **Mining and concentration:** the Sary-Bulak mine, worked from three shafts and an inclined drift to a depth of about 750 meters, with a flotation plant producing concentrate of about 60% antimony. Smaller satellite mines, including the [[Kemer Antimony Mine]], supply additional ore. - **Smelting:** the Chatkal complex, which converts concentrate into antimony metal ingots and antimony trioxide. - **By-products:** a plant at Chatkal that recovers bismuth, tellurium and other metals from smelter residues (see [[Chatkal Rare Earth Facility]]). - **Rail and logistics:** sidings and a branch line linking the mine and smelter with the Talas railway, from which products travel north through [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[1] The combine reported mine output of about 13,800 metric tons of contained antimony in 2023. About 6,100 metric tons of this was refined at Chatkal, and the rest was exported as concentrate.[4] Most of its sales go to China, where its concentrate supplies smelters. Metal and trioxide are also sold to buyers in [[wp:South Korea]], [[wp:Japan]] and Europe. Export proceeds are paid through the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]]. ## Finances The combine does not publish full audited accounts. Its 2023 annual report gave revenue of about $140 million. Revenue rose in 2024 and 2025, as world prices increased after China introduced export controls on antimony in 2024 (see [[Antimony Mining in Irad]]).[4] The combine pays the antimony export duty and royalties to the ISEZ, and is one of its largest taxpayers after NurGaz. ## Environment The combine is responsible for tailings from current production and shares responsibility for Soviet-era waste with the ISEZ government, including the [[Chatkal Tailings Repository]]. It says that it has installed electrostatic precipitators and sulfur dioxide scrubbers at Chatkal since the mid-2010s. Environmental monitors and the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]] have recorded raised antimony and arsenic levels in streams below the workings.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Mining and Metallurgy in the Talas Valley from Shelji to Sary-Bulak. Talas.
  3. ^ Irad Times (2019). 'The Antimony Shareholders Nobody Can Name.' Talas.
  4. ^ Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine (2024). Annual Report 2023. Talas.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Environmental Conditions in the Mining Districts of the Talas Alatau. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.76. Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy** (Iradi: *Irad uluttuk too-ken jana metallurgiya palatasy*) is the trade association of the mining, metallurgical and geological services industries in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It was founded in 1996 under the territorial statutes on commercial associations and is based at Miners' Hall in central [[Talas]], a Soviet-era building that formerly housed the republican miners' trade union. In 2023 it had 42 member organizations, ranging from the antimony producers to coal mines, quarries, engineering consultancies and equipment suppliers.[1] ## History The chamber was set up in 1996 by the newly privatized antimony companies and a group of geological survey firms, while the Territorial Legislature was drafting regulations under the 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code. Its early work concentrated on royalty rates and on the terms of mining concessions. After 2007 it continued under the ISEZ administration. Its membership is confined to companies operating in the ISEZ, since no industrial mining takes place in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[2] ## Membership Members include: - the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] and its subsidiaries, the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]]; - coal mines around [[Tash-Kömür]] in the Lower Naryn District, which supply power stations and households; - limestone, gypsum and building-stone quarries and cement producers in the Talas and Chu valleys; - geological survey and engineering consultancies, several of them joint ventures with foreign firms; - equipment makers and suppliers, including the [[Nurzhan Heavy Machine Plant]].[1] The chamber is governed by a council elected by the members at an annual congress. Voting is weighted by the size of each member's contributions, which gives the antimony companies the largest influence. ## Activities #### Policy and legislation The chamber represents the industry in dealings with the ISEZ Ministry of Natural Resources and with committees of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] (*Mejlis*). It has lobbied for stable royalty rates, longer concession terms and faster refunds of export proceeds held in escrow by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]]. It has also commented on draft environmental, mine-safety and labor regulations.[2] It has called for exploration of the gold, tungsten and rare-earth deposits of the tribal mountains, which are closed by the clan assemblies' moratorium on open-pit mining. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] has rejected these proposals, and the chamber has no dealings with the tribal authorities.[3] #### Training and standards With the Faculty of Geology of [[Talas State University]] and the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]], the chamber funds scholarships and apprenticeships for mining engineers, surveyors and mine-safety inspectors. It publishes voluntary codes on tailings management and mine rescue, and works with the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]] on monitoring standards. Its members' rescue teams train together at the [[Chatkal Mountain Rescue Base]].[1] #### International contacts Because Irad's status is unresolved, the chamber cannot join most international industry federations. It promotes the ISEZ mining sector at investment conferences in [[wp:Almaty]], [[wp:Dubai]] and [[wp:London]], and since 2024 it has sought buyers for Iradi antimony outside China.[2] ## Criticism Environmental groups and some opposition deputies describe the chamber as dominated by the antimony industry, and they say that its voluntary codes are a substitute for stricter regulation. The chamber says that it supports enforcement of the existing environmental law.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy (2023). Annual Report and Members' Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Minerals Beyond the Line: Mining Policy and the Tribal Moratorium in Irad.' Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
### 4.77. Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium** (IPTC; Iradi: *Irad munay tranzit konsortsiumu*) is the company that owns and operates the [[Northern Export Feeder]], the 85-kilometer pipeline that carries Iradi crude oil from [[Nurzhan]] into the network of the Kazakh pipeline operator [[wp:KazTransOil]] near [[wp:Shymkent]]. It was formed in 1998, during the US territorial administration, by [[NurGaz]], which holds 51 percent, and foreign partners. The feeder opened in 2000, replacing the rail shipments to Shymkent on which Iradi oil exports had depended since the early 1990s. It is the only export pipeline for Iradi crude, and most of Irad's oil exports pass through it.[1][2] ## Background Under the [[wp:Soviet Union]], oil from the lower Chu basin was refined at Kobozev or sent by rail to refineries elsewhere in [[wp:Central Asia]]. After 1992 the territorial government and NurGaz sent surplus crude west to the refinery at Shymkent in [[wp:Kazakhstan]] in rail tank cars. Rail transport was costly and subject to delays at the border. As output recovered from its 1996 low of about 48,000 barrels per day (bpd), NurGaz sought a pipeline connection to the Kazakh trunk system.[3] ## History IPTC was registered in [[Talas]] in 1998 as a joint-stock company. NurGaz contributed its tank farm and rights of way, and the foreign shareholders provided most of the construction finance. The feeder was built in 1999–2000 and began commercial operation in November 2000, after which crude exports by rail largely ended.[2] Its original capacity was about 65,000 bpd. Because NurGaz's reported output continued to rise, IPTC added a third pumping station and a drag-reducing agent injection system in 2011–2012, which raised capacity to about 100,000 bpd.[1] During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, forces loyal to [[Erlan Toktarov]] concentrated on holding Nurzhan, the oil fields and the pipeline. Throughput fell during the fighting, but the line was not seriously damaged.[4] ## The Northern Export Feeder The feeder is built of 530-millimeter (20-inch) steel pipe, buried and insulated because the waxy crude of the Chu fields thickens in winter. It runs northwest from the NurGaz tank farm outside Nurzhan across the lower Chu plain to the Kazakh border. There it enters a metering station, from which the crude passes into the KazTransOil system to be refined at Shymkent or shipped north toward Russia.[2] The line has a head pumping station at the tank farm and two intermediate stations. It is monitored from a control room in Nurzhan through a supervisory control and data acquisition ([[wp:SCADA]]) system, with communications provided by [[Attelkom]]. Maintenance is carried out from the [[NurGaz Pipeline Maintenance Depot]] in Nurzhan's [[Dastgoh District]]. The feeder does not connect directly with the [[wp:Caspian Pipeline Consortium]], whose system begins far to the west. Irad has no southern export pipeline.[2] ## Throughput IPTC reported average throughput of about 86,000 bpd in 2023. This is consistent with NurGaz's reported output of about 120,000 bpd, less the roughly 31,000 bpd refined at [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]].[1] Independent analysts who work from KazTransOil intake records and observations of gas flaring estimate deliveries at about 55,000–70,000 bpd. This corresponds to their lower estimates of national production, 85,000–100,000 bpd. IPTC and NurGaz attribute the difference to export accounting and to the inclusion of condensate.[3] ## Ownership and governance NurGaz holds 51 percent of IPTC. The remaining 49 percent is held by foreign minority shareholders, whom the company does not name in its public statements. Business directories list a Cyprus-registered investment company and [[Talasbank]] among them.[5] The board is chaired by [[Emil Bekzatov]], vice president of NurGaz and son of its president, [[Kamran Bekzatov]]. The company employs about 300 people. IPTC earns a transit tariff on each barrel shipped, paid by NurGaz and the other shippers. Export proceeds and royalties are handled through escrow accounts supervised by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]].[5] ## Transit relations with Kazakhstan Kazakhstan does not recognize the ISEZ. Deliveries into the Kazakh system are made under commercial contracts between IPTC and the Kazakh side, and the border crossing of the line is covered by the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]].[4] The arrangement has generally worked without interruption. During disputes over water releases from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], however, Kazakh authorities have tightened pipeline scheduling and customs clearance, and the ISEZ has responded by trimming electricity exports. Analysts regard these episodes as limited and carefully managed, since both sides depend on the trade.[4] ## References
  1. ^ NurGaz (2024). Annual Review 2023: Upstream Operations and Export Volumes. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Counting Barrels: Iradi Oil Output and the Northern Export Feeder.' Vol. 28, pp. 101–122.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Pipelines, Water and Recognition: Irad's Northern Transit.' Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 64–88.
  5. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Energy Sector Directory. Talas.
### 4.78. Iradiya *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Iradiya** (legally **Irad Air Services**; Iradi: *Iradiya aba joldoru*) is a charter and air-cargo airline based in [[Talas]]. It was founded in 1997, during the US territorial administration, and operates from civil hangars beside [[Talas Air Base]], Irad's main airfield. It flies passenger charters to neighboring countries and the Middle East, a subsidized domestic service between Talas and [[Tash-Kömür]], cargo flights, and government, medical and contract flights. ISEZ officials and state media sometimes call it the national airline. It has no scheduled international routes, however, and Irad, whose sovereignty is unresolved, has no designated flag carrier.[1][2] ## History #### Founding and the territorial period The company was founded in 1997 by a group of Talas investors and former [[wp:Aeroflot]] pilots and engineers of the Soviet-era Iradi civil aviation directorate, with an American aviation services firm as a minority partner. Its first aircraft were two [[wp:Antonov An-26]] freighters and a [[wp:Let L-410 Turbolet|Let L-410]] commuter aircraft, used to carry contractors, spare parts and mail between Talas and [[wp:Almaty]]. Talas Air Base had been enlarged by US military engineers between 1993 and 1998, and the territorial government leased civil aprons and a hangar on its southern side to the new company.[2] As a carrier based in a US territory, Iradiya operated under the oversight of the [[wp:Federal Aviation Administration|US Federal Aviation Administration]]. Business grew after 2001, when the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]] made Talas a staging area for [[wp:Operation Enduring Freedom]]. Iradiya flew passengers and cargo for civilian contractors working at the base, and in 2003 it leased its first Western turboprops.[2] #### Since 2006 The end of the territorial administration in December 2006 also ended the company's US certification. In the spring of 2007, during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], Iradiya flew foreign workers and their families out of Talas to Almaty while the [[Popular Front of Irad]] besieged the city. After the war it was certified by the newly formed ISEZ Civil Aviation Directorate.[3] From 2009 the company replaced its Soviet-built passenger aircraft with leased ATR 72 turboprops. That year it began a government-subsidized service to Tash-Kömür, the only alternative to the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] when winter storms close the road. It added an [[wp:Embraer E-Jet family|Embraer E190]] regional jet in 2014 for longer charters. [[wp:Uzbekistan]] withheld landing permits for several weeks during the [[2018 Border Demarcation Clashes]]. Demand fell again in 2020, when charter flights were suspended for several months during the [[wp:COVID-19]] pandemic.[1] ## Operations #### Passenger charters Iradiya flies charters to Almaty, [[wp:Tashkent]], [[wp:Dubai]] and [[wp:Istanbul]], and seasonal holiday flights to resorts in [[wp:Turkey]]. Each flight requires landing and overflight permits from the countries concerned. None of the neighboring states recognizes the ISEZ, so permits are issued case by case, and the airline cannot sell scheduled services on international routes.[3] Most of its regional passengers are business travelers, oil and mining engineers, aid workers and families visiting relatives abroad. #### Domestic service The Talas–Tash-Kömür route, flown three times a week with ATR 72s and up to daily in winter, is subsidized by the ISEZ government. Tash-Kömür has a Soviet-era airstrip lengthened to about 1,900 meters in 2009. There is no scheduled service to [[Nurzhan]], which has no passenger airport and lies within a few hours' drive of Talas.[1] #### Cargo Cargo flights carry spare parts for the oil and mining industries, medicines, veterinary vaccines and express freight, much of it handled through the bonded terminal of the [[Talas Airport Logistics Hub]]. The airline also carries regional horse consignments for the [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]]; long-haul horse shipments use chartered foreign freighters.[4] #### Government and contract flights The ISEZ government charters the company's business jet for official travel and for foreign delegations. Iradiya holds a contract with the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] for observer rotations between Talas and the mission's sector headquarters at Tash-Kömür. Its [[wp:de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter|Twin Otters]] fly medical evacuations and deliveries to short mountain airstrips, including some on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], where flights require the consent of clan councils and are coordinated through UNMI.[3] The strips it uses include the Soviet-built [[Kerben Airstrip|Kerben]] and [[Kazarman Airstrip|Kazarman]] strips on the tribal side, the [[Toktogul Airstrip]] in the ISEZ and the [[Boz-Korgon Airstrip]], which serves the government compound. ## Fleet According to the company, its fleet in 2024 consisted of eight aircraft: - two ATR 72-500 turboprops in passenger configuration; - one ATR 72-500 converted to a freighter; - one Embraer E190 regional jet; - one Antonov An-26 freighter; - two de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters, used on short and unpaved strips; - one Bombardier Challenger 605 business jet.[1] Irad is not a member of the [[wp:International Civil Aviation Organization]] and has no aircraft nationality mark of its own. During the territorial period Iradiya's aircraft were on the US civil register. Since 2007 its leased aircraft have been registered in [[wp:Bermuda]] by their owners.[3] ## Corporate affairs Irad Air Services is a closed joint-stock company, and its shareholders are not published. Its general director is Daniyar Usenov. The company employed about 420 people in 2023.[4] Line maintenance is done in its hangars at Talas, and heavy maintenance and engine overhauls are contracted to facilities in Almaty. Jet fuel comes from the refinery of [[NurGaz]] by the pipeline that supplies the air base. ## Incidents In January 2012 an Iradiya An-26 freighter overran the runway at Tash-Kömür while landing in snow. The crew was unhurt, and the aircraft was repaired. The ISEZ Civil Aviation Directorate states that the airline has had no fatal accidents.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Irad Air Services (2024). Company Profile and Fleet List. Talas.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Territorial Department of Transportation: Civil Aviation Charters and Airport Concessions (1997–2006).
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Flying Without a Flag: Civil Aviation in an Unrecognized Territory.' Vol. 27, pp. 133–152.
  4. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Transport and Logistics Companies. Talas.
### 4.79. Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex** (Iradi: *Chatkal khimiyalyk-metallurgiyalyk kombinaty*) is an antimony smelter and chemical plant in the Sary-Bulak District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It lies at about 1,600 meters in the gorge of the [[Urmaral River|Urmaral]], the next valley west of the [[Sary-Bulak Gorge]], in the [[Talas Alatau]] foothills about 30 kilometers south-west of [[Talas]], and takes its name from the nearby Chatkal range. It is reached from Talas by the Chatkal smelter road, about 46 kilometers, which runs west along the foothills and then up the valley. It processes concentrate from the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] into antimony metal and antimony trioxide. It was commissioned in 1964 and has been a subsidiary of the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] since the privatization of 1994. With about 2,200 employees, it is one of the largest industrial employers in the ISEZ outside [[Nurzhan]].[1] ## History The smelter was built in 1961–1964 to process ore from the [[Sary-Bulak]] mine, which had opened in 1961, and was run with the mine as the Iradi Antimony Combine under the USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. Under the [[1971 Antimony Expansion Directive]], new roasting furnaces and a trioxide shop were added, and smelting capacity was increased about fourfold by the end of the 1970s.[2] [[Mikhail Chernov]] directed metallurgical production in the 1980s, and the chemist [[Svetlana Kozlova]] developed the plant's methods for refining bismuth from smelter residues. Production stopped for most of 1992, during the [[First Iradi Civil War]], and resumed at a reduced level under the territorial administration. In 1994 the complex was privatized as a joint-stock company controlled by the newly formed combine. It was shut again for several months during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, when rail links were cut.[1] ## Plant and processes The complex covers about 80 hectares and is linked to the Sary-Bulak mine and the Talas railway by a siding of about 6 kilometers, which leaves the Sary-Bulak spur in the Urmaral gorge, where the valley to Sary-Bulak branches off, and runs up the gorge floor to the processing mill; the smelter stands above the mill. Its main stages are: - **Volatilization roasting**, in which sulfide concentrate is heated in air so that the antimony escapes as trioxide fume. The fume is collected in bag filters as crude oxide. - **Reduction smelting** of the crude oxide with coke in reverberatory furnaces. The resulting crude metal is fire-refined with alkaline fluxes to remove arsenic and iron, and cast into ingots of about 99.65% antimony. - **Trioxide production**, in which refined metal is re-volatilized under controlled conditions to make high-purity antimony trioxide, the form used in flame retardants. - **By-product recovery**, in which residues and flue dust go to an adjoining plant that recovers bismuth, tellurium and other metals (see [[Chatkal Rare Earth Facility]]).[1] In 2023 the complex produced about 3,900 metric tons of antimony metal and about 2,600 metric tons of antimony trioxide, according to the combine.[3] Products are packed in steel drums and bulk bags. They travel by rail to the Talas railhead or by truck with [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]], and then north through [[wp:Kazakhstan]], mainly to China but also to buyers in [[wp:South Korea]], [[wp:Japan]] and Europe. ## Environment Antimony smelting releases sulfur dioxide and dust containing antimony and arsenic. Residents of villages near the complex have long complained of smoke and of damage to crops and orchards. A 2018 survey by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] found sulfur dioxide levels above international guidelines in two nearby villages in winter.[4] The company says that since 2016 it has installed sulfur dioxide scrubbers, designed under its chief engineer [[Artem Kozlov]], and electrostatic precipitators, and that emissions now meet ISEZ standards. Slag and residues are stored on site. Older tailings from Soviet processing are held in the [[Chatkal Tailings Repository]], which is inspected by the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]].[4] ## Works settlement A works settlement of about 6,000 people grew up beside the plant in the 1960s. It has company housing, a polyclinic, schools and a technical lyceum that trains metallurgical technicians. Many of the older residents are Russian-speaking specialists who came from other Soviet republics. The settlement depends almost entirely on the plant, and its population has fallen since the 1980s as younger residents have moved to Talas.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Mining and Metallurgy in the Talas Valley from Shelji to Sary-Bulak. Talas.
  3. ^ Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine (2024). Annual Report 2023. Talas.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2018). Air Quality in the Sary-Bulak Industrial Corridor. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.80. Nurzhan Agro-Industrial *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Nurzhan Agro-Industrial** (NAI; Iradi: *Nurzhan agro-önör jay kombinaty*) is an agribusiness company in [[Nurzhan]] that specializes in grain storage and trading, animal-feed milling, silage distribution and seed supply in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It was formed in 2008–2009 from privatized state grain and feed enterprises of the lower [[Chu River Basin]], and it supplies most of the compound feed used by the commercial feedlots of the ISEZ. Since 2009 it has been headed by [[Bekzat Toktarov]], the fifth son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]], and it is one of the family businesses that critics cite as evidence of the concentration of economic power in the ISEZ.[1][2] ## History In the Soviet period, grain from the Chu valley collective farms was delivered to a state procurement system that ran elevators and feed mills in Kobozev. These passed to territorial state enterprises after 1992 and were run down during the 1990s. Investment in the beef industry after the [[wp:North American Free Trade Agreement]] came into force in 1994, notably by [[wp:Sukarne]] and [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] near [[Talas]], increased demand for feed. Most of it was met by imports and by the feedlots' own mills.[2] In 2008 the ISEZ administration auctioned the state grain elevators and feed mills of the Chu District, and they were combined under NAI. Bekzat Toktarov, who had studied agricultural economics at the Tashkent Agrarian Institute, returned to Irad in 2009 to take charge of the company.[1] Opposition deputies and the newspaper *[[Irad Times]]* criticized the auction, saying that other bidders had been excluded. The ISEZ administration said the sale followed the privatization law.[3] In 2011 NAI opened a new compound-feed mill with Swiss-built equipment. ## Facilities NAI's main facilities are in the eastern industrial zone of Nurzhan, beside the railway to [[wp:Kazakhstan]]: - the **Nurzhan Central Grain Terminal**, a Soviet-era concrete elevator of about 120,000 metric tons capacity, modernized with temperature monitoring and new rail-loading equipment; - the **compound-feed mill**, which produces pelleted feed for cattle and sheep and mineral supplements, with a reported capacity of about 240,000 metric tons a year; - a **seed plant** that cleans and treats seed of winter wheat, barley and alfalfa for sale to farmers; - smaller receiving stations along the canals of the [[Chu Irrigation Canal System]].[1] ## Business NAI buys wheat, barley and feed corn from farms in the Chu and Talas valleys, many of them irrigated by the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]]. It imports grain from Kazakhstan by rail when the local harvest falls short. According to the company, it supplies about 70% of the commercial compound feed sold in the ISEZ, including feed for the feedlots that supply the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]].[1] It also holds import distribution rights for hybrid seed, fertilizer from Kazakhstan and veterinary medicines. NAI is one of the few ISEZ companies with regular trade across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. It buys barley and alfalfa from the tribal regions, and under a long-standing arrangement it supplies winter feed pellets to the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]] in part exchange for wool and hides.[2] The company is financed through working-capital loans from [[Talasbank]], and its grain is moved by rail and by the trucks of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]]. ## Criticism Farmers' groups have complained that NAI's dominance of grain storage allows it to set purchase prices, and economists have pointed to its share of the feed market as an example of family monopolies in the ISEZ. Leaked US intelligence reports cited the family's businesses as evidence of a neopatrimonial system (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[2][3] The company says that it pays market prices and that its investments have reduced Irad's dependence on imported feed. ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Vol. 30, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Irad Times (2009). 'Grain Auction Leaves Rivals Outside the Gate.' Talas.
### 4.81. Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* The **Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute** (Iradi: *Nurzhan politekhnikalyk instituty*; Russian: *Нуржанский политехнический институт*), known until 1993 as the **Kobozev Polytechnic Institute**, is a public technical university in [[Nurzhan]]. It is Irad's leading technical university and specializes in petroleum engineering. It was founded in 1951 as a petroleum institute to train engineers for the oil fields discovered in the lower Chu basin two years earlier. It took its present broad form in 1968, when faculties of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering were added. The institute trains much of the engineering staff of [[NurGaz]] and had about 9,200 students in 2023.[1] ## History #### Soviet period After the [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|discovery of oil near Kobozev in 1949]], the USSR Ministry of Higher Education founded the Kobozev Petroleum Institute in 1951 to train drilling, production and refining engineers for the *Iradneft* oil production association. Much of its first teaching staff came from the petroleum institutes of Baku and Grozny, and teaching was in Russian.[2] In 1968, as the city's engineering and metallurgical industries grew, the institute was reorganized as the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute. Faculties of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering and radio electronics were added to the petroleum faculties. By the 1980s the institute had about 7,000 students and was the main source of engineers for the industries of the Iradi SSR. Many of its graduates of this period belong to the Russian-educated urban generation known as the *Russos*, who filled the technical and managerial posts in the oil refinery, the antimony industry and the railways (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]).[3] #### Territorial period Teaching was suspended from February to October 1992, during the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] and the [[First Iradi Civil War]], in which Kobozev was the seat of the socialist government. In 1993 the institute was renamed after the city under the Toponymic Heritage Statute.[1] During the territorial administration the institute introduced English-language degree programs in petroleum engineering in 1996, with support from American universities funded by territorial education grants. It adopted a credit-hour system modeled on American practice in 1997. Iradi-language teaching was introduced in the general courses. NurGaz began to fund laboratories and scholarships in return for first claim on graduates. [[Aidar Maksat]], later Lieutenant Governor, graduated in civil engineering in 2002, and Askar Daniyarov, a founder of the [[Mor-Wave]] duo [[tüntolk]], studied radio electronics there in the 1990s.[4] #### Since 2007 Under the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), the institute has been governed by a statute of 2008. Under it the Governor appoints the rector from candidates nominated by the academic council. NurGaz and the Bekzatov Foundation of NurGaz president [[Kamran Bekzatov]] have paid for new laboratory buildings and fund scholarships, and NurGaz remains the institute's largest sponsor and the largest employer of its graduates.[3] Its language policy has been a recurring point of friction. The ISEZ administration has pressed for teaching in Iradi and English, while much of the senior staff still teaches in Russian, a practice defended by Russo members of the Nurzhan city council.[3] ## Organization The institute has six faculties: - **Petroleum and Mining Geology**, including geophysics and reservoir geology; - **Oil and Gas Field Development**, covering drilling and production engineering; - **Chemical Technology and Refining**; - **Mechanical Engineering and Pipeline Transport**; - **Civil and Hydraulic Engineering**; - **Energy, Automation and Radio Electronics**.[1] A military training department prepares reserve officers and trains technical officers for the [[Armed Forces of Irad|State Defense Corps]]. The institute also runs evening and continuing-education courses for NurGaz employees. In 2023 it had about 640 teaching staff. Instruction is in English in the petroleum programs, and in Iradi, Russian or English elsewhere, depending on the course. ## Campus The main building, a neoclassical structure completed in 1956, stands in the central district near Azatlık Prospect. Laboratory blocks built in the 2010s with NurGaz funding house drilling and well-control simulators, a core-analysis laboratory and a pilot refining unit. Students also train at a teaching well site in the NurGaz fields north of the city.[1] ## Research and partnerships Research concentrates on problems of the aging Chu basin fields and the industries around them: - enhanced oil recovery in mature, heavily water-flooded reservoirs; - the transport of waxy crude through insulated pipelines such as the [[Northern Export Feeder]] of the [[Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium]]; - refinery catalysis and the reduction of emissions in Nurzhan's industrial zone; - earthquake engineering for the seismically active [[wp:Tian Shan]] foothills; - the clean-up of oil-contaminated soil.[4] The institute published a history of the oil fields, *A History of the Chu Basin Oilfields*, in 2014. It cooperates with [[Talas State University]], and with the [[Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy]], which funds scholarships for mining engineers. ## Recognition Because Irad's international status is unresolved, recognition of the institute's degrees abroad depends on agreements between institutions and on the practice of employers. Russian and Kazakh oil companies generally accept them, and many graduates work in the oil industries of [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and Russia. The institute is not included in the major international university rankings.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2023). Prospectus and Annual Report 2023. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2014). A History of the Chu Basin Oilfields. Nurzhan.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Engineers of the Russos: Language, Oil and the Nurzhan Polytechnic.' Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 288–311.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2021). Higher Technical Education in Irad, 1951–2020. Talas.
### 4.82. Old Talas Citadel Quarter *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* The **Old Talas Citadel Quarter** (Iradi: *Köhne Diz*, "old citadel"), also called the Old City, is the historic core of [[Talas]], the *de jure* capital of Irad. It lies about 1 to 1.6 kilometers north-west and north of the central square, on the valley floor south of the [[Talas River]], and consists of three parts. On its western side is a citadel (*[[Diz (Architecture)|diz]]*) built by the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] in the 1820s on the mound of an older fortress. East of it are dense residential quarters on the site of the medieval town, a mahalla of narrow, crooked lanes (*[[Kucheh (Urban Term)|kucheh]]*) and courtyard houses, entered from the north by the [[Temir-Kapka Gate]] and from the south by the Kalan Darwaza, and on its eastern edge, next to the Kök-Bel road, is the covered market of [[Bazar-i Kalan]]. The garden quarter of [[Shahr-i Kabud]] lies to the north, and the Soviet center of the city to the south-east. A protected zone of about 64 hectares, with about 11,000 residents, was created under a city ordinance of 1997. The quarter is the setting of the annual [[Diz Film Festival]] and the main center of traditional crafts in the capital.[1][2] ## History #### Medieval town Excavations in the quarter since the 1960s have found occupation layers running from about the 6th to the 13th century. Iradi historiography identifies the site with the medieval [[wp:Silk Road]] town known in Arabic sources as [[wp:Taraz]] and in Chinese sources as Daluosi, near which the [[Battle of Talas]] was fought in 751.[2] Under the Samanids and the [[wp:Kara-Khanid Khanate|Kara-Khanids]] the town had a citadel, a walled inner town (*shahristan*) and suburbs.[3] Archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of an 11th-century minaret and a Christian cemetery with gravestones inscribed in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] script, evidence of the town's mixed Muslim and Christian population. Coins struck from silver mined at [[Shelji]], in the upper valley, are common finds.[2] The town declined after the Mongol conquest of 1220 and the wars of the 14th century, and by the 16th century it had shrunk to a small settlement around the old mound. #### Kokand fortress Kokand's ties with the Iradi Christians of the region go back to the accord of 1727, remembered as the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]], under which Khan Abd al-Rahim Biy granted them religious tolerance, but the khanate's authority reached the Talas valley itself only under Alim and Umar (1798–1822).[2] In the 1820s, when the khanate strengthened its northern strongholds, it built a fortress of mud and fired brick on the mound to guard the trade routes of the valley, and a bazaar and residential quarters grew up again on the medieval town site. #### Russian and Soviet periods Russian troops occupied the Talas valley in the 1860s, and the citadel became a Russian garrison post. A new town with a grid of streets was laid out to the east, and it later became the core of the Soviet center of Talas.[4] During the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916, Iradi horsemen attacked the garrison before being driven into the mountains. In the Soviet period the citadel was used as a military depot. The quarter's mosque and church were closed in the 1930s, and in 1936 a section of the citadel's outer wall was demolished to build a boulevard. In 1965 the citadel was handed over to a museum of local history, and archaeologists of the Academy of Sciences of the Iradi SSR excavated parts of the medieval town in the 1960s and 1970s.[2] Many mudbrick houses were damaged by the [[Suusamyr]] earthquake of August 1992. #### Since 1992 The mosque and the church reopened in 1992. In 1997, during the US territorial administration, the Talas city council adopted the Historic Districts Ordinance. It created the protected zone, barred the demolition of listed buildings and limited new construction to two stories. As a US territory, Irad was eligible for grants from the US Historic Preservation Fund, which paid for a survey of the quarter and, between 1999 and 2004, for the restoration of the citadel gate and part of the walls.[1] Since 2007 tourism and redevelopment have increased pressure on the quarter. Heritage groups and the *[[Talas Herald]]* have criticized permits for hotels and commercial buildings on the edges of the protected zone, and the replacement of old houses with concrete buildings inside it. The city government says that new projects comply with the ordinance.[5] Because Irad is not a State Party to the World Heritage Convention, the quarter cannot be nominated for the [[wp:World Heritage Site|World Heritage List]]. ## Layout and landmarks The quarter follows the plan of many Central Asian towns, with a citadel, an inner town and a bazaar. Its main buildings are: - **The citadel (*Köhne Diz*)**, on a mound about 14 meters high. Its walls, with corner towers, enclose the former residence of the Kokand governors, now the city museum, and the courtyards used for festival screenings and concerts. - **The Kalan Darwaza**, the gate of the citadel's southern outer enclosure and the southern entrance to the quarter, a pointed brick arch flanked by towers, rebuilt in the 1820s and restored in 2002 (see [[Darwaza (Architecture)]]). - **[[Bazar-i Kalan]]**, the covered central market, rebuilt in the 1950s on the site of the old bazaar, with stalls selling produce, spices, dried fruit, meat, felt rugs and household goods. - **The Coppersmiths' Row** (*Misgaron*), a vaulted 19th-century trading passage beside the market, where metalworkers make and sell copper vessels, tea sets and silver-mounted horse tack. - **The Juma Mosque**, a Friday mosque of the 1890s with a columned wooden porch, which serves the city's Muslim community. - **The Church of St. Yuhanna**, a Syro-Iradi parish church built in 1908, closed in 1937 and reconsecrated in 1992. - **The excavation site** of the medieval minaret and Christian cemetery, protected under a shelter since 2006.[1][2] The residential quarters consist of single-story courtyard houses (*hovli*) of mudbrick and timber, with high blank walls facing the lanes and carved walnut porches (*ayvan*) around inner courtyards watered by small channels (*aryk*). ## Crafts and economy The quarter is the main center in Talas for traditional crafts, many of them practiced by the same families for several generations. Saddlers make wooden saddles with chased silver fittings (see [[Eerchilik (Saddlery)]]), and other workshops produce riding whips (*[[Kamcha (Horsewhip)|kamcha]]*), boots and bridles. Craftsmen also make the three-stringed [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] from apricot and walnut wood, and dealers sell felt rugs (*[[Shyrdak (Iradi Craft)|shyrdak]]*). The saddler [[Tolonbek Sydykov]], whose saddles have been presented as state gifts, works in the quarter.[5] Teahouses (*chaikhana*), guesthouses and craft shops serve visitors, and tourism has become the main source of income for many households. ## Population The quarter's residents are mainly Iradi, with long-established Uzbek-speaking families in the lanes around the bazaar, a legacy of the merchant community of the Kokand period. Iradi linguists link the Uzbek-derived vocabulary of urban Iradi to this kind of mixed bazaar quarter.[6] Many younger residents have moved to newer districts, and some houses are now let to students and to migrants from the countryside. ## Culture The [[Diz Film Festival]] of independent Central Asian cinema is held each year in the citadel courtyards and the squares of the quarter. Folk musicians perform in the citadel and in the teahouses on summer evenings, and the quarter is a starting point for celebrations on Irad Day, 11 March.[5] ## See also - [[Iradi Telegraph Office]] ## References
  1. ^ City of Talas (2017). Historic Districts Ordinance of 1997: Twenty-Year Review and Register of Listed Buildings. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Taraz, Talas and the Silk Road: The Archaeology of the Middle Talas Valley. Talas.
  3. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (3rd ed.). Luzac & Co., London, pp. 182–199.
  4. ^ Pierce, Richard A. (1960). Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study in Colonial Rule. University of California Press.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (2022). 'Concrete in the Kucheh: Can the Old City Survive Its Own Success?' Talas.
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). The Urban Speech of Talas: Uzbek and Persian Elements in Iradi. Talas.
### 4.83. Sary-Bulak Antimony Works *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Sary-Bulak Antimony Works** (SBAW; Iradi: *Sary-Bulak Surma Kombinaty*) is an antimony mining company in the [[Sary-Bulak Gorge]] in the foothills of the [[Talas Alatau]], at about 1,650 m and about 20 km south-south-west of [[Talas]] in the Sary-Bulak District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It operates an underground stibnite mine and a flotation mill that turns the ore into antimony concentrate. Most of the concentrate is smelted at the nearby [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]], and the rest is exported by rail through [[wp:Kazakhstan]] to China.[1][2] The works were founded in 1961 as a Soviet state enterprise and expanded in the 1970s, when the Iradi SSR became one of the main antimony producers in the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. SBAW was privatized in 1994 and is now the mining arm of the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]], which holds a controlling stake. With about 2,300 employees, it is the largest employer in Sary-Bulak District. Irad is estimated to hold about 7 percent of world antimony reserves, most of them in the [[Sary-Bulak]] and Chatkal ore field (see [[Antimony Mining in Irad]]).[1][3] ## History #### Soviet period (1950s–1991) Geologists of the republican geological survey mapped stibnite-bearing quartz veins in the Sary-Bulak gorge in the early 1950s, during a survey of the mineral resources of the Talas Alatau. Construction of the mine began in 1958. The first shaft, Shaft No. 1 ("Pioneer"), was commissioned in 1961, when the works were formally established under the Soviet Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. From 1964 its concentrate went by rail to the new smelter at Chatkal.[3] Under the [[1971 Antimony Expansion Directive]], a second shaft ("Severny") was sunk and the flotation mill was enlarged. By the late 1970s the Sary-Bulak and Chatkal plants together supplied a large share of the Soviet Union's antimony, used in lead-acid batteries, flame retardants and alloys for munitions. Many of the first engineers and miners came from Russia and [[wp:Ukraine]]. [[Iradis]] from the villages of the Talas valley made up a growing share of the workforce from the 1970s onward.[3] #### Crisis and privatization (1991–2006) The breakup of the Soviet Union cut the works off from their customers and suppliers. Production stopped for most of 1992. According to the company's own history, power cuts during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] halted the dewatering pumps, and the lower levels of Shaft No. 2 flooded.[4] In 1994 the territorial administration privatized SBAW as a joint-stock company. A controlling stake passed to the holding company that became the Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine, and employees received a minority of the shares, most of which they later sold. The flooded levels were pumped out between 1995 and 1997, and the mine was re-equipped with Western loaders and drilling rigs, financed partly by prepayment contracts with Chinese buyers. The Hydrocarbon and Mining Code of 1995 set the royalty regime. After long disputes, the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] adopted formulas that divided antimony revenue between infrastructure in Talas and rural schools.[4][5] Unpaid wages led to a three-week miners' strike in the spring of 1998. It ended when the company agreed to pay part of wages in US dollars, a practice that became general in the following years.[6] #### Since 2007 The fighting of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] did not reach the works, which came under the control of the DPI emergency administration in the summer of 2007. The [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] left the mine and the Chatkal smelter in the ISEZ. The ridges and upper gorge above the mine lie close to the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and the high Talas Alatau beyond them is on the tribal side.[4] World antimony prices rose sharply after China restricted its own exports of the metal in 2024. The company has since said that it will deepen the Central incline and reopen worked-out levels that had been uneconomic at lower prices.[2] ## Geology The deposit lies along a fault zone in [[wp:Paleozoic]] limestone and shale, where stibnite (antimony sulfide, Sb₂S₃) occurs in quartz veins and breccia bodies. Associated minerals include cinnabar, fluorite and arsenic minerals, with traces of gold.[3] Soviet records gave grades of 5 to 7 percent antimony in the richest veins. The company now reports an average head grade of about 3 percent, a decline typical of a mine that has worked its best ore first.[2] No independent estimate of the deposit's remaining reserves has been published. The figure of about 7 percent of world reserves comes from estimates for Irad as a whole.[1] ## Operations - **Mining.** Ore is reached through Shaft No. 1 ("Pioneer", 1961), Shaft No. 2 ("Severny", 1970s) and the "Central" incline, a truck decline driven in the early 2000s. Working levels reach about 750 m below the surface. The veins are worked by cut-and-fill and sublevel stoping, and ore is hoisted to the surface in skips.[4] - **Processing.** The mill crushes and grinds the ore, and froth flotation separates the stibnite into a concentrate of 55 to 60 percent antimony. The company reports throughput of about 350,000 tonnes of ore a year.[2] - **Shipment.** Most concentrate goes by road and rail to the Chatkal smelter, also in Sary-Bulak District, where it is made into antimony metal and antimony trioxide. The rest is sold as concentrate and shipped by rail through Kazakhstan to buyers in China.[1] - **Finance.** Export sales are paid into escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]] under the supervision of the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], which deducts royalties before releasing the proceeds. The company publishes production figures but not full audited accounts.[2] ## Workforce and settlement Most employees live in the workers' settlement beside the mine, known locally as Rudnik ("the mine"), which has about 5,000 inhabitants. Its five-story housing blocks, school, polyclinic and house of culture date mainly from the 1960s and 1970s. The settlement has a Syro-Iradi parish church, opened in 1995, and a Russian Orthodox chapel. Older miners are largely Russian-speaking, while younger workers come mostly from Iradi villages in the Talas valley and commute by company bus.[6] ## Safety and environment Soviet-era tailings are stored in impoundments in the lower gorge. The [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]] samples antimony and arsenic downstream of the works, and the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]] oversees discharges.[7] Clan councils on the tribal side of the line have objected to a proposed new tailings dam in the upper gorge. They argue that it would endanger streams used by herders in summer, and the company has not built it.[4] In February 2012 a rockfall on a lower level of Shaft No. 2 killed four miners. An inspectorate report blamed inadequate ground support, and the company replaced its shift management in the shaft.[8] ## References
  1. ^ US Geological Survey (2024). Mineral Commodity Summaries: Antimony. National Minerals Information Center, Reston, VA, pp. 28–29.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure, and Trade Directory. Talas.
  3. ^ Ministry of Geology of the Iradi SSR (1979). Mineral Resources of the Talas Alatau. Kobozev.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Privatizing the Soviet Inheritance: Mining and Metals in Territorial Irad.' Vol. 26, Iss. 2, pp. 87–112.
  5. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1995). Hydrocarbon and Mining Code. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  6. ^ Asanbaeva, Nurgul (2016). Miners of the Talas Alatau: Labor and Community at Sary-Bulak, 1961–2011. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  7. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (16 February 2012). 'Four miners killed in Sary-Bulak rockfall.' Talas.
### 4.84. St. Luka Community Health Mission *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* The **St. Luka Community Health Mission** (Iradi: *Iyık Luka El Darigerlik Missiyasy*) is a Catholic medical charity of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], founded in 1994 and based in [[Talas]]. It runs St. Luka Hospital, a 120-bed general hospital in Talas, the free [[St. Luka Clinic]] in the south of the city, and mobile clinics that travel to herding settlements in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). It is one of the few organizations that works regularly on both sides of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and in many highland valleys its mobile teams are the main source of primary care.[1][2] ## History The mission was set up in 1994 by the Eparchy of Talas, during the collapse of the Soviet-era health system that followed the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. The siege of 1992 had damaged hospitals in Talas, medicines were scarce, and many Russian-speaking doctors had left for Russia.[2] Its first funds came from Catholic relief agencies abroad and from American church donors. According to the mission, it was also among the Christian charities in Irad that received proceeds from the 1993 compilation album [[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|*Swift Hooves*]].[3] St. Luka Hospital opened in 1994 in a former trade-union polyclinic. Its first staff were sisters of the [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]], whose communities already ran rural dispensaries, together with volunteer physicians and nurses from Talas and abroad.[3] The first mobile team began visiting summer pastures in the [[Talas Alatau]] in 1996, and a maternity ward opened in 2001. During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, while the [[Popular Front of Irad]] was besieging Talas from April to June, the hospital treated wounded civilians and fighters from all sides.[4] After the ceasefire, the mission's mobile teams were among the first civilian services to be allowed across the new demarcation line. Since 2008 the mission has belonged to the humanitarian coordination forum chaired by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI).[5] ## Services - **St. Luka Hospital**, Talas: general medicine, surgery, obstetrics and pediatrics, with an outpatient department. Patients who can afford it pay modest fees, and the poor are treated free of charge. - **[[St. Luka Clinic]]**: a free outpatient and dental clinic in southern Talas for low-income residents. - **Mountain mobile clinics**: teams in four-wheel-drive vehicles and, on the higher pastures, with pack horses. They carry portable ultrasound scanners, solar-powered vaccine refrigerators and basic surgical kits, and visit herding families in their summer yurts (*boz üy*) in the Talas Alatau, on the [[Aksay Plateau]] and in the Chatkal valleys. - **Public health programs**: childhood immunization, antenatal care, tuberculosis screening and child nutrition. - **Harm reduction**: a needle exchange and a methadone maintenance program in [[Tash-Kömür]] and naloxone distribution in [[Nurzhan]], the only substantial programmes of their kind in Irad (see [[Drug use in Irad]]). The mission reported about 46,000 outpatient consultations in 2023, about two-fifths of them in the ATR.[1] ## Work in the tribal regions To cross the Qara-Chik line, the mobile teams need tribal travel permits from the clan councils as well as clearance at ISEZ checkpoints. Seasonal corridors for the teams, for vaccines and for medical supplies are negotiated each spring through the UNMI coordination forum.[5] The mission treats patients of all faiths, including Kyrgyz and Kazakh Muslim herders, and in the tribal regions it works through local health posts and village elders. According to its annual reports, maternal and infant health indicators in the highland valleys remain well below those of the ISEZ, and many settlements have no year-round road access.[1] Both administrations allow the mission to work but have at times restricted it. Tribal elders have objected to ISEZ checkpoint delays affecting its convoys, while ISEZ officials have questioned whether supplies taken across the line reach their intended recipients. The mission says it does not take sides and reports only on health needs.[5] ## Organization and funding The mission is governed by a board appointed by the Bishop of Talas and employs about 380 staff, most of them Iradi doctors, nurses and drivers. It is funded by church collections, Catholic and [[wp:Protestantism|Protestant]] agencies abroad, donations from [[Iradi Americans]] and hospital fees. It has no regular funding from the ISEZ government, although ISEZ health authorities count its mobile teams in their coverage figures for the rural districts.[1][2] The hospital refers complex surgical and obstetric cases to the [[Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex]], with which it also runs a joint tuberculosis screening program. ## References
  1. ^ St. Luka Community Health Mission (2023). Annual Report: Rural Health Services in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas.
  2. ^ World Health Organization (2022). Health Systems and Rural Access in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Geneva, pp. 78–95.
  3. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Charitable Foundations and Hospital Registers, 1994–2022. Iyık Janyl.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (30 May 2007). 'Hospitals full as siege tightens.' Talas.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Humanitarian Access across the Qara-Chik Line: Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
### 4.85. Sukarne Irad Complex *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Sukarne Irad Complex** is a cattle feedlot, beef-processing plant and cold store in the western industrial corridor of [[Talas]], operated by the Mexican meat company [[wp:Sukarne|SuKarne]]. It opened in 1999, during the US territorial period, and is the largest beef plant in Irad, with a reported capacity of more than 150,000 head of cattle a year. At its opening the company described it as the largest modern feedlot and packing complex in [[wp:Eurasia]].[1][2] The plant's arrival brought Mexican managers, technicians and workers to Talas, and the Mexican community of more than 10,000 people in and around the city grew from it.[3] ## History Irad's status as a US territory from 1992 gave its exports duty-free access to the US market, and after the [[wp:North American Free Trade Agreement]] took effect in 1994, Mexican as well as American agribusiness capital began to look at the territory. Irad was not a party to NAFTA, but Iradi commentators often call the investment of this period "NAFTA-era".[1] The [[1998 Talas Agribusiness Accord]] and the creation of the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]] that year provided land, rail access and customs arrangements for foreign meatpackers. SuKarne built the complex in 1998–99 west of the city, on the land of a former Soviet state fattening complex founded during the [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands campaign]], whose maize and alfalfa base and herdsmen were among the reasons for the choice of site, and slaughtering began in 1999. [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] opened its own plant nearby (see [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]]).[2] Operations were interrupted during the fighting around Talas in 2007, when road links to the city were cut, and resumed later that year after the ceasefire.[4] ## Facilities The complex covers about 90 hectares. Its main parts are: - the feedlot (see [[Sukarne Feedlot Complex]]), with a standing capacity of about 50,000 head, where cattle are finished on rations of corn silage, barley and protein meal, part of which is supplied by [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]]; - the processing plant, with slaughter, chilling and boning halls that produce chilled and frozen boxed beef, and a separate halal-certified line for exports to Muslim-majority markets; - an ammonia-refrigerated cold store with space for about 8,000 tonnes of boxed beef; - an accredited testing laboratory (see [[Sukarne Quality Control Labs]]).[2] The complex handles only cattle. A 1996 act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] banned the commercial slaughter of horses and the sale of horsemeat, in line with the strong Iradi aversion to eating horses (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]).[5] ## Cattle supply and markets Feeder cattle come from farms in the Talas and Chu valleys and from pastoralists in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], who bring animals across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] at designated crossing corridors, often through the [[Talas Central Cattle Mart]]. Payments are cleared through [[Talasbank]].[1] The plant sells boxed beef in Irad and exports it to [[wp:Kazakhstan]], Russia and the Middle East. Export proceeds are paid into escrow accounts audited by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]].[2] ## Workforce and the Mexican community The complex employs about 1,800 people, most of them [[Iradis]].[2] The first Mexican employees were managers, veterinarians and maintenance engineers. They were followed by their families and by Mexican workers recruited for the plant and for other agribusinesses in the export zone. The community (see [[Mexicans in Irad]]) is centered in [[Semiz]], a district of the city's western corridor that grew from the Soviet settlement of Otkormochny beside the old fattening complex; residents call it *la Colonia* and other Iradis often *Meksikanka*, where there are Mexican shops and restaurants, a Spanish-language Mass on Sundays and a Day of the Dead observance each November. Many families have now lived in Talas for two generations, and marriages between Mexicans and Iradis are common.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Beef Processing Logistics in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (12 October 2019). 'Twenty years of la Colonia.' Talas.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (18 September 2007). 'Beef plants reopen as roads clear.' Talas.
  5. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1996). Act on the Prohibition of Commercial Equine Slaughter. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  6. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2019). Food, Faith and Boundaries: The Horsemeat Taboo in Iradi Society. Talas State University Press.
### 4.86. Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* The **Council of Hierarchs of the Syro-Iradi Church** (Iradi: *Iradi Yepiskopter Kengeshi*; Latin: *Consilium Hierarcharum Ecclesiae Syro-Iradiensis*), commonly called **the Synod** (*Sinod*), is the assembly of the bishops of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. It is presided over by the Metropolitan Archbishop of [[Iyık Janyl]], currently [[Mar Ephrem]], and meets twice a year in the chapter house beside the [[Church of St. Janyl]]. The council proposes candidates for bishop to the Pope, approves liturgical texts, oversees the training of clergy and issues joint pastoral letters, which are among the church's main statements on public affairs in Irad.[1][2] ## Canonical status The Syro-Iradi Church is an Eastern Catholic church *sui iuris* in communion with Rome and is governed by the [[wp:Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches|Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches]]. In the code's terms it is a metropolitan church, headed by a metropolitan archbishop, whose bishops form a council of hierarchs rather than the synod of a patriarchal or major archiepiscopal church. Its official name has been the Council of Hierarchs since the code took effect in 1991; earlier documents call it the Episcopal Synod, and clergy and faithful still call it "the Synod", after the synods of the Church of the East. Like other councils of hierarchs, it can make laws for the church, which must be communicated to the [[wp:Holy See]] before they take effect. It does not elect bishops itself but proposes lists of at least three candidates (*terna*), from which the Pope appoints.[1] ## History Church historians trace the council's tradition to the medieval assemblies of the East Syriac clergy of the region, such as the [[Nestorian Synod of Navekat (1180)]]. Its modern form dates from the union with Rome in 1931 under the bull *Orientalis Stella*, negotiated by Bishop [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]].[2] Soviet authorities closed the churches of Iyık Janyl, and senior clergy were arrested and executed in [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|the purges of 1937]]. For the rest of the Soviet period the bishops could not meet openly, and according to church accounts the surviving clergy consulted in secret.[2] The synod met openly in 1993, after the territorial administration guaranteed freedom of religion and the protection of church property under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]]. In its first decade it approved vernacular liturgical texts in Latin-script Iradi, following Father [[Luka Ayyubov]]'s 1994 translation of the [[wp:New Testament]]. It also pressed the territorial government for the return of church buildings confiscated in the Soviet period, and supported the US nomination of the Church of St. Janyl, inscribed as a [[wp:World Heritage Site|UNESCO World Heritage Site]] in 2004.[2] In April 2007, during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], the synod issued a pastoral letter calling for a ceasefire and for the return of communal pastures that had been privatized. Since then the church has taken part in civic mediation between the communities.[3] Mar Ephrem became archbishop in 2012. ## Membership and procedure The voting members are the archbishop of the Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl and the bishops of the suffragan eparchies of [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and the highland parishes of the Chatkal basin, together with any auxiliary bishops. The rector of the [[Cathedral Seminary of Iyık Janyl|St. Ephrem Major Seminary]] and the superior of the [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]] attend as advisers without a vote.[1] The spring session is held after Easter, and the autumn session in September, after the pilgrimage season of the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on 24 August. Each session ends with a published communiqué. The Chatkal eparchy includes parishes on both sides of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], so the council is one of the few bodies whose members work regularly in both the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. ## Functions - **Appointment of bishops.** The synod draws up the *terna* for vacant sees and sends it to the Dicastery for the [[wp:Dicastery for the Eastern Churches|Eastern Churches in Rome]]. - **Liturgy.** It regulates the celebration of the [[wp:Liturgy of Addai and Mari|East Syriac Liturgy of Addai and Mari]] in Iradi and [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]] (see [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]]), and approves translations and liturgical books. - **Clergy training.** It sets the curriculum of the St. Ephrem Major Seminary in Iyık Janyl. - **Pastoral letters.** Its joint letters have addressed communal pasture rights, the environmental effects of mining, emigration, and marriage and family life, including the 2014 letter *On the Free Consent of Spouses*, which condemned bride kidnapping (see [[Marriage in Irad]]).[2] ## Relations with the state Relations with the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] administration have been strained at times over school curricula and the taxation of church property. In these disputes the council has cited the guarantees of religious freedom dating from the territorial period.[3] In October 2023 it appealed for restraint by both the police and protesters during the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas|student protests in Talas]].[4] Its autumn communiqué of 2024, issued after Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] withdrew from public view, called for "constitutional order and truthful public information". DPI officials did not comment publicly.[5] A 2021 survey by the Department of Sociology at [[Talas State University]] found the church to be the most trusted public institution among respondents in the ISEZ.[6] ## References
  1. ^ Libreria Editrice Vaticana (2023). Annuario Pontificio. Vatican City, pp. 1042–1045.
  2. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Synodal Decrees and Pastoral Letters, 1993–2023. Iyık Janyl.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2016). 'Altar and Line: The Syro-Iradi Church since the Bishkek Ceasefire.' Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 44–67.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (14 October 2023). 'Church appeals for restraint on Central Square.' Talas.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (22 September 2024). 'Bishops call for "truthful public information".' Talas.
  6. ^ Department of Sociology, Talas State University (2021). Trust in Public Institutions in the Irad Special Economic Zone: Survey Report. Talas.
### 4.87. Talas Agribusiness Export Zone *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Talas Agribusiness Export Zone** (TAEZ; Iradi: *Talas Agro-Öndürüsh Eksport Zonasy*) is a bonded industrial park for food processing and export on the western edge of [[Talas]], covering about 350 hectares. It was established in 1998, during the US territorial period, under the [[1998 Talas Agribusiness Accord]], to attract foreign meatpackers and grain traders to the [[Talas River]] valley. Its tenants include the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and the [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]], cold stores, grain elevators and a refrigerated rail terminal.[1] It should not be confused with the [[Talas Free Economic Trade Zone]], a separate bonded park for light manufacturing. ## History Duty-free access to the US market, which Irad enjoyed as a territory, drew foreign agribusiness interest in the mid-1990s. The 1998 accord and an act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] set up the zone on former collective-farm land between the city and the airfield that became [[Talas Air Base]]. Its roads, rail sidings and power lines were paid for with territorial bonds.[2] About 220 hectares of the land came from two former collective farms. Some of their members later said that the compensation, paid partly in som, was too low.[3] [[wp:Sukarne|SuKarne]] began slaughtering in 1999, and Conagra's plant followed. In 2007 the emergency decrees that created the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) confirmed the zone's customs and tax regime. Analysts read this as one of several early signals to foreign investors that their contracts would be honored.[1] The refrigerated rail terminal was enlarged in 2014. ## Facilities - **Rail terminal**: sidings off the Talas branch of the railway, by which trains run west to the Talas North Terminal and into [[wp:Kazakhstan]], with gantry cranes, power points for refrigerated containers and bulk grain loading. - **Meatpacking cluster**: the Sukarne feedlot and processing complex, the [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] beef plant and the [[Talas Cold Chain Logistics Hub]]. - **Grain storage**: elevators and warehouses for wheat, barley and feed grain. - **Laboratories**: veterinary and food-safety laboratories, including the [[Sukarne Quality Control Labs]], which certify exports for foreign markets.[1] ## Administration and customs The zone is run by an administration under the ISEZ Ministry of Economy. Livestock, feed and packaging brought into the zone pay no import duty, and processed exports are cleared through customs inside the zone. Most cargo leaves by rail through Kazakhstan under bonded transit. Export proceeds are paid into escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]] and audited by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]].[2] ## Economic role According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad, the zone provides about 6,000 direct jobs and exported processed food worth about $310 million in 2023, most of it beef.[1] Packaging plants, pallet makers and truck workshops, including depots of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]], have grown up around its perimeter. Farmers' associations in the Talas valley have complained that tenants' duty-free imports of feed grain undercut local growers. The zone administration replies that local suppliers provide most of the feedlots' forage.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1998). Talas Agribusiness Export Zone Act. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (6 March 2018). 'Twenty years on, farmers count the cost of the export zone.' Talas.
### 4.88. Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* The **Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate** (Iradi: *Talas Öröönü Ayyl Charba Bashkarmasy*) is the agency of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) responsible for farming and irrigation in the valley of the [[Talas River]]. It answers to the ISEZ Ministry of Economy and covers Talas District, Kara-Buura District and the farmland within the city of [[Talas]]. Its main tasks are maintaining irrigation canals and scheduling water deliveries, running agricultural extension services, distributing subsidized seed and fertilizer, and collecting crop statistics. Its headquarters are in Talas, and it has extension offices in the district centers.[1] ## History In the Soviet period, farming in the Talas valley was organized in collective and state farms under the regional agricultural administration. Irrigation was expanded after the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], when the river's flow was divided equally between the Iradi SSR and the [[wp:Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazakh SSR]] downstream, a rule both sides still cite.[2] After 1992 the collective farms were broken up, and under the territorial land reform of 1994 their land passed to household and family farms and to private companies. The directorate was established in 1995 to take over the irrigation and extension functions of the Soviet administration. In the late 1990s, advisers from American agricultural universities helped it set up an extension service and water users' associations, which collect irrigation fees and maintain the smaller canals.[1] Since 2007 it has operated under the ISEZ administration. ## Irrigation According to the directorate, about 110,000 hectares of the valley are irrigated, through main canals that take water from the Talas and its tributaries and through a dense network of smaller ditches (*aryk*).[1] The directorate maintains the main canals and headworks and agrees seasonal delivery schedules with the water users' associations. It works with the [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]], whose gauges supply the flow data, and with the [[Talas Municipal Water Authority]], which draws part of the city's supply from the same basin. Several of the rivers that feed the valley rise on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The directorate therefore depends on informal arrangements with clan councils over headwater use, which are usually settled by the councils and the district authorities directly.[2] The lower valley in Kara-Buura District suffers from waterlogging and soil salinization caused by losses from unlined canals and poor drainage. Since the 2010s the directorate has subsidized laser leveling of fields and drip irrigation for orchards. In dry summers it imposes rotation schedules under which canals are opened to each area in turn.[1] ## Crops and extension The main crops are wheat, barley, sugar beet, potatoes and common beans. Beans have become the valley's best-known export crop and are sold mainly to [[wp:Turkey]].[3] Alfalfa and fodder maize are grown for the feedlots of the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]], and apple and apricot orchards line the foothills. Extension officers run soil-testing clinics and demonstration plots, advise on integrated pest management, and help farm cooperatives meet the sanitary standards required by meatpackers. The directorate also manages reserves of certified seed and fertilizer, which it sells to farmers at subsidized prices.[1] ## Criticism Farmers' associations have criticized the directorate for slow canal repairs and for favoring large commercial farms when water is scarce, and the water users' associations vary widely in how well they are run.[3] Analysts also point out that its budget depends on ISEZ allocations that are not published in detail. ## References
  1. ^ Ministry of Economy of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2023). Agricultural Statistics of the Talas Basin, 2022. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (9 August 2022). 'Bean growers count the cost of a dry summer.' Talas.
### 4.89. Talas Municipal Water Authority *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Talas Municipal Water Authority** (Iradi: *Talas Shaarlyk Suu Bashkarmasy*) is the public utility that supplies drinking water and runs the sewerage system of [[Talas]]. It serves the city's population of about 1.1 million and parts of the surrounding suburbs, and answers to the city administration, headed by a mayor appointed by the Governor, and to the elected city council. Most of its water is pumped from wellfields in the alluvial fan south of the city. The rest is drawn from the [[Talas River]] and treated at the [[Talas Municipal Water Treatment Works]].[1] ## History Talas received its first piped water supply in the 1930s, from springs and shallow wells in the foothills. The southern wellfields were developed in the 1960s and 1970s as the city grew, and the central sewage treatment plant was built in 1974.[2] During the siege of Talas from April 1992, in the [[First Iradi Civil War]], shelling and power cuts stopped the pumping stations and damaged the main from the southern wellfields. By late May much of the city had no piped water, and residents drew water from irrigation canals (*aryk*) and hand pumps. Supply was restored during the summer of 1992 by city crews working with US military engineers.[3] The authority was set up as a municipal utility in 1995, during the territorial period, taking over from the Soviet-era municipal waterworks. US federal grants and territorial bonds paid for new pumps and meters for commercial users, and the sewage plant was upgraded with biological treatment in the early 2000s.[1] Since 2007 it has operated under the ISEZ municipal administration. In 2016 it installed a supervisory control and data acquisition ([[wp:SCADA]]) system, supplied with [[Attelkom]], to monitor pressure and detect leaks. ## Water supply The groundwater comes from aquifers recharged by snowmelt and glacier-fed streams descending from the [[Talas Alatau]]. The authority operates four wellfields in the alluvial fan, with 64 submersible pumps drawing from depths of 80 to 220 meters. The groundwater is of good quality and needs only chlorination. River water is treated by flocculation, sand filtration and ultraviolet disinfection at the treatment works.[1] Two storage reservoirs on the foothill slopes south of the city feed the network by gravity. The network has about 540 km of mains, much of it Soviet-era steel and cast-iron pipe. The authority estimates that about 40 percent of the water it produces is lost to leaks or not billed.[4] The [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]] passes river-flow readings to the authority in real time. The authority and the [[Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate]] share the basin's water and coordinate withdrawals in dry summers.[2] ## Sewerage The Talas Central Sewage Treatment Plant, on the western edge of the city, treats about 140,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day and discharges the treated effluent into the Talas River. The hydrological service monitors sewage indicators downstream of the city.[2] Older suburbs and the new housing on the city's edges are not fully connected to the sewers and rely on septic tanks and pit latrines. ## Tariffs and finance Household tariffs are set in [[Iradi som]] by the city council, while commercial and industrial customers are billed in US dollars. Tariffs cover operating costs but not major repairs, which depend on allocations from the ISEZ budget. Proposed increases have been controversial, and the council postponed one in 2019 after public complaints.[4] ## References
  1. ^ Talas Municipal Water Authority (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  3. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (17 April 2019). 'Council shelves water tariff rise.' Talas.
### 4.90. Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* The **Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex** (Iradi: *Talas Ayymdyk Oorukanasy*) is the main referral and teaching hospital of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), on a 15-hectare campus on Hospital Boulevard in [[Talas]]. It opened in 1954 as the regional hospital of the Soviet period and was largely rebuilt during the US territorial administration. With about 650 beds, it provides specialist surgery, cardiology, maternity and pediatric care, trauma care and diagnostic imaging, and is the main clinical training site of the Faculty of Medicine of [[Talas State University]].[1][2] ## History The hospital opened in 1954 as the regional clinical hospital for the Talas valley, in a group of three-story pavilions south-west of the central square. Maternity and cardiology wings were added in the 1970s.[2] It treated many of the wounded from the [[1956 Talas Riots]], and its records are among the sources historians have used to estimate the casualties. During the siege of Talas from April 1992, the hospital kept working under artillery fire. Its staff treated civilian and military casualties with dwindling supplies of anesthetics, blood and fuel for the generators, and the surgical pavilion was hit several times.[3] In the years after the war many Russian-speaking doctors left Irad, and the hospital struggled to keep its specialist departments open. Between 1995 and 2002 the hospital was rebuilt and re-equipped with US federal grants and loans from the territorial government. A new emergency and trauma center opened in 2002. Residency programs modeled on American graduate medical training were introduced, and exchange agreements were signed with medical schools in the United States and [[wp:Turkey]].[2] In 2007, during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], it again took in casualties while the [[Popular Front of Irad]] besieged the city. A cardiovascular wing with cardiac catheterization laboratories opened in 2016.[1] ## Departments and facilities The campus has five main clinical buildings: - an emergency and trauma center with a rooftop helipad, used for medical evacuations from the mountains, including flights arranged through the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] for patients from the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]; - a cardiovascular institute, which performs bypass surgery, angioplasty and pacemaker implantation; - a maternal and child health pavilion with obstetric theaters and a neonatal intensive care unit; - a surgical building with general, orthopedic and neurosurgical departments; - a diagnostic center with CT and MRI scanners and the hospital's pathology laboratory.[1] The [[Talas Blood Services Center]] supplies the hospital's blood bank. [[Talas Municipal Hospital No. 1]] is the city's main general emergency hospital, while the regional hospital takes the more complex cases from across the ISEZ. ## Teaching The hospital is the main teaching hospital of the Talas State University Faculty of Medicine. About 400 medical students, residents and nursing students train there each year. Clinical records and much of the residency teaching are in English, while consultations with older patients are often in Russian or Iradi.[2] ## Access and finance The hospital is funded mainly from the ISEZ budget. Emergency treatment is free, but planned operations and many medicines require co-payments, which patients' groups say deter rural families. Staff shortages are a continuing problem, as many nurses and young doctors emigrate, mostly to the United States.[4] The hospital receives referrals from the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]], whose mobile clinics transfer complicated obstetric and surgical cases from the tribal regions, and the two run a joint tuberculosis screening program.[1] ## References
  1. ^ World Health Organization (2022). Health Systems and Rural Access in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Geneva, pp. 78–95.
  2. ^ Faculty of Medicine, Talas State University (2019). Sixty-Five Years of the Talas Regional Hospital, 1954–2019. Talas State University Press.
  3. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (3 March 2024). 'Nurses leave faster than they can be trained.' Talas.
### 4.91. Talasbank *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Talasbank** (officially the Bank of Talas; Iradi: *Talas Banky*) is the largest commercial bank in Irad, with its headquarters in the Silk Road Financial Tower in central [[Talas]]. It was chartered in 1993 by the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], which made the US dollar legal tender in the territory alongside the new [[Iradi som]]. The bank keeps accounts in both currencies. It holds the escrow accounts into which the proceeds of Irad's main exports are paid under the supervision of the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], handles most government payrolls and holds the largest share of commercial deposits in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ).[1][2] Because Irad's sovereignty is unrecognized, Talasbank has no direct access to most international payment systems. It settles foreign payments through correspondent banks in [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Istanbul]]. Its ownership has not been fully disclosed since its partial privatization, and its accounts are published only in summary.[2] ## History #### Background In the Soviet period, banking in the Iradi SSR was carried out by the republican offices of the Soviet state bank and the specialized state banks for savings, agriculture and housing. After the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] declared independence in October 1991, the breakdown of the ruble zone and inflation above 1,000 percent wiped out most savings. Banking had largely stopped in Talas by the time of the siege in 1992.[3] #### Foundation and the territorial period (1993–2006) After the [[First Iradi Civil War]], the territorial administration chose to use the US dollar rather than introduce a currency of its own at once. The Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993 made the dollar legal tender, authorized the som for small payments and wages, and chartered Talasbank as the territory's main commercial bank.[1] The bank was formed from the Talas offices of the former Soviet savings and agricultural banks, with capital provided by the territorial government. It opened for business in September 1993. In the first months, dollar banknotes were flown in to [[Talas Air Base]].[3] In 1994 the territorial government created the Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority to audit export contracts. Exporters, including the oil company [[NurGaz]], the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and later the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]], were required to have foreign buyers pay into escrow accounts at Talasbank. The authority deducted royalties and taxes before releasing the balance.[4] During the agribusiness boom of the late 1990s and the expansion of the air base after the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]], the bank's business grew with foreign investment, base contracts and payrolls. As a bank in a US territory, it settled dollar payments through correspondent accounts with banks in the United States.[3] The territorial government sold a majority of its shares in auctions in 1999 and 2001 and kept a minority stake. The buyers were Iradi holding companies whose own shareholders were not published.[2] #### Crisis of 2006–2007 After the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] on 3 December 2006, depositors rushed to withdraw dollars. The bank limited cash withdrawals for three weeks in December.[5] American correspondent banks closed or restricted its accounts in early 2007, citing the territory's uncertain legal status. The bank moved its correspondent business to banks in Almaty and Istanbul, a pattern similar to that of banks in other territories whose status is not recognized.[3] After [[Erlan Toktarov]] proclaimed the ISEZ from [[Nurzhan]] on 25 February 2007, both the cabinet of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] in Talas and the emergency administration in Nurzhan claimed authority over the escrow accounts. The bank's management froze withdrawals from government accounts until the dispute was settled. Supporters later credited the decision with protecting public funds, while DRI ministers said it cut off their government's revenue.[6] The head office closed for several days after the [[Storming of Talas (2007)|storming of Talas]] on 4 June 2007. It reopened under the ISEZ administration after DPI forces took the city that summer. #### Since 2007 Since the ceasefire Talasbank has been the main bank of the ISEZ government. It holds treasury and payroll accounts, takes part in the escrow arrangements for oil, antimony and beef exports, and finances imports from China, [[wp:Turkey]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] with letters of credit.[2] Payments made under the revenue-sharing arrangements of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] are not reported separately. Herders from the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] who sell livestock and wool to ISEZ buyers are usually paid through the bank.[4] With [[Attelkom]], the bank introduced debit cards and a national card-payment network in the 2000s. In 2012 the two companies launched an SMS-based payment service, used by herders and farmers to pay for feed and veterinary services and to receive transfers without traveling to a branch.[2] ## Operations - **Dual-currency banking.** Deposits and loans are offered in US dollars and in som. Most savings, loans and commercial contracts are in dollars. Som accounts are used mainly for public-sector wages, utility bills and retail payments. - **Escrow and trade finance.** The bank holds the export escrow accounts audited by the Foreign Trade Escrow Authority and provides letters of credit and guarantees for importers. - **Government business.** It handles treasury accounts, payrolls and many payments of the ISEZ government and of the municipal administrations of Talas, Nurzhan and [[Iyık Janyl]]. - **Retail network.** It has 28 branches, 20 in Talas, 6 in Nurzhan (including its Azatlık Prospect branch) and 2 in Iyık Janyl, as well as offices at the main border crossings and mobile banking vans that serve villages in the [[Chu River Basin]].[2] Interbank transfers within the ISEZ are processed through the [[Bank of Irad Clearing House]]. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad, Talasbank holds about 60 percent of commercial deposits in the ISEZ.[2] Smaller commercial banks include Ak Bata Bank and Chuy Commercial Bank (Iradi: *Chüy Kommertsiyalık Banky*). ## Ownership and criticism The ISEZ government still holds a minority stake, but the ultimate owners of the holding companies that control the bank have not been disclosed. Investigative reports have linked several of these companies to business associates of the ruling Toktarov family. The bank has said that its shareholders meet the disclosure rules in force in the ISEZ.[7] Opposition commentators accuse it of lending on favorable terms to companies linked to the [[Democratic Party of Irad]]. The [[wp:World Bank]] has noted that it has not published full audited accounts since 2008.[3] Business groups, by contrast, credit the bank with keeping the dollar payment system working through the crises of 2006–07 and the uncertainty that followed Toktarov's withdrawal from public view in 2024.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Banking and Commercial Currency Act. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Banking, Finance, and Commercial Credit Directory. Talas.
  3. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Economic Update: Dual Financial Systems and Dollarization in Post-Soviet Enclaves. Washington, DC.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2014). 'Dollars without a Sovereign: Escrow Banking in Irad since 1994.' Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 61–88.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (7 December 2006). 'Talasbank limits cash withdrawals as depositors queue.' Talas.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 134–150.
### 4.92. Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics** (Iradi: *Trans-Chüy Jük Tashuu Kompaniyasy*) is a road haulage company based in [[Nurzhan]]. It runs bonded trucking services within the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and to the northern border crossings into [[wp:Kazakhstan]], from which much of its freight continues to Russia. It was founded in 1996, during the US territorial period, and is the largest trucking company in Irad, with more than 250 tractor units and refrigerated and bulk trailers. Since 2008 it has been controlled by [[Timur Toktarov]], the third son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]].[1][2] ## History The company was formed in 1996 from a privatized Soviet motor-transport depot in Nurzhan. Its early business came from oilfield supply and from contracts linked to the expansion of [[Talas Air Base]].[1] From 1999 it carried livestock and beef for the new meatpacking plants near [[Talas]]. In 2008 Timur Toktarov took control of the company. Under his management it bought refrigerated trailers, opened a depot at the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]] and won long-term contracts with the state-linked industrial combines.[2] ## Operations The company's main terminal, outside Nurzhan, has bonded customs warehouses, a container yard and workshops for the fleet. Its main lines of business are: - **refrigerated transport**: chilled and frozen beef from the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and other packers to customers in Irad and to Kazakhstan; - **bulk agricultural haulage**: grain, barley and compound feed, much of it for [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]]; - **industrial freight**: drummed antimony trioxide and metal from the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] to railheads, and equipment for the oil fields.[1] Its main routes link Talas and Nurzhan, run south over the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] to the Lower Naryn District, and lead north to the Kazakh border. Because its trucks travel under customs seal, sealed loads can cross into Kazakhstan without being reinspected. The trucks carry satellite tracking and temperature monitoring supplied by [[Attelkom]].[1] ## Ownership and criticism Trans-Chuy is one of several businesses run by members of the Toktarov family. [[wp:Timur]] and his younger brothers [[Adil Toktarov|Adil]] and [[Bekzat Toktarov|Bekzat]] manage the family's interests in freight, real estate and feed milling.[2] Competing hauliers and opposition commentators say the company receives preferential access to state contracts and border clearance. The company says its contracts are awarded on price and reliability.[3] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Transport and Logistics Syndicates. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (11 May 2021). 'Independent hauliers say border queues are not the same for everyone.' Talas.
### 4.93. Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals** are a series of plans, made since the 1990s, for international pipelines across [[Irad]]. The best known is the Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline proposed by the [[wp:China National Petroleum Corporation]] (CNPC), which would carry natural gas from [[wp:Turkmenistan]] through [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and southern Irad to western China. Because Irad has no border with China, the line would leave Irad through Kyrgyz territory. During the US territorial period, a US-backed oil pipeline south to [[wp:Pakistan]] through Kyrgyz, Tajik and Afghan territory was also studied, but it lost its prospects after 2021. None of the proposals has been built.[1][2] Irad's only export pipeline remains the 85-km [[Northern Export Feeder]], which carries crude oil north into the Kazakh pipeline network near [[wp:Shymkent]]. ## Background Irad is doubly landlocked, and all its hydrocarbon exports depend on transit through neighboring states. Until 2000 crude oil left by rail for Shymkent, and since then it has been piped through the Northern Export Feeder into the network operated by [[wp:KazTransOil]], for refining in [[wp:Kazakhstan]] or onward shipment to Russia.[3] Irad's proven natural gas reserves exceed 400 billion cubic meters but are largely undeveloped. The largest prospect, the [[Muyunkum Natural Gas Field]], lies in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR).[1] Successive governments have looked for a second export route to reduce their dependence on Kazakhstan. ## Southern oil pipeline proposal During the territorial period, a US-backed proposal envisaged a pipeline carrying Iradi crude south to Pakistan. Because Irad does not border [[wp:Tajikistan]] or [[wp:Afghanistan]], the route would have crossed Kyrgyz, Tajik and Afghan territory. Instability in Afghanistan kept the project at the planning stage. After the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in 2021 it lost its remaining prospects. [[wp:Chevron Corporation|Chevron]], which had invested heavily in modernizing Irad's oil fields since the territorial period, then scaled back its operations in Irad.[1] ## Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline CNPC's proposal, first discussed publicly in the early 2010s, would link gas fields in Turkmenistan with consumers in western China. In Irad the main partner would be [[NurGaz]]. Feasibility studies have examined two routes through the territory: - a **northern route**, about 640 km long within Irad, entering from Uzbekistan in the west, running along the southern side of the [[Talas River]] valley, crossing the mountains by the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] corridor and the [[Fergana Gateway]], and leaving Irad eastward into [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]]; - a **southern route**, entering from the Uzbek part of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] and running east through the Lower Naryn District along the farm belt of the Fergana rim before crossing into Kyrgyzstan. The studies assume a pipe 1,220 mm in diameter carrying up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas a year, with four compressor stations in Irad. The ISEZ has asked for an off-take to supply gas-fired power and heating in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]], where coal is still widely burned.[2] In 2022 Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] received a CNPC delegation in Talas. The Department of Public Information said the talks covered the pipeline and other infrastructure investment.[4] ## Obstacles - **Status.** A pipeline would need transit agreements with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and a counterparty in Irad able to sign binding contracts. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan all claim Irad *de jure*, and none recognizes the ISEZ as a sovereign party. Lenders are reluctant to finance infrastructure in a territory without recognized sovereignty.[2] - **Tribal consent.** Both routes cross land held by the clans of the ATR: the northern route follows the narrow ISEZ corridor over the Fergana Gateway between tribal pastures and crosses the Toktogul–Naryn zone, and the southern route, although it would follow the ISEZ's farm belt for most of its length in Irad, would cross the tribal hills of the Fergana Rim zone on its way into Kyrgyzstan. Clan elders led by [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]] have withheld consent for construction across alpine pastures and water catchments under customary law. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] has said that any route across tribal land would require the agreement of the clan assemblies concerned and a share of transit revenue.[5] - **Competition.** Existing gas pipelines from [[wp:Central Asia]] to China run through Kazakhstan. Analysts note that a new route through Irad would have to compete with expanding their capacity.[2] Engineering consultations between the ISEZ authorities and CNPC continue intermittently, but no investment decision has been made. ## References
  1. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Energy Sector Brief: Hydrocarbon Logistics in Post-Soviet Basins. Washington, DC.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  3. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  4. ^ Department of Public Information (2022). 'Lieutenant Governor Receives CNPC Delegation.' Press release. Talas.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Pastures and Pipes: Customary Law and Infrastructure in the Autonomous Tribal Regions.' Vol. 28, Iss. 4, pp. 101–124.
### 4.94. Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities** (Iradi: *Lihua Paxta Kombinaty*) are cotton ginning, spinning and oilseed plants in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) operated by the Chinese textile company Xinjiang Lihua Co. with Iradi partners. They comprise several ginning mills in the cotton districts, including [[Xinjiang Lihua Ginning Mill No. 3]], and a spinning and cottonseed-processing complex in the Chu District near [[Nurzhan]]. Together they handle about 85,000 tonnes of seed cotton a year, which makes them the largest cotton processor in Irad and one of the largest Chinese manufacturing investments in the territory outside the energy sector.[1] Their acquisition raised concerns about compliance with water regulations in the irrigated basins that supply the cotton.[2] ## History Cotton has been grown on the Fergana Rim since before Soviet rule, and irrigated cotton spread along the rim and into the lower Chu and Talas basins under Soviet planning. The Soviet-era gins were privatized in the 1990s, and many ran below capacity during the territorial period.[2] Xinjiang Lihua acquired ginning concessions and a former Soviet spinning mill near Nurzhan in two stages, in 2018 and 2021, and re-equipped the plants with new gins and spinning machinery.[1] ## Facilities - **Ginning mills.** The gins are in the Lower Naryn District and the lower Chu valley. Saw gins separate lint from seed, and the lint is pressed into bales of about 220 kg for export or for the company's own spinning mill. - **Spinning complex.** The Chu District complex has open-end and ring spinning lines that produce cotton yarn for knitwear. - **Oilseed plant.** Cottonseed is pressed for cooking oil, and the remaining cake is sold as cattle feed, partly through [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]]. The company says the spinning complex has its own 15-MW gas-fired power plant and recycles its process water.[1] ## Employment and trade The facilities employ about 1,400 people. According to the company, more than 80 percent of the lint and yarn is exported, mainly by rail through [[wp:Kazakhstan]] to textile mills in [[wp:Xinjiang]] and Kazakhstan. Export proceeds are paid into escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]].[1] The plants are part of a wider growth in trade between Irad and China, which also includes antimony exports. ## Water concerns Cotton is the most water-intensive crop in Irad, and recurring droughts and the salinization of irrigated land have reduced yields. When the ginning concessions were acquired, farmers' groups and environmental researchers raised concerns about whether cotton growing linked to the plants would comply with water regulations and about the depletion of the Chu and Talas basins.[2] ISEZ water inspectors state that withdrawals by the farms supplying the plants are monitored by the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]], and cotton deliveries by the [[Chui Cotton Inspection Directorate]].[3] ## See also - [[David Chen]] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Manufacturing and Textiles. Talas.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (24 July 2021). 'Inspectors outline checks on cotton farm water use.' Talas.
### 4.95. Zhetysu Industrial Textiles *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Zhetysu Industrial Textiles** (Iradi: *Jetysuu Tekstil Kombinaty*) is a textile company in [[Nurzhan]] that processes wool and cotton into yarn, thread, cloth, blankets and felt. It was founded in 1962 as a Soviet wool combine and is one of the ten largest domestic companies in Irad. Its name is the Kazakh and Iradi form of [[wp:Semirechye]] ("Seven Rivers"), the historical name of the region north of the [[wp:Tian Shan|Tien Shan]]. Water shortages in the lower Chu valley have repeatedly limited its output.[1][2] ## History The combine opened in Kobozev in 1962, during the Soviet expansion of light industry in the Iradi SSR. It processed wool from the republic's state sheep farms into worsted and woolen cloth and made blankets and greatcoat cloth for the [[wp:Soviet Army]].[1] After 1991 it lost its Soviet orders and almost stopped working during the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. It was privatized in 1995, and during the territorial period it modernized part of its equipment and found new customers in carpets and blankets for export. Since 2007 it has held state contracts with the ISEZ security forces.[2] ## Production The plant has four main sections: - **Scouring.** Washing lines remove grease, dirt and plant matter from raw wool. The company says the lines recycle most of their water. - **Spinning and dyeing.** Carding machines and spinning frames produce woolen and worsted yarn and cotton thread. - **Weaving.** Jacquard looms weave blankets and upholstery cloth. - **Felt and carpets.** Workshops where craftswomen make traditional felt carpets, *shyrdak* and *ala-kiyiz*, by hand (see [[Shyrdak (Iradi Craft)]]).[2] The company buys more than 2,000 tonnes of raw wool a year, from farms in the ISEZ and from herders in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], including members of the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]], whose wool crosses the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] at designated corridors.[2] It buys cotton for thread from ginneries in the ISEZ. ## Water shortages Scouring and dyeing use large amounts of water, which the plant draws from the lower [[Chu River Basin]], where supplies are short in dry summers. In 2021 and 2023 summer quotas set by the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]] forced the company to cut shifts for several weeks. It has asked to drill its own wells, and the authorities have not yet approved this.[3] ## Markets The company supplies uniform cloth, winter coats and blankets to the State Defense Corps (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]) and the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]]. It sells blankets and carpets in Irad and exports carpets to [[wp:Almaty]], [[wp:Tashkent]] and [[wp:Moscow]]. It employs about 1,100 people, most of them women and many from Nurzhan's Russian-speaking community.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Soviet Academy of Sciences (1978). Light Industry of the Central Asian Republics. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 88–104.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Manufacturing and Textiles. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2 August 2023). 'Nurzhan textile plant cuts shifts as water runs short.' Talas.
### 4.96. Amanbek Alimbekov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Amanbek Alimbekov | df = dmy | image = Amanbek_Alimbekov_1992.jpg | caption = Alimbekov (right, in cardigan) at the reformers' meeting in Talas, early March 1992 | office1 = Provisional President of the Republic of Irad | term_start1 = 1992-03-11 | term_end1 = 1992-10 | preceded_by1 = Office established | succeeded_by1 = Office abolished | office2 = Chancellor of [[Talas State University]] | term_start2 = 1995 | term_end2 = 2004-11-14 | birth_date = 1938-05-09 | birth_place = [[Iyık Janyl]], [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]], Soviet Union | death_date = 2004-11-14 | death_place = [[Talas]] | resting_place = Historic cemetery of [[Iyık Janyl]] | party = Independent | relatives = [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]] (grandfather's cousin) | alma_mater = [[wp:Moscow State University]] (1960) | occupation = Historian; politician | known_for = *Ene-Til* society; [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] }} **Amanbek Alimbekov** (9 May 1938 – 14 November 2004) was an Iradi historian and politician who led the Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] in 1992. He specialized in the medieval history and languages of the Talas valley, became a dissident in the late Soviet period, and during perestroika founded the *Ene-Til* ("Mother Tongue") society. After the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] he chaired the council that took over the administration of [[Talas]]. On 11 March 1992 the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] elected him Provisional President and proclaimed the Republic of Irad.[1] With Talas besieged by the forces of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI), Alimbekov signed the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] with [[wp:James Baker|US Secretary of State James Baker]] on 2 June 1992. Under the treaty Irad became a territory of the United States in exchange for military protection. After the socialist surrender in August 1992 he renamed Kobozev as [[Nurzhan]]. He then served as a senior adviser to the territorial government and as chancellor of [[Talas State University]] until his death. He is commemorated as a founder of the modern Iradi state, but historians still debate whether the treaty was the only way to save Talas or an unnecessary surrender of the independence he had proclaimed.[2][3] ## Early life and education Alimbekov was born on 9 May 1938 in [[Iyık Janyl]], then a district town known for its fruit cannery and its clandestine Christian worship. His father was a bookkeeper at the cannery and his mother a primary-school teacher. His paternal grandfather was a cousin of Bishop [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]], who had negotiated the union of the Iradi church with Rome in 1931.[2] In his memoir Alimbekov recalled attending secret liturgies in private homes as a child, at a time when the town's churches were closed and the arrests of clergy in 1937 were still within living memory. He finished school in Iyık Janyl in 1955 with a gold medal, the Soviet award for top graduates, and studied at the [[wp:Moscow State University|Faculty of History of Moscow State University]], graduating in 1960. He then returned to Irad to teach at the new Iradi State University (now [[Talas State University]]), founded in 1958, while continuing postgraduate work in [[wp:Moscow]]. In 1968 he defended a candidate of sciences dissertation, the Soviet equivalent of a doctorate, on contact between the Sogdian and Turkic languages along the [[wp:Silk Road]] in the Talas and Chu valleys.[4] ## Academic career and dissent At Talas State University Alimbekov taught medieval history and took part in excavations at [[Shelji]], the medieval silver-mining town in the upper Talas valley. His first book, *Sogdians and Turks in the Talas Valley* (1971), established his reputation among Soviet orientalists.[4] He became head of the department of history in 1976. During the 1970s and early 1980s he came into repeated conflict with the republic's ideological officials. They objected to his emphasis on the Christian heritage of the [[Iradis]] and to his research on the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|revolt of 1916]] and the flight and deaths that followed, known as the *Urkun*. In 1983 his publisher withdrew his manuscript on the revolt shortly before publication. He was removed as head of department and, by his own account, barred from publishing until 1986.[2] The book appeared only in 1990, as *The Black Year*. Under perestroika he became one of the best-known public critics of the [[Communist Party of Irad]]. In 1988 he founded the *Ene-Til* society, which campaigned for the return of the Latin alphabet for Iradi; the rehabilitation of victims of the Stalinist purges, including the clergy killed in [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|1937]]; the reopening of churches; and open discussion of the [[1956 Talas Riots]].[5] The society's meetings in Talas drew students and young lecturers who later formed the core of the 1992 movement. ## Winter Uprising and Provisional Presidency (1991–1992) #### The uprising In November 1991 the SRI government of [[Vasily Chernov]] issued emergency decrees banning non-communist gatherings and publications, and Ene-Til's newsletter was closed. Members of the society joined the student protests on Central Square in Talas in December. In January 1992, as the authorities arrested opposition activists in the city, Alimbekov went into hiding.[5] After security forces fired on demonstrators on 3 February 1992, armed workers, defecting police and clan horsemen seized the arsenals and party headquarters in Talas. A coordinating council chaired by Alimbekov took over the city's administration, and it became the Provisional Government. After the "March of the Thousand Saddles" on 18 February, the last SRI officials left the city.[1] #### Proclamation of the Republic On 11 March 1992 delegates and clan elders assembled in the municipal theater of Talas adopted the *Declaration of Restoration of the Republic of Irad* and elected Alimbekov Provisional President. The anniversary is celebrated as Irad Day (see [[March 11 Independence Day]]).[1] The government in Kobozev rejected the proclamation, and in late March the SRI sent its armored forces south along the Chu and Talas corridors. #### Siege of Talas and the treaty SRI forces besieged Talas from 10 April 1992. Alimbekov stayed in the city throughout. Its defenders, who included student militias, defecting police, workers' detachments and the mounted irregulars of [[Kuban Mamytov]] and [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], held the city center.[3] By late May the water supply had been cut and ammunition was running out. Provisional envoys had meanwhile approached the United States through its embassy in [[wp:Almaty]] and at meetings in [[wp:Geneva]], proposing that Irad enter into association with the United States in exchange for military protection and economic reconstruction.[6] The treaty was signed on 2 June 1992 in the basement of the damaged municipal theater, and the Provisional Government ratified it unanimously the same day. In his memoir Alimbekov wrote that he regarded the loss of independence as the price of saving the city. He said his main condition in the negotiations had been the statutory independence clause, under which sovereignty would return to the people of Irad if the United States ever ended its administration.[2] [[wp:United States Marine Corps|US Marines]] landed at the airfield west of Talas on 6 June, the siege was broken by 18 June, and Kobozev fell on 12 August. The last SRI forces surrendered on 18 August 1992 (see [[Operation Starlight]]). ## Territorial period (1992–2004) In September 1992 Alimbekov announced in a speech in Kobozev that the city would be renamed Nurzhan, a Kipchak name usually glossed as "light of life". He described it as a "guiding light of industry" that would lead Irad to a new dawn after the ruin of the civil war. The Toponymic Heritage Statute of 1993 confirmed the name.[7] After the surrender, the Provisional Government sat in an advisory role beside the interim US administration. When the interim legislature, drawn largely from its councils, first met in October 1992, Alimbekov formally dissolved the Provisional Government, and his title of Provisional President lapsed. Many of his associates founded the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] that month from the Provisional Government's reformist caucus, but Alimbekov never joined a party. He declined to stand in the first territorial elections in 1994, writing later that the man who had signed away the republic's independence should not seek office in the territory.[2] He remained influential as a senior adviser to the territorial government and, from 1995, as chancellor of Talas State University. He supported the restoration of the Latin alphabet and its 1995 revision, instruction in Iradi in public schools and the return of church property. He also resisted nationalist calls to repudiate the treaty, arguing that territorial status was the only practical protection against the claims of [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]].[6] He was more critical of the privatization of Soviet-era enterprises in the mid-1990s. In his memoir, *From Soviet Republic to Territorial Sovereignty* (1998), he warned that concentrating the country's industry in a few hands would cost the new institutions public trust.[2] ## Death Alimbekov died at his home in Talas on 14 November 2004, at the age of 66, after a long illness. The territorial government declared a day of mourning. After a funeral liturgy at the [[Church of St. Janyl]], he was buried in the historic cemetery of Iyık Janyl.[8] ## Legacy and assessments Alimbekov is commemorated on Irad Day, and in 2005 the [[National Library of Irad]], which is also the library of Talas State University, was named after him. Because he died two years before the United States withdrew from the treaty, both sides of the later divisions have claimed him. Official histories of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] present him as the founder of the territorial institutions that the ISEZ still uses. In December 2006 the lawyers who argued for the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]] relied on the independence clause he had negotiated. Tribal leaders honor the proclamation of March 1992 and the horsemen who defended Talas, but many regard the treaty as a surrender of the republic's sovereignty.[9] Historians at Talas State University continue to debate his decision of June 1992. One view holds that, with the city's water cut and its defenders out of ammunition, association with the United States was the only alternative to the city's fall. Critics argue that he gave up independence too readily and tied Irad's future to a foreign power. Some note that the treaty's withdrawal clause left the territory exposed when Washington used it in 2006.[3][9] Chernov's memoir of 2001 presents the uprising Alimbekov led as a nationalist insurrection that made the breakup of the republic inevitable. ## Personal life Alimbekov was a lifelong member of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. He was married and had two children. He spoke Iradi and Russian, read Sogdian and [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]], and learned English in his fifties.[2] ## Selected works - *Sogdians and Turks in the Talas Valley* (1971). Kobozev: Academy of Sciences of the Iradi SSR. - *The Black Year: The Revolt of 1916 in the Talas Valley* (1990). Talas. - *From Soviet Republic to Territorial Sovereignty* (1998). 2 vols. Talas: Talas State University Press. ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Provisional Presidential Papers of Amanbek Alimbekov (1992).
  2. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1998). From Soviet Republic to Territorial Sovereignty. 2 vols. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  3. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'The Statesmen of Independence: Amanbek Alimbekov.' Academic Press, pp. 45–62.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Revolution of 1992 and Provisional Government Minutes.
  6. ^ US Department of State (1992). 'Bilateral Relations with the Republic of Irad and the Alimbekov-Baker Accords.' US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 23.
  7. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Toponymic Heritage Statute. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (15 November 2004). 'Amanbek Alimbekov, founder of the Republic, dies at 66.' Talas.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
### 4.97. Vasily Chernov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Vasily Chernov | df = dmy | image = Vasily_Chernov_1990.jpg | caption = Official portrait, 1990 | office1 = President of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] | term_start1 = 1991-10-09 | term_end1 = 1992-08-18 | preceded_by1 = Office established | succeeded_by1 = Office abolished | office2 = President of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]] | term_start2 = 1990 | term_end2 = 1991-10-09 | preceded_by2 = Office established | office3 = First Secretary of the [[Communist Party of Irad]] | term_start3 = 1986-11 | term_end3 = 1992 | birth_date = 1935-03-14 | birth_place = Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]], Soviet Union | death_date = 2012-02-22 | death_place = [[wp:Moscow]], Russia | resting_place = [[wp:Troyekurovskoye Cemetery]] | citizenship = Soviet Union; Russia | party = [[Communist Party of Irad]] | alma_mater = [[wp:Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University|Leningrad Polytechnic Institute]] (1958) | occupation = Chemical engineer; politician }} **Vasily Chernov** (14 March 1935 – 22 February 2012) was an Iradi communist politician and refinery engineer. He was the last First Secretary of the [[Communist Party of Irad]] (1986–1992) and the only President of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI), the communist state proclaimed in Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]) on 9 October 1991. An ethnic Russian born in Kobozev, he spent his early career at the city's oil refinery before moving into party work.[1] His government's emergency decrees and the economic collapse of 1991–92 provoked the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], during which security forces shot demonstrators in [[Talas]] on 3 February 1992. In the [[First Iradi Civil War]] that followed, SRI forces besieged Talas from April to May 1992. After the United States intervened under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], Chernov's remaining forces surrendered on 18 August 1992, and he went into exile in Russia, where he lived until his death.[2][3] ## Early life and education Chernov was born on 14 March 1935 in Kobozev, the capital of the Iradi SSR, to an ethnic Russian family. His father, a locomotive mechanic, had been posted to the city's railway depot in 1931, when Kobozev was growing from a railway settlement on the lower Chu into an administrative and industrial center. Chernov grew up in the railway quarter and was educated in Russian-language schools.[1] In 1952 he went to study at the [[wp:Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University|Leningrad Polytechnic Institute]]. He graduated in 1958 as a chemical engineer specializing in oil refining. ## Refinery and party career After graduating, Chernov returned to Kobozev as a process engineer at the city's new oil refinery, now [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]], which had been built in the late 1950s to process crude from the Chu basin fields discovered in 1949. He joined the Communist Party in 1960. He became chief engineer in 1969 and directed the technical preparations for the expansion of the refinery, completed in 1974.[4] In 1974 he moved into full-time party work as First Secretary of the Kobozev city party committee, where he was responsible for the city's industries and its housing programs. He studied at the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the [[wp:Soviet Union]] in [[wp:Moscow]] from 1979 to 1981. On his return he became the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Irad responsible for industry.[1] In November 1986, during [[wp:Mikhail Gorbachev|Mikhail Gorbachev's]] replacement of regional party leaders, he was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad. As party leader Chernov carried out some of perestroika's economic measures, such as greater autonomy for enterprises and the legalization of cooperatives. Politically he remained conservative. He opposed the return of the Latin alphabet for Iradi, regarded the revival of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] with suspicion, and allowed police harassment of the *Ene-Til* society of the historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]].[3] During [[The Kobozev Bread Riots (1989)|the Kobozev bread riots of 1989]] he arranged emergency grain deliveries from [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and dismissed the city's trade officials, while the police detained the organizers of the protests. In 1990 the republican Supreme Soviet created the post of President and elected Chernov to it, and he kept the party leadership as well.[1] During the coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991, Chernov made no public statement for two days. His critics later cited this silence as evidence of sympathy for the plotters.[3] ## President of the Socialist Republic (1991–1992) #### Independence and emergency rule On 9 October 1991 the Supreme Soviet adopted the [[Declaration of State Sovereignty (1991)]], and the Communist Party of Irad declared the republic independent as the Socialist Republic of Irad, with Chernov as President. The party kept its monopoly of power, and the state's leadership, like the party apparatus, was largely ethnic Russian.[2] The end of Soviet subsidies, ruble clearing and fuel deliveries brought most of Kobozev's factories to a halt, inflation exceeded 1,000 percent, and bread was rationed in Talas from December 1991.[5] In November 1991 Chernov's government issued emergency decrees that suspended constitutional liberties, banned non-communist gatherings and publications, and ended the limited self-government of the rural clans. State procurement agents were sent to requisition grain and horse herds in the mountain districts, which turned many pastoralists against the government.[5] #### The Winter Uprising Protests began in Talas in December 1991, and in January 1992 a strike at the Kobozev railway depot spread to factories across the valley. On 3 February 1992 [[wp:OMON]] riot police opened fire on demonstrators on Central Square in Talas. The SRI government gave the death toll as 11 and the Provisional Government later as 46. A commission of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] documented 27 deaths in 2002.[6] The commission found that the order to clear the square had come from the SRI interior ministry but could not establish whether Chernov had personally authorized the use of live ammunition. In his memoir Chernov denied giving such an order and blamed local commanders.[2][6] Over the following days armed workers, defecting police and clan horsemen seized the arsenals of Talas. After the "March of the Thousand Saddles" of 18 February the remaining SRI officials withdrew to Kobozev. #### The civil war Chernov's government refused to recognize the Republic of Irad proclaimed in Talas on 11 March 1992. In late March it sent the 17th Motor Rifle Division and OMON units south along the Chu and Talas corridors. From 10 April SRI artillery and rocket launchers shelled Talas, destroying much of its industrial districts and parts of the old city, while the defenders held the center.[7] Chernov's memoir describes the campaign as an effort to restore constitutional order in a rebellious province.[2] After the Provisional Government signed the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty on 2 June, Chernov denounced the American intervention as foreign aggression and appealed to Moscow and the other members of the [[wp:Commonwealth of Independent States]] for support. Russia protested against the intervention but did not intervene.[3] US forces landed at Talas on 6 June and broke the siege by 18 June. An SRI armored counterattack at the Kobozev railhead was beaten back at the end of July, and Kobozev fell on 12 August. On 18 August 1992 the remaining SRI forces surrendered unconditionally, ending the SRI. Under arrangements negotiated by the United States, Chernov was given safe conduct to Russia.[7] ## Exile Chernov settled in Moscow with his family and became a Russian citizen. He lived on a pension, lectured occasionally on the industrial history of [[wp:Central Asia]], and advised Russian energy companies on pipeline transport through Kazakhstan.[3] In 1995 the territorial attorney general opened a criminal case against him over the shootings of 3 February and the shelling of Talas and requested his extradition. Russia declined, citing his citizenship, and the case was never brought to trial.[6] In 2001 he published a memoir, *The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary*. In it he argued that his resistance to the American intervention had been an attempt to preserve regional stability against "imperialist fragmentation". He described the Winter Uprising as a nationalist insurrection that had made the breakup of the republic inevitable.[2] Chernov died in Moscow on 22 February 2012, aged 76, and was buried in [[wp:Troyekurovskoye Cemetery]]. The ISEZ government made no official comment. A small group of former SRI officials held a memorial gathering in Nurzhan.[8] ## Legacy and assessments In Talas, Chernov is remembered mainly for the shootings of 3 February, whose victims are commemorated at a memorial on Central Square unveiled in 1997, and for the siege of 1992. Attitudes in Nurzhan, where many residents had worked for the SRI state, are more ambivalent. Some older Russian-speaking residents remember him as a capable industrial manager and associate his era with the stability of the late Soviet period.[3] Historians generally regard him as a Soviet technocrat whose career had not prepared him for the political crisis of 1991. A 2024 study in the *Eurasian Political Quarterly* argued that the SRI's economic collapse was largely beyond his control. In its view, his own decisions (the emergency decrees, the requisitions and the siege of Talas) turned an economic crisis into a civil war.[3] Whether he personally ordered the shooting of 3 February remains disputed. ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee of the Communist Party of Irad, Office of the First Secretary (1981–1991).
  2. ^ Chernov, Vasily (2001). The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary. Moscow.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Last Soviet Apparatchik: Vasily Chernov.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 78–94.
  4. ^ Kobozev Oil Refinery (1974). The Kobozev Refinery: Fifteen Years of Work. Kobozev.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Bread, Decrees and Saddles: The Economics of the Iradi Winter Uprising.' Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 33–58.
  6. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad, Commission on the Events of 1991–1992 (2002). Report on the Shootings of 3 February 1992. Talas.
  7. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (24 February 2012). 'Vasily Chernov, last leader of the Socialist Republic, dies in Moscow.' Talas.
### 4.98. Bakyt Orozbekov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox person | name = Bakyt Orozbekov | df = dmy | image = Bakyt_Orozbekov_2006.jpg | caption = Orozbekov in his legislative office, 2006 | office1 = Prime Minister of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] | term_start1 = 2006-12-09 | term_end1 = 2007-06-04 | preceded_by1 = Office established | succeeded_by1 = Office abolished | office2 = Chief Legal Counsel to the Territorial Senate | term_start2 = 1998 | term_end2 = 2005 | birth_date = 1962-07-19 | birth_place = [[Talas]], [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]], Soviet Union | party = [[Democratic Party of Irad]] | children = 2 | residence = [[wp:Istanbul]], Turkey | alma_mater = [[wp:Moscow State University]] (1984); [[wp:Harvard Law School]] (LL.M., 1996) | occupation = Lawyer | known_for = [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]]; [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]] }} **Bakyt Orozbekov** (born 19 July 1962) is an Iradi lawyer and former politician who was the only Prime Minister of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] (DRI), from its proclamation on 9 December 2006 until its dissolution on 4 June 2007. He trained in [[wp:Moscow]] and at [[wp:Harvard Law School]]. During the US territorial period he was chief legal counsel to the Territorial Senate and drafted the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]].[1] After the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] in December 2006, Orozbekov brought the petition that led to the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]], and the Territorial Legislature then elected him Prime Minister of the new republic. His cabinet's sale of state assets in early 2007, which became known as the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]], provoked protests. At the same time his government secretly negotiated with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan draft treaties to dissolve Irad and partition it among them, with concession shares for companies tied to him and several ministers. Their disclosure by [[Erlan Toktarov]] on 25 February 2007, as the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]], was the main cause of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. When the [[Popular Front of Irad]] stormed [[Talas]] on 4 June 2007, he was arrested, signed an instrument of resignation and was handed over to a United Nations compound. He has lived abroad since 2007.[2][3] ## Early life and education Orozbekov was born on 19 July 1962 in Talas. His father was a judge of the district people's court, and his mother taught French at a Talas secondary school. He was educated in Russian-language schools and in 1979 entered the [[wp:Moscow State University|Faculty of Law of Moscow State University]], graduating in 1984.[1] From 1984 to 1991 he worked as a legal adviser in commercial arbitration for a Soviet merchant shipping enterprise in [[wp:Odesa|Odessa]], handling disputes over charter contracts and cargo claims with foreign companies. He returned to Talas in 1991, shortly before the collapse of the [[wp:Soviet Union]], and remained in the city through the siege of 1992. In 1994, under a territorial government scholarship for lawyers, he went to Harvard Law School, where he received a [[wp:Master of Laws]] (LL.M.) in international corporate finance in 1996.[1] ## Legal career in the territorial period On his return to Talas in 1996 he founded one of the territory's first commercial law firms, advising foreign investors in the energy and agribusiness sectors on contracts, concessions and arbitration. He was a member of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) and was associated with its reformist and legalist wing.[4] From 1998 to 2005 he was chief legal counsel to the Territorial Senate, then the upper chamber of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]]. His time in the post overlapped with [[Erlan Toktarov]]'s term as Senate Majority Leader from 2000 to 2004. His best-known work was the 2003 Judicial Reforms Act. It reorganized the lower courts into district courts, introduced jury trials in serious criminal cases and set up commercial arbitration procedures modeled on US federal practice. Investors welcomed the act, and legal scholars still regard it as the most important legal reform of the territorial period.[5] In 2005 he returned to private practice. ## The independence crisis and premiership (2006–2007) #### Statutory Independence Ruling On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty by executive action (see [[United States Withdrawal from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty (2006)]]). Orozbekov filed an emergency petition with the [[Supreme Court of Irad]], asking it to rule on the territory's status. He argued that the treaty's statutory independence clause, carried into the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], took effect automatically when federal administration ended. Within days the court, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice [[Dastan Isakov]], accepted this reasoning, which became known as the doctrine of automatic reversion.[6] On 9 December 2006 the Territorial Legislature reconstituted itself as a national assembly, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Irad and elected Orozbekov Prime Minister (see [[Proclamation of the DRI]]). Twenty-six UN member states recognized the new state. Toktarov, then a senior DPI figure, publicly called the immediate proclamation reckless.[2] #### Privatization crisis The DRI inherited a large budget deficit, since US federal transfers had stopped. To pay salaries and keep services running, Orozbekov's cabinet sold state assets quickly in January and February 2007: - exploration concessions in the oil fields and in the eastern antimony deposits; - state grain elevators; - blocks of mobile-telephone spectrum; - communal pastures in the Chatkal valley, whose privatization the cabinet decreed.[7] Investigative reporting found that many of the assets had gone at low prices to companies linked to cabinet ministers and other DPI members. Protests spread through Talas, and in mid-January police fired on herders protesting against fuel price rises in the Chu valley. In Nurzhan the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] refused to recognize the auctions. Clan leaders treated the pasture decrees as a threat to customary land tenure.[7] Orozbekov defended the sales as an emergency measure, said the auctions had been open, and denied any personal involvement in the transactions that were later criticized.[3] #### The Bill of Sale From December 2006 to February 2007, delegations from the Prime Minister's office met officials of the foreign ministries of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] in meetings arranged as border and water consultations and not disclosed to the national assembly. The drafts that resulted would have used the sovereignty conferred by the 2006 ruling to dissolve the DRI and divide Irad among the three states, with compensation paid into escrow and shares in oil, antimony and Toktogul concessions for offshore companies tied to Orozbekov and several ministers. No plebiscite was planned.[11][12] Toktarov made the drafts public in Nurzhan on 25 February 2007, and [[Iradis]] have called them the *Satuu Kagazy*, the "Bill of Sale", ever since. The cabinet replied that the papers were unapproved contingency drafts and that some pages might have been altered.[12] #### Second Civil War and fall On 25 February 2007 Toktarov seized control of the DPI and proclaimed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] from [[Nurzhan]] as an emergency administration. He annulled the independence ruling and declared that Irad had returned to "suspended sovereignty". Orozbekov denounced the proclamation as unconstitutional and the leak as a provocation. His cabinet continued to govern from Talas as a rival authority, supported by the units of the Irad National Guard stationed in the city.[2] In March 2007 clan militias led by [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]] formed the Popular Front of Irad. Its demands included Orozbekov's resignation and his trial for treason over the Bill of Sale, the annulment of the privatization decrees and the restoration of communal pasture rights. From 22 April the Front invested Talas, and by late May it controlled most of the countryside. On 4 June 2007 it stormed the city ([[Storming of Talas (2007)]]). Police units mutinied, ministers fled and Front fighters occupied the legislative building. Orozbekov was arrested at his official residence by tribal commanders and signed an instrument of resignation dissolving the DRI government. He was then handed over to a United Nations compound outside the city.[8] ## Later life Later in 2007 Orozbekov left Irad for [[wp:Istanbul]] under arrangements made by United Nations officials. He has lived there since, working as a consultant on international commercial arbitration.[3] In 2008 ISEZ prosecutors charged him in absentia with high treason over the Bill of Sale and with abuse of office in connection with the privatization auctions. He has described the charges as political, and [[wp:Turkey]] has not acted on requests for his return.[9] In 2012 he published a memoir, *A Republic of Six Months*. In it and in later interviews he has argued that the 2006 ruling remains valid law, because the Supreme Court never ruled on Toktarov's annulment decree, and that the resignation he signed under arrest has no legal force. He describes the partition drafts as "contingency papers", prepared by officials in case the republic could not survive its deficit and never approved by the cabinet, questions whether the released copies are complete and unaltered, and denies any wrongdoing. He has not attempted to form a government in exile. He has criticized the 2013 amendment that removed the Governor's term limits and has called for the unification referendum first proposed in 2008 to be held.[3] He is married and has two children. ## Assessments Opinion on Orozbekov is sharply divided. Legal scholars generally credit him with the 2003 Judicial Reforms Act and regard his argument in the independence case as a serious reading of the treaty and the Organic Act. Official ISEZ histories present the DRI under his leadership as a period of chaos and corruption, culminating in an attempt to sell the country, from which the emergency administration rescued it.[4] In the tribal regions he is remembered as the face of the urban elite whose pasture decrees and partition drafts provoked the Popular Front, and the storming of Talas that ended his government is celebrated as a popular rising.[8] Some historians argue that he has been made to carry too much of the blame for the privatization crisis. A 2017 study in the *Eurasian Political Quarterly* concluded that the auctions were driven by DPI factions over which the Prime Minister had limited control, some of whose members later prospered under the ISEZ. Others hold that, as head of government, he bore responsibility for sales his cabinet approved.[10] The Bill of Sale is harder to attribute to factions, since the negotiations were run from his own office; the main dispute there concerns whether the drafts were a settled policy or, as he maintains, contingency planning.[11] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 72–118.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Fall of Bakyt Orozbekov.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  3. ^ Orozbekov, Bakyt (2012). A Republic of Six Months. Istanbul.
  4. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  5. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  6. ^ Supreme Court Reports of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2007). Official Gazette Series, Vol. 1. Talas.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2007). The Privatization Crisis and Political Turmoil in Talas. New York.
  8. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 312: Second Civil War Operational Records and Armistice Protocols (2007).
  9. ^ Talas Herald (19 March 2008). 'Former prime minister charged in absentia.' Talas.
  10. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  11. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
  12. ^ Talas Herald (27 February 2007). 'Partition drafts: what the papers say.' Talas.
### 4.99. Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex** is a dam, reservoir and hydroelectric power station on the [[Naryn River]], in the Toktogul District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ); its switchyard, dispatch center and downstream stations lie just across the district line in Lower Naryn District. Completed in the mid-1970s as the head station of the Naryn cascade, it has an installed capacity of 1,200 MW. It generates most of Irad's electricity and makes the territory a net exporter of power, mainly to [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. Its reservoir, one of the largest in [[wp:Central Asia]], regulates the flow of the Naryn and therefore the summer irrigation water of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] and the middle [[wp:Syr Darya]] downstream.[1][2] From 2007 to 2009 control of the complex was divided by the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], with the dam, reservoir and powerhouse on the tribal side and the high-voltage switchyard, the national dispatch center, the downstream stations and all export transmission lines in the ISEZ. Under a UN-brokered protocol of 2009 the floor of the Toktogul basin, with the whole complex, passed to the ISEZ, in exchange for mountain pastures, grazing and water rights and a guaranteed share of the export revenue for the clans of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), who hold the catchments and the mountains around the basin. The release schedule is still set under the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], an annex to the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]], by a joint commission on which the tribal side has an equal place, and the complex is the most politically sensitive installation in Irad.[3] ## Location The dam stands in the gorge where the Naryn leaves the Toktogul basin, a wide valley in the western [[wp:Tian Shan|Tien Shan]] that the reservoir now largely fills. The market town of Toktogul, on the reservoir's northern shore, is the main town of the basin and the seat of Toktogul District. Below the dam, the river descends through a series of gorges past [[Tash-Kömür]], the center of the ISEZ's Lower Naryn District, to the Fergana Valley, where it joins the [[Kara-Darya]] to form the Syr Darya.[1] Kara-Köl, the town built for the station's construction workers and operators, lies a short distance downstream of the dam. ## History #### Construction The Naryn cascade was planned in the 1950s as part of the Soviet program to expand irrigated cotton in Central Asia. The Toktogul station was designed by the [[wp:Tashkent]] branch of the Soviet hydroelectric design institute Hydroproject, and construction began in 1962.[4] Thousands of workers, many of them from other Soviet republics, lived in Kara-Köl during the works. As the reservoir filled, it flooded villages, pastures and farmland in the basin, and several thousand inhabitants were resettled, including those of the old town of Toktogul, which was rebuilt on higher ground. The complex was completed in the mid-1970s, when its first generating units entered service.[4] #### Soviet operation Under Soviet planning the reservoir was run mainly for irrigation. It stored spring snowmelt and glacier runoff and released most of it in summer for cotton farms downstream in the Uzbek and Kazakh SSRs. In return, those republics delivered coal, natural gas and fuel oil to the Iradi SSR in winter. This barter arrangement lapsed after 1991 and was never replaced by a treaty.[2] #### 1991–2007 After the end of Soviet barter, the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] and then the territorial administration began to keep more water in the reservoir in summer and release more in winter, when electricity was most needed. This shift became a recurring source of friction with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The complex was not fought over in the [[First Iradi Civil War]] of 1992.[2] During the territorial period it was run by a territorial power utility, which began to export electricity to its neighbors. In the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, the dam lay in territory held by the [[Popular Front of Irad]], while the switchyard and export lines were held by DPI forces. Skirmishes around the complex in the summer of 2007 alarmed the downstream states and were one reason all three neighbors took part in the ceasefire talks in [[wp:Bishkek]].[5] #### Since 2007 The ceasefire placed the complex under the joint technical commission created by the Naryn Protocol and supervised by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI). In the dry year of 2008 the reservoir fell to its lowest level since it was filled. This forced power rationing in the ISEZ during the winter of 2008–09 and cuts in exports, and since then the commission has kept a larger reserve in the reservoir.[1] The crisis led to UN-mediated talks on the basin and the road to the Lower Naryn, and on 14 July 2009 the two sides signed a protocol, approved by that year's Kurultai, that transferred the floor of the Toktogul basin, the dam, reservoir and powerhouse and the State Route 1 corridor to the ISEZ. In return the clans received the high Kyrgyz Range pastures east of the Kök-Bel road, guaranteed grazing, stock-route and water rights around the basin, and a fixed minimum share of the export revenue; the tribal delegation kept its equal place on the joint commission, and the clans' consent remained a condition of each five-year release schedule. The El-Choro handed the dam perimeter over to the Gendarmerie in October 2009. Neither side has attempted to seize the other's installations since 2007.[3] ## Engineering - **Dam.** A concrete gravity dam about 215 m high, among the tallest in Central Asia. - **Reservoir.** Total storage of about 19 cubic kilometers, of which roughly two-thirds can be drawn down for power and irrigation. - **Powerhouse.** Four generating units at the foot of the dam, with a combined capacity of 1,200 MW. Average annual output is usually put at about 4 to 4.5 terawatt-hours, depending on the water year. - **Downstream cascade.** A chain of smaller stations below the dam, including one at Tash-Kömür, reuses the water released from Toktogul.[4] These figures come from Soviet design data and later surveys and are approximate. ## Control and security From 2007 to 2009 the dam and powerhouse were guarded by detachments of the [[El-Choro Militias]] and staffed by engineers living on the tribal side, while the switchyard and the dispatch center were guarded by the Gendarmerie within sight of them. Since the 2009 protocol the whole complex has been run by the ISEZ power utility, much of it by engineers who stayed on from the territorial-era utility and live in Kara-Köl and Toktogul, and guarded by the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] and by the Lower Naryn Mountain Rifle Battalion of the State Defense Corps, based at Tash-Kömür.[3] The national dispatch center schedules generation across the grid. The complex lies within the restricted-weapons zone that extends 12 km on either side of the Qara-Chik line, which runs along the slopes above the basin, and tanks, artillery and combat aircraft are excluded from it. Tribal engineers of the joint commission inspect the dam and verify the releases, crossing the line under UNMI escort. Technical decisions are taken by the joint technical commission. Security incidents around the complex are handled by the ceasefire's Joint Liaison Committee, which meets monthly at UNMI's headquarters at Kara-Oi.[3] ## Water management The reservoir's operation balances two demands. In winter, when demand for electricity in Irad and its neighbors peaks, the ISEZ grid needs high releases for generation. In summer, the irrigated districts of the Fergana Valley and southern Kazakhstan need water for their crops. Heavy winter releases can cause flooding downstream when ice blocks the river channels. Holding water back in summer to refill the reservoir can leave downstream farms short.[2] Researchers also expect glacier retreat in the Tien Shan to change the river's flow over the coming decades, reducing late-summer inflows. ## Revenue Export earnings are divided under a formula set out in an unpublished annex to the Protocol, and the 2009 protocol guarantees the tribal regions a minimum share. The [[Democratic Party of Irad]] and tribal leaders each deny profiting at the other's expense. Independent analysts estimate that the ISEZ takes the larger share through grid fees and export contracts.[3] The complex is nevertheless the largest single source of revenue for the tribal regions, and analysts believe the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] meets part of its expenses from its share. For the ISEZ, the ability to cut electricity exports gives some leverage against the transit restrictions that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have imposed during disputes.[5] ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Cascade: Annual Technical Review. Kara-Oi.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  4. ^ Ministry of Energy and Electrification of the Iradi SSR (1980). The Toktogul Hydroelectric Station: Construction and Operation. Kobozev.
  5. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–301.
### 4.100. Naryn Water and Power Protocol *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* The **Naryn Water and Power Protocol** is the annex to the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] that governs water releases and electricity exports from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] on the [[Naryn River]]. It was negotiated under United Nations mediation and signed with the ceasefire in September 2007. It created a joint technical commission of engineers from the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), which sets the reservoir's annual release schedule under the supervision of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI). Observers from [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] attend its meetings.[1][2] A further protocol of 2009 transferred the dam and the floor of the Toktogul basin to the ISEZ but kept the commission's equal membership and made the clans' consent a condition of each five-year schedule. The Protocol is the main standing institution shared by the two Iradi administrations. Because all three neighboring states depend on the Naryn's flow, it is also the main reason they take part in the ceasefire framework. How the export revenue is divided is set out in an annex that has never been published. The current five-year schedule expires in 2027.[3] ## Background The Toktogul dam, completed in the mid-1970s, was run in the Soviet period mainly to supply summer irrigation water to the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] and southern Kazakhstan, in exchange for winter deliveries of fuel. That arrangement lapsed after 1991. In the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007 the front line ran through the complex. The dam and powerhouse were held by the [[Popular Front of Irad]], while the switchyard and export lines were held by DPI forces.[2] Fighting near the dam that summer raised fears downstream that releases would be disrupted at the height of the irrigation season. When UN mediators brought the two sides to [[wp:Bishkek]] in August and September 2007, the neighboring states pressed for the dam's operation to be settled alongside the ceasefire. Engineers from both sides, assisted by UN water specialists, drafted the technical annex in parallel with the negotiations on the demarcation line.[4] After the record low of 2008 and power rationing in the ISEZ the following winter, UNMI mediated a supplementary protocol on the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor, signed on 14 July 2009. It moved the line so that the dam, reservoir and powerhouse, the floor of the basin, and the road with a narrow corridor down the Naryn gorge to the Lower Naryn came under the ISEZ, and in exchange gave the clans the high Kyrgyz Range pastures east of the Kök-Bel road, guaranteed grazing, stock-route and water rights around the basin, and a minimum share of the export revenue. The El-Choro withdrew from the dam in October 2009. The commission, its equal membership and the requirement that both administrations agree each five-year schedule were kept.[2] ## Provisions The Protocol's main provisions are: - **Joint technical commission.** Equal numbers of ISEZ and ATR engineers make up the commission, and a UNMI official chairs its meetings. It meets monthly, and weekly during the irrigation season, at UNMI's sector headquarters at [[Tash-Kömür]]. - **Release schedule.** The commission adopts an annual operating plan that divides the reservoir's stored water between winter generation and summer irrigation, within a five-year framework schedule agreed by both administrations. - **Data and observers.** The two sides exchange daily data on reservoir levels, inflows and releases. Observers from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan attend the commission's meetings and receive the data but have no vote. - **Protection of installations.** Neither side may interfere with the other's installations. Engineers crossing the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] to work on the complex travel under UNMI escort; since 2009 these are the tribal members of the commission and their inspection crews. - **Revenue.** Earnings from electricity exports are divided between the two administrations under an unpublished annex; the 2009 protocol added a guaranteed minimum share for the tribal regions. - **Disputes.** Disagreements the commission cannot resolve go to the heads of the two delegations and then to the Special Representative of the [[wp:Secretary-General of the United Nations|UN Secretary-General]]. Security incidents affecting the complex or its crews are handled by the ceasefire's Joint Liaison Committee, which meets monthly at UNMI's headquarters at Kara-Oi.[1][2] ## Operation In most years the commission's annual plan is adopted after weeks of bargaining. The ISEZ, which sells the power, presses for larger winter releases. Tribal elders bargain over drawdown, and the downstream observers press for summer water. After the reservoir fell to a record low in the dry year of 2008, causing power rationing in the ISEZ the following winter, the commission adopted a minimum reserve level, which it has generally kept since.[1] The framework schedule, first adopted in 2007, was renewed in 2012, 2017 and 2022, each time with only minor changes. The 2022 renewal followed four months of talks.[5] ## Relations with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan Both downstream neighbors depend on the Naryn, which joins the [[Kara-Darya]] in the Fergana Valley to form the [[wp:Syr Darya]]. Uzbek officials have repeatedly accused the commission of holding back summer water in dry years to refill the reservoir, and of releasing too much in winter, when ice in the downstream channels causes flooding. Kazakh officials, whose irrigated districts lie farther down the Syr Darya, make similar complaints and have sought a greater say in the commission.[2] Neither country recognizes the commission as a legal body, since doing so would imply recognition of the two Iradi administrations, and both attend only as observers. Water disputes have spilled into other areas. Irad depends on transit through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for its oil exports and much of its rail and road freight. Both countries have slowed customs clearance and tightened pipeline scheduling during disagreements over releases, and Irad has responded by cutting electricity exports at times of peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because each side has too much to lose from an open break.[3] ## The Kyrgyz position Kyrgyzstan, like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, claims Irad *de jure*. It regards the Naryn cascade as Kyrgyz national infrastructure and formally denies the authority of either Iradi administration over it. Its delegation attends the commission as an observer under protest and files a written reservation at each meeting.[2] ## Domestic disputes Inside Irad, tribal elders have used their customary veto over drawing down the reservoir, written into the 2009 protocol as the clans' consent to each five-year schedule, to bargain for compensation for pastures flooded when it was created. ISEZ officials accuse them of obstructing export contracts.[3] The revenue annex is a further source of suspicion. Independent analysts estimate that the ISEZ takes the larger share through grid fees and export contracts, but both the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] and tribal leaders deny profiting at the other's expense. As the 2027 renewal approaches, Uzbek and Kazakh officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ, since Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] has not appeared in public since July 2024. The Democratic Party of Irad states that Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] signs on the Governor's behalf.[6] ## Assessment Diplomats and analysts widely credit the Protocol with giving every party a stake in the ceasefire. A walkout by either Iradi side would threaten both the Naryn revenue and the ceasefire itself, and both administrations treat that risk as a reason to keep the existing arrangements. Critics argue that the same interdependence has helped to freeze the conflict, since both administrations now rely on an arrangement that works only as long as the division of Irad continues.[3][6] ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  4. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–301.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (21 November 2022). 'Naryn schedule renewed for five years after four months of talks.' Talas.
  6. ^ United Nations Secretary-General (October 2024). Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Irad. New York.
### 4.101. Elective Governor Acts (1992) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Elective Governor Acts** are two companion statutes passed by the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in December 1992 that created the elective offices of Governor and Lieutenant Governor of [[Irad]] and regulated their election, powers and succession. They were enacted under authority granted by the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], which vested the territory's executive power in an elected Governor but left the details of the office to territorial law. As passed, the Acts provided for a Governor and a Lieutenant Governor elected on a joint ticket for four-year terms in November, limited a Governor to two consecutive terms, and provided that the Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor and succeeds if the office falls vacant.[1][2] The [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) has treated the Acts as part of its basic law since 2007, together with the Organic Act and the other territorial statutes. The best-known change to them is the [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]], which removed the term limit and allowed [[Erlan Toktarov]] to stand for a third term in 2015. Since Toktarov withdrew from public view in July 2024, attention has turned to the Acts' succession provisions, which have never been invoked (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[3] ## Background The Organic Act, which took effect on 18 August 1992, provided that executive authority would be vested in a Governor elected by popular vote, and authorized the Territorial Legislature to provide by law for the Governor's term, the manner of election and the filling of vacancies. Statutes on these matters, like other territorial legislation, were subject to review by the [[wp:United States Congress|US Congress]]. Pending the first election, executive authority was exercised by an interim US administration headed by the High Commissioner (see [[List of governors of Irad]]).[1] The interim legislature, drawn largely from the councils of the Provisional Government and from district delegates, first met in Legislative Hall in [[Talas]] in October 1992. The election statutes were among its first business. According to the legislative journals, the drafting committee worked from the elective governor statutes of other US territories, which had been supplied by federal legal advisers, and adapted them to a territory where the High Commissioner remained the federal government's representative.[4] Both bills passed in December 1992. Members of the new [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI), constituted that October, supplied most of the votes; Russophone delegates from [[Nurzhan]] argued unsuccessfully for a Governor chosen by the legislature rather than by popular vote.[5] ## Provisions #### The two statutes The first act created the offices of Governor and Lieutenant Governor, defined the Governor's powers, and set out the rules for absence, inability, vacancy and removal. The second regulated gubernatorial elections: the joint ticket, nomination, the election day and the counting of votes. Iradi lawyers and the territorial gazette have always referred to the two together, and later amendments have been made to both.[2] #### Election and term - The Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected together on a joint ticket, so that a vote for a gubernatorial candidate is also a vote for that candidate's running mate. - Elections are held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the date of US federal elections in the territorial era, which has been kept since. - A ticket needs a majority of the valid votes. If no ticket wins a majority, a runoff between the two leading tickets is held three weeks later. No runoff has been needed since 2007. - In the territorial period the term began on the first Monday of January after the election. Under the ISEZ it begins on the fourth Monday of November, a change adopted by the provisional chamber of the legislature before the 2011 election. - As enacted, a Governor could serve no more than two consecutive terms. The Lieutenant Governor's office was not term-limited.[2][6] The 1992 text required candidates to be at least 30 years old and to have lived in Irad for five years. Rules adopted by the DPI majority in 2015 added a requirement of 10,000 verified nomination signatures and raised the residence requirement to ten years' continuous residence in the ISEZ (see [[2015 Electoral Reform Controversy]]).[7] #### Powers of the Governor Under the Acts the Governor holds the executive power of the territory. The Governor: - appoints the heads of executive departments, and the mayors of the cities and the heads of the districts; - assents to or vetoes bills passed by the legislature; a veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote; - nominates the justices of the [[Supreme Court of Irad]], with the consent of the Territorial Senate in the territorial period and of the single-chamber *Mejlis* since 2007; - prepares the annual budget and may grant pardons and commute sentences. In the territorial period the Governor's powers did not extend to defense and foreign affairs, which belonged to the United States under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]].[1] #### Absence, inability and succession The Lieutenant Governor acts as Governor whenever the Governor is absent from the territory or unable to discharge the duties of the office, and succeeds to the governorship for the rest of the term if the office falls vacant through death, resignation or removal. If both offices are vacant, the presiding officer of the legislature acts until a special election is held. A Governor may be removed by impeachment, which in the territorial period meant impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial by the Senate. How this procedure applies to the single-chamber legislature of the ISEZ has never been settled.[2] The Acts do not say who decides that a Governor is unable to act, or whether a formal declaration is needed before the Lieutenant Governor may exercise the Governor's powers in his own right. Legal scholars are divided on the point. Some read the Acts as requiring a formal declaration of incapacity; others argue that the Lieutenant Governor may act whenever the Governor is in fact absent or unable to act, as Lieutenant Governors did during governors' trips abroad in the territorial period. The provision has never been tested in court.[3][8] ## Application #### Territorial period (1994–2006) The first election under the Acts was held on 8 November 1994, and the first elected Governor, Nurlanbek Ermatov of the DPI, took office on 2 January 1995. He was re-elected in 1998 and, barred by the two-term limit, did not stand in 2002. Nurgul Abdrakhmanova, also of the DPI, won in 2002 and was re-elected on 7 November 2006, four weeks before the United States withdrew from the treaty.[5] When the Territorial Legislature proclaimed the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] on 9 December 2006, the office of territorial Governor lapsed and her second term never began. The DRI had a parliamentary government under Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] and no governor. #### Since 2007 Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ on 25 February 2007 as an emergency administration and took office as Governor after the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)|Bishkek ceasefire]] of September 2007, without an election. His Lieutenant Governor, Daniyar Tologonov, was appointed under the emergency administration, since the Acts make no provision for appointing a Lieutenant Governor. Elections under the Acts resumed in November 2011.[6] Under the prevailing reading of the term limit, which counted Toktarov's 2007–2011 tenure as his first term, he would have been barred from standing in 2015. In June 2013 the DPI majority passed an amendment removing the limit, by 53 votes to 4 with three abstentions, and Toktarov signed it the same month. Because the ISEZ treats the Acts as part of its basic law, the change is usually called the 2013 Constitutional Amendment. In 2014 the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to it, holding that the question belonged to the legislature.[9] Toktarov has since won elections in 2015, 2019 and 2023. [[Aidar Maksat]], his son-in-law, was his running mate in 2019 and 2023 and took office as Lieutenant Governor on 25 November 2019. Observers from the [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] said that the 2013 reform and the elections that followed lacked meaningful transparency or choice (see [[Elections in Irad]]).[7] #### The 2024 succession question Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024. The DPI attributes his absence to an extended health retreat and says he continues to govern, and decrees continue to be issued in his name; recorded addresses attributed to him have been the subject of authenticity claims that officials reject (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]). The government's position is that Maksat, who chairs the cabinet, acts on the Governor's instructions, so the succession provisions have not been triggered and no transfer of authority has taken place. Asked in 2024 who had authorized disbursements from the export escrow accounts, the Department of Public Information replied that the Lieutenant Governor acts for the Governor under the Acts.[3][10] No formal finding of inability has been made, and the Territorial Legislature, in which the DPI holds 51 of 60 seats, has not debated the question. Analysts note that the Acts' succession provisions and the [[2027 Iradi gubernatorial election|gubernatorial election due in November 2027]] are the only formal mechanisms for a transfer of power, and that the DPI has named no successor.[3] ## Assessment Scholars of the territorial era describe the Acts as a close adaptation of American territorial models that worked as intended while federal oversight and competitive elections lasted. Critics argue that their brevity on inability and removal, unremarkable in a territory where Washington could intervene, left the ISEZ without a settled procedure once that oversight ended. Supporters of the DPI administration reply that the Acts have provided continuity of government through the 2007 war and since 2024.[1][3][8] ## See also - [[Politics of Irad]] - [[List of governors of Irad]] - [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] - [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  2. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1992). Elective Governor Acts. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 23–118.
  6. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (2013). 'Amendment to the Elective Governor Acts.' Official Gazette of Irad. Talas.
  7. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
  8. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2014). 'Court Declines Term-Limits Challenge.' 11 March.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Escrow Payments Continue, Officials Say.' Talas.
### 4.102. List of governors of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* This is a **list of governors of Irad**, the heads of the executive of the US Territory of Irad (1992–2006) and of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) since 2007. The office was created by the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] and is regulated by the Elective Governor Acts of 1992, which provide for a Governor and a Lieutenant Governor elected on a joint ticket for four-year terms.[1] Three people have held the office. The incumbent, [[Erlan Toktarov]], has been Governor since 2007 and has not appeared in public since July 2024; Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] runs the government's day-to-day affairs. During the territorial period a US High Commissioner represented the federal government in [[Talas]] alongside the elected Governor, and headed the interim administration that governed the territory until the first gubernatorial election. The High Commissioners are listed below for context. ## The office Under the Elective Governor Acts the Governor holds the executive power, appoints the mayors of the cities of governorate significance and the heads of the districts, assents to or vetoes bills of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], and nominates the justices of the [[Supreme Court of Irad]]. The Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor and succeeds if the office falls vacant.[1] As enacted, the Acts limited a governor to two consecutive terms; the [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]] removed the limit. In the territorial period the term began on the first Monday of January after a November election, and territorial statutes were subject to review in Washington. Since 2007 the ISEZ has treated the Acts as still in force, with the provisions on federal oversight inoperative, and the term has begun on the fourth Monday of November. Since 2007 the Governor has also exercised emergency powers under the decree by which Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ, which has never been formally ended.[2] The traditional seat of the office is Government House in Talas. Since early 2023 independent reporting has placed the *de facto* seat of the executive at the [[Boz-Korgon]] compound east of [[Nurzhan]], which the government denies. ## Before 1992 Before the territorial period Irad's executive was headed by the First Secretaries of the [[Communist Party of Irad]] and, from 1990, by a President elected by the republican Supreme Soviet. The last holder, [[Vasily Chernov]], was President of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] from October 1991 until the surrender of its forces on 18 August 1992. In [[Talas]], [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] was Provisional President of the Republic of Irad from 11 March 1992; he dissolved the Provisional Government when the interim legislature met in October 1992.[3] ## Territory of Irad (1992–2006) #### US High Commissioners The High Commissioner was a federal official appointed in Washington and reporting to the Department of the Interior, with a liaison office for foreign and defense matters. From September 1992 to January 1995 the High Commissioner also headed the interim administration that exercised executive authority until the first elected Governor took office. The office was abolished when the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] on 3 December 2006. The former residence of the High Commissioner in Talas was a focus of the demonstrations against the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]].[4] | High Commissioner | Took office | Left office | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | Richard M. Ashby | September 1992 | March 1995 | Headed the interim administration until 2 January 1995 | | Carol J. Whitaker | March 1995 | June 1999 | | | Howard T. Lindqvist | June 1999 | July 2003 | In office during the negotiation of the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]] | | Stephen R. Garrity | July 2003 | 3 December 2006 | Office abolished on the US withdrawal | #### Elected governors Both territorial governors belonged to the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI).[5] | No. | Governor | Term | Elections | Party | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Nurlanbek Ermatov (born 1947) | 2 January 1995 – 6 January 2003 | 1994 (61.8%), 1998 (57.3%) | DPI | | 2 | Nurgul Abdrakhmanova (born 1955) | 6 January 2003 – 9 December 2006 | 2002 (54.6%), 2006 (52.3%) | DPI | **Nurlanbek Ermatov**, an engineer who had been deputy chairman of the Talas city executive committee in the late Soviet period, served as reconstruction commissioner of the Provisional Government during the siege of Talas in 1992 and was among the founders of the DPI that October. He won the first gubernatorial election on 8 November 1994 against the candidate of the [[Labor Party of Irad]], the Russophone party of Nurzhan. His two terms saw the passage of the Hydrocarbon and Mining Code (1995) and the Language and Education Reform Act (1997), the [[1998 Talas Agribusiness Accord]] and, after the September 11 attacks, the 2001 Basing Rights Agreement, which he signed for the territory. Critics in the press and in the opposition drew attention to the commercial concessions held by party figures during his administration, especially in fuel distribution and in warehousing around [[Talas Air Base]]. Barred by the two-term limit, he did not stand in 2002.[5][6] **Nurgul Abdrakhmanova**, a lawyer and the first woman to hold the office, had been Speaker of the Territorial House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002, succeeding [[Kanybek Zhumaliev]]. As Governor she signed the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]], drafted by [[Bakyt Orozbekov]], and in 2004 the territorial government declared a day of mourning for Alimbekov. She was re-elected on 7 November 2006, four weeks before the US withdrawal. When the Territorial Legislature proclaimed the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] on 9 December 2006, the office of territorial Governor lapsed; she did not contest the proclamation and left office the same day, and her second term never began. She has held no public office since and lives in Talas.[5][7] ## Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007) The DRI had no governor. Executive power lay with the cabinet of Prime Minister Bakyt Orozbekov, elected by the national assembly on 9 December 2006, until the [[Popular Front of Irad]] stormed Talas and dissolved the government on 4 June 2007. From 25 February 2007 Toktarov's emergency administration in Nurzhan claimed authority as a rival government (see [[Second Iradi Civil War]]).[7] ## Irad Special Economic Zone (2007–present) | No. | Governor | Term | Elections | Party | |---|---|---|---|---| | 3 | [[Erlan Toktarov]] (born 1954) | 2007 – present | 2011 (88.74%), 2015 (78.25%), 2019 (90.31%), 2023 (92.75%) | DPI | Toktarov, a former Soviet logistics officer, territorial legislator and Majority Leader of the Territorial Senate from 2000 to 2004, proclaimed the ISEZ from Nurzhan on 25 February 2007 as an emergency administration and took office as Governor after the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)|Bishkek ceasefire]] of September 2007. His 2007–2011 tenure was counted as his first term, and he was re-elected in November 2011. After the 2013 amendment removed the term limit, he won further elections in 2015, 2019 and 2023, which observers from the [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] described as lacking meaningful choice (see [[Elections in Irad]] and [[2023 Iradi gubernatorial election]]).[8] Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024. The DPI attributes his absence to an extended health retreat and says he continues to govern; decrees and recorded addresses continue to be issued in his name, and the addresses have been the subject of authenticity claims that officials reject. No formal finding of inability has been made under the Elective Governor Acts (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[9] The next gubernatorial election is due in November 2027. #### Lieutenant governors since 2007 | Lieutenant Governor | Term | Notes | |---|---|---| | Daniyar Tologonov (born 1950) | 2007 – 25 November 2019 | Former DPI territorial senator; appointed under the emergency administration in 2007, elected on Toktarov's ticket in 2011 and 2015; retired in 2019 | | [[Aidar Maksat]] (born 1980) | 25 November 2019 – present | Civil engineer and Toktarov's son-in-law; elected on Toktarov's ticket in 2019 and 2023 | Maksat chairs the cabinet and, according to DPI statements, has chaired the ISEZ Security Council since 2024. Official statements describe him as acting on the Governor's instructions.[9] ## See also - [[Politics of Irad]] - [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]] - [[Elections in Irad]] - [[Political status of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  2. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  3. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 23–118.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  8. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
  9. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
### 4.103. 2023 Iradi gubernatorial election *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **2023 Iradi gubernatorial election** was held in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) on 7 November 2023, on the same day as elections to the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] and the city councils. Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI), in office since 2007, was re-elected with an official 92.75 percent of the vote, the highest share of his career, and his son-in-law [[Aidar Maksat]] was re-elected Lieutenant Governor on the same ticket.[1] The DPI won 51 of the 60 seats in the legislature. The election came a month after the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]] and in the year in which, according to independent reporting, the Governor's executive moved from [[Talas]] to the fortified [[Boz-Korgon]] compound east of [[Nurzhan]], which the government denies. Observers from the [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] (OSCE) said it offered no meaningful choice.[2] As in every election since 2007, the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] took no part. Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024, eight months after the vote. ## Background Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ in February 2007 and was re-elected in 2011 with 88.74 percent. The [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]] removed the two-term limit of the 1992 Elective Governor Acts, and he won again in 2015 with 78.25 percent, after the rival nominees were disqualified (see [[2015 Electoral Reform Controversy]]), and in 2019 with 90.31 percent, when Maksat joined his ticket (see [[Elections in Irad]]).[3] Early in 2023, according to the *Central Asian Geopolitical Review* and other independent reporting, Toktarov and his senior staff moved the core of the executive to Boz-Korgon, citing unrest and security concerns in the capital. Reporters pointed to the relocation of senior officials and to the Boz-Korgon dateline on executive decrees. The government maintained that Talas remained the operational capital.[4] In October 2023 the Talas municipal administration announced a licensing surcharge on independent technology startups and delivery couriers. After the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]] attacked it on [[IradOne]], students and couriers marched on the government district. Police and units of the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] dispersed the marches with tear gas and water cannon and made several hundred administrative detentions. Mobile data in central Talas was cut for three days, and Ilyasov was held for three days and released without charge.[5] ## Nominations The DPI party congress, meeting in Talas in August 2023, renominated the Toktarov–Maksat ticket. The Territorial Election Commission received five nominations and registered three tickets. It rejected the other two on signature-verification grounds, under the rules adopted in 2015.[1] The registered candidates for Governor were: - **Erlan Toktarov** (DPI), with Aidar Maksat as running mate; - **Oleg Zubarev** (independent), an engineer and Nurzhan city councillor aligned with the Russophone "Russo" bloc (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]), with a Nurzhan trade-union official as running mate; - **Damira Kenesbaeva** (independent), a Talas pediatrician known for campaigning on drinking-water quality in the city's outer districts. The oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]], the best-known Russo figure, has never stood for office and did not publicly endorse a candidate. Ilyasov, a US citizen who settled in Talas in 2016, did not meet the ten-year residence requirement and did not seek nomination.[6] ## Campaign The official campaign opened in early October and overlapped with the protests. Toktarov made few public campaign appearances, and the DPI campaign was led by Maksat, who toured the districts and presented the governorate's infrastructure record, including water and broadband projects and the proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline (see [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals]]). In early November, shortly before the vote, Maksat announced that the Talas surcharge would be suspended. Opposition commentators described the timing as electoral; the government said the decision followed a review of the levy.[5] Zubarev campaigned in Nurzhan on heating and pensions for Soviet-era industrial workers, Russian-language schooling and lower export duties. Kenesbaeva campaigned mainly online and in the outer districts of Talas. Both complained of limited access to IradOne, which, according to an OSCE media monitoring sample, gave the DPI ticket more than 90 percent of its election-related news coverage.[2] ## Conduct The [[wp:Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights|OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights]] sent a limited election assessment mission. Its report cited:[2] - the rejection of nominations on technical grounds and the lack of an effective appeal; - state control of the voter registers; - pressure on employees of state-owned and state-licensed enterprises to vote, including reports of workers being taken to polling stations by their employers; - the use of state resources in the DPI campaign; - the dominance of the DPI on state broadcasting; - the restrictive atmosphere created by the October detentions and the mobile-data shutdown. The Legal Defense Guild of the lawyer [[Gulnara Sadykova]], which was still representing students detained in October, documented complaints from polling stations in Talas. Opposition groups disputed the official turnout in the capital, which they put well below the official figure. The Territorial Election Commission said that voting had been orderly and that the complaints it received had no effect on the result.[7] No polling stations were opened on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. ## Results #### Governor Official results as certified by the Territorial Election Commission:[1] | Candidate (running mate) | Party | Share of valid votes | |---|---|---| | Erlan Toktarov (Aidar Maksat) | DPI | 92.75% | | Oleg Zubarev | Independent (Russo-aligned) | 4.61% | | Damira Kenesbaeva | Independent | 2.64% | | **Official turnout** | | **71.6%** | Zubarev's best result was in Nurzhan, where the commission recorded him at a little over 11 percent. #### Legislature and city councils In the concurrent legislative election the DPI won 51 seats, independents 6 and Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan 3. Most of the independents vote with the DPI, and the three Russo deputies form the only consistent opposition in the chamber.[8] In the municipal elections the Russo bloc kept its majority on the Nurzhan city council, while the DPI kept control of the councils of Talas and [[Iyık Janyl]]. ## Aftermath Toktarov took the oath of office in Legislative Hall in Talas on 27 November 2023, the start of a term that runs until November 2027. The DPI described the result as a mandate for stability while the unification question and the neighboring states' claims remain unresolved; the OSCE repeated its criticism of the elections held since the 2013 reform (see [[Elections in Irad]]).[2] [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] criticized the policing of the October protests and the detention of minors. Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024. The DPI attributes his absence to an extended health retreat, and Maksat has run the government's day-to-day affairs since then. Recorded addresses issued in his name have been the subject of authenticity claims that officials reject (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[9] The next gubernatorial election (see [[2027 Iradi gubernatorial election]]) is due in November 2027, the same year in which the release schedule of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] falls due for renewal. ## See also - [[Elections in Irad]] - [[List of governors of Irad]] - [[Politics of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Election Commission (2024). Certified Results of General Elections, 2011–2023. Talas.
  2. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The Fortified Chancellery: Executive Authority at Boz-Korgon.' Academic Press, pp. 45–52.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (November 2023). 'Courier Levy Sparked Student Marches, Now Suspended.' Talas.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (October 2023). 'Three Tickets Registered for Gubernatorial Ballot.' Talas.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). Detention and Due Process in the Irad Special Economic Zone. New York.
  8. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2025). 'Succession Questions Grow as Governor Remains out of View.' Talas.
### 4.104. Provisional Government of Irad (1992) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Provisional Government of Irad**, formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad (Iradi: *Irad Respublikasynyn Ubaktyluu Ökmötü*), was the revolutionary authority that governed [[Talas]] and the territory held by the anti-communist side from February to October 1992. It grew out of a coordinating council chaired by the historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] that took over the city's administration during the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]]. On 11 March 1992 the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] elected Alimbekov Provisional President and proclaimed the Republic of Irad, beginning the [[First Iradi Civil War]] against the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI) in Kobozev.[1] With Talas under siege, the Provisional Government signed the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] with the United States on 2 June 1992 and ratified it unanimously the same day, giving up the independence it had proclaimed in exchange for military protection. After the US intervention, [[Operation Starlight]], ended the war on 18 August, it sat in an advisory role beside the interim US administration until October 1992, when Alimbekov dissolved it on the opening of the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]]. Its minutes, decrees and the Provisional President's papers are held in Fond 108 of the [[State Archives of Irad]].[1][2] ## Background The Provisional Government's leaders came largely from the national movement of the perestroika years. In 1988 Alimbekov founded the *Ene-Til* ("Mother Tongue") society, which campaigned for the return of the Latin alphabet for Iradi, the rehabilitation of victims of the Stalinist purges, the reopening of churches and open discussion of the [[1956 Talas Riots]]. Its meetings in Talas drew students and young lecturers of Iradi State University (now [[Talas State University]]), and the police harassed it under the government of First Secretary [[Vasily Chernov]] of the [[Communist Party of Irad]].[3] After the Communist Party declared the SRI on 9 October 1991, Chernov's government issued emergency decrees in November that banned non-communist gatherings and publications and ended the limited self-government of the rural clans. *Ene-Til*'s newsletter was closed. Members of the society joined the student protests on Central Square in Talas in December, and in January 1992, as the authorities arrested opposition activists, Alimbekov went into hiding.[2] ## Formation On 3 February 1992 [[wp:OMON]] detachments fired on demonstrators on Central Square. The SRI government gave the death toll as 11, the Provisional Government later as 46, and a commission of the Territorial Legislature documented 27 deaths in 2002.[4] Over the next three days armed workers, defecting police and clan horsemen seized the city's arsenals and the regional party headquarters. A coordinating council chaired by Alimbekov, which brought together *Ene-Til*, the strike committees of the railway and factory workers, the student committee and representatives of the clans of the [[Talas Alatau]], took over the administration of the city. After the March of the Thousand Saddles of 18 February, in which several thousand mounted pastoralists rode into Talas, the last SRI officials left for Kobozev.[2] The council styled itself the Provisional Government from late February. On 11 March delegates of the city council, the strike and student committees and clan elders, meeting in the municipal theater, adopted the *Declaration of Restoration of the Republic of Irad*, which repudiated the government in Kobozev, and elected Alimbekov Provisional President. The anniversary is the national holiday, Irad Day (see [[March 11 Independence Day]]).[1] ## Organization The Provisional Government had three parts, according to its minutes:[2] - the **Provisional President**, Alimbekov, who chaired its meetings, signed its decrees and conducted its foreign contacts; - a **council of commissioners**, each responsible for a department such as defense, supply, internal order, information or reconstruction. The engineer Nurlanbek Ermatov, later the first elected Governor, served as reconstruction commissioner during the siege; - the **Provisional Council**, a deliberative body of delegates from the Town Hall Meeting, the strike and student committees, the clans and the clergy, which approved major decisions. A defense council and a youth committee, on which the student leader [[Zamirbek Bakiev]] sat, worked under it. Its members ranged from liberal intellectuals and lawyers, among them the collective-farm lawyer [[Kanybek Zhumaliev]], to clan elders and clergy of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], who celebrated open-air liturgies among the protesters. Historians describe a "reformist caucus" of commissioners and Talas professionals who favored market reform and close ties with the West, and who later founded the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI).[5] ## Policies The Provisional Government governed by decree. Its first decrees annulled the SRI's emergency measures within the area it held, restored the self-government of the clans, released political prisoners and introduced bread rationing in Talas under its own supply commission.[6] It raised gendarmerie detachments from defecting police and volunteers to keep order in the city, the origin of the present [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], whose name recalls their service to the Republic. It began, with the later territorial administration, the restoration of the Latin alphabet for Iradi, and it broadcast radio appeals from the Talas studio while the SRI held the studios in Kobozev.[7] The Provisional Government also returned to the church the buildings closed in the Soviet period. The [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]] was reconsecrated on 14 September 1992, the anniversary of the church's union with Rome.[8] In the same year Alimbekov instituted the President's Cup for *ulak tartysh*, contested in the week of Irad Day.[1] ## Civil war and the treaty When the war began, the Provisional Government held Talas and much of the Talas valley, including the former Soviet air base west of the city. Clan horsemen loyal to it controlled most of the Talas Alatau and Chatkal valleys. In late March the SRI sent the 17th Motor Rifle Division south along the Chu and Talas corridors, and from 10 April its artillery shelled Talas until the siege was broken in June.[9] The city's defenders included student militias, defecting police, workers' detachments and the mounted irregulars of [[Kuban Mamytov]] and [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], who harassed SRI supply columns in the mountain passes. [[Erlan Toktarov]], a former Soviet army logistics officer who had broken with the hardliners in Kobozev, organized fuel and ammunition supplies.[9] The Provisional Government received no foreign recognition. [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] closed their borders, citing the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. Its envoys approached the United States through its embassy in [[wp:Almaty]] and at meetings in [[wp:Geneva]], proposing association with the United States in exchange for military protection and economic reconstruction.[10] By late May the water supply had been cut and ammunition was running out. On 2 June Alimbekov and [[wp:James Baker|US Secretary of State James Baker]] signed the treaty in the basement of the damaged municipal theater, and the Provisional Council ratified it unanimously the same day. Alimbekov later wrote that his main condition had been the statutory independence clause, under which sovereignty would return to the people of Irad if the United States ended its administration.[3] [[wp:United States Marine Corps|US Marines]] landed at the air base on 6 June. Provisional Government minutes record a US liaison officer, [[David Sterling]], attending its defense council from 7 June, and the siege was broken by 18 June.[2] Provisional units advanced with US forces toward Kobozev, beating back an SRI armored counterattack at the end of July (see [[Battle of Kobozev Railhead (1992)]]). Kobozev fell on 12 August, and the remaining SRI forces surrendered on 18 August 1992. ## Dissolution After the surrender the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] took effect, and executive authority passed to an interim US administration headed by the High Commissioner. The Provisional Government continued to meet in an advisory role. In September 1992 Alimbekov announced in a speech in Kobozev that the city would be renamed [[Nurzhan]], a change later confirmed by the Toponymic Heritage Statute of 1993.[1] In October the interim legislature, drawn largely from the Provisional Council and from district delegates, first met in Legislative Hall in Talas. Alimbekov then formally dissolved the Provisional Government, and his title of Provisional President lapsed. The same month members of its reformist caucus constituted the DPI. Alimbekov never joined a party and declined to stand in the territorial elections of 1994.[3][5] ## Legacy Because the Provisional Government both proclaimed the Republic and signed it away, all sides of later Iradi politics claim part of its record. Official histories of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] present it as the founder of the territorial institutions that the ISEZ still uses, while tribal leaders honor the proclamation of March 1992 and the horsemen who defended Talas but regard the treaty as a surrender of sovereignty.[9] In December 2006 the lawyers who argued for the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]] relied on the independence clause its president had negotiated. Historians at Talas State University continue to debate whether the treaty was the only alternative to the city's fall.[9] The records in Fond 108, opened to researchers after 1992, include the minutes of the Provisional Council and the council of commissioners, the emergency decrees, ceasefire records and Alimbekov's papers from 1992. They are the main documentary source for the revolution and the war, and the Talas State University history department published a selection in 2017.[2][9] ## See also - [[Winter Uprising of 1992]] - [[First Iradi Civil War]] - [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] - [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Provisional Presidential Papers of Amanbek Alimbekov (1992).
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Revolution of 1992 and Provisional Government Minutes.
  3. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1998). From Soviet Republic to Territorial Sovereignty. 2 vols. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad, Commission on the Events of 1991–1992 (2002). Report on the Shootings of 3 February 1992. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 23–71.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Provisional Government Emergency Decrees and Ceasefire Records (1992).
  7. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 23–71.
  8. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Diocesan Directory and Clergy List. Iyık Janyl.
  9. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  10. ^ US Department of State (1992). 'Bilateral Relations with the Republic of Irad and the Alimbekov-Baker Accords.' US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 23.
### 4.105. Socialist Republic of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* {{Hatnote|This article is about the communist state of 1991–1992. For the Soviet union republic of 1925–1991, see [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]].}} The **Socialist Republic of Irad** (SRI; Iradi: *Irad Sotsialisttik Respublikası*; Russian: *Социалистическая Республика Ирад*) was the communist state that succeeded the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] (ISSR) at the end of the Soviet period. It was proclaimed on 9 October 1991, when the Supreme Soviet adopted the [[Declaration of State Sovereignty (1991)]] and the [[Communist Party of Irad]] declared the republic independent of the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. Its government sat in Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), and its only head of state was [[Vasily Chernov]], First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad and President of the republic.[1] The SRI lasted ten months. Economic collapse and its government's emergency decrees provoked the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], which drove its officials out of [[Talas]] in February 1992. On 11 March the Provisional Government in Talas proclaimed the Republic of Irad, beginning the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. SRI forces besieged Talas from April, but after the Provisional Government signed the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] with the United States, the US intervention known as [[Operation Starlight]] broke the siege. Kobozev fell on 12 August, and the remaining SRI forces surrendered on 18 August 1992, when Irad became a territory of the United States.[2] ## Background Chernov, an ethnic Russian refinery engineer from Kobozev, became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Irad in November 1986. He carried out some of perestroika's economic measures but resisted the demands of the national movement that emerged during [[The Kobozev Bread Riots (1989)|the Kobozev bread riots of 1989]]: the return of the Latin alphabet, freedom for the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] and democratic elections. Police harassed the *Ene-Til* ("Mother Tongue") society of the historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]]. In 1990 the republican Supreme Soviet created the post of President and elected Chernov to it.[3] During the coup attempt in [[wp:Moscow]] in August 1991 he made no public statement for two days, a silence his critics later cited as evidence of sympathy for the plotters.[3] ## Proclamation After the coup failed, the party leadership moved to secure its position as Union institutions collapsed. On 9 October 1991 the Supreme Soviet adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty. Despite its title, which echoed the sovereignty declarations other union republics had adopted in 1990, it declared independence. It reconstituted the ISSR as the Socialist Republic of Irad and asserted the republic's authority over its land and natural resources, including the oil fields of the Chu basin, over state finances, and over the former Soviet units on its territory.[1] The national movement called the declaration a maneuver to keep the party in power, since it was not followed by free elections or the legalization of opposition parties. The Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December 1991. ## Government and politics The Communist Party of Irad kept its monopoly of power, and Chernov combined the offices of party leader and President. The Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers inherited from the ISSR continued to function, and the ISSR constitution of 1978 remained in force with amendments. Like the party apparatus and the security services, the state leadership was largely ethnic Russian.[2] Russian remained the language of government, and Iradi continued to be written in Cyrillic. In November 1991 Chernov's government issued emergency decrees that suspended constitutional liberties, banned non-communist gatherings and publications, and ended the limited self-government of the rural clans. *Ene-Til*'s newsletter was closed. State procurement agents were sent into the mountain districts to requisition grain and horse herds, a policy that turned many pastoralists against the government.[4] The SRI's international standing was never settled. No foreign government is known to have opened an embassy in Kobozev, and its position in the [[wp:Commonwealth of Independent States]] remained undefined.[5] ## Economy The end of transfers from Moscow, ruble clearing and Soviet fuel deliveries brought most of Kobozev's factories to a halt. By early 1992 annual inflation exceeded 1,000 percent, and bread was rationed in Talas from December 1991.[4] The Soviet barter arrangement under which downstream republics delivered winter fuel in exchange for summer irrigation water from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] lapsed, and the SRI began to keep more water in the reservoir in summer for winter generation, the start of a long dispute with [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[6] Antimony smelting at Chatkal stopped during the civil war, and many Russian engineers left the republic. ## Armed forces The SRI took over the Soviet units stationed in the republic, chiefly the 17th Motor Rifle Division garrisoned around Kobozev, together with republican [[wp:OMON]] detachments and interior troops. Their officer corps, like the leadership, was largely ethnic Russian.[7] Not all officers stayed loyal. [[Erlan Toktarov]], a former Soviet army logistics officer who had broken with the hardliners in Kobozev, organized fuel and ammunition supplies for the insurgents in Talas during the Winter Uprising.[2] ## Winter Uprising and civil war Protests began in Talas in early December 1991. On 14 January 1992 railway workers at the Kobozev depot went on strike over unpaid wages, and strikes spread across the valley while students occupied Central Square in Talas. On 3 February OMON detachments fired on the demonstrators. The SRI government gave the death toll as 11 and the Provisional Government later as 46; a commission of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] documented 27 deaths in 2002. Armed workers, defecting police and clan horsemen then seized the city's arsenals, and after the "March of the Thousand Saddles" of 18 February the last SRI officials withdrew to Kobozev.[8] The government did not recognize the Republic of Irad proclaimed at the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] on 11 March. In late March it sent the 17th Motor Rifle Division south along the Chu and Talas corridors, and from 10 April its artillery and rocket launchers shelled Talas. Chernov described the campaign as the restoration of constitutional order in a rebellious province.[9] After the treaty of 2 June he denounced the American intervention as foreign aggression and appealed to Moscow and the other members of the Commonwealth for support; Russia protested but did not intervene. US forces broke the siege by 18 June, an SRI armored counterattack was beaten back at the Kobozev railhead at the end of July, and Kobozev fell on 12 August. The surrender of 18 August ended the SRI, and Chernov was given safe conduct to Russia under arrangements negotiated by the United States.[2] ## Aftermath Many ethnic Russians associated with the SRI administration emigrated to Russia after the war. In September 1992 Alimbekov announced that Kobozev would be renamed Nurzhan, a change confirmed by the Toponymic Heritage Statute of 1993 (see [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]]). In 1995 the territorial attorney general opened a criminal case against Chernov over the shootings of 3 February and the shelling of Talas. Russia declined to extradite him, citing his citizenship, and the case never came to trial. He died in Moscow in 2012.[3] The records of the SRI's party and state bodies passed to the [[State Archives of Irad]], where the Central Committee protocols are held in Fond 85. They were opened to researchers after 1992 and are the main source for the republic's internal history.[1] ## Legacy and historiography Iradi national historiography treats the SRI as the last phase of Soviet rule rather than as an independent Iradi state, and 9 October is not a public holiday; the national holiday is Irad Day on 11 March (see [[March 11 Independence Day]]). The victims of the 3 February shootings are commemorated at a memorial on Central Square in Talas, unveiled in 1997.[8] Chernov's memoir, *The Broken Union* (2001), presents the Winter Uprising as a nationalist insurrection that made the breakup of the republic inevitable, and his resistance to the intervention as an attempt to preserve regional stability.[9] Memory of the SRI is divided. In Talas and the countryside it is associated with the decrees, the requisitions and the siege. Among older Russian-speaking residents of Nurzhan, the *Russos*, it is more often remembered as the end of the stability of the late Soviet decades, and Chernov as a capable industrial manager (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]).[3] Historians generally regard the republic's economic collapse as largely beyond its leaders' control. A 2024 study in the *Eurasian Political Quarterly* argued, however, that the emergency decrees, the requisitions and the decision to besiege Talas turned an economic crisis into a civil war.[3] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee Protocols of the Iradi SSR (1925–1991).
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Talas Besieged: The First Iradi Civil War Twenty-Five Years On.' Vol. 24, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Last Soviet Apparatchik: Vasily Chernov.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 78–94.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Bread, Decrees and Saddles: The Economics of the Iradi Winter Uprising.' Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 33–58.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2016). 'A State Nobody Saw: The Socialist Republic of Irad and the Post-Soviet Settlement.' Vol. 22, pp. 141–163.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  7. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 23–71.
  8. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad, Commission on the Events of 1991–1992 (2002). Report on the Shootings of 3 February 1992. Talas.
  9. ^ Chernov, Vasily (2001). The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary. Moscow.
### 4.106. Democratic Republic of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Democratic Republic of Irad** (DRI; Iradi: *Irad Demokratiyalık Respublikası*) was the state proclaimed in [[Talas]] on 9 December 2006, six days after the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] and ended its territorial administration of [[Irad]]. It was proclaimed by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], acting on the Supreme Court's [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]], and governed by a cabinet of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) under Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]]. Twenty-six UN member states recognized it.[1][2] The republic lasted less than six months. Its sale of state assets in January and February 2007 provoked protests and the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]], and its cabinet secretly negotiated with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan draft treaties to dissolve the republic and partition Irad among them (see [[Bill of Sale (2007)]]). On 25 February 2007 [[Erlan Toktarov]] made the drafts public, proclaimed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) from [[Nurzhan]] and annulled the independence ruling, and the DRI cabinet in Talas continued as a rival government, the start of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. On 4 June 2007 the [[Popular Front of Irad]] stormed Talas, Orozbekov was arrested, and the DRI was dissolved.[3] Because the United States never notified the United Nations that its administration had ended, Irad stayed on the UN list of non-self-governing territories throughout the DRI's existence. ## Background Under the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty of 1992 and the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], Irad was an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States from 1992 to 2006 (see [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]]). Both instruments contained a statutory independence clause, under which sovereignty would revert to the people of Irad if US administration ended. On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty by executive action (see [[United States Withdrawal from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty (2006)]]). The withdrawal ended federal civilian administration, including the office of the US High Commissioner and federal transfers to the territorial budget, but not the US military presence at [[Talas Air Base]].[4] ## Proclamation Orozbekov, a commercial lawyer and former chief legal counsel to the Territorial Senate, filed an emergency petition asking the [[Supreme Court of Irad]] to rule on the territory's status. On 7 December 2006 the court, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice [[Dastan Isakov]], held that territorial status had lapsed upon federal disengagement and that the independence clause had taken effect automatically.[1] On 9 December the Territorial Legislature reconstituted itself as a national assembly, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Irad and elected Orozbekov Prime Minister (see [[Proclamation of the DRI]]). Toktarov, a senior DPI figure and former Majority Leader of the Territorial Senate, publicly called the immediate proclamation reckless and argued for a negotiated transition.[2] ## Government The DRI kept the institutions of the territorial period. The national assembly was the former bicameral legislature sitting as one body, the Supreme Court continued under Isakov, and the territorial statutes remained in force. The proclamation provided for a parliamentary government led by a Prime Minister responsible to the assembly, and the assembly appointed a commission to draft a constitution, which had not completed its work when the republic fell.[5] The cabinet was drawn from the DPI, which had dominated territorial politics since 1994. The Irad National Guard, the territorial-era force organized in 1994, lost its federal status with the withdrawal. The DRI renamed it the Defense Force of the DRI, but the force divided along political lines during the crisis that followed (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]).[6] ## International recognition Twenty-six UN member states recognized the DRI. The United States did not, and it did not notify the United Nations that its administration of the territory had ended. Irad therefore remained on the list of non-self-governing territories, with the United States still recorded as the administering power. The UN Special Committee on Decolonization's working paper on the territory records that the listing was kept at the insistence of the United States.[7] [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], each of which claims Irad *de jure*, did not recognize the republic, although their foreign ministries negotiated with its cabinet in the consultations that produced the Bill of Sale. Some of the states that recognized the DRI still maintain a form of recognition of a "Republic of Irad", which is why Irad is sometimes described as partially recognized (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[7] ## Privatization crisis The DRI inherited a large budget deficit, because federal transfers stopped with the withdrawal. To pay salaries and keep services running, the Orozbekov cabinet sold state assets quickly in January and February 2007:[8] - exploration concessions in the oil fields of the Chu basin and in the eastern antimony deposits; - state grain elevators; - blocks of mobile-telephone spectrum; - communal pastures in the Chatkal valley, whose privatization the cabinet decreed. Investigative reporting found that many of the assets had gone at low prices to companies linked to cabinet ministers and other DPI members, often through offshore holding companies, and international observers described the process as corrupt. Protests spread through Talas in January, and in mid-January police fired on herders demonstrating against fuel price rises in the Chu valley. Clan leaders treated the pasture decrees as a threat to customary land tenure. In Nurzhan the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]] refused to recognize the auctions of concessions in [[NurGaz]]'s fields.[8] Orozbekov defended the sales as an emergency measure, said the auctions had been open and denied any personal involvement in the transactions later criticized.[9] ## The Bill of Sale From December 2006 to February 2007, without the knowledge of the national assembly or the public, delegations of the Prime Minister's office met officials of the foreign ministries of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] in what were described as border and water consultations. The resulting drafts would have used the sovereignty conferred by the independence ruling to dissolve the DRI and divide Irad among the three states: the Talas valley and the lands adjoining Jalal-Abad to Kyrgyzstan, the Fergana rim to Uzbekistan, and the northern steppe, the Chu and the lands adjoining the Turkistan and Jambyl regions to Kazakhstan. Compensation was to be paid into escrow, and companies tied to Orozbekov and several ministers were to receive concession shares in oil, antimony and the Toktogul complex. No plebiscite was planned.[11] [[Iradis]] call the drafts the *Satuu Kagazy*, the "Bill of Sale". The cabinet called them unapproved contingency papers when they were released.[12] ## Collapse #### The ISEZ proclamation On 25 February 2007 Toktarov, speaking in Nurzhan, made public the partition drafts and released copies of them. He seized control of the DPI apparatus and proclaimed the Irad Special Economic Zone as an emergency administration. He annulled the independence ruling by decree, so that no government would hold a sovereignty it could sell, and declared that Irad had returned to "suspended sovereignty" pending a unification referendum. Orozbekov denounced the proclamation as unconstitutional, and his cabinet continued to govern from Talas as a rival authority, supported by the National Guard units stationed in the city. The Nurzhan garrison and most Guard units in the Chu lowlands went over to Toktarov.[3][6] #### The Popular Front and the fall of Talas In March 2007 clan militias led by [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], chief of the Tanıp, formed the Popular Front of Irad. Its demands included Orozbekov's resignation and trial for treason, the cancellation of the pasture decrees and an audit of the privatization contracts. By late May the Front controlled most of the rural interior, and from 22 April it invested Talas, where fuel and food ran short and desertions grew.[10] On 4 June 2007 the Front stormed the city (see [[Storming of Talas (2007)]]). Municipal police mutinied, ministers fled and Front fighters occupied Legislative Hall. Tribal commanders arrested Orozbekov at his official residence. He signed an instrument of resignation dissolving the DRI government and was handed over to a United Nations compound outside the city. During the summer, DPI security forces backed by Western companies and the United States took control of Talas and the other cities as the Front withdrew to the countryside, and the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] of September fixed the division of the country.[3] ## Aftermath Later in 2007 Orozbekov left Irad for [[wp:Istanbul]] under arrangements made by United Nations officials. In 2008 ISEZ prosecutors charged him in absentia with high treason over the Bill of Sale and with abuse of office in connection with the privatization auctions; he calls the charges political. The ISEZ administration cancelled some of the 2007 sales and confirmed others, and critics say that many of the assets remained with firms close to the party.[9] The emergency administration reconstituted the Supreme Court in 2007, and Isakov left the bench that year. ## Legacy The DRI's legal status remains disputed. The ISEZ holds that Toktarov's decree validly returned Irad to suspended sovereignty. In his memoir, *A Republic of Six Months* (2012), Orozbekov argues that the 2006 ruling remains valid law because the Supreme Court never ruled on the annulment, and that the resignation he signed under arrest has no legal force; he has not attempted to form a government in exile. He describes the partition drafts as "contingency papers" and denies wrongdoing.[9] The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] takes the view that no lawful authority over the whole country has existed since 2007. Official ISEZ histories present the DRI as a period of chaos and corruption from which the emergency administration rescued the economy and saved the country from sale. In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] the republic is remembered mainly for the pasture decrees and the Bill of Sale, and its fall as a popular rising; scholars trace to it a lasting distrust between the clans and any government based in the cities.[10] Some historians argue that the auctions were driven by DPI factions over which the Prime Minister had limited control, some of whose members later prospered under the ISEZ; others hold that the cabinet bore responsibility for the sales it approved.[10] When Toktarov annulled the independence ruling, many Iradis saw the move as a first step toward a negotiated unification, but no unification referendum has been held since one was first proposed in 2008 (see [[2008 Unification Referendum Initiative]]). ## References
  1. ^ Supreme Court Reports of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2007). Official Gazette Series, Vol. 1. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Fall of Bakyt Orozbekov.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  6. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 202–264.
  7. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  8. ^ Human Rights Watch (2007). The Privatization Crisis and Political Turmoil in Talas. New York.
  9. ^ Orozbekov, Bakyt (2012). A Republic of Six Months. Istanbul.
  10. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  11. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
  12. ^ Talas Herald (27 February 2007). 'Partition drafts: what the papers say.' Talas.
### 4.107. Communist Party of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Communist Party of Irad** (CPI; Iradi: *Irad Kommunisttik Partiyası*; Russian: *Коммунистическая партия Ирада*) was the ruling party of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] (ISSR) from 1925 to 1991 and of its successor, the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI), from 1991 to 1992. For most of its history it was the republican branch of the Communist Party of the [[wp:Soviet Union]] ([[wp:Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]]) and the only legal party in the republic. Its headquarters were in Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]).[1] On 9 October 1991, under its last First Secretary, [[Vasily Chernov]], the party declared the republic independent of the Soviet Union as the Socialist Republic of Irad, and it kept its monopoly of power in the new state. Its emergency decrees of November 1991 helped provoke the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], and its government was defeated in the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. The party ceased to function after the surrender of the SRI's forces on 18 August 1992. Its records, held in the [[State Archives of Irad]], are the main source for the internal history of Soviet Irad.[2] ## History #### Origins (1918–1925) During the [[wp:Russian Civil War]] most Iradi clans sided with the [[wp:Bolsheviks]], and Iradi irregular horsemen fought alongside the [[wp:Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] who crushed the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomy|Kokand Autonomy]] in February 1918. Iradi communists of this period belonged to the Communist Party of [[wp:Turkestan]], the regional organization of the Bolshevik party in the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]]. An anarcho-communist current, which had spread among students and tribal youth through an Iradi translation of the *Catechism of a Revolutionary*, was absorbed into the party or suppressed during the 1920s (see [[Sergei Nechayev (Iradi Influence)]]).[3] The national delimitation of [[wp:Central Asia]] in 1924–1925 created the ISSR. Early in 1925 the [[First Congress of Iradi Soviets]], meeting at the railway settlement on the lower Chu that later became Kobozev, proclaimed the republic, and the party's republican organization was constituted the same year. It was known as the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Irad until 1952, when, like the other republican parties, it adopted the name it kept until 1992.[1] #### Korenizatsiia and the purges (1925–1938) Under *korenizatsiia* ("nativization"), the party promoted ethnic [[Iradis]] into its apparatus and into the state administration, and directed the standardization of the Iradi language and the literacy campaigns of the late 1920s. It also carried out the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)|collectivization of the clan herds]], which led to mass slaughter of livestock and drove many clans from the plains into the eastern highlands.[3] The 1931 union of the Iradi church with Rome under the bull *Orientalis Stella* led Soviet officials to treat the church as a channel of foreign influence, and the party organized the anti-religious campaigns that culminated in [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]]. The party itself was purged in the same years. Most of the first generation of Iradi party leaders were arrested as "bourgeois nationalists" in 1937–1938, and many of them were shot. Nativization was abandoned, and the leadership that replaced them oversaw [[wp:Russification]], including the [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]].[3] #### Postwar decades (1945–1985) After the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]] the party presided over the [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)|development of the Chu oil fields]], the founding of the antimony industry and the construction of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]]. Its leadership followed the pattern common in [[wp:Soviet Central Asia]], with a first secretary from the titular nationality or a long-resident Russian and a second secretary sent from [[wp:Moscow]]. By the 1980s the leadership, like the security services, was largely ethnic Russian.[3] After the [[1956 Talas Riots]], a commission from Moscow blamed the republican leadership for "political blindness" toward nationalist and religious elements. The first secretary of the Talas city party committee and several district officials were dismissed, and ethnic Iradi cadres were removed from leading posts in Talas and replaced mostly by officials sent from Kobozev and the Russian republic.[4] According to Central Committee records, the party had about 118,000 members in 1989. Ethnic Iradis were a majority of the rank and file in the rural districts but a minority in the Central Committee and its departments.[1] #### Perestroika (1985–1991) Chernov, an ethnic Russian refinery engineer who had headed the Kobozev city party committee from 1974 and served as the Central Committee's secretary for industry from 1981, was appointed First Secretary in November 1986. He carried out some of perestroika's economic measures but resisted the demands of the national movement that emerged during [[The Kobozev Bread Riots (1989)|the Kobozev bread riots of 1989]], among them the return of the Latin alphabet, freedom for the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] and democratic elections. Police harassed the *Ene-Til* ("Mother Tongue") society founded in 1988 by the historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]].[5] The party newspaper *Iradyn Chyny* ("The Truth of Irad"), published in Russian and Iradi, became one of the main outlets of glasnost in the republic under its editor [[Maratbek Sadykov]]. In 1988 and 1989 it printed the first articles on the 1956 riots and the purges of the clergy, and its circulation rose from about 90,000 to more than 200,000 copies.[6] In 1990 the republican Supreme Soviet created the post of President and elected Chernov to it, and he kept the party leadership. #### Independence and the Socialist Republic (1991–1992) During the coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991, Chernov made no public statement for two days, a silence his critics later cited as evidence of sympathy for the plotters. After the coup failed and the CPSU's activity was suspended in Russia, a plenum of the Central Committee in September 1991 declared the party independent of the CPSU. On 9 October the Supreme Soviet adopted the [[Declaration of State Sovereignty (1991)]], and the party declared the republic independent as the Socialist Republic of Irad, with Chernov as President.[5] The national movement called the declaration a maneuver to keep the party in power, since no free elections followed and opposition parties were not legalized. *Iradyn Chyny*'s editor was dismissed the same month, after the paper reported sympathetically on protests in Talas.[6] In November 1991 Chernov's government issued emergency decrees that suspended constitutional liberties, banned non-communist gatherings and publications, and ended the limited self-government of the rural clans. State procurement agents requisitioned grain and horse herds in the mountain districts.[7] After OMON detachments fired on demonstrators in Talas on 3 February 1992, armed workers, defecting police and clan horsemen seized the city's arsenals and the regional party headquarters, and the last party and state officials left Talas after the March of the Thousand Saddles on 18 February. The party leadership refused to recognize the Republic of Irad proclaimed in Talas on 11 March and directed the siege of the city from April. Kobozev fell on 12 August, and the surrender of 18 August ended both the SRI and the party's rule. Chernov was given safe conduct to Russia.[5][8] ## Organization The party was organized on the model of the other republican parties of the Soviet Union. Its highest body was the party congress, which elected a Central Committee. Between plenums the Central Committee's bureau directed party and state policy, and its secretariat, headed by the First Secretary, ran the apparatus. Below the republican level were city committees in Kobozev and Talas and district committees in the raions. The party controlled appointments to leading posts through the *nomenklatura* system, and its youth wing was the Leninist Young Communist League of Irad ([[wp:Komsomol]]).[1] Formal state authority rested with the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers, but the First Secretary was the republic's leading official. Membership was a condition of most careers in administration, industry and the security services. [[Erlan Toktarov]], Governor of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] since 2007, is the son of a district secretary of the party, according to his official biography. ## After 1992 The party did not reconstitute itself after the surrender. The interim US administration took its buildings and records into custody in September 1992, and an act of the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1993 transferred its property to the territory. The party was never formally banned, since the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] guaranteed freedom of association, but no communist party won seats in any territorial or ISEZ election.[9] Many former party members and officials emigrated to Russia. Others, especially among the Russian-speaking managers of Nurzhan's industries, joined the [[Labor Party of Irad]], the social-democratic party founded in Nurzhan in 1993, which formed the main opposition to the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] in the territorial legislature.[9] In 1995 the territorial attorney general opened a criminal case against Chernov over the shootings of 3 February 1992 and the shelling of Talas. Russia declined to extradite him, and the case never came to trial. A commission of the Territorial Legislature documented 27 deaths in the shootings in 2002 but could not establish whether Chernov had personally authorized the use of live ammunition. He died in Moscow in 2012.[5][10] ## Archives and historiography The records of the Central Committee are held in the State Archives in [[Talas]] as Fond 85, which includes the protocols of the Central Committee from 1925 to 1991, the files of the Office of the First Secretary and internal-security reports on the 1956 riots. The records of the Talas city committee are held separately in Fond 86. The collections were opened to researchers after 1992.[1][2] Iradi national historiography treats the party as the instrument of Soviet rule and emphasizes the purges, Russification and the decisions of 1991–1992. Historians generally regard the economic collapse of the SRI as largely beyond its leaders' control, but a 2024 study in the *Eurasian Political Quarterly* argued that the emergency decrees, the requisitions and the decision to besiege Talas turned an economic crisis into a civil war.[5] Among older Russian-speaking residents of Nurzhan, the *Russos*, the party's last decades are more often remembered as a period of stability (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]). Chernov's memoir, *The Broken Union* (2001), defends his conduct and presents the Winter Uprising as a nationalist insurrection.[8] ## See also - [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] - [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] - [[Vasily Chernov]] - [[History of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee Protocols of the Iradi SSR (1925–1991).
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee of the Communist Party of Irad, Office of the First Secretary (1981–1991).
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 86: Talas City Committee of the Communist Party of Irad, Records of June 1956.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Last Soviet Apparatchik: Vasily Chernov.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 78–94.
  6. ^ Sadykov, Maratbek (1999). The Truth Was Printed Here: A Newspaper in Perestroika. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Bread, Decrees and Saddles: The Economics of the Iradi Winter Uprising.' Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 33–58.
  8. ^ Chernov, Vasily (2001). The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary. Moscow.
  9. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 23–71.
  10. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad, Commission on the Events of 1991–1992 (2002). Report on the Shootings of 3 February 1992. Talas.
### 4.108. Organic Act of the Territory of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Organic Act of the Territory of Irad** is the act of the [[wp:United States Congress]], passed in 1992, that organized [[Irad]] as an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States and established its civil government. It gave effect to the governance provisions of the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], signed in [[Talas]] on 2 June 1992, and took effect on 18 August 1992, when the last forces of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] surrendered at the end of [[Operation Starlight]].[1] The act created the three branches of the territorial government: an elected Governor, a bicameral [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] and the [[Supreme Court of Irad]]. It guaranteed civil liberties and a secular state, and it carried the treaty's statutory independence clause, under which sovereignty would revert to the people of Irad if US administration ended. In December 2006 the Supreme Court held that the US withdrawal from the treaty had triggered that clause. Since 2007 the government of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) has treated the act, together with the territorial statutes passed under it, as the basic law of the zone while Irad's sovereignty is "suspended".[2][3] ## Background Under the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty, Irad gave up the independence proclaimed by the Provisional Government on 11 March 1992 and became a territory of the United States in exchange for military protection and economic reconstruction. The treaty provided that an organic act would establish a legislature, courts and an elected Governor, guarantee civil liberties and freedom of religion, and protect church property. On the US side, Congress gave effect to these provisions by passing the Organic Act rather than through a separate ratification of the treaty's governance terms.[1] The act's name follows the American practice of calling the statute that organizes a territory's government its "organic act", as with the organic acts of [[wp:Guam]] and the [[wp:United States Virgin Islands|US Virgin Islands]].[4] ## Provisions #### Status The act declared Irad an organized but unincorporated territory, subject to the authority of Congress under the Territory Clause (Article IV) of the [[wp:Constitution of the United States|US Constitution]]. Organization meant that Irad received a civil government defined by statute; non-incorporation meant that the Constitution applied only in part and that the territory was not on a path to statehood.[4] #### Executive Executive authority was vested in a Governor elected by popular vote. The office and its terms were set by the companion Elective Governor Acts of 1992, which provided for a Governor and a Lieutenant Governor elected for four-year terms in November, limited a Governor to two consecutive terms, and provided that the Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor.[5] A US High Commissioner represented the federal government in Talas. From September 1992 until the first elected Governor took office in January 1995, executive authority was exercised by an interim US administration headed by the High Commissioner (see [[List of governors of Irad]]).[2] #### Legislature The act provided for a bicameral Territorial Legislature: - a **Territorial Senate** of 15 members serving four-year terms, three elected from each of five senatorial districts; - a **Territorial House of Representatives** of 35 members, elected every two years from single-member constituencies apportioned by population. Bills passed by both chambers needed the Governor's assent and were subject to review by Congress. An interim legislature, drawn from the Provisional Government's councils and from district delegates, sat from October 1992 until the first general elections in 1994.[2] #### Judiciary The act established the Supreme Court of Irad as the court of last resort for the territory, with justices appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Territorial Senate. Its final judgments could be reviewed by the US federal courts. The first justices took office in November 1992. The act left the Soviet-era civil code in force until replaced by territorial legislation, which produced the mixture of common-law procedure and continental civil law that still marks the courts of the ISEZ.[6] #### Rights and religion A bill of rights guaranteed freedom of speech, assembly and the press, and freedom of religion. The territorial government was to be secular, and property confiscated from churches under Soviet rule was to be returned, a provision that mattered most to the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]].[1] Iradi and English became the official languages of the territorial government, and Russian lost the official status it had held under the SRI. #### Economy The act made the US dollar legal tender alongside any local currency the territory chose to issue, and gave Iradi goods customs access to the US market. The Territorial Legislature built on these provisions with the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993, which chartered [[Talasbank]] and authorized the [[Iradi som]].[7] #### Statutory independence clause The act repeated the treaty's clause providing that if the United States ceased to administer the territory, sovereignty would revert to the people of Irad. Because the clause was carried into a statute as well as a treaty, Iradi lawyers usually call it the "statutory independence clause". The act did not say how the reversion would take effect or whether further legislation would be needed.[3] ## Application (1992–2006) The interim legislature met in Legislative Hall in Talas in October 1992, and the Supreme Court was established in November. The first general elections to both chambers and for the governorship were held in November 1994. Over the territorial period the legislature passed more than 800 statutes under the act's authority, among them the Toponymic Heritage Statute (1993), the Hydrocarbon and Mining Code (1995), the Language and Education Reform Act (1997) and the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]].[2] The act's provision for federal review of territorial statutes was seldom used, according to studies of the period, and most federal influence was exercised through the High Commissioner and federal funding (see [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]]).[8] ## The 2006 crisis On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty by executive action (see [[United States Withdrawal from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty (2006)]]). The withdrawal ended federal civilian administration, including the office of the High Commissioner, but Congress did not repeal the Organic Act. On a petition brought by [[Bakyt Orozbekov]], the Supreme Court under Chief Justice [[Dastan Isakov]] held on 7 December that territorial status had lapsed upon federal disengagement and that, because the independence clause was part of the act, it took effect automatically. This holding became known as the doctrine of automatic reversion (see [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]]). On 9 December the Territorial Legislature proclaimed the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]].[3] On 25 February 2007 [[Erlan Toktarov]] proclaimed the ISEZ from [[Nurzhan]] as an emergency administration, annulled the independence ruling by decree and declared that Irad had returned to "suspended sovereignty". The court never ruled on the decree.[9] ## Status since 2007 The ISEZ treats the Organic Act, the Elective Governor Acts and the territorial statutes as continuing in force while sovereignty is suspended, with their provisions on federal oversight inoperative. Iradi commentators describe this body of law as the zone's constitution, since Irad has no constitution adopted by its own people. Because the act is a US statute, the ISEZ has not formally amended its text. It has instead changed institutions by territorial legislation and executive decree, as when the legislature was reconstituted as a single chamber in 2007 and when the [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]] removed the Governor's term limit from the Elective Governor Acts.[2][5] The jurisdiction of the act's institutions does not extend to the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], whose clans live under customary law (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]). ## Legal debate The act's continuing status raises several questions that remain unresolved:[3] - whether a federal statute that Congress never repealed still applies to a territory the United States no longer administers; - whether the independence clause took effect automatically, as the Supreme Court held in 2006, or required an act of Congress or of the Territorial Legislature, as the dissenting justice argued; - whether a Governor's emergency decree could annul a judgment of the territory's highest court interpreting the act. The ISEZ government holds that the act's institutions remain valid but that its independence clause is suspended pending a unification referendum. Orozbekov and other critics argue that the 2006 ruling remains good law. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] regards the act as the constitution of a foreign territory that never applied to the clans, and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], which all claim Irad *de jure*, do not recognize it (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[10] ## References
  1. ^ US Department of State (1992). 'Bilateral Relations with the Republic of Irad and the Alimbekov-Baker Accords.' US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 23.
  2. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  3. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  4. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  5. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (2013). 'Amendment to the Elective Governor Acts.' Official Gazette of Irad. Talas.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 111: Supreme Court Reports and Organic Jurisprudence (1992–2023).
  7. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Banking and Commercial Currency Act. Talas.
  8. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Parties and Elections in the Territory of Irad, 1992–2006. Talas, pp. 72–118.
  9. ^ Supreme Court Reports of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2007). Official Gazette Series, Vol. 1. Talas.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
### 4.109. Operation Starlight *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* {{Infobox military conflict | conflict = Operation Starlight | partof = the [[First Iradi Civil War]] | date = 6 June – 18 August 1992 | place = [[Talas]], the Talas valley and the railway corridor to Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]) | result = US and Provisional Government victory;Siege of Talas lifted (18 June);Fall of Kobozev (12 August);Unconditional SRI surrender;Irad becomes a US territory | combatant1 = [[wp:United States]];[[Provisional Government of Irad (1992)|Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad]] | combatant2 = [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] | commander1 = [[David Sterling|Col. David Sterling]] (US liaison);[[Amanbek Alimbekov]] | commander2 = [[Vasily Chernov]] | units1 = [[wp:United States Marine Corps|US Marines]];10th Mountain Division;US air units;Student militias, workers' detachments and clan cavalry | units2 = 17th Motor Rifle Division;[[wp:OMON]];Interior troops | strength1 = US: c. 8,000–10,000 (peak ground deployment, late July) | strength2 = 9,000–14,000 (June 1992, Iradi estimates) | casualties1 = US: 94 dead (76 killed in action, 18 non-hostile);361 wounded in action (US Department of Defense) | casualties2 = Many conscripts deserted;Heavy equipment seized | casualties3 = c. 14,000 dead in the whole war, March–August 1992 (most cited);9,000 to over 20,000 (independent estimates) }} **Operation Starlight** (Iradi: *Jıldız Jarıgı*) was the United States military intervention in the [[First Iradi Civil War]] in 1992. It was carried out under the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], which the Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad signed and ratified in besieged [[Talas]] on 2 June 1992. The first [[wp:United States Marine Corps|US Marines]] were airlifted into the airfield west of Talas, now [[Talas Air Base]], on 6 June. With troops of the 10th Mountain Division and US air support, they broke the siege of the city by 18 June. US and Provisional forces then advanced along the railway toward Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), the seat of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI). Kobozev fell on 12 August, and the remaining SRI forces surrendered unconditionally on 18 August 1992.[1][2] The surrender ended the civil war and the SRI. The same day Irad became an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States under the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], beginning the [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)|territorial period]]. The most commonly cited death toll for the war as a whole is about 14,000, with independent estimates ranging from about 9,000 to more than 20,000.[3] ## Background The [[Communist Party of Irad]], under First Secretary [[Vasily Chernov]], declared the Iradi SSR independent as the Socialist Republic of Irad on 9 October 1991 (see [[Declaration of State Sovereignty (1991)]]). Economic collapse and the government's emergency decrees provoked the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], which drove SRI officials out of Talas. On 11 March 1992 the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] proclaimed the Republic of Irad and elected the historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] Provisional President.[4] In late March the SRI sent the 17th Motor Rifle Division, [[wp:OMON]] detachments and interior troops south along the Chu and Talas corridors. They besieged Talas from 10 April 1992. The city's defenders were student militias, defecting police, workers' detachments and mounted clan irregulars under [[Kuban Mamytov]] and [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]]. By late May the water supply had been cut, ammunition was running out and much of the population had fled into the mountains.[4] Provisional envoys had approached the United States through its embassy in [[wp:Almaty]] and at meetings in [[wp:Geneva]]. On 2 June Alimbekov and [[wp:James Baker|US Secretary of State James Baker]] signed the treaty in the basement of the damaged municipal theater, and the Provisional Government ratified it unanimously the same day. Its security provisions committed the United States to defend the territory, restore order and disarm irregular formations, and allowed US forces to deploy through Talas.[5] ## Name The US government has not published an explanation of the operation's code name. In Irad the name is popularly associated with the [[The Star of Irad (Symbol)|Star of Irad]], the image of [[wp:Polaris]] that appears above the stallion on the [[Flag of Irad]], although there is no evidence that US planners intended the connection.[6] ## Course of the operation #### Airlift into Talas (6–18 June) The airfield 12 km west of Talas, built in 1952 as a Soviet interceptor base, had stayed inside the Provisional Government's lines throughout the siege. The first Marines landed there on 6 June. [[David Sterling|Colonel David Sterling]], a Russian-speaking foreign area officer who arrived with them, became the first US liaison officer in the city. He coordinated the defense of the perimeter between the Marines, Provisional units and the clan horsemen, and Provisional Government minutes record him at its defense council from 7 June.[7] Irad had no access to the sea, and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] had closed their borders during the fighting. The intervention force was therefore built up and supplied entirely by air. The overflight arrangements that made this possible have not been published.[1] US aircraft attacked SRI artillery, armor and air-defense positions around Talas. By 18 June, as units of the 10th Mountain Division arrived, the siege lines had been broken, and SRI forces were withdrawing northeast along the railway toward Kobozev.[1] #### Advance on Kobozev (July–August) In July US and Provisional forces advanced together along the railway and highway corridor from the Talas valley toward the lower Chu. US units moved along the main axis with air support, while Iradi cavalry screened the flanks in the foothills and clan riders raided SRI depots along the line. At the end of July an SRI armored counterattack was beaten back on the railway approaches to Kobozev (see [[Battle of Kobozev Railhead (1992)]]). Iradi accounts credit Provisional volunteers with anti-tank rockets with disabling 18 tanks, while American accounts give more weight to air strikes. The number has not been independently confirmed.[4][1] Kobozev fell on 12 August. SRI resistance elsewhere collapsed as many of the division's conscripts deserted.[2] #### Surrender (18 August) On 18 August 1992 the remaining SRI forces surrendered unconditionally, and all former SRI territory came under US control. Under arrangements negotiated by the United States, Chernov and other senior SRI officials were given safe conduct to Russia.[2] ## Forces - **United States:** US Marines and troops of the 10th Mountain Division, supported by US air units and military airlift. Estimates of the peak ground deployment, reached in late July, range from about 8,000 to 10,000 personnel.[1] - **Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad:** student militias, police who had defected, workers' detachments from Talas, and mounted clan irregulars from the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal valleys, armed largely with weapons seized from SRI arsenals during the Winter Uprising.[7] - **Socialist Republic of Irad:** the 17th Motor Rifle Division, formerly of the [[wp:Turkestan Military District|Soviet Turkestan Military District]], with [[wp:T-72]] tanks, [[wp:BMP-2]] infantry fighting vehicles, artillery and helicopters, together with republican OMON and interior troops. Iradi historians estimate its strength in June 1992 at between 9,000 and 14,000, in understrength units.[2] ## Casualties No complete count of the dead exists. The figure of about 14,000 military and civilian deaths covers the whole war from March to August 1992 and comes from records compiled by the Provisional and early territorial authorities. Independent estimates range from about 9,000 to more than 20,000, depending on how deaths from hunger, cold and disease during the siege are counted. Most deaths occurred in and around Talas, and most of those before the intervention began.[3] US losses were light by comparison and are exactly recorded. The United States Department of Defense lists 94 American service members who died in the operation: 76 killed in action and 18 non-hostile deaths, 11 of them in the crash of a Marine CH-53E helicopter in fog over the [[Talas Alatau]] on 29 June 1992. A further 361 were wounded in action. The deadliest single engagement for US forces was the [[Battle of Kobozev Railhead (1992)|battle at the Kobozev railhead]] at the end of July, in which 23 Americans were killed. No Americans were taken prisoner. Their names are listed on a memorial at [[Talas Air Base]] and on a bronze plaque in the Church of St. Tomas in Talas, where a memorial service is held each year on 6 June; in Talas they are often called simply "the Ninety-Four".[12] The fighting left mines and unexploded ordnance in the passes of the Talas Alatau and on the approaches to Talas. Clearance continued in the territorial period and, after 2008, under the coordination of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[8] ## Aftermath US forces disarmed both the SRI garrisons and the irregular militias. The SRI's heavy equipment, including its T-72 tanks and BMP-2s, was placed in depots near Nurzhan under US supervision; part of it was returned to service by the ISEZ's State Defense Corps after 2008 (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]).[2] Mamytov returned to herding in the Chatkal valley and in 1994 declined a commission in the new Irad National Guard. Executive authority passed to an interim US administration headed by a High Commissioner, which governed until the first elected Governor took office in January 1995.[5] The airfield west of Talas became the main US installation in the territory. US military engineers lengthened its runway to 3,400 m between 1993 and 1998, and US forces have remained there since, under the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]] and later arrangements with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]].[9] ## International reaction Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan objected to the intervention and the treaty as violations of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders accepted when the [[wp:Commonwealth of Independent States]] was formed. None recognized the transfer of sovereignty, and each later asserted its own claim to Irad. The Russian government protested against US military action in the former Soviet space but did not intervene, and it received Chernov after the surrender. The [[wp:United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]] held consultations but adopted no resolution. Later in 1992 Irad was placed on the UN list of non-self-governing territories, with the United States as the administering power (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[10] In the United States the intervention prompted a brief public fascination with Irad, later called [[Iradimania]] (about 1992–1994), whose best-known product was the 1993 compilation album [[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|*Swift Hooves*]] (see [[Irad–United States relations]]). ## Legacy and historiography In Talas and much of the countryside the operation is remembered as the rescue of the city and the end of the war, and the inverted horseshoe on the national flag commemorates those killed in the civil wars along with the victims of 1916 and the Soviet purges (see [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]). Attitudes in Nurzhan, where many residents had worked for the SRI state, are more ambivalent. Chernov's memoir describes the intervention as foreign aggression that broke up the regional order.[11] Historians at [[Talas State University]] continue to debate whether the treaty that made the intervention possible was the only way to save Talas or an unnecessary surrender of the independence proclaimed in March 1992. Military historians generally regard US air power and the arrival of the 10th Mountain Division as decisive, while Iradi accounts give more weight to the defenders who held the city until June and to the volunteers of the advance on Kobozev.[4][1] Since the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], some Iradi commentators have contrasted the intervention of 1992 with what they describe as Washington's later indifference to the territory.[6] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Geopolitics of Operation Starlight and Post-Soviet Intervention.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 132–148.
  2. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 72–140.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2012). 'Counting the Dead: Casualty Estimates for the Iradi Civil War of 1992.' Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 77–104.
  4. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  5. ^ US Department of State (1992). 'Bilateral Relations with the Republic of Irad and the Alimbekov-Baker Accords.' US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 23.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (6 June 2025). 'Thirty-three years after Starlight, a cooler welcome for Washington.' Talas.
  7. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 131: Military Records of the First Iradi Civil War (1992).
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Airpower at the Crossroads: Talas Air Base and US Posture in Central Asia.' Academic Press, pp. 54–68.
  10. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  11. ^ Chernov, Vasily (2001). The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary. Moscow.
  12. ^ US Department of Defense, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (1993). Operation Starlight: Casualty Summary, 6 June – 18 August 1992. Washington, D.C.
### 4.110. Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement** is the United Nations-brokered agreement, signed in [[wp:Bishkek]] in September 2007, that ended the main fighting of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. It was concluded between the emergency administration of [[Erlan Toktarov]], which governed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) on behalf of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI), and the [[Popular Front of Irad]], whose delegation was headed by [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]]. [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] attended as observers.[1] The agreement fixed the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], which has divided Irad since 2007 between the ISEZ and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). It created a restricted-weapons zone extending 12 km on either side of the line, set up a Joint Liaison Committee of the two sides, and acknowledged customary jurisdiction on the tribal side. Its annex, the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], governs the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]]. On 18 October 2007 the [[wp:United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]] established the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) to monitor it. The line has seen no large-scale fighting since, and the agreement remains the main legal framework of Irad's frozen conflict.[2] ## Background The Second Iradi Civil War began on 25 February 2007, when Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ from Nurzhan in defiance of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] (DRI) government in [[Talas]]. Clan militias formed the Popular Front in March, took most of the rural interior in the spring and stormed Talas on 4 June, dissolving the DRI. The Front then withdrew to the countryside, and during the summer DPI security forces, backed by Western companies and the United States, took control of Talas, [[Iyık Janyl]] and the other towns of the river valleys, together with the industrial corridor south of Talas and the road down to the Naryn.[3] Fighting continued along the edge of the DPI-held area through the summer. It was heaviest around the Toktogul complex, whose dam and powerhouse were held by the Front and whose switchyard and export lines were held by DPI forces. The skirmishes threatened releases from the reservoir at the height of the irrigation season, on which the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] and southern Kazakhstan depend. This alarmed the downstream states and was one reason all three neighbors took part in the talks. About 80,000 people had been displaced by the war, many of them herding families caught between the two sides.[4] ## Negotiations UN mediators brought the two sides to Bishkek in August 2007. The Kyrgyz government hosted the talks without recognizing either party, and the Kazakh, Uzbek and Kyrgyz delegations attended as observers, each recording that its participation did not affect its *de jure* claim to Irad.[1] The Front's delegation was headed by Bektur, who acted as its principal negotiator, as he had throughout the war; the Front had no single command structure and took decisions in a council of clan commanders. The DPI delegation represented Toktarov's emergency administration.[5] Two tracks ran in parallel. Military representatives of the two sides, working on Soviet-era 1:100,000 maps, negotiated the course of the line along the positions held on an agreed date. Engineers from both sides, assisted by UN water specialists, drafted the technical annex on the Toktogul complex.[6] The main points of dispute were the Naryn corridor, where the DPI insisted on keeping the downstream stations and guarded passage on the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]], and the Front's demand that its customary courts be recognized. Both sides asked for an international monitoring presence. The agreement was signed in September 2007.[1] ## Provisions The agreement's main provisions are:[1][2] - **The demarcation line.** A line between the two zones, defined on the maps used in the talks, enclosing the irrigated valleys of the Talas and lower Chu and the road and rail belts between them, and a salient on the lower Naryn, with the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim whose lowland Chubar had declared for the ISEZ in August, reached by a guarded road across tribal land. A UN-brokered protocol of 2009 later adjusted it in the south, bringing the road corridor, the Toktogul basin and a narrow corridor down the Naryn gorge into the ISEZ; the line now runs for about 1,750 km. - **Restricted-weapons zone.** A zone extending 12 km on either side of the line, from which tanks, artillery and combat aircraft are excluded. - **Joint Liaison Committee.** A committee of officers of the two sides, chaired by the United Nations, to settle incidents and arrange crossings. It meets monthly at Kara-Oi, the headquarters of UNMI. - **Customary jurisdiction.** An acknowledgment that disputes on the tribal side of the line are settled under customary law (*adat*) by the clan councils (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]). - **Movement.** Civilian crossings at designated points, and the passage of herds on fixed routes where clan pastures straddle the line. - **Humanitarian provisions.** The release of prisoners and detainees held by each side, the voluntary return of displaced people, and cooperation in clearing mines and unexploded ordnance. - **International monitoring.** A request to the United Nations to deploy an observer mission. - **Annex.** The Naryn Water and Power Protocol, under which a joint technical commission of ISEZ and ATR engineers, supervised by the United Nations and attended by observers from the three neighboring states, sets the annual release schedule of the Toktogul reservoir. Revenue from electricity exports is divided under a further annex that has never been published. The agreement does not address Irad's political status. Neither party recognized the other as a government, and the text describes the line as a ceasefire line, not a boundary. ## Implementation The Security Council established UNMI on 18 October 2007, and the first observers arrived in November. In late 2007 a kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]] reorganized the Front's political council as the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC), which took over the Front's obligations under the agreement, and its fighters became the [[El-Choro Militias]].[5] A temporary post at Qara-Chik, the village at the mouth of the Kara-Buura valley that gave the line its name, was replaced in 2008–2009 by the permanent [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]]. Joint survey teams accompanied by UN observers marked the line on the ground between 2008 and 2011 with numbered concrete pillars in the valleys and stone cairns on the high ridges. Mines laid in 1992 and 2007 made the work dangerous. In March 2009 two UNMI observers, from Uruguay and [[wp:Bangladesh]], were killed when their vehicle struck an anti-tank mine near the [[Kenkol Pass]].[2] The line has remained largely quiet, although incidents are frequent. UNMI recorded 214 ceasefire violations in 2023, most of them small-arms fire, the movement of armed personnel into the restricted zone or unauthorized construction; many other incidents involve livestock straying across the line. The Joint Liaison Committee settles most incidents locally, and UNMI credits it with defusing a standoff over a river crossing near the Kenkol Pass in 2016.[7] The State Defense Corps keeps its tanks and artillery outside the 12-km zone and holds its forward posts with light infantry (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]). Under an informal understanding reached during the talks, pilgrims from the tribal regions may cross unarmed for the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on 24 August.[8] The Naryn Protocol's five-year release schedule was first adopted in 2007 and renewed in 2012, 2017 and 2022; it falls due again in 2027.[6] Since 2023 the ISEZ authorities have barred UNMI patrols from a security zone around the [[Boz-Korgon]] compound east of [[Nurzhan]], which the [[wp:Secretary-General of the United Nations|UN Secretary-General]] has described as a restriction on the mission's freedom of movement; the ISEZ says the zone has no connection with the ceasefire.[7] ## Assessment Diplomats and analysts generally credit the agreement with ending large-scale fighting and with giving all parties, including the downstream states, a stake in keeping it, chiefly through the Naryn Protocol. It is one of the few documents both Iradi administrations still invoke.[9] Critics argue that it froze the conflict instead of resolving it. The line it drew has become the effective boundary of two administrations, and the only direct negotiations since 2007 on reuniting them, at the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]], collapsed when the IAC walked out after being offered one-third of the seats in a unified legislature.[9] DPI officials say the acknowledgment of customary jurisdiction has been used to treat the clan councils as a rival government. Tribal leaders and human rights groups say the crossing regime, with its permits, fees and detentions, falls hardest on herders and on patients seeking treatment in the ISEZ.[10] Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan continue to attend the Naryn commission only as observers, since full participation would imply recognition of the two Iradi administrations (see [[Political status of Irad]]). ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 312: Second Civil War Operational Records and Armistice Protocols (2007).
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2008). First Report on the Implementation of the Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2008). Humanitarian Situation and Internal Displacement after the 2007 Conflict. Kara-Oi.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Annual Report on Ceasefire Monitoring along the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line, 2023. Kara-Oi.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  9. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'A Mission Without an Exit: UNMI at Fifteen.' Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 44–69.
  10. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
### 4.111. Battle of Talas *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* {{Infobox military conflict | conflict = Battle of Talas | date = July 751 (Dhu al-Hijja 133 AH) | place = Valley of the [[Talas River]], near Talas (exact site disputed) | result = Abbasid victory; Tang army routed after the Karluk defection | combatant1 = [[wp:Abbasid Caliphate]]; [[wp:Karluks]] (changed sides during the battle); *[[wp:Tibetan Empire|Tibetan]] contingents (role uncertain)* | combatant2 = [[wp:Tang dynasty]] ([[wp:Protectorate General to Pacify the West|Anxi Protectorate]]); allied contingents | commander1 = [[wp:Ziyad ibn Salih]]; [[wp:Abu Muslim]] (governor of Khurasan) | commander2 = [[wp:Gao Xianzhi]]; [[wp:Li Siye]] | strength2 = c. 30,000 incl. allied contingents (Chinese sources) | casualties2 = Most of the army lost; Gao escaped with a few thousand men (Chinese sources); tens of thousands killed and c. 20,000 captured (Ibn al-Athir) }} The **Battle of Talas** (Iradi: *Talas sogushu*; Chinese: 怛羅斯之戰, *Daluosi zhi zhan*; Arabic: معركة طلاس, *Maʿrakat Ṭalās*) was fought in July 751 in the valley of the [[Talas River]] between the armies of the [[wp:Abbasid Caliphate]] and the Tang dynasty of China. An Abbasid force commanded by [[wp:Ziyad ibn Salih|Ziyad]] ibn Salih, sent by [[wp:Abu Muslim]], the Abbasid governor of [[wp:Greater Khorasan|Khurasan]], defeated a Tang army of the [[wp:Protectorate General to Pacify the West|Anxi Protectorate]] under [[wp:Gao Xianzhi]] after the [[wp:Karluks|Karluk Turks]] serving with the Tang changed sides. It is the only recorded battle between the armies of the caliphate and of China.[1][2] The exact site of the battle is unknown and is debated by historians. Iradi historiography places it on the plains west of [[Talas]]. The battle has often been described as the moment that decided whether [[wp:Central Asia]] would fall within the Chinese or the Islamic world, and tradition links it to the westward spread of papermaking through Chinese prisoners. Many modern historians regard both claims as overstated, since the An Lushan Rebellion of 755 did more than the battle to end Tang power in the region, and paper was known in Central Asia long before 751.[3][4] ## Background [[wp:Tang dynasty|Tang China]] had brought the [[wp:Western Turkic Khaganate]] under its suzerainty between 657 and 659 and ruled the [[wp:Tarim Basin]] and, more loosely, the lands beyond the [[wp:Tian Shan]] through the Anxi Protectorate, based at [[wp:Kucha]]. In the early 8th century Umayyad armies under [[wp:Qutayba ibn Muslim|Qutayba]] ibn Muslim conquered [[wp:Bukhara]] and [[wp:Samarkand]], and for several decades the [[wp:Turgesh|Türgesh]] confederation, based at [[wp:Suyab]] and Talas, contested [[wp:Transoxiana]] with the Arabs. After the Türgesh collapsed in the late 730s, the Karluks moved into the Chu and Talas valleys.[2] In 747–750 the Abbasid revolution, launched from Khurasan under Abu Muslim, overthrew the [[wp:Umayyad Caliphate|Umayyads]]. Gao Xianzhi, a Tang general of [[wp:Goguryeo]] descent, had become military governor of Anxi after a campaign across the [[wp:Pamir Mountains|Pamirs]] in 747 against [[wp:Gilgit|Little Balur]] (Gilgit). In 750 he led an expedition against the kingdom of Chach (Shash), around present-day [[wp:Tashkent]], whose ruler was accused of failing in his obligations as a Tang vassal. Gao offered the king terms, then seized him and sent him to [[wp:Chang'an]], where he was executed; Tang troops plundered the city. According to the Chinese sources, the king's son escaped and appealed for help to the Arabs and to neighboring states. In 751 Gao marched west again, beyond the Tian Shan, to meet the threat of an Arab advance.[1][5] ## The battle The fullest accounts are in Chinese sources, chiefly the *[[wp:Tongdian]]* (801) of [[wp:Du You]] and the *[[wp:Zizhi Tongjian]]* (1084). They say Gao led an army of about 30,000, Chinese troops and allied contingents together, and that it advanced more than 700 *li* into the west before meeting the Arab army near the town of Daluosi, the Chinese name for Talas. The two armies fought for five days. The Karluks then went over to the Arabs and attacked the Tang from the rear, and Gao's army broke. Gao escaped with a few thousand men. During the retreat over the mountains, troops of Fergana, nominally Tang allies, blocked a pass with their baggage, and Gao's deputy [[wp:Li Siye]] cleared the way by force.[1] The battle received little notice in the early Arabic histories, which were more concerned with the consolidation of the new dynasty. Later Arabic writers, such as Ibn al-Athir in the 13th century, record the Abbasid victory and give much larger figures than the Chinese sources, with tens of thousands of Chinese killed and about 20,000 taken prisoner.[6] Neither set of figures can be checked. Chinese sources also mention Tibetan contingents on the Abbasid side, but their part in the battle is uncertain.[7] The Islamic date usually given, Dhu al-Hijja 133 AH, corresponds to July 751. ## Location No battlefield has been identified archaeologically. Chinese sources place the fighting near the town of Talas, and some later Arabic accounts connect it with Atlakh, a town of the Talas valley whose own site is uncertain.[6] Historians have proposed locations along much of the middle and lower Talas valley. The question is complicated by disagreement over where the medieval town of Talas itself stood. Iradi historiography identifies it with the citadel mound under the old quarter of modern Talas (see [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]]) and places the battlefield on the river plains to the west, toward [[Kara-Buura]]. Other scholars favor sites farther down the valley, and historians in [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], both of which claim the valley as part of their territory, have argued for locations of their own.[8] ## Aftermath The defeat did not end the Tang presence in Central Asia at once. Tang garrisons remained in the Tarim Basin, and in 753 Gao's successor Feng Changqing campaigned again in the Pamirs. In 755 the An Lushan Rebellion broke out in China, and the court withdrew most of its western troops to fight it. Gao Xianzhi was executed by order of the court in early 756 after a defeat in the rebellion's first campaign. Over the following decades [[wp:Tibet]] took the Tarim garrisons, and the Karluks took control of the Chu and Talas valleys, occupying Suyab by 766.[2][3] On the Abbasid side, Ziyad ibn Salih rebelled against Abu Muslim the following year and was killed, and Abu Muslim was himself put to death on the orders of the caliph al-Mansur in 755. The caliphate made no attempt to advance east of the [[wp:Syr Darya]]. Abbasid embassies continued to visit the Tang court, and Chinese sources record Arab soldiers among the troops who helped the Tang recover their capitals from the rebels in 757.[3] The battle also did not bring rapid Islamization of the Talas valley. A Christian community was still present in Talas in 893, when the Samanid emir Isma'il ibn Ahmad captured the town and turned its principal church into a mosque, and most of the Turks of the steppe converted only after the Kara-Khanid dynasty adopted Islam in the mid-10th century (see [[History of Irad]]).[2] ## Prisoners and the papermaking tradition One of the prisoners, [[wp:Du Huan]], a relative of the historian Du You, traveled through the Abbasid lands and returned to China by sea, landing at [[wp:Guangzhou]] in 762. Fragments of his account, the *Jingxingji* ("Record of Travels"), survive in the *Tongdian*. He describes Chinese silk weavers and painters working in the region of [[wp:Kufa]], in [[wp:Iraq]], but does not mention papermakers.[1] The tradition that Chinese prisoners taken at Talas introduced papermaking to Samarkand, from where it spread to [[wp:Baghdad]] and the [[wp:Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]], goes back mainly to the 11th-century writer al-Thaʿalibi. Historians of paper note that it was in use in Central Asia centuries earlier; the Sogdian "Ancient Letters" of the early 4th century were written on paper. Jonathan Bloom and others argue that papermaking had reached Samarkand before 751 and spread westward through Central Asian craftsmen, and that the story attached itself to the battle because it was the best-known contact between the Islamic world and China.[4] ## Assessment The Russian orientalist [[wp:Vasily Bartold|Vasily Barthold]] regarded the battle as having decided that Muslim rather than Chinese civilization would prevail in Transoxiana, and this view was long repeated in Soviet and Western surveys.[2] Many later historians describe it as a frontier battle whose consequences were overtaken by the An Lushan Rebellion, which would have forced the Tang out of Central Asia whatever the outcome at Talas. Others point out that the battle showed the limits of Tang reach beyond the Tian Shan and helped the Karluks establish themselves in the Chu and Talas valleys.[3] ## In Iradi historiography and memory Iradi historians writing in the Soviet period followed Barthold. [[Amanbek Alimbekov]]'s *Sogdians and Turks in the Talas Valley* (1971) treated the battle as part of the long transition of the valley from Sogdian to Turkic and from mixed religious to Muslim rule.[9] National historiography since 1992 has given it a larger place. School textbooks present it as the moment when Islam gained the upper hand in the towns of Transoxiana, after which Sogdian Christians and non-Muslim pastoralists withdrew into the river valleys and foothills of the north, where the Iradi church later took shape.[10] Historians at [[Talas State University]] and elsewhere note that this account compresses a much longer process: Christians remained in Talas for more than a century after the battle, and the Church of the East continued its missions to the Turks under Patriarch Timothy I (780–823).[10] In 2001, the 1,250th anniversary, Talas State University held an international conference on the battle, and a memorial stone was placed beside the road west of Talas, near the plains that Iradi historians identify as the battlefield.[11] The site appears in tourist itineraries of the Talas valley (see [[Tourism in Irad]]), and since the 2010s it has drawn growing numbers of visitors from China. Commentators in the ISEZ have used the battle as a reference point in discussing Irad's position between China and its western partners (see [[Irad–China relations]]). Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek historians also treat the battle as part of their own national histories.[8] ## References
  1. ^ Du You (801). Tongdian, sections on the western frontier, incorporating fragments of Du Huan's Jingxingji; and Sima Guang (1084). Zizhi Tongjian, annals for the tenth year of Tianbao (751).
  2. ^ Barthold, W. (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. 3rd ed. London: Luzac & Co.
  3. ^ Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
  4. ^ Bloom, Jonathan M. (2001). Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  5. ^ de la Vaissière, Étienne (2005). Sogdian Traders: A History. Leiden: Brill.
  6. ^ Ibn al-Athir. Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh (13th century), annals for the year 133 AH.
  7. ^ Beckwith, Christopher I. (1987). The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia. Princeton University Press.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2019). 'Whose Battle? Talas 751 in the National Histories of Central Asia.' Vol. 25, pp. 88–109.
  9. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1971). Sogdians and Turks in the Talas Valley. Kobozev: Academy of Sciences of the Iradi SSR.
  10. ^ Institute of History, Talas State University (2012). History of Irad in Three Volumes. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (July 2001). 'Scholars mark 1,250 years since the battle on the Talas.' Talas.
### 4.112. Irad–United States relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–United States relations** cover the ties between [[Irad]] and the United States, which administered Irad as an organized, unincorporated territory from 1992 to 2006 and remains its main security partner. The relationship began with the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] of 2 June 1992 and the US military intervention that followed, [[Operation Starlight]]. It continued through fourteen years of territorial administration under the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], and it changed fundamentally when President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty on 3 December 2006.[1] Since then the United States has had no formal relations with either Iradi administration, but its forces remain at [[Talas Air Base]] and five other installations under arrangements with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). Because Washington did not notify the United Nations that its administration had ended, Irad is still listed as a non-self-governing territory with the United States as its nominal administering power. Iradi opinion of the United States, long favorable in the ISEZ, fell sharply after the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]].[2] ## History #### Before 1992 Irad had no direct relations with the United States while it was part of the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. In the 1980s American songs about Irad, which presented its Christian horsemen as a [[wp:Cold War]] cause, circulated in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] on smuggled cassettes and [[wp:Voice of America]] broadcasts. Some historians allege that US intelligence funded the conversion of parts of the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] into supply routes for anti-Soviet cells, but the claim is unconfirmed and has never been acknowledged.[3] #### Treaty and intervention (1992) In the spring of 1992 [[Talas]] was besieged by the forces of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]]. Envoys of Provisional President [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] approached the United States through its embassy in [[wp:Almaty]] and at meetings in [[wp:Geneva]], proposing that Irad enter into association with the United States in exchange for military protection and reconstruction. Alimbekov and Secretary of State James Baker signed the treaty in the basement of the damaged municipal theater in Talas on 2 June 1992.[4] Historians attribute Washington's acceptance to concern for the security of former Soviet military and uranium sites, the oil of the Chu basin and the risk that the war would draw in neighboring states. [[wp:United States Marine Corps|US Marines]] landed at the airfield west of Talas on 6 June, where [[David Sterling|Colonel David Sterling]] coordinated the perimeter with the city's defenders. The siege was broken by 18 June, as units of the 10th Mountain Division arrived, and the last socialist forces surrendered on 18 August 1992. Russia protested against the intervention but did not intervene.[5] #### Territorial period (1992–2006) *Main article: [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]]* Under the Organic Act, Irad received an elected Governor, a bicameral [[Territorial Legislature of Irad|Territorial Legislature]] and a [[Supreme Court of Irad|Supreme Court]] whose judgments could be reviewed by the federal courts. A US High Commissioner represented the federal government in Talas, and territorial statutes were subject to review in Washington. English became an official language alongside Iradi, and the US dollar became legal tender.[1] The United States was recorded at the UN as the administering power. Territorial status gave Iradi goods customs access to the US market. American and Mexican agribusiness followed, including the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and the [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]], and [[wp:Chevron Corporation|Chevron]] invested in modernizing the oil fields. US federal highway grants financed the rebuilding of the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] between 1997 and 2004.[6] Talas Air Base was enlarged into a strategic airlift hub, and a 1994 defense telecommunications contract became the origin of [[Attelkom]]. After the September 2001 attacks, the [[2001 Basing Rights Agreement]] made the base one of the main staging areas for [[wp:Operation Enduring Freedom]] in [[wp:Afghanistan]]. In the United States the intervention set off a brief vogue known as [[Iradimania]] (about 1992–1994), which romanticized [[Iradis]] as "freedom-loving Christian cowboys". Its best-known product was *[[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|Swift Hooves]]* (1993), a compilation of American country and folk songs about Irad whose proceeds went to Christian charities there.[7] #### Withdrawal (2006) *Main article: [[United States Withdrawal from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty (2006)]]* On 3 December 2006 [[wp:George W. Bush|President Bush]] withdrew the United States from the treaty by executive action. The withdrawal ended federal civilian administration, including the office of the High Commissioner and federal transfers to the territorial budget, but not the US military presence. Within days the Supreme Court of Irad ruled that the treaty's statutory independence clause had been triggered (see [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]]), and the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] was proclaimed on 9 December. The United States did not recognize it.[8] Legal scholars still debate whether a President could end a treaty of territorial association without [[wp:United States Congress|Congress]]. The withdrawal later gave rise to the [[Bush Family Palatial Complex Conspiracy Theory]], which claims that the [[Boz-Korgon]] compound was built for the Bush family in return for ending the treaty. Construction of the compound began in 1995, before the withdrawal. #### Since 2007 During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], the United States backed the DPI security forces that took control of Talas and the other cities in the summer of 2007, although the part played by the base has not been documented publicly. Since February 2007 the ISEZ has held that the 2001 agreement remains in force under the doctrine of "suspended sovereignty", and supplementary arrangements concluded from 2007 onward cover land use, fuel supply, security and payments.[9] Leaked US intelligence reports from Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]]'s first term assessed his reasons for keeping Irad's quasi-territorial status (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[10] ## Military relations US forces remain at Talas Air Base, the largest US military installation in the region, and at five other sites used for logistics, testing and training, whose locations and staffing are not published. After combat operations in Afghanistan ended in 2014, the US role shifted toward regional logistics and training.[9] US and ISEZ forces hold an annual joint exercise, *Alatau Shield*, focused on counterinsurgency, border security and disaster response. Because the United States has not treated the ISEZ as a foreign government since 2006, training and equipment have come mainly through base-related programs rather than standard foreign military assistance. US forces guard their own areas of the base, and the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], commanded by Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]], guards the outer perimeter and approach roads. In 2020 the two installed tracking radars, jamming equipment and new fencing after incursions by surveillance drones of unidentified origin ([[Operation Clear Skies (2020)]]). Security was reinforced again during [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]].[11] ## Economic and social ties The base is one of the largest employers in western Talas District, and [[Attelkom]], the charter airline [[Iradiya]] and much of the Talas logistics sector trace their origins to base contracts. The United States is the largest buyer of [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] and [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] horses and one of the main sources of Irad's imports.[6] The 2018 census recorded Americans as 4 percent of the population, a figure analysts consider inflated by base personnel and contractors registered as residents. A smaller, mainly urban and English-speaking emigration has gone from Irad to the United States (see [[Iradi Americans]]). The best-known Iradi-American in Irad is the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]], who was born in [[wp:Chicago]] in 1988 and settled in Talas in 2016. Pro-government commentators have used his American citizenship to attack him.[12] ## 2025 remarks and public opinion In February 2025 [[wp:Donald Trump|President Donald Trump]] said that he was exploring selling Irad to Russia to keep China from acquiring it. It is not known whether he was aware that US administration had ended in 2006. Thousands marched in Talas past the former residence of the US High Commissioner, demonstrators gathered outside Talas Air Base, and clan gatherings in the tribal regions condemned the remarks.[2] The ISEZ delivered a formal demarche through the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]], stating that Irad's sovereignty was not negotiable and that the basing arrangements were unaffected. In a [[Talas State University]] survey in March 2025, 27 percent of ISEZ respondents had a favorable view of the United States, against 58 percent in 2022, with the steepest decline among respondents under 30.[13] Russo politicians cited the remarks in calls to review the basing arrangements. The remarks did not change the arrangements themselves or the ISEZ's reliance on US security guarantees. ## Legal questions The legal basis of the relationship is ambiguous. Washington cites the 2001 agreement and its later arrangements with the ISEZ; the DPI regards these as valid because Irad remains in suspended sovereignty; and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] argues that no government representing the whole country has consented to the presence of foreign forces.[9] The continued UN listing, with the United States as a nominal administering power that does not report, is the anomaly on which most discussion of Irad's status turns (see [[Political status of Irad]]). ## See also - [[Major William Evans]] ## References
  1. ^ US Department of State (1992). 'Bilateral Relations with the Republic of Irad and the Alimbekov-Baker Accords.' US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 23.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Treaty Ratification Minutes and Associated Statutes (1992).
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Geopolitics of Operation Starlight and Post-Soviet Intervention.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 132–148.
  6. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of the Irad Special Economic Zone. Talas.
  7. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  8. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Basing Without Recognition: US Forces in the ISEZ after 2006.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 9–34.
  10. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Airpower at the Crossroads: Talas Air Base and US Posture in Central Asia.' Academic Press, pp. 54–68.
  12. ^ Talas Herald (February 2025). 'Bekzatov, Ilyasov Join Condemnation of "Sale" Remarks.' Talas.
  13. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2025). Spring 2025 Public Opinion Survey: Politics and Foreign Relations. Talas State University Press.
### 4.113. Irad–Kazakhstan relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–Kazakhstan relations** are the dealings between [[Irad]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], its neighbor to the north and northwest and the state through which most of its exports pass. Kazakhstan claims Irad *de jure* and recognizes no Iradi administration. It nevertheless conducts a wide range of practical business with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) through its border, customs, pipeline and water agencies, an arrangement it describes as technical and "without prejudice" to its claim.[1] The relationship rests on mutual dependence. Iradi crude oil enters the Kazakh pipeline network near [[wp:Shymkent]], and antimony and most rail freight cross Kazakhstan, while Kazakh farms on the middle and lower [[wp:Syr Darya]] depend on releases from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] and Kazakhstan buys Iradi electricity. Both sides have used these dependencies as leverage in limited disputes, but neither has allowed them to escalate.[2] ## Claim and recognition Kazakhstan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Kazakh official statements concentrate on the northern lowlands of Irad, the lower Chu around [[Nurzhan]], the Moiynkum sands, the southern [[Betpak-Dala]] and the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] foothills, which lie alongside its Jambyl and [[wp:Turkistan (city)|Turkistan]] regions.[3] In 1992 Kazakhstan closed its border during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] and objected to the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] as a breach of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. It recorded a reservation of its position but dealt with the US-administered territory during the territorial period. After the United States withdrew from the treaty in December 2006, it formally asserted its claim and declined to recognize the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]].[4] Since 2007 Kazakhstan has treated the ISEZ as a *de facto* authority in territory it claims. Its dealings with [[Talas]] are conducted by technical agencies rather than by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the documents are signed by heads of delegation rather than by ministers. Kazakh officials describe each arrangement as implying no recognition.[1] #### The Bill of Sale Between December 2006 and February 2007, while declining to recognize the DRI, the Kazakh foreign ministry took part in secret talks with the cabinet of Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]], held under cover of border and water consultations. The drafts that resulted, known in Irad as the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]], would have given Kazakhstan the northern steppe, the lower Chu with [[Nurzhan]], and the lands adjoining its Turkistan and Jambyl regions, in return for compensation paid into escrow, with concession shares in the oil fields for companies tied to DRI ministers.[13] [[Erlan Toktarov]] made the drafts public on 25 February 2007. Kazakhstan describes the talks as consultations and has not published its copy. It has not rescinded its claim since, nor threatened military action, and analysts describe the prevailing view in Astana as one of waiting for Irad to break apart on its own.[4] ## History #### Soviet period and the 1992 war The boundary between the Iradi and Kazakh SSRs went back to the Soviet national delimitation of 1924–25. It was an internal administrative line, largely unmarked on the ground. Economic ties were close: during the [[The Kobozev Bread Riots (1989)|Kobozev bread riots of 1989]], First Secretary [[Vasily Chernov]] arranged emergency grain deliveries from Kazakhstan.[5] In 1992 the Kazakh border closure disrupted rail traffic and fuel supplies during the siege of Talas. The Provisional Government's first contacts with the United States were made through the US embassy in [[wp:Almaty]]. #### Territorial period (1992–2006) With the approval of the US federal government, the territorial government concluded the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]] with Kazakhstan. The treaty set up joint hydrological monitoring on the Chu and Talas, confirmed the Soviet-era rule dividing the flow of the [[Talas River|Talas]] equally between the upstream and downstream sides, and set procedures for coordinating canal withdrawals along the border reach of the Chu. It did not demarcate the frontier.[6] Iradi crude went by rail to the refinery at Shymkent until 2000, when the 85-kilometer [[Northern Export Feeder]] of the [[Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium]] opened into the network operated by [[wp:KazTransOil]]. #### The 2008 border arrangements The end of US administration and the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] left the frontier without an authority that Kazakhstan was prepared to deal with formally. Contacts began in early 2008 under the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for [[wp:Central Asia]], with the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] providing logistics and a venue at Kara-Oi. They produced the [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]] of October 2008, a set of technical arrangements between the ISEZ and the Kazakh border and customs services. It covers the roughly 285 kilometers of the frontier held by the ISEZ in the lower Chu and lower Talas valleys.[1] - More than 300 numbered concrete markers without national insignia mark the line. Kazakhstan's copy of the text calls it a "line of administrative control" rather than a border. - Three crossings were established: the Chu Gate freight crossing east of Nurzhan, the Talas North Terminal rail and road crossing, and the seasonal Kum-Shagyl crossing for farm traffic. Other roads across the marked sections, such as the trunk road from Korday at the [[Betkaynar crossing]], are barred at the markers. - An annex sets the metering point and customs procedure for crude carried by the Northern Export Feeder. - The [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] and Kazakh border units run coordinated patrols, each remaining on its own side of the markers, with a radio link between the two commands. The arrangements do not cover the longer stretches of the frontier held by the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) in the Northern Steppe and the Karatau, which are patrolled by the clans' [[El-Choro Militias]] and have never been demarcated. Kazakhstan has no comparable arrangement with the clans. Roads across the tribal sections are held by El-Choro posts, among them the [[Karakur crossing|Karakur]], [[Oyyk crossing|Oyyk]] and [[Jylandy crossing|Jylandy]] crossings in the Karatau and the [[Aksüyek crossing|Aksüyek]] and [[Kashkanteniz crossing|Kashkanteniz]] crossings at either end of the roughly 200-kilometer stretch of the Kazakh highway from Almaty to Lake Balkhash that runs across tribal steppe; the clans take a customary transit levy there, which Kazakhstan has never acknowledged. Kazakhstan has declined ISEZ proposals to extend the protocol, and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] says it is not bound by it.[7] ## Trade and transit Kazakhstan is Irad's main transit route. Crude from the [[NurGaz]] fields is refined at Shymkent or shipped onward to Russia under commercial contracts between the Iradi consortium and the Kazakh operator. NurGaz reports output of about 120,000 barrels per day; independent estimates are lower.[8] Antimony from the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and cotton yarn from the [[Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities]] travel by rail through the Talas North Terminal to China and Kazakhstan, and the bonded convoys of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]] use the Chu Gate crossing. Since Kazakhstan joined the customs union with Russia and Belarus in 2010, goods sold into Kazakhstan have paid the union's external tariff, while sealed cargo crosses under bonded transit. Iradi dollar payments are commonly settled through correspondent banks in Almaty.[9] Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] has led ISEZ talks with Kazakh delegations on transit tariffs, and [[Emil Bekzatov]] of NurGaz is responsible for the company's crude transport contracts with Kazakhstan. Labor and people also cross the frontier. Seasonal migration from the ATR to farms and building sites in southern Kazakhstan is common, and remittances, mostly from this work, are estimated at about 5 to 8 percent of Irad's GDP. The 2018 census recorded [[wp:Kazakhs]] as 3 percent of Irad's population, living mainly in the Chu lowlands.[10] ## Water and power Kazakhstan's irrigated districts on the middle and lower Syr Darya lie downstream of the Toktogul reservoir. It attends the joint technical commission of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] as an observer, receiving the reservoir data without a vote, and does not recognize the commission as a legal body. Kazakh officials have complained, like Uzbek officials, of reduced summer releases in dry years, and they have sought a greater say in the commission.[11] On the Chu and Talas, the technical provisions of the 1994 treaty have continued in practice. The [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]] and its Kazakh counterpart exchange daily discharge readings at the border gauge, and disagreements in dry summers are generally settled at that level. Disputes over Toktogul releases have spilled into the border arrangements. Kazakh authorities have slowed customs clearance and tightened pipeline scheduling during such disputes, and the ISEZ has responded by trimming electricity exports at peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because both sides depend on the trade.[2] As the current Naryn schedule nears renewal in 2027, Kazakh officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ in Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]]'s absence. The DPI says Maksat signs on his behalf, and Kazakh officials monitor the [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]] for its possible effects on oil and mineral exports. ## Other issues - **Heritage.** In 2014 Kazakhstan, with [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], included the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] and the [[Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed]] among its component sites in the transnational [[wp:Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor|Silk Roads World Heritage]] listing. Both Iradi administrations protested. - **Security.** During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], the ISEZ and Kazakh border services increased the frequency of coordinated patrols, and ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced the passes on the Kazakh border. - **Domestic politics.** [[Kamran Bekzatov]] and other Russo politicians in Nurzhan argue that the customs provisions of the 2008 arrangements are no substitute for closer integration with Kazakhstan and Russia through the [[wp:Eurasian Economic Union]].[12] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 501: Executive Directives of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2007–2023).
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Pipelines, Water and Recognition: Irad's Northern Transit.' Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 64–88.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Last Soviet Apparatchik: Vasily Chernov.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 78–94.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  7. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 132–151.
  8. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  9. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  10. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  12. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
  13. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
### 4.114. Irad–Uzbekistan relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–Uzbekistan relations** are the dealings between [[Irad]] and [[wp:Uzbekistan]], which borders it to the west and south. Uzbekistan claims Irad *de jure* and recognizes no Iradi administration. The relationship is dominated by water: the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] on the [[Naryn River]] regulates the summer irrigation supply of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]], much of which lies in Uzbekistan, and Uzbekistan is one of the two main buyers of Iradi electricity.[1] Other issues include the transit of road traffic from Irad's southern districts, the undemarcated frontier, about 145 km of which, along the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim around [[Bazar-Korgon]], is held by the ISEZ and the rest by the clans, the western desert frontier, where tribal patrols clashed with Uzbek border guards in 2018, and the position of the Muslim and ethnic Uzbek communities of the Fergana Rim. ## Claim and recognition Uzbekistan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Its arguments concentrate on the irrigated northern and eastern rim of the Fergana Valley and the lower Naryn, areas that historically belonged to the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]].[2] The valley's large cities, among them Namangan and Andijan, lie in Uzbekistan, outside Irad. Like [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], Uzbekistan closed its border during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] in 1992 and objected to the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] as a breach of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. After the United States withdrew from the treaty in December 2006, it formally asserted its claim and declined to recognize the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]].[3] Uzbekistan has no general framework for dealing with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and no equivalent of the arrangements Kazakhstan reached with the ISEZ in 2008 (see [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]]). Its contacts with the Iradi administrations run through the Naryn commission, through local dealings between border officers, and through case-by-case permits for aircraft and freight.[4] #### The Bill of Sale Between December 2006 and February 2007 the Uzbek foreign ministry took part in the secret consultations with the cabinet of [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] that produced the drafts known in Irad as the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]]. Under them Uzbekistan would have received the Fergana rim, while Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan divided the rest of Irad, with compensation paid into escrow.[14] Uzbekistan describes the talks as consultations on borders and water and has not published its copy of the drafts. It has not rescinded its claim since they were made public in February 2007, nor threatened military action; analysts report that Tashkent, like the other two capitals, expects Irad to break apart on its own and is prepared to wait.[3] ## Historical background The Iradi lands were part of the Khanate of Kokand, centered in the Fergana Valley, from the 18th century. Under the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]], the khan Abd al-Rahim Biy granted religious tolerance to Iradi Christians in return for cavalry service, and he paid for the [[Church of St. Janyl]] at [[Iyık Janyl]]. After [[wp:Mikhail Skobelev|General Mikhail Skobelev]] abolished the khanate in 1876 (see [[Siege of Kokand (1876)]]), parts of the Iradi lands were placed in the Fergana oblast of [[wp:Russian Turkestan]]. Iradi irregulars later fought alongside the [[wp:Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] who crushed the [[wp:Turkestan Autonomy|Kokand Autonomy]] in February 1918.[5] The Iradi language reflects these ties: its urban vocabulary draws on Uzbek roots. ## Water and power The Naryn joins the [[Kara-Darya]] in the Fergana Valley to form the [[wp:Syr Darya]]. Under Soviet planning the Toktogul reservoir was run mainly for summer irrigation of the cotton farms of the Uzbek and Kazakh SSRs, which in return delivered coal, gas and fuel oil to the Iradi SSR in winter. That barter lapsed after 1991 and was never replaced by a treaty. Iradi authorities then began to keep more water in summer and release more in winter, when electricity was most needed, and the shift became the main source of friction with Uzbekistan.[1] Since 2007 the reservoir has been run under the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], whose joint technical commission of ISEZ and tribal engineers meets under UN supervision. Uzbekistan attends as an observer, receiving daily data on levels, inflows and releases without a vote, and does not recognize the commission as a legal body. Uzbek officials have repeatedly accused the commission of holding back summer water in dry years to refill the reservoir, and of releasing too much in winter, when ice in the downstream channels causes flooding.[6] After the reservoir fell to a record low in the dry year of 2008, the commission adopted a minimum reserve level that has reduced, but not ended, these complaints. Electricity from Toktogul is sold mainly to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan through export lines controlled by the ISEZ. During disputes over releases, Uzbek authorities have slowed customs clearance for Iradi goods, and the ISEZ has responded by cutting electricity exports at times of peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because neither side can afford an open break.[7] As the current five-year schedule approaches renewal in 2027, Uzbek officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ while Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] remains out of public view. The DPI says that Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] signs on his behalf. ## Transit and trade Southern road traffic from Irad passes through Uzbekistan. Regional roads continue from [[Tash-Kömür]], the center of the ISEZ's Lower Naryn District and the southern end of the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]], through the farm belt to [[Bazar-Korgon]] and the Uzbek border. The ISEZ's stretch of the frontier there has never been demarcated. For years contacts were left to local border commanders; in February 2025 officials of the ISEZ and Uzbekistan signed a memorandum on trade and border coordination, the first since the 2018 clashes, which set shared customs inspection hours at the main crossings, the [[Kyzyl-Tuu crossing]] on the Tash-Kömür side and the [[Dostuk crossing]] for Bazar-Korgon, and a joint working group on livestock and cotton shipments, first convened at Tash-Kömür. Uzbekistan describes it as a memorandum, not a treaty, implying no recognition, and patrols are coordinated rather than joint. Two other staffed crossings take passengers and farm traffic but no freight: [[Kyzyl-Jar crossing|Kyzyl-Jar]], a small road bridge over the Naryn into the Uzbek town of Uchkurgan at the end of the road down the river from Tash-Kömür, and [[Izbaskan crossing|Izbaskan]]; the Soviet railway branch at the [[Kum crossing]] has carried no trains since 1992; and the other field and village roads on the ISEZ section are open only to residents of the border villages. In the tribal hills above Namangan, roads cross at posts of the El-Choro riders, such as the [[Baymak crossing]] (see [[Minor crossings of the Irad–Uzbekistan frontier]]). Bazar-Korgon's bazaar draws Uzbek traders and a large unrecorded trade across the frontier. Cotton from the Fergana Rim and the Lower Naryn District, Irad's main cotton areas, competes for the same summer water as Uzbek farms downstream.[8] The charter airline [[Iradiya]] flies to [[wp:Tashkent]] with permits issued case by case, and [[Zhetysu Industrial Textiles]] exports carpets to Tashkent. The proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline of the [[wp:China National Petroleum Corporation]] would carry Turkmen gas through Uzbekistan into Irad, entering either in the west or through the Uzbek part of the Fergana Valley. It would therefore require an Uzbek transit agreement, which Uzbekistan's non-recognition of any Iradi counterparty makes difficult (see [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals]]).[9] ## 2018 border clashes *Main article: [[2018 Border Demarcation Clashes]]* The frontier sections held by the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) have never been demarcated, and herders use grazing trails and boreholes on both sides of the Soviet-era administrative line. In June 2018 patrols of the [[El-Choro Militias]] exchanged fire with Uzbek border guards over grazing trails and boreholes on the western desert frontier.[10] Accounts are fragmentary, and no party has published full casualty figures. Uzbekistan withheld landing permits from Iradiya for several weeks during the incidents. Talks between Uzbek border officers and clan elders, with UN officials facilitating contacts although the external frontier lies outside the mandate of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]], produced buffer arrangements around the disputed wells. Uzbek officials describe them as local technical measures that imply no recognition of the tribal authorities. Disputes over boreholes in the area have since also come before the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]].[11] ## Communities and religion The 2018 census recorded [[wp:Uzbeks]] as 5 percent of Irad's population, living mainly in the Lower Naryn District and on the Fergana Rim. Most are [[wp:Sunni Islam|Sunni Muslims]], part of the 18 percent of Irad's population who identify as Muslim (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[12] A 2020 study at [[Talas State University]] found Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Muslims generally underrepresented in the officer corps of the ISEZ armed forces. In December 2024 Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]] described Muslim communities in the Fergana Rim as "guests who have forgotten whose house they live in", remarks that Sunni clerics and human rights groups condemned and that the Department of Public Information called his personal views.[13] Analysts noted the remarks in the context of relations with Irad's Muslim-majority neighbors, from which the ISEZ's Christian majority and American ties have long set it apart. ## Security During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], after the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in [[wp:Afghanistan]], ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced checkpoints on the mountain passes along the Uzbek border, as on the Kazakh and Kyrgyz borders. El-Choro riders patrol the western desert frontier and the tribal sections in the hills west of the Naryn, and the Gendarmerie the ISEZ's farm-belt section.[11] ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Cascade: Annual Technical Review. Kara-Oi.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  4. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  5. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (19 June 2018). 'Tribal Patrols and Uzbek Guards Exchange Fire on Western Frontier.' Talas.
  11. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Border Security and Resource Management in the Western Rangelands. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  12. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  13. ^ Talas Herald (January 2025). 'Clerics and Archbishop Condemn General's Remarks.' Talas.
  14. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
### 4.115. Irad–Kyrgyzstan relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–Kyrgyzstan relations** are the dealings between [[Irad]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], which borders it to the east and southeast. Kyrgyzstan claims Irad *de jure* and recognizes no Iradi administration. It is the upstream state on both of the rivers that matter most to Irad: the [[Naryn River|Naryn]], which enters Irad from Kyrgyzstan and feeds the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], and the Chu, whose flow into the lowlands around [[Nurzhan]] is regulated by the [[Orto-Sai Reservoir]] in Kyrgyz territory.[1] Kyrgyzstan regards the Naryn cascade, including the Toktogul complex inside Irad, as Kyrgyz national infrastructure, and it attends the commission that runs the dam only as an observer under protest. The two countries share close linguistic and cultural ties. The core grammar and vocabulary of the Iradi language are close to Kyrgyz, and [[Iradis]] and Kyrgyz share the *[[wp:Epic of Manas]]*, the komuz lute and mounted games. Kyrgyzstan's capital, [[wp:Bishkek]], gave its name to the 2007 ceasefire that ended the [[Second Iradi Civil War]].[2] ## Claim and recognition Kyrgyzstan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Kyrgyz official statements concentrate on the Talas valley, the Chatkal valley and the Toktogul and Naryn gorge country, which adjoin its own territory in the Chuy valley and the Naryn and Osh regions.[3] Like Kazakhstan and [[wp:Uzbekistan]], Kyrgyzstan closed its border during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] in 1992 and objected to the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] as a breach of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. After the United States withdrew from the treaty in December 2006, it formally asserted its claim and declined to recognize the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]].[4] Kyrgyzstan has concluded no technical arrangement with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) comparable to the 2008 border arrangements between the ISEZ and the Kazakh services (see [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]]). Its frontier with Irad runs mostly through mountains held on the Iradi side by the clans of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), whose [[El-Choro Militias]] patrol it.[5] The ISEZ holds two short sections, round [[wp:Jalal-Abad]] and at the eastern end of the Chu District, where its posts at the [[Suzak crossing|Suzak]] and [[Kichi-Korgon crossing|Kichi-Korgon]] crossings face Kyrgyz customs posts without any agreed procedure. #### The Bill of Sale Between December 2006 and February 2007 the Kyrgyz foreign ministry took part in the secret consultations with the cabinet of [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] that produced the drafts known in Irad as the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]]. Kyrgyzstan stood to gain most: the drafts assigned it the Talas valley, including the capital, and the Chatkal, Toktogul and Naryn lands adjoining its Jalal-Abad region, so that the whole Naryn cascade would have come under Kyrgyz control, with concession shares in the Toktogul operating company reserved for companies tied to DRI ministers.[15] Kyrgyzstan describes the talks as consultations and has not published its copy. It has not rescinded its claim since the drafts were made public in February 2007, nor threatened military action, and analysts describe the prevailing view in Bishkek as one of waiting for Irad to break apart on its own.[4] Iradi commentators have noted the irony that the 2007 ceasefire talks were held in the capital of a state that had been negotiating to annex [[Talas]] a few months earlier. ## History The Iradi, Kyrgyz and Kazakh lands were all part of [[wp:Russian Turkestan]], and in the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|revolt of 1916]] Iradi clans rose alongside Kyrgyz and Kazakh communities. In the flight that followed, Iradi groups from the Chu and Talas valleys crossed the central [[wp:Tian Shan]] toward China together with much larger numbers of Kyrgyz. The memory of the *Urkun* is shared by both peoples (see [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]]).[6] In the Soviet period the Iradi SSR and the [[wp:Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic|Kirghiz SSR]] were neighboring union republics. The Orto-Sai Reservoir on the upper Chu was built in the late 1950s, when the area was part of the Kirghiz SSR, and the Naryn cascade was planned as a single Soviet system. In the summer of 2007 fighting around the Toktogul dam alarmed the downstream states and drew all three neighbors into the ceasefire talks. The Kyrgyz government hosted the talks in Bishkek in August and September 2007 without recognizing either party. The Kyrgyz delegation, like those of [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and Uzbekistan, attended as an observer and recorded that its participation did not affect its claim to Irad.[7] The resulting [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] fixed the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and annexed the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]. ## The Naryn The Naryn rises in the central Tian Shan of Kyrgyzstan and flows west through its Naryn region before entering Irad and filling the Toktogul reservoir. Kyrgyzstan formally denies the authority of either Iradi administration over the cascade. Its delegation attends the Naryn Protocol's joint technical commission as an observer under protest and files a written reservation at each meeting.[8] Unlike Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which press the commission for summer irrigation water, Kyrgyzstan's interest lies chiefly in the principle of its claim and in its own plans for the upper river. Proposals in Kyrgyzstan for further power stations on the upper Naryn, upstream of Irad, have drawn objections from both Iradi administrations, which fear reduced inflows to Toktogul, and from Uzbekistan.[9] ## The Chu The Chu rises in Kyrgyzstan, passes through the [[wp:Boom Gorge]] and is drawn on heavily by the canals of the Chuy valley. Downstream it forms part of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan before entering Irad. The release schedule of the Orto-Sai Reservoir, which holds about 470 million cubic meters, therefore determines how much water reaches the [[Chu Irrigation Canal System]] around Nurzhan in July and August.[1] There is no ratified agreement on the Chu between Irad and Kyrgyzstan. ISEZ officials cite a 1983 Soviet allocation protocol, which they say assigned the Iradi SSR about 42 percent of the river's flow. Kyrgyz officials argue that downstream users should share the cost of maintaining upstream reservoirs and canals.[10] In dry years the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]] in Nurzhan has reported deliveries well below its allocations and accused upstream users of taking more than their share. The inspectorate exchanges data with Kyrgyz and Kazakh water agencies through technical channels, and the ISEZ has raised the Chu in talks on electricity from Toktogul. Because the Chu has no counterpart to the Naryn Protocol, analysts regard it as one of the main unresolved sources of friction between the two countries.[10] ## Transit and trade The China National Petroleum Corporation's proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline, from [[wp:Turkmenistan]] to western China, would have to leave Irad through Kyrgyz territory, because Irad has no border with China. Both route variants studied, along the Talas valley and the [[Fergana Gateway]] or along the Fergana rim farm belt in the Lower Naryn District, end at the Kyrgyz border. The project would therefore need a Kyrgyz transit agreement as well as an Uzbek one, which non-recognition makes difficult (see [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals]]).[11] Trade between the two is small compared with Irad's trade through Kazakhstan. Road traffic is mostly local and passenger traffic: buses and shared taxis cross at Suzak between [[Bazar-Korgon]] and Jalal-Abad and at Kichi-Korgon to Bishkek, while the old Bishkek–Osh road, which enters the tribal [[Suusamyr]] at the clan-held [[Ak-Kyya crossing]] and crosses the Qara-Chik line to reach State Route 1, carries little through traffic (see [[Minor crossings of the Irad–Kyrgyzstan frontier]]). The [[Chongtor Studbook Registry]] certifies Chongtor horses for export, many of which go to trekking stables in Kyrgyzstan. Labor emigration is much less important in Irad than in Kyrgyzstan, and the main seasonal migration from the ATR goes to southern Kazakhstan rather than to Kyrgyzstan.[12] ## Heritage dispute In 2014 Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan included the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] and the [[Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed]], both in Irad, among their component sites in the transnational [[wp:Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor|Silk Roads World Heritage]] listing. Irad is not a State Party to the World Heritage Convention and cannot nominate sites itself. The ISEZ government, in a statement of the Department of Public Information, and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] both protested against the inclusion.[13] ## People and culture The 2018 census recorded Kyrgyz as 7 percent of Irad's population, the largest minority after the Iradis themselves. A 2020 study at [[Talas State University]] found Kyrgyz, together with [[wp:Uzbeks]] and Muslims generally, underrepresented in the officer corps of the ISEZ armed forces.[14] Many cultural forms are shared or closely related: - the *Epic of Manas*, which Iradis share with the Kyrgyz, and the warrior-maiden epic *Janyl Myrza*, a close parallel to the Iradi *[[The Epic of Janyl|Epic of Janyl]]*; - the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]], essentially the same instrument in both traditions; - mounted games such as [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]], closely related to the Kyrgyz *kok-boru*; - felt-making, including the [[Shyrdak (Iradi Craft)|shyrdak]] carpet. Some differences are marked. The Iradi taboo on horsemeat, which the popular prejudice associates with Muslims, ignores Kyrgyz and Kazakh practice, and Iradi versions of shared dishes such as beshbarmak and kazy are made with beef or mutton (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]). The Talas International Film Festival has long included a large section of Russian-language films from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. ## Security During [[The 2021 Regional Security Alert]], ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced checkpoints on the mountain passes along the Kyrgyz border, as on the Kazakh and Uzbek borders.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report on Water Allocation, 2022. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  6. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1990). The Black Year: The Revolt of 1916 in the Talas Valley. Talas.
  7. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–301.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'The Forgotten River: Chu Water and Irad–Kyrgyzstan Relations.' Vol. 29, pp. 14–36.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  12. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  13. ^ Department of Public Information (2014). 'Statement on the Silk Roads World Heritage Listing.' Press release. Talas.
  14. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  15. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
### 4.116. Irad–Russia relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–Russia relations** cover the ties between [[Irad]] and Russia, the former imperial and Soviet center whose language remains Irad's *de facto* lingua franca. Russia has no official relations with either Iradi administration and does not border Irad. Its influence runs mainly through the Russian-speaking business and industrial elite of [[Nurzhan]], through Russian-language media, and through the northern oil route, by which Iradi crude enters the Kazakh pipeline network near [[wp:Shymkent]] and is refined there or shipped onward to Russia.[1] Russia protested against the US intervention of 1992 but did not intervene, and it received the defeated communist leader [[Vasily Chernov]]. Since then the main Russian-oriented current in Iradi politics has been the "Russo" faction associated with the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]], who calls for accession to the [[wp:Eurasian Economic Union]] and has publicly praised [[wp:Vladimir Putin]]. The ruling [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) is pro-American and has opposed the Russos on language and Eurasian integration.[2] ## History #### Imperial and Soviet rule Russian forces reached the northern lands of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] in the 1860s, and after [[wp:Mikhail Skobelev|General Mikhail Skobelev]] abolished the khanate in 1876 the Iradi lands were divided among the Syr-Darya, [[wp:Semirechye]] and Fergana oblasts of [[wp:Russian Turkestan]]. [[Iradis]] were classed as *inorodtsy*. Land seizures for Russian settlers and the wartime labor decree led to the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916, after which Cossack detachments and settler militias burned villages across Semirechye.[3] In the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] (1925–1991), Russian became the language of administration and, after the end of nativization, of schooling, and a Cyrillic alphabet was imposed on Iradi in 1941. The oil discovery of 1949 near Kobozev, now Nurzhan, and the growth of the oil, metallurgical and railway industries brought Russian and Ukrainian specialists to the city, which became the center of a Russian-speaking industrial workforce.[4] #### The Socialist Republic and the 1992 war The [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] (SRI), proclaimed in Kobozev on 9 October 1991, was led by Chernov, an ethnic Russian refinery engineer, and its leadership and officer corps were largely ethnic Russian. After the Provisional Government in [[Talas]] signed the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] with the United States on 2 June 1992, Chernov denounced the American intervention as foreign aggression and appealed to [[wp:Moscow]] and the other members of the [[wp:Commonwealth of Independent States]] for support.[5] The Russian government protested against US military action in the former Soviet space and raised the safety of Russian-speaking residents, but it did not intervene. The [[wp:United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]] held consultations but adopted no resolution. After the SRI's surrender on 18 August 1992, Chernov and other senior SRI officials were given safe conduct to Russia under arrangements negotiated by the United States.[6] Many ethnic Russians associated with the SRI administration emigrated to Russia after the war. #### Territorial period (1992–2006) The territorial government dropped Russian as an official language in 1992 in favor of Iradi and English, restored the Latin alphabet for Iradi and renamed Kobozev as Nurzhan (see [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]]). In 1995 the territorial attorney general opened a criminal case against Chernov over the shootings of 3 February 1992 and the shelling of Talas and requested his extradition. Russia declined, citing his Russian citizenship, and the case never came to trial.[7] Chernov's memoir, *The Broken Union* (2001), presented his resistance to the intervention as an attempt to preserve regional stability against "imperialist fragmentation". He died in Moscow in 2012; the ISEZ government made no official comment. Economic contacts continued. [[NurGaz]], privatized in 1993 under Bekzatov, formed technical partnerships in the 1990s with [[wp:Chevron Corporation|Chevron]] and Lukoil. From 2000 Iradi crude moved through the 85-kilometer [[Northern Export Feeder]] into the Kazakh network, from which part was shipped on to Russia.[8] #### Since 2007 Russia has not recognized any Iradi administration. Irad belongs to neither the Eurasian Economic Union nor its predecessor customs union, and since [[wp:Kazakhstan]] joined the customs union with Russia and Belarus in 2010, Iradi goods sold into Kazakhstan and Russia have paid the union's external tariff.[9] Russia is one of Irad's main sources of imports, alongside China, Kazakhstan, [[wp:Turkey]] and the United States, and it receives most Iradi crude. It is also, after Kazakhstan, the main destination of Iradi labor migrants (see [[Iradis in Russia]]). The Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, established the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] in October 2007. ## The Russo faction *Main article: [[Russos of Nurzhan]]* The "Russos" are the generation of urban Iradis, born roughly between the late 1940s and 1980, who were educated in Russian in the Soviet period, together with Russian, Ukrainian and Russian-speaking Koryo-saram contemporaries. They are concentrated in Nurzhan. Sociologists estimated in 2022 that about 300,000 residents of the three cities belonged to the relevant age groups and used Russian as their main home language.[4] The 2018 census recorded Russians as 4 percent of Irad's population; most belong to the [[wp:Russian Orthodox Church]]. Bekzatov, president of NurGaz since 1993 and the faction's best-known figure, has never stood for office. His positions include:[2] - accession to the Eurasian Economic Union, to remove duties on refined oil products and steel, and closer trade with Kazakhstan and Russia; - the restoration of Russian as an official language alongside Iradi and English; - criticism of the ISEZ's reliance on American security guarantees and of the US presence at [[Talas Air Base]]. He has also drawn attention for his open praise of Vladimir Putin. Russo politicians have held a majority on the Nurzhan city council for most of the period since 1992, and three Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan won seats in the 2023 election to the 60-seat [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], where they form its only consistent opposition. The municipal politician [[Elena Petrova]] represents the city's Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking industrial workforce. Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] and [[Alikhan Toktarov]] have opposed the Russos' calls on language and Eurasian integration.[10] DPI-aligned commentators portray Bekzatov as a channel for Russian influence. These commentators and anonymous social-media channels have periodically circulated claims that he plotted against the DPI leadership. The claims were never corroborated. Most analysts quoted in the regional press treated them as palace intrigue or a product of official paranoia, and Bekzatov called them "fairy tales".[11] ## Media and disinformation Russian-language media remain widely followed among older Iradis, including satellite television from Russia and IradOdin, the Russian-language sister channel of [[IradOne]]. [[wp:Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] is marked in Nurzhan on 9 May with a parade.[4] Since the second half of 2024, recorded addresses attributed to Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]], who has not appeared in public since July 2024, have been the subject of authenticity claims that officials reject (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]). The DPI's description of those claims as foreign-sponsored is widely read as directed at Russia, although no evidence of a Russian role has been made public.[12] ## The 2025 Trump remarks In February 2025 [[wp:Donald Trump|US President Donald Trump]] said that he was exploring selling Irad to Russia to keep China from acquiring it. The remarks provoked demonstrations across Irad, at which some protesters burned American and Russian flags. Bekzatov rejected the idea of any "sale" of Irad and argued that the episode showed the risks of depending on Washington, and Russo politicians cited it in renewed calls to review the US basing arrangements (see [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]).[13] ## Public opinion Attitudes toward Russia divide sharply by generation. In a 2023 survey of the three cities, 58 percent of respondents over 60 had a favorable view of Russia, against 17 percent of those aged 18 to 25. Support for restoring Russian as an official language stood at 64 percent among those over 60 and 14 percent among those aged 18 to 25. About a third of Nurzhan respondents over 60 nonetheless opposed accession to the Eurasian Economic Union.[10] Younger Iradis, schooled in English and increasingly in Iradi, are the least attached to Russia (see [[Iradi language revival]]). ## References
  1. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1990). The Black Year: The Revolt of 1916 in the Talas Valley. Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'The Russophone Industrial Intelligentsia of the Chu Basin.' Vol. 15, pp. 112–129.
  5. ^ Chernov, Vasily (2001). The Broken Union: Memories of the Final First Secretary. Moscow.
  6. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  7. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad, Commission on the Events of 1991–1992 (2002). Report on the Shootings of 3 February 1992. Talas.
  8. ^ NurGaz (2024). Annual Review 2023: Upstream Operations and Export Volumes. Nurzhan.
  9. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Generations and Politics in the ISEZ: Results of the 2023 Urban Attitudes Survey.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 77–102.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  12. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Who Governs Irad? The Succession Question After Five Months of Silence.' Talas.
  13. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
### 4.117. Irad–China relations *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Foreign Relations* **Irad–China relations** are the economic and political ties between [[Irad]] and the [[wp:China|People's Republic of China]]. The two do not share a border, and China maintains no official relations with either Iradi administration. Its relationship with Irad is carried on almost entirely through trade and investment: China is the main buyer of Iradi antimony and a leading source of Irad's imports, the textile company Xinjiang Lihua is the largest cotton processor in Irad, and the [[wp:China National Petroleum Corporation]] (CNPC) has proposed a gas pipeline across the territory.[1] Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] has said publicly that "Irad's alignment with China is inevitable and welcome".[2] The [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) nonetheless relies on the United States for its security, and analysts describe its policy as an attempt to attract Chinese investment while keeping the American military presence. ## Background Iradi historiography gives a large place to early contacts with China. The Han envoy [[wp:Zhang Qian]] visited the Fergana kingdom of [[wp:Dayuan]] around 128 BCE, and Han demand for its "heavenly horses" led to the War of the Heavenly Horses (104–101 BCE); Iradi breeders regard the [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] as a descendant of these horses (see [[Dayuan Heavenly Horse Heritage]]). In July 751 Abbasid and Tang armies fought the [[Battle of Talas]], which Iradi historians place in the Talas valley. Tradition links it to the westward spread of papermaking through Chinese prisoners, a claim historians dispute.[3] In the flight after the revolt of 1916, Iradi and Kyrgyz groups crossed the [[wp:Tian Shan]] toward [[wp:Xinjiang]], then governed for the [[wp:Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. Modern economic ties began in the territorial period. The [[Sary-Bulak]] antimony mine was re-equipped between 1995 and 1997, financed partly by prepayment contracts with Chinese buyers, and the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] found its main market in China in the late 1990s.[4] ## Trade #### Antimony Irad holds about 7 percent of world antimony reserves. Ore from the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] is concentrated on site and partly smelted at the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]]. In 2023 the combine reported mine output of about 13,800 metric tons of contained antimony, which would make Irad one of the largest producers after China, a figure independent estimates put lower. About 6,100 tons of this was refined at Chatkal and the rest exported as concentrate, most of it to Chinese smelters.[4] Because Irad has no border with China, the shipments travel by rail through [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. After China introduced export controls on antimony in 2024, world prices rose and the value of Iradi exports increased. The combine reported larger sales of metal and trioxide to buyers outside China in 2025, and the [[Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy]] has sought new buyers outside China since 2024. Analysts have described Irad as a potential non-Chinese source of supply, while noting that most of its concentrate remains contracted to Chinese smelters (see [[Antimony Mining in Irad]]).[5] #### Other trade China is one of Irad's main sources of imports of machinery, vehicles and consumer goods, alongside Russia, Kazakhstan, [[wp:Turkey]] and the United States. Demand for pedigree [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] and Akyel horses has risen in [[wp:Hong Kong]] and mainland China.[1] The 2018 census recorded Chinese residents as 1 percent of Irad's population. ## Investment #### Xinjiang Lihua *Main article: [[Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities]]* Xinjiang Lihua Co. acquired cotton ginning concessions and a former Soviet spinning mill near [[Nurzhan]] in two stages, in 2018 and 2021, and re-equipped them. Its plants, including [[Xinjiang Lihua Ginning Mill No. 3]], handle about 85,000 tonnes of seed cotton a year and employ about 1,400 people. According to the company, more than 80 percent of the lint and yarn is exported, mainly by rail through Kazakhstan to textile mills in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan.[6] When the concessions were acquired, farmers' groups and environmental researchers raised concerns about whether the cotton growing linked to the plants would comply with water regulations, and about the depletion of the Chu and Talas basins. ISEZ water inspectors state that withdrawals by farms supplying the plants are monitored by the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]].[7] #### Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline *Main article: [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals]]* CNPC's proposal, first discussed publicly in the early 2010s, would carry gas from [[wp:Turkmenistan]] through [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and southern Irad to western China, leaving Irad through Kyrgyz territory. Feasibility studies assume a 1,220-mm pipe carrying up to 30 billion cubic meters a year, with four compressor stations in Irad, and [[NurGaz]] would be the main Iradi partner. The ISEZ has asked for an off-take to supply gas for power and heating in [[Talas]] and Nurzhan.[8] In 2022 Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] received a CNPC delegation in Talas, and the Department of Public Information said the talks covered the pipeline and other infrastructure investment.[9] No investment decision has been made. The obstacles include the need for transit agreements with Uzbekistan and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], both of which claim Irad; lenders' reluctance to finance infrastructure in a territory without recognized sovereignty; competition from existing [[wp:Central Asia]]–China pipelines through Kazakhstan; and the refusal of clan elders in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] to consent to construction across their pastures and catchments. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] says that any route across tribal land would require the agreement of the clan assemblies and a share of transit revenue.[8] [[Kamran Bekzatov]] supports the pipeline provided NurGaz keeps operating control. ## Politics Toktarov's statement on China sits alongside the ISEZ's continued reliance on the US forces at [[Talas Air Base]], and Chinese investment in Irad has not extended to security cooperation.[2] Since Toktarov withdrew from public view in July 2024, Maksat has received foreign delegations, including Chinese investors, and presents himself as a pro-business technocrat who welcomes foreign infrastructure investment (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[10] China figured in the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], in which [[wp:Donald Trump|US President Donald Trump]] said that he was exploring selling Irad to Russia to keep China from acquiring it. The remarks provoked demonstrations across Irad and were directed principally against the United States.[11] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure, and Trade Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  3. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (3rd ed.). London: Luzac & Co.
  4. ^ Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine (2024). Annual Report 2023. Talas.
  5. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  6. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Manufacturing and Textiles. Talas.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  9. ^ Department of Public Information (2022). 'Lieutenant Governor Receives CNPC Delegation.' Press release. Talas.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  11. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
### 4.118. Naryn River *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Naryn River** (Iradi and Kyrgyz: *Naryn*) is a river of the [[wp:Tian Shan]] and the main headstream of the [[wp:Syr Darya]]. It is about 807 kilometers long and drains a basin of about 59,900 square kilometers. It rises in the central Tian Shan of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], flows west through Kyrgyzstan's Naryn region, and crosses southern [[Irad]] through the Toktogul Reservoir and a chain of hydroelectric stations before leaving the mountains for the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. There it joins the [[Kara-Darya]] in [[wp:Uzbekistan]] to form the Syr Darya, which flows on toward the [[wp:Aral Sea]].[1] The Naryn is Irad's largest river by volume and its main source of electricity. Since 2007 its Iradi course has been divided by the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The gorges by which it enters Irad and the mountains around the Toktogul basin lie in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). The floor of the basin, with the dam, reservoir and powerhouse of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]], has been in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) since 2009, together with the switchyard, the national dispatch center, the downstream stations and the export lines. Releases from the dam are set under the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]], which also gives [[wp:Kazakhstan]], Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan a seat as observers.[2] ## Course #### Upper course (Kyrgyzstan) The river forms where the Big Naryn and the Small Naryn meet in the high basins of the central Tian Shan. The Big Naryn is fed by glaciers of the Ak-Shyirak massif. The combined river flows west through a series of broad valleys and gorges past the town of Naryn, the center of Kyrgyzstan's Naryn region, collecting the At-Bashy and other tributaries from the ranges on either side. This part of the basin lies wholly outside Irad.[1] #### Middle course (Irad) The Naryn enters Irad through deep gorges on the eastern edge of the Toktogul–Naryn planning zone of the ATR. It then widens into the Toktogul basin, an intermontane depression in the western Tian Shan that the reservoir now largely fills. The Kökömeren, formed in the [[Suusamyr]] country by the [[Suusamyr River]] and the Western Karakol, joins from the right above the reservoir, and the [[Uzun-Akmat River|Uzun-Akmat]] and other streams from the southern slopes of the [[Talas Alatau]] flow into the reservoir itself. The market town of Toktogul stands on the reservoir's northern shore.[3] The dam stands in the gorge where the river leaves the basin. Below it, the Naryn descends through narrow canyons past Kara-Köl, the town built for the station's workers, and through the Lower Naryn District of the ISEZ, here a corridor a few kilometers wide between tribal mountains, to the flats at [[Iyık Janyl]] and [[Tash-Kömür]], the district center.[3] #### Lower course Below Tash-Kömür the river passes the Shamaldy-Sai and Uch-Kurgan stations and leaves its gorge for the northern edge of the Fergana Valley just below the Uch-Kurgan dam, where it leaves Irad, still within the ISEZ; the [[Sadaf-Jar]] bluffs stand on the rim above the frontier. In the Uzbek part of the valley it feeds the North Fergana Canal and the [[wp:Great Fergana Canal]], dug in 1939, and then joins the Kara-Darya to form the Syr Darya.[1] ## Hydrology The Naryn is fed mainly by snowmelt and glacier melt, with high water from May to August and low water in winter. Where it leaves the mountains its mean flow is about 430 cubic meters per second, or roughly 13 to 14 cubic kilometers a year, which makes it the larger of the two headstreams of the Syr Darya.[1] Before the Toktogul dam was built, almost all of this flow passed downstream unregulated. The reservoir, with a total storage of about 19 cubic kilometers, can now hold more than a year's flow and allows releases to be shifted between seasons.[4] Researchers expect glacier retreat in the Tian Shan to raise summer flow for some decades and then to reduce it, especially in late summer, when downstream demand for irrigation is highest (see [[Glacier retreat in Irad]]).[5] ## The Naryn cascade Soviet planners designed the Naryn as a cascade of hydroelectric stations, with Toktogul as the head station whose reservoir regulates the flow for the stations below it. Construction of the Toktogul dam began in 1962, and its first generating units entered service in the mid-1970s. The stations of the cascade in Irad were built between the 1950s and the 1990s:[3][4] - **Toktogul**, a concrete gravity dam about 215 meters high with four units and an installed capacity of 1,200 MW; - **Kurpsai**, the next station downstream; - **Tash-Kömür**, near the town of that name; - **Shamaldy-Sai** and **Uch-Kurgan**, near the edge of the Fergana Valley. Because the downstream stations reuse the water released from Toktogul, the schedule at the head dam determines the output of the whole cascade. The Naryn's power makes Irad a net exporter of electricity, mainly to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (see [[Energy in Irad]]).[2] ## History In classical and medieval geography the Syr Darya was the Jaxartes, and some writers treated the Naryn as its upper course. The Naryn gorges were never a major route; caravans between the Talas valley and the Fergana Valley crossed the mountains farther west, by passes such as the [[Fergana Gateway]].[6] The river was harnessed in the Soviet period to expand irrigated cotton in the Fergana Valley and on the middle Syr Darya. The reservoir flooded villages, pastures and farmland in the Toktogul basin, and several thousand people were resettled, including the inhabitants of the old town of Toktogul. Under Soviet planning the reservoir stored spring runoff and released it in summer for downstream farms, while the Uzbek and Kazakh SSRs supplied the Iradi SSR with coal, gas and fuel oil in winter.[4] After 1991 this barter lapsed. The [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] and then the territorial administration began to release more water in winter, when electricity was most needed, and to hold more back in summer. In the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007 the front line ran through the Toktogul complex, and fighting near the dam that summer was one reason all three neighboring states took part in the ceasefire talks in [[wp:Bishkek]].[7] In the dry year of 2008 the reservoir fell to its lowest level since it was filled, forcing power rationing in the ISEZ the following winter. The joint technical commission has since kept a minimum reserve.[2] ## Split control and the Protocol The [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] placed the Naryn's installations under the Naryn Water and Power Protocol, its annex. A joint technical commission of ISEZ and ATR engineers, chaired by an official of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]], adopts an annual operating plan within a five-year framework schedule. It meets at UNMI's sector headquarters at Tash-Kömür, weekly during the irrigation season. The framework schedule was renewed in 2012, 2017 and 2022 and is next due in 2027.[2] The dam was guarded by the [[El-Choro Militias]] until 2009; since then the whole complex and the downstream stations have been guarded by the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] and the State Defense Corps' Lower Naryn mountain battalion. Tribal engineers of the joint commission who cross the line to inspect the dam travel under UNMI escort. Export revenue is divided under an annex that has never been published. Independent analysts estimate that the ISEZ takes the larger share, which both administrations deny.[7] ## Transboundary disputes The Naryn's flow matters to every state downstream. Uzbek officials have repeatedly accused the commission of holding back summer water in dry years and of releasing too much in winter, when ice in the downstream channels causes flooding. Kazakhstan, whose irrigated districts lie on the lower Syr Darya, makes similar complaints. Large winter releases since the 1990s have at times forced Kazakhstan to divert surplus water from its [[wp:Shardara Dam|Shardara Reservoir]] into the Arnasay depression.[8] Neither country recognizes the joint commission, and both attend only as observers. Water disputes have spilled over into transit, with slower customs clearance and tighter pipeline scheduling on one side and cuts in Iradi electricity exports on the other (see [[Irad–Uzbekistan relations]] and [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]]).[8] Kyrgyzstan, the upstream state, regards the Naryn cascade as Kyrgyz national infrastructure and denies the authority of either Iradi administration over it. Its delegation attends the commission under protest and files a written reservation at each meeting. Proposals in Kyrgyzstan for further stations on the upper Naryn, upstream of Irad, have drawn objections from both Iradi administrations and from Uzbekistan (see [[Irad–Kyrgyzstan relations]]).[2] ## Ecology The native fish of the Naryn are snowtrout (*marinka*) and osmans. The [[wp:Amu Darya]] trout, a form of brown trout, was introduced into the river and the Toktogul Reservoir in the Soviet period, and rainbow trout are farmed near Toktogul (see [[Iradi Mountain Trout]]). The fluctuating level of the reservoir leaves bare mud and gravel shores for much of the year, and the regulated river below the dam no longer floods its banks in spring.[9] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 98–131.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Cascade: Annual Technical Review. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ Ministry of Energy and Electrification of the Iradi SSR (1980). The Toktogul Hydroelectric Station: Construction and Operation. Kobozev.
  5. ^ Farinotti, Daniel, et al. (2015). 'Substantial Glacier Mass Loss in the Tien Shan over the Past 50 Years.' Nature Geoscience, 8, pp. 716–722.
  6. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (3rd ed.). Luzac & Co., London.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  9. ^ Department of Zoology, Talas State University (2020). Fishes of the Naryn and Talas Basins. Talas State University Press, Talas.
### 4.119. Talas River *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Talas River** (Iradi: *Talas daryası*) is a river of northwestern [[Irad]], about 661 kilometers long, with a basin of about 52,700 square kilometers. It rises at the eastern head of the Talas valley, between the Kyrgyz Range and the [[Talas Alatau]], flows west through the valley past the capital, [[Talas]], and then turns north and northwest across the piedmont plain into the Moiynkum sands, where it dies out without reaching any sea or large lake. Its middle and lower valley holds Irad's most densely settled farmland, and the river supplies most of the irrigation water of the Talas and [[Kara-Buura]] districts of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ).[1] The Talas lies in an endorheic basin of the south Kazakh steppe. Its desert terminus lies in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), while its upper and irrigated middle course lie in the ISEZ; many of its tributaries rise across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] on the tribal side. Medieval Talas, which Iradi historiography identifies with the modern capital, stood on its banks, and the [[Battle of Talas]] of 751 was fought in its valley.[2] ## Course The river is formed by headstreams draining the junction of the Kyrgyz Range and the Talas Alatau below the Otmek Pass, the largest of which are the [[Karakol]] (not to be confused with the Western Karakol of the [[Suusamyr]] country) and the Uch-Koshoi. The headstreams and the highest part of the valley lay on the tribal side of the line until 2009, when they passed to the ISEZ with the State Route 1 corridor; the surrounding ridges remain tribal. The river flows west past the ruins of the medieval silver-mining town of [[Shelji]], in the eastern part of Talas District.[1] Through the middle valley the Talas runs in a braided channel across a floor of gravel and loess terraces, flanked by alluvial fans from the side valleys. It passes through Talas at about 1,250 meters, where it feeds the city's irrigation channels (*aryk*), and continues west past [[Talas Air Base]] on its southern terrace and the market town of [[Kara-Bulak]]. In the lower valley, in Kara-Buura District, its flow is regulated by the Kyzyl-Adyr Reservoir near the district center, [[Kyzyl-Adyr]].[3] Below the valley the river turns north and then northwest across a broad piedmont plain. For part of this reach it runs close to the frontier with [[wp:Kazakhstan]], and Kazakh farms on the adjoining plain draw on its water. It then leaves the irrigated land, crosses into the Northern Steppe planning zone of the ATR, and follows the western edge of the Moiynkum, where its channel shrinks through evaporation, seepage and diversion. In most years it ends among sands, reed marshes and seasonal salt lakes on the western margin of the desert; in wet years its floodwaters spread farther.[1] ## Tributaries Most of the Talas's tributaries enter from the left, from the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau. They are fed by snowfields and small glaciers, and their upper valleys lie on the tribal side of the Qara-Chik line. The main ones include:[4] - the [[Kashka-Suu]], which keeps a relatively high flow into late summer; - the Kara-Suu, which cuts the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]] south of Talas; - the Besh-Tash, which drains [[Besh-Tash National Park]]; - the [[Urmaral River|Urmaral]], west of the capital; - the Kenkol, whose lower valley holds a Hunnic-period burial ground (see [[Chong-Kenkol]]); - the Kara-Buura, almost all of whose water is taken for irrigation before it reaches the main river. Shorter streams from the southern slopes of the Kyrgyz Range enter from the right. ## Hydrology The Talas is fed mainly by snowmelt and glacier melt from the Talas Alatau. Flow peaks between May and July and falls to its lowest in winter. Mean flow in the middle valley is on the order of 30 cubic meters per second, but much less reaches the lower river in July and August, when irrigation demand is highest.[1] The Kyzyl-Adyr Reservoir, completed in 1975 and known as the Kirov Reservoir until it was renamed under the 1993 Toponymic Heritage Statute, stores about 550 million cubic meters of spring runoff for summer irrigation.[3] The [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]], founded in 1948, runs eighteen gauging stations on the river and its tributaries. Its records, together with those of the [[Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory]], show earlier spring flow peaks and a growing share of glacier melt in summer flow since the 1970s. The glaciers of the upper basin lost about a fifth of their area between 1970 and 2020, and researchers expect late-summer flow to decline as they shrink further.[5] ## Irrigation and use Irrigation in the Talas valley goes back to antiquity, and medieval towns such as [[Kand-i Kohna]] and the predecessors of Talas drew water from the river and from underground galleries of the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]]. Large-scale canal building followed the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]].[2] According to the [[Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate]], about 110,000 hectares of the valley are now irrigated from the Talas and its tributaries. The main crops are wheat, barley, sugar beet, potatoes and common beans, with alfalfa and fodder maize for the feedlots of the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]].[6] The [[Talas Municipal Water Authority]] draws part of the capital's supply from the river, though most of it comes from wellfields in the alluvial fan south of the city. Several of the rivers that feed the valley rise on the tribal side of the line, and disputes over headwater use are a recurring subject at the Joint Liaison Committee of the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)|Bishkek ceasefire]]. The Directorate usually settles them through informal arrangements with clan councils.[6] Under a Soviet allocation rule that both sides still cite, the river's flow was divided equally between the Iradi SSR and the irrigated districts of the [[wp:Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazakh SSR]] on the lower river. The [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]], concluded during the territorial period, set up joint hydrological monitoring on the Talas and the Chu. Kazakhstan does not recognize the ISEZ, and the treaty's standing since 2006 is disputed, but the two hydrological services continue to exchange daily discharge readings, and disagreements over flows in dry summers have generally been handled at that technical level (see [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]]).[7] ## History Sogdian and Turkic towns lined the middle Talas from the first millennium CE, and Arab geographers of the 10th century describe the valley's towns and its silver mines at Shelji. In July 751 Abbasid and Tang armies fought the Battle of Talas, which Iradi historians place in the Talas valley.[2] Under the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]], Talas was a fortified market on the river, and in the Soviet period the valley became a center of irrigated farming and stockbreeding. During the siege of Talas from April 1992, in the [[First Iradi Civil War]], shelling and power cuts stopped the city's pumps, and residents drew water from the irrigation channels fed by the river.[8] Since the 2007 partition the irrigated valley has been the core of the ISEZ, while the headwaters and the desert reaches are held by the clans. ## Ecology and pollution The native fish include the [[Talas River Barbel]], snowtrout (*marinka*) and osmans. Trout in the upper Talas, sometimes sold as [[Iradi Mountain Trout|Talas River Trout]], are thought to derive from Soviet and later stocking, and rainbow trout are farmed on the Urmaral.[9] Strips of riparian woodland of willow, poplar and sea buckthorn survive along less developed stretches, and the reed marshes at the river's end are used by waterfowl and migrating birds. Water quality declines downstream. The hydrological service records nitrates from farmland, sewage indicators below the Talas Central Sewage Treatment Plant, and antimony and arsenic in streams draining the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] in the southern foothills. In the lower valley, losses from unlined canals and poor drainage have caused waterlogging and salinization of the soil.[5][6] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Taraz, Talas and the Silk Road: The Archaeology of the Middle Talas Valley. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 98–131.
  4. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2022). Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin, 2021. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  6. ^ Ministry of Economy of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2023). Agricultural Statistics of the Talas Basin, 2022. Talas.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  8. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  9. ^ Department of Zoology, Talas State University (2020). Fishes of the Naryn and Talas Basins. Talas State University Press, Talas.
### 4.120. Moiynkum Desert *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Moiynkum Desert** (Iradi and Kazakh: *Moiynkum*; also spelled **Muyunkum**, from the Russian *Muyunkum*) is a sand desert in northern [[Irad]], lying between the lower Chu, which skirts its northeastern edge, and the [[Talas River|Talas]], which dies out among its western sands, with the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] range on its southwestern side. Soviet surveys put its area at about 37,500 square kilometers. Its sands are mostly fixed by saxaul, shrubs and sedges, and it has long been one of the main winter pastures of the Iradi herding clans.[1] Almost all of the desert lies in the Northern Steppe planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), which it shares with the southern Betpak-Dala north of the Chu (see [[Betpak-Dala]]). Its southern and eastern fringes border the irrigated farmland of the Chu and [[Kara-Buura]] districts of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and the northern sector of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] runs along the edge of the cultivated land and of the road and rail belt facing the sands. Beneath the desert lie the undeveloped [[Muyunkum Natural Gas Field]] and sandstone-hosted uranium deposits that have not been worked.[2] ## Name The desert's name is usually written *Moiynkum* in Iradi and Kazakh, and *Muyunkum* in Russian and in Soviet geological literature. Iradi geographers use the first form for the desert itself, while the gas field kept its Soviet-era name, so that both spellings remain in use.[1] The second element, *kum*, means "sand", as in Kyzylkum ("red sand"). ## Geography #### Extent and relief The Moiynkum occupies a broad, gently sloping plain at about 300 to 700 meters, highest in the southeast near the foothills and lowest in the northwest. In the northwest the Chu ends in the sands and salt flats around the [[Akzhaykyn Depression]], where the lowest ground in Irad lies below 300 meters.[1] Most of the surface consists of ridged and hummocky sands, broken by clay flats (*takyr*), salt pans and dry hollows. Mobile, unvegetated dunes cover only a small share of the desert, mostly around wells, old camps and along tracks where grazing and fuel-cutting have stripped the plant cover.[3] The Talas, after leaving the irrigated plain of Kara-Buura District, follows the western edge of the desert and in most years ends among sands, reed marshes and seasonal salt lakes. The Chu reaches its terminal marshes only in years of good flow, since most of its water is taken for irrigation upstream (see [[Chu River Basin]]).[4] #### Climate The climate is arid and sharply continental. Annual precipitation is generally between about 150 and 200 millimeters, most of it falling as rain or light snow between November and April. Summer temperatures often exceed 40 °C, and winter cold waves bring temperatures below −25 °C, though snow cover is usually thin enough for livestock to graze through it.[1] #### Water There is almost no surface water away from the two rivers. Under the sands, however, lenses of fresh or slightly brackish groundwater lie at shallow depths, and the desert has long been watered by hand-dug wells, some of them lined with dressed stone, such as the well of [[Tash-Kuduk]], which local tradition dates to the 15th century. Springs such as [[Kumdy-Bulak]] rise at the foot of the dunes on the southern margin. Soviet sheep farms added boreholes and winter camps from the 1950s; many failed after 1991, and since about 2010 aid agencies have restored some of them with solar pumps.[5] ## Flora and fauna The sands carry open woodland and scrub of white saxaul, with black saxaul in hollows and on saline ground, together with sand acacia, *[[wp:Calligonum]]* shrubs, wormwood (see [[White Steppe Wormwood]]) and the sand sedge *Carex physodes*, whose dense roots help to fix the dunes. Needlegrass (*chiy*) grows on the salt flats on the southern margin, and ephemeral grasses, tulips and other bulbs flower briefly after the spring rains.[3] [[wp:Saiga antelope|Saiga]] antelope of the Betpak-Dala population winter in the Moiynkum, together with goitered gazelles. Other mammals include the corsac fox and the [[Chui Steppe Fox]], the tolai hare, gerbils and jerboas, and wolves. The [[Steppe Eagle (Irad)|steppe eagle]] and [[Saker Falcon (Irad)|saker falcon]] breed along the desert's edges, the Asian houbara bustard winters there, and the [[Turkestan Steppe Tortoise]] is common on sandy ground.[6] The reedbeds and marshes at the ends of the Chu and the Talas are used by wild boar and migrating waterfowl. ## Human use #### Pastoralism The Moiynkum is one of the main winter pastures (*kyshtoo*) of the Northern Steppe clans and of herders who migrate up to 300 kilometers from the summer pastures of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Karatau (see [[Kyshtoo (Pastoral Term)]] and [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]]). Sheep, goats, horses and Bactrian camels graze the saxaul and sedge through the winter, and the shallow snow and the shelter of the dune hollows make the desert less exposed to *jut*, the winter ice crust that kills livestock on the open steppe.[7] Camel herding survives in hamlets such as [[Töö-Kuduk]] and [[Zhalgyz-Terek]], and the camel-herding clans of the sands tell the legend of the white camel calf (see [[Ak-Taylak (Folklore)]]). In the south of the sands, villages such as [[Ak-Chiy]] make *chiy* screens from the needlegrass of the salt flats.[5] #### History Caravan and herders' tracks crossed the sands between the Talas valley and the lower Chu in the medieval period, and the stone-lined wells along them were maintained by the clans that used them. Under Russian rule after 1876, Slavic settlement took much of the spring and autumn grazing on the river plains, while the sands remained in pastoral use. [[wp:Collectivization in the Soviet Union|Collectivization]] from 1929 and the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]] seized the clan herds and forced herders onto collective and state farms; in the steppe districts adjoining [[wp:Kazakhstan]] the collapse of herding contributed to the famine of 1930–1933.[8] Soviet state farms later ran karakul sheep and camels in the desert from winter camps and boreholes. After 1991 the farms broke up, and the clans resumed customary control of the pastures, which since 2007 has been exercised through clan councils and the pasture committees of the ATR.[7] #### Resources The [[Muyunkum Natural Gas Field]] was found by Soviet geologists in the 1970s in reservoirs at about 2,000 to 3,500 meters beneath the northeastern part of the desert, near the lower Chu. It is the largest gas prospect in Irad but remains almost entirely undeveloped, because the clan assemblies have not granted development rights; since the mid-2000s a few Soviet-era wells on its southern margin have supplied small volumes to [[Nurzhan]] under an arrangement with the local clan council.[2] Soviet surveys also identified uranium in sandstones beneath the Moiynkum and the southern Betpak-Dala, part of the wider Chu–Sarysu uranium province that extends into Kazakhstan. Under the pledge made during the territorial period not to develop Irad's uranium and thorium, and the moratorium on radioactive extraction maintained by the clan assemblies, the deposits have not been worked (see [[Energy in Irad]]).[9] Saxaul has been cut for firewood and charcoal for centuries. Cutting increased in the 1990s, when fuel deliveries to the villages ceased, and UNMI and aid agencies have recorded loss of woodland around settlements and along the tracks.[10] ## Political geography The Moiynkum lies inside the area claimed by Kazakhstan, whose official statements concentrate on the Moiynkum and the other northern lowlands of Irad (see [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]]). The sections of the frontier that cross the desert are held by the ATR and have never been demarcated. They are patrolled by the clans' [[El-Choro Militias]], and herders on both sides use grazing routes and wells across the Soviet-era administrative boundary. The 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]] between the ISEZ and the Kazakh border services covers only the irrigated sections of the frontier held by the ISEZ.[10] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 1–43.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Gas Without a Route: The Muyunkum Field and the Trans-Irad Proposal.' Vol. 29, pp. 58–81.
  3. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2019). 'Saxaul Woodland and Sand Fixation in the Moiynkum.' Vol. 17, pp. 44–63.
  4. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Wells and Winter Pastures of the Moiynkum and the Southern Betpak-Dala. Talas.
  6. ^ Department of Zoology, Talas State University (2022). Vertebrates of the Northern Steppe: The Moiynkum and the Southern Betpak-Dala. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  7. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  8. ^ Cameron, Sarah (2018). The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Minerals under Moratorium: Survey Politics in the Tribal Regions.' Vol. 27, pp. 88–104.
  10. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Settlements and Services in the Northern Steppe Zone. Kara-Oi.
### 4.121. Betpak-Dala *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Betpak-Dala** (Iradi and Kazakh: *Betpak-Dala*, usually glossed as "plain of misfortune"; in Russian sources also the **Northern Hungry Steppe**) is a clay and gravel desert plateau north of the lower Chu, extending from the edge of [[Irad]] far into central [[wp:Kazakhstan]] toward [[wp:Lake Balkhash]] and the [[wp:Kazakh Uplands]]. Only its southern fringe lies in Irad, where it forms the northern part of the Northern Steppe planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). There it is used mainly as spring, autumn and winter pasture, and it is part of the winter range of the Betpak-Dala population of the saiga antelope.[1] The plateau is one of the driest and emptiest parts of the region. In Irad it is separated by the Chu from the [[Moiynkum Desert|Moiynkum]] sands to the south, and together the two make up most of the Northern Steppe zone, the largest and most thinly populated of the ATR's seven planning zones (see [[Administrative divisions of Irad]]).[2] ## Geography #### Relief and soils The Betpak-Dala is a flat to gently undulating plateau, generally at about 300 to 400 meters in its southern part and rising slowly toward the north. Its surface is made up of clay, loam and gravel over [[wp:Paleozoic]] and younger rocks, with wide clay pans (*takyr*), salt flats and shallow closed depressions that fill with water only after snowmelt.[1] Isolated hills of granite and other hard rock stand above the plain; the best known in Irad is [[Mazar-Too]], whose summit, at about 1,050 meters, carries a saint's tomb visited by herders before the spring migration. Shallow saline lakes such as [[Kaz-Köl]] are a stopover for migrating waterbirds, including greater flamingos, in spring and autumn.[3] On its southern margin, toward the Chu, the plateau gives way to firmer grassland such as the [[Keng-Talaa]] steppe, which is used for spring and autumn grazing and for an annual *[[At Chabysh (Racing)|at chabysh]]* endurance race. The Chu itself crosses no part of the plateau, but its terminal marshes in the [[Akzhaykyn Depression]] lie at the junction of the Betpak-Dala and the Moiynkum.[4] #### Climate The climate is arid and strongly continental. Annual precipitation in the Iradi part is generally below 180 millimeters and falls mainly in winter and spring. Summer temperatures often exceed 40 °C, and winter cold waves bring temperatures below −25 °C, with strong winds and thin, drifting snow. There is almost no surface water in summer.[1] In hard winters ice crusts and blizzards (*jut*) can kill large numbers of livestock and wild animals on the open plateau. ## Flora and fauna Vegetation is sparse. Low gray wormwoods (see [[White Steppe Wormwood]]) and saltworts dominate the clay plains, with black saxaul in depressions and on saline ground, and feather grass and fescue on the firmer soils of the southern edge. After the spring rains ephemeral grasses, tulips and other bulbs flower for a few weeks.[1] The best-known animal of the plateau is the saiga antelope (*Saiga tatarica*). The Betpak-Dala population calves in late spring on the plains of central Kazakhstan, moves north in summer and returns south in autumn and winter, when part of it reaches the southern Betpak-Dala and the Moiynkum in Irad.[5] Across their range, saiga numbers fell by about 95 percent in the 1990s, largely through poaching for the horns of the males, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. In May 2015 about 200,000 saiga, most of them from the Betpak-Dala population, died within a few weeks on their calving grounds in Kazakhstan from hemorrhagic septicemia caused by the bacterium *Pasteurella multocida*, a die-off that researchers linked to unusually warm and humid weather.[6] Aerial counts by the Kazakh authorities have since recorded a rapid recovery, and in 2023 the [[wp:International Union for Conservation of Nature]] moved the species from [[wp:Critically endangered species|Critically Endangered]] to [[wp:Near-threatened species|Near Threatened]]. Neither Iradi administration counts the saiga, and estimates of how many winter in Irad come from Kazakh surveys and from observations reported to aid agencies and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI).[5] Other animals include goitered gazelles, wolves, corsac foxes and the [[Chui Steppe Fox]], gerbils, jerboas and ground squirrels. The [[Steppe Eagle (Irad)|steppe eagle]] nests on the ground and on power-line pylons, and the [[Saker Falcon (Irad)|saker falcon]] breeds along the plateau's edges; sandgrouse and the Asian houbara bustard are also found. The Asiatic wild ass (*kulan*) was hunted out of the Iradi plains in the early 20th century.[7] The [[Turkestan Steppe Tortoise]] is common on the southern margin. ## Human use #### Pastoralism The southern Betpak-Dala has long been a seasonal pasture of the Iradi and Kazakh herding clans. Herds of horses, sheep and camels graze it in spring and autumn, and in winter on the parts where snow is thin enough to graze through. Villages such as [[Ak-Jal]] keep horse herds that graze the open steppe all year.[3] Water is the main constraint. Old hand-dug wells, some attributed by tradition to the [[wp:Dzungar people|Dzungars]] of the 18th century, as at [[Kalmak-Kuduk]], were supplemented in the Soviet period by deep boreholes drilled for state-farm flocks, many of them by the hydrogeological expedition based at [[Tört-Kuduk]] from 1964. Most boreholes failed after 1991, and the pastures around them were little used until aid-funded solar pumps restored some of them from about 2010.[3] #### History The Betpak-Dala's name reflects its reputation as a dangerous crossing, and Kazakh and Iradi oral tradition tells of herds and travelers lost on the waterless plateau. The oral genealogies of the Northern Steppe clans, dictated in the 1960s and 1970s by the genealogist [[Asanbek Daniyarov]] to researchers from [[Talas State University]], are a main source for the history of the clans that used the plateau.[8] [[wp:Collectivization in the Soviet Union|Collectivization]] from 1929 and the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]] destroyed most of the herds that used the plateau. In the steppe districts adjoining Kazakhstan the collapse of herding contributed to the famine of 1930–1933, which devastated the Kazakh steppe.[9] The Soviet authorities later developed the southern plateau as a range for state-farm sheep, with boreholes, winter camps and veterinary posts. Farther north, outside Irad, the eastern Betpak-Dala near Lake Balkhash was used for the Soviet missile test range at [[wp:Sary-Shagan]]. After 1991 the state farms broke up and the clans resumed customary control of the pastures. Since 2007 the Iradi part of the plateau has been on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], governed by clan councils under customary law (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]).[2] #### Resources and conservation Soviet geologists identified sandstone-hosted uranium beneath the southern Betpak-Dala and the Moiynkum, part of the Chu–Sarysu uranium province that extends north into Kazakhstan. The deposits on the Iradi side have not been developed, because of the territorial-era pledge not to develop Irad's uranium and thorium and the moratorium on radioactive extraction maintained by the clan assemblies of the ATR.[10] There is no protected area in the Iradi part of the plateau. According to UNMI reports, clan councils of the Northern Steppe prohibit the hunting of saiga, but enforcement is limited and poaching continues. Irad is not a party to the [[wp:CITES|Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species]], which complicates cooperation with Kazakh conservation programs to the north, such as the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, that track the Betpak-Dala saiga.[5] Herders report that the growing number of wintering saiga competes with their livestock for grazing in dry years. ## Political geography Kazakhstan claims Irad *de jure*, and its official statements concentrate on the northern lowlands, including the southern Betpak-Dala (see [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]]). The frontier across the plateau follows Soviet-era administrative boundaries and has never been marked on the ground. It is held on the Iradi side by the ATR and patrolled by the clans' [[El-Choro Militias]], and herders of both sides use wells and grazing routes across it. The 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]] between the ISEZ and the Kazakh border services does not apply to these sections.[2] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 1–43.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Planning Zones and Humanitarian Access in the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Annual Report. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Wells and Winter Pastures of the Moiynkum and the Southern Betpak-Dala. Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Water Authority (2022). Hydrological Regimes of the Talas and Chu Basins: 1990–2020. UNECE Water Convention Report, Geneva.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Settlements and Services in the Northern Steppe Zone. Kara-Oi.
  6. ^ Kock, Richard A., et al. (2018). 'Saigas on the Brink: Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Factors Influencing Mass Mortality Events.' Science Advances, 4(1).
  7. ^ Department of Zoology, Talas State University (2022). Vertebrates of the Northern Steppe: The Moiynkum and the Southern Betpak-Dala. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  8. ^ Sadykov, Zheenbek (1994). Genealogies of the Iradi Clans. Revised edition. Talas: Talas State University Press, vol. 1.
  9. ^ Cameron, Sarah (2018). The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Minerals under Moratorium: Survey Politics in the Tribal Regions.' Vol. 27, pp. 88–104.
### 4.122. Chatkal Range *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* The **Chatkal Range** (Iradi: *Chatkal kyrka toosu*) is a mountain range of the western [[wp:Tian Shan]] in southern [[Irad]]. Roughly 200 kilometers long, it branches southwest from the [[Talas Alatau]] and separates the valley of the [[Chatkal River]] to the northwest from the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] to the southeast; its southwestern end lies beyond the frontier in [[wp:Uzbekistan]]. The range exceeds 4,000 meters in its higher northeastern part. Its southeastern slopes, facing the Fergana Valley, carry walnut-fruit forests and the [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve]], and its ridges are among the main snow leopard habitats of the western Tian Shan.[1] Almost all of the Iradi part of the range lies in the Chatkal Highlands planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) holds only the foothills at the range's northeastern end, where it meets the Talas Alatau, in Sary-Bulak District. The [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] in Sary-Bulak District, in the Talas Alatau foothills south-west of Talas, takes its name from the range.[2] ## Geography #### Extent and relief The range leaves the Talas Alatau west of the [[Fergana Gateway]] (Ala-Bel Pass, 3,184 m), the pass above the Chychkan valley and the Toktogul basin that carries the highway between [[Talas]] and the Lower Naryn District. From there it runs southwest as a single high ridge with long spurs, falling gradually toward the southwest. Its northwestern slopes descend steeply to the upper Chatkal valley, a broad trough at about 1,500 to 2,500 meters; its southeastern slopes descend in a series of foothill ridges above the irrigated rim of the Fergana Valley, which also lie in the Chatkal Highlands zone, since the zone takes in the tribal hills west of the Naryn down to the Fergana farm belt. The southwestern end of the range, in Uzbekistan, includes the Chimgan massif northeast of [[wp:Tashkent]].[1] The Chatkal River flows southwest along the northwestern foot of the range and leaves Irad through the [[Chatkal Gorge]] for Uzbekistan, where it feeds the [[wp:Charvak Reservoir]] and becomes the main source of the Chirchik. Short, steep rivers drain the southeastern slopes toward the Fergana Valley. One of them, the Kojo-Ata, is dammed by an ancient landslide to form Lake [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve|Sary-Chelek]], about 7.5 kilometers long and up to 234 meters deep.[3] #### Geology and earthquakes The range is built mainly of [[wp:Paleozoic]] sedimentary and volcanic rocks, folded and intruded by granites, and was raised again in the [[wp:Cenozoic]]. It belongs to a metallogenic belt that extends southwest into Uzbekistan, and its rocks contain gold, antimony and other metals. Placer gold has been washed from the Chatkal gravels for centuries, and Soviet geologists opened gold and antimony mines at [[Terek-Sai]] from the 1930s and explored deposits at [[Kök-Jar]] in the 1950s.[4] The Talas–Fergana Fault passes close to the range's northeastern end. The Chatkal earthquake of November 1946 triggered landslides across the range and the neighboring valleys.[1] #### Climate and glaciers Moist westerly air reaching the range from the Fergana Valley brings up to 900–1,000 millimeters of precipitation a year to its southeastern slopes, among the highest totals in Irad, while the northwestern slopes facing the Chatkal valley are drier. Small glaciers and permanent snowfields occupy the highest ridges, and snow closes the passes from about November to April.[1] ## Flora and fauna Vegetation changes with altitude and aspect. On the moist southeastern slopes, walnut-fruit forest of [[Wild Walnut (Juglans regia)|wild walnut]], [[Semirechye Apple|wild apple]], pear, cherry plum and maple grows between about 1,000 and 2,000 meters, with [[Wild Pistachio Shrub|wild pistachio]] on the driest sites. Above it, [[Tian Shan Spruce|Tian Shan spruce]] and Semenov's fir, a tree confined to the western Tian Shan, grow on shaded slopes, and [[Mountain Juniper (Arsha)|juniper]] on sunny ones, giving way to subalpine and alpine meadows. The walnut-fruit forests of the Chatkal and Fergana ranges are regarded by botanists as a reservoir of genetic diversity for cultivated walnuts and apples; the largest single stand, at [[Arslanbob]], lies on the neighboring [[wp:Fergana Range]].[5] The range is home to the [[Snow Leopard (Irad)|snow leopard]], the [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)|Siberian ibex]], the [[Tian Shan Brown Bear|Tian Shan brown bear]], the [[Turkestan Lynx|lynx]], the wolf, wild boar, roe deer and Menzbier's marmot, which is found only in the western Tian Shan.[6] Birds of prey include the [[Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture)|lammergeier]], the Himalayan griffon and the golden eagle, whose large mountain birds Iradi falconers call the [[Chatkal Golden Eagle]]. ## Protected areas The main protected areas of the range are: - the **Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve**, established in 1959 and admitted to UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme in 1978, which covers 23,868 hectares around Lake Sary-Chelek and six smaller lakes, with headquarters at Arkyt; - the **[[Chatkal Snow Leopard Sanctuary]]**, about 45,000 hectares of high peaks, glaciers and scree in the eastern part of the range, first protected as a Soviet hunting reserve and managed since 2007 by clan pasture committees, with wardens from villages such as Kök-Jar.[7] Since the 2007 partition both have lain on the tribal side of the line, where protection is carried out by warden services accountable to clan councils. Rangers of the [[Chatkal Wildlife Protection Post]] patrol the ISEZ side facing the range and exchange information with the sanctuary's wardens through contacts arranged by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI).[7] ## People and economy The Chatkal Highlands zone is thinly settled. Its people, mainly Kyrgyz and [[Iradis]], live by herding, hay-making and small-scale farming, and in summer the high pastures of the range are used by clans from both sides, notably the Sarybagysh and Naiman, under pasture-rotation orders set by clan committees and the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]].[2] The largest village of the upper Chatkal valley is [[Kanysh-Kiya]], with about 2,870 inhabitants (2022 estimate), the valley's only secondary school and a weekly market.[8] Walnuts and wild fruit gathered on the southeastern slopes are an important source of cash income and a rural export of the tribal regions (see [[Agriculture in Irad]]). Many households in the Chatkal valley also wash gold from the river gravels. Since 2007 panning has been regulated by clan councils, which ban mechanized dredging and mercury, and the clan assemblies' moratorium has blocked new mines, including the reopening of the Soviet workings at Terek-Sai and Kök-Jar (see [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]]).[4] Expedition rafting on the Chatkal Gorge has been organized from Talas and from Uzbekistan since the 1980s. ## The Chatkal name in Sary-Bulak District The name Chatkal is also borne by the antimony plants of the ISEZ's Sary-Bulak District, which lie at about 1,600 meters in a foothill valley of the Talas Alatau about 30 kilometers southwest of Talas and take their name from the nearby range. They lie outside the Chatkal River's basin. The [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]], commissioned in 1964, turns concentrate from the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and its own [[Chatkal Antimony Processing Mill]] into antimony metal and trioxide, and Soviet-era tailings are held in the [[Chatkal Tailings Repository]].[9] The works settlement beside the smelter, with about 6,000 people, is served by the [[Chatkal Primary Health Post]] and the [[Chatkal Mountain Rescue Base]]. ## See also - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[Tien Shan Marches]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Planning Zones and Humanitarian Access in the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Annual Report. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme (2018). Biosphere Reserve Directory: Sary-Chelek Ecological Assessment. UNESCO, Paris.
  4. ^ Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2020). 'Altitudinal Zonation and Endemism in the Western Tian Shan.' Vol. 18, pp. 7–31.
  6. ^ Department of Zoology, Talas State University (2019). Mammals of the Talas Alatau and Chatkal Ranges. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Protected Areas across the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Settlements and Services in the Chatkal Highlands Zone. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Mining and Metallurgy in the Talas Valley from Shelji to Sary-Bulak. Talas.
### 4.123. Arslanbob *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Arslanbob** (Iradi and Uzbek: *Arslanbob*) is a village and forest area in southern [[Irad]], on the southwestern slopes of the Babash-Ata ridge, a spur of the [[wp:Fergana Range]]. It lies at about 1,600 meters in the upper valley of the Kara-Unkur River, about 50 kilometers by road north-east of the market town of [[Bazar-Korgon]], up the old valley road past Kyzyl-Unkur, in the Fergana Rim planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), above the farm belt that has been in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) since 2007.[1] The village, with an estimated 13,000 inhabitants, is among the largest settlements of the tribal regions and the seat of the highland Chubar. Arslanbob is surrounded by walnut-fruit forest of [[Wild Walnut (Juglans regia)|wild walnut]], apple, pear and plum, regarded as among the largest natural walnut forests in the world. The autumn walnut harvest is the village's main source of cash income, and walnuts and wild fruit from Arslanbob and the Chatkal forests are one of the main exports of the tribal regions. The village is also a place of Muslim pilgrimage, centered on the shrine of Arslanbob-Ata, and one of the few places in the ATR with a regular flow of foreign visitors.[2] Since the Chubar clan was divided by the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] in 2007, the meadow below the shrine has been the gathering ground of the highland Chubar under their *biy*, Döölötbek Ashym uulu.[7] ## Geography The village is spread along the Kara-Unkur valley and its side streams, where houses stand among orchards and walnut groves on terraces above the river. Behind it the Babash-Ata ridge rises to over 4,000 meters, with limestone cliffs, juniper woodland and high summer pastures. The slopes face southwest toward the [[wp:Fergana Valley]] and catch moist westerly air, receiving several times as much precipitation as the Talas valley; winters bring heavy snow, and summers are warm.[1] Below the village the Kara-Unkur flows south past [[Kara-Unkur Cave]], a [[wp:Paleolithic]] site, to Bazar-Korgon and the irrigation network of the [[Kara-Darya]]. Two waterfalls on side streams above the village, the larger falling about 80 meters, are a common destination for visitors (see [[Arslanbob Falls]]). Trails lead over the ridge to high pastures and small mountain lakes.[3] ## The walnut forest The walnut-fruit forest of the Arslanbob massif covers on the order of 10,000 hectares, part of a wider belt of such forest on the Fergana and Chatkal ranges that extends to [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve|Sary-Chelek]].[2] Walnut grows between about 1,000 and 2,000 meters, mixed with [[Semirechye Apple|wild apple]] (*Malus sieversii*), pear, cherry plum, hawthorn and [[wp:Turkestan]] maple, with [[Wild Pistachio Shrub|wild pistachio]] on dry, rocky ground. The oldest trees reach 25 to 30 meters and are several centuries old. The forest supports the [[Tian Shan Brown Bear|Tian Shan brown bear]], wild boar, the [[Turkestan Lynx|lynx]] and many birds.[4] Botanists long regarded the forests as relicts of [[wp:Tertiary]] broadleaf forest. Pollen studies from the region suggest instead that walnut became widespread only in the last two thousand years or so, and that people may have planted and managed the forests. Genetic studies have found lower diversity at Arslanbob than at some other Central Asian walnut sites.[5] ## History and legend According to local Muslim legend, the [[wp:Muhammad|Prophet Muhammad]] sent a gardener named Arslanbob to find a garden resembling paradise. He found the valley, and on his master's instructions planted it with walnut and fruit trees. The shrine of Arslanbob-Ata in the village, with a mosque beside it, is visited by pilgrims from the Fergana Valley, and a popular story also credits [[wp:Alexander the Great|Alexander the Great's]] soldiers with carrying walnuts from the forest to [[wp:Greece]].[2] Syro-Iradi church tradition associates the forests with early Christian hermits who withdrew to the mountains during the persecutions of the 14th century, but the claim rests on late manuscripts and is not supported by archaeological evidence.[6] Under the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]] and the [[wp:Russian Empire]] the forest was used by surrounding villages for nuts, fruit, timber and grazing. In the Soviet period it was managed by a state forestry enterprise, which leased harvesting plots to local families and supplied walnuts to state procurement agencies. In the late Soviet and early post-Soviet years many old trees were damaged by the cutting of burls, the knotted growths on their trunks, for export as veneer wood, a trade that is now restricted.[4] The forestry enterprise broke down after 1991. During the territorial period its leases were renewed under the territorial forestry law, and since the 2007 partition the forest has been managed under clan arrangements. Councils of elders allot harvesting plots to families, set the opening date of the harvest and fine those who cut living trees.[7] ## Economy The walnut harvest runs from September into October, when families camp in the forest to gather nuts on their plots. Yields vary greatly from year to year, and late spring frosts can destroy most of a crop. Nuts are carried down the valley road through the Arslanbob road crossing of the line to the bazaar at Bazar-Korgon, in the ISEZ, where they are sold to traders from the ISEZ, [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], and some are shelled in the village for export. Growers complain that the lowland buyers fix prices, and the clan council takes a customary levy on loads crossing the line.[2] Villagers also sell dried fruit, honey and walnut wood for crafts such as the [[Carved Walnut Tobacco Box]] and the [[Carved Walnut Saddle Tree]]. Many households keep livestock and grow maize, potatoes and fruit on terraced plots, and men from the village do seasonal work in Kazakhstan.[7] #### Tourism A network of family guesthouses, set up in the early 2000s with help from a European development agency, offers rooms, guides and horses to visitors. Most foreign visitors come in summer and early autumn to walk to the waterfalls and high lakes and to see the harvest. Since 2007 access has been more complicated: foreigners reaching Arslanbob from the ISEZ must cross the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] at the Arslanbob road crossing, about 20 kilometers above Bazar-Korgon, and the village councils ask guesthouse owners to register guests. Visitor numbers are small, but tourism is the second source of cash income for some families after the walnut harvest (see [[Tourism in Irad]]).[3] ## Population and religion Most villagers speak Uzbek or Iradi, and many speak both; Kyrgyz is also heard. Unlike most of the ATR, Arslanbob is largely Muslim, and it is one of the main Muslim centers of the Fergana Rim, together with Bazar-Korgon below it on the ISEZ side of the line (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[1] Syro-Iradi Catholic families live in some of the outlying hamlets. ## Conservation The forest has no formal protected status of its own. Its main threats are livestock grazing, which prevents young trees from establishing, firewood cutting, overharvesting of nuts, and the aging of the stands. Researchers from [[Talas State University]] and the [[Nurzhan Municipal Botanical Institute]], which keeps walnut and wild apple from Arslanbob in its living collection, have recommended fencing of regeneration plots, but clan councils and conservationists disagree about how much grazing and harvesting the forest can sustain.[4][7] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Towns of the Fergana Rim: History and Society. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2019). 'The Walnut-Fruit Forests of the Fergana Range: Extent and Use.' Vol. 17, pp. 5–29.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2019). 'Guesthouses and walnuts: tourism returns to Arslanbob.' Talas.
  4. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 171–186.
  5. ^ Beer, R., et al. (2008). 'Vegetation History of the Walnut Forests in Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia): Natural or Anthropogenic Origin?' Quaternary Science Reviews, 27, pp. 621–632.
  6. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Settlements and Services in the Fergana Rim Zone. Kara-Oi.
### 4.124. Mailuu-Suu *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Mailuu-Suu** (Iradi: *Maylıu-Suu*, "oily water"; Russian: *Майлуу-Суу*) is a town in southern [[Irad]], in the foothills of the [[wp:Fergana Range]] above the northern edge of the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. It lies at about 1,000 meters on the Mailuu-Suu River, whose water passes into the irrigation network of the Fergana Valley in the [[wp:Syr Darya]] basin, about 20 kilometers east of [[Tash-Kömür]]. The town is in the Fergana Rim planning zone of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), close to the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] where it encloses the Lower Naryn District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ); the valley road crosses the line at the Mailuu-Suu road crossing below the town.[1] Its population is estimated at about 20,000, which makes it one of the largest towns of the tribal regions. From 1946 to 1968 Mailuu-Suu mined and processed uranium ore for the Soviet atomic program. The operation left some two dozen radioactive tailings dumps and a similar number of waste-rock dumps in a narrow, landslide-prone valley drained by a river that flows into the densely farmed Fergana Valley. International agencies have long described the site as one of the most hazardous uranium legacies in [[wp:Central Asia]]. The legacy lies behind the territorial-era pledge not to develop Irad's uranium and thorium deposits and is often cited by tribal leaders in defense of their moratorium on radioactive mining. Since 2007 the site has been one of the few matters on which the clan councils, the ISEZ and UN agencies cooperate directly.[2][3] ## Name The name means "oily water" in Iradi and Kyrgyz and refers to the oil seeps along the river, which drew prospectors to the valley long before uranium was found there.[1] ## History #### Oil and the discovery of uranium Oil was drawn from shallow wells in the valley from the early 20th century, making the Mailuu-Suu field one of the oldest worked in the region, although its output was always small compared with that of the Chu basin after 1949.[1] Radioactive minerals were identified in the oil-bearing rocks in the 1930s. After the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]] the Soviet atomic program selected the deposit for uranium production. #### Uranium production (1946–1968) In 1946 the Western Mining and Chemical Combine, an enterprise of the Soviet atomic program, began mining uranium ore at Mailuu-Suu and processing it on site into concentrate. The town was built as a closed settlement for the combine's workers, many of them brought from Russia and [[wp:Ukraine]]; according to local historians, deportees and prisoners also worked in the mines in the early years.[4] Ore came from shafts and adits in the surrounding hills, and the processed residue was dumped in impoundments in the main valley and its side ravines, often on unstable slopes close to the river. Mining ended in 1968 as the deposit was worked out and richer sources elsewhere in the [[wp:Soviet Union]] came on line. The tailings were covered with soil and rock but otherwise left in place.[4] An electric lamp factory, opened in the 1970s, became the town's main employer. #### Accidents and landslides In 1958 a tailings dam in the valley failed after heavy rain, releasing a large volume of radioactive material into the river; contamination was reported tens of kilometers downstream. The accident was not acknowledged publicly in the Soviet period.[2] Readers' letters about environmental damage at Mailuu-Suu were among the subjects first aired in the party newspaper *Iradyn Chyny* under the editor [[Maratbek Sadykov]] in 1988–89. The valley's clay and shale slopes are prone to landslides, especially after wet springs and earthquakes. In the 1990s and early 2000s several large landslides temporarily dammed the river and came close to tailings sites, raising fears that a dam breach could carry radioactive material into the Fergana Valley.[5] #### Since 1992 After the collapse of the Soviet Union the lamp factory lost most of its markets, and the town's population fell as Russian-speaking families left. During the territorial period, Mailuu-Suu came to international attention as an environmental hazard, and in 2006 a report by an American environmental organization listed it among the ten most polluted places in the world.[3] In 2004 the territorial administration began a hazard-mitigation project financed by the [[wp:World Bank]], which stabilized several impoundments, built drainage and river-protection works, and relocated the most exposed tailings dump to a more stable site. The work was interrupted in 2007 by the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], which left the town on the tribal side of the new line. It resumed in 2009 under an arrangement brokered by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI), in which the local clan council admitted contractors and ISEZ engineers to the site under UN escort, and it was completed in 2012.[5] Several of the dumps lie within the 12-kilometer restricted-weapons zone along the line.[6] ## Environmental hazard According to assessments by the [[wp:International Atomic Energy Agency]] and the World Bank, the valley holds about 2 million cubic meters of radioactive tailings, together with contaminated waste rock and abandoned mine workings.[2][5] The main risks identified are: - landslides or earthquakes breaching tailings impoundments and carrying material into the river; - erosion and seepage of radionuclides and heavy metals into surface water and groundwater; - the use of contaminated scrap, stone and soil from the old workings in local building; - radon in buildings constructed on or near waste material. Below the town the river crosses the line and flows through the farm villages of the ISEZ's Fergana rim belt before entering [[wp:Uzbekistan]], where its water joins the irrigation network of the Fergana Valley. Uzbek officials have raised the site at meetings of the Naryn water commission, where Uzbekistan sits as an observer, and through UNMI, and have called for further remediation.[6] Studies of residents' health have reported higher rates of some illnesses than elsewhere in the region, but researchers disagree about how much can be attributed to radiation rather than to poverty and other pollution.[7] Further remediation has been discussed by international donors, but the absence of a government recognized by its neighbors and the site's position near the demarcation line have complicated funding. Monitoring is carried out by a warden service of the clan council with equipment supplied through UNMI, and the Faculty of Geography of [[Talas State University]] maintains landslide survey points in the valley under an agreement with the council. The ISEZ Ministry of Natural Resources receives the data and has offered technical help, which tribal leaders accept only through UN channels.[6] ## Politics and the uranium pledge During the territorial period the government of Irad undertook not to develop its uranium and thorium deposits, a commitment that Iradi and American officials linked to the Mailuu-Suu legacy. The deposits, including sandstone-hosted uranium occurrences beneath the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] piedmont and the Moiynkum, remain undeveloped.[8] The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] maintains a ban on uranium and thorium exploration in mountain watersheds, which [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]] defends by pointing to Mailuu-Suu. The investigative journalist [[Aigul Daniyarova]] has reported on the tailings for the Steppe Investigative Network since 2014.[3] See also [[Health in Irad]]. ## Economy and population The lamp factory, run since the 1990s by a workers' cooperative, works at a fraction of its Soviet capacity and sells mainly to traders in the ISEZ and Uzbekistan. Other employment comes from schools, the hospital, small oil wells, orchards and livestock, and remittances from seasonal work in [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[1] The town is governed by a town council and the elders' council under customary law (*adat*). The population is mixed: [[Iradis]] form the largest group, with Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities and a small Russian-speaking minority, most of which left after 1992. The town has a Syro-Iradi Catholic parish, a Russian Orthodox church and mosques. ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Towns of the Fergana Rim: History and Society. Talas.
  2. ^ International Atomic Energy Agency (2009). Uranium Mining Legacy Sites in Central Asia: Assessment of Risks. Vienna.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Sixty years on, Mailuu-Suu still waits.' Talas.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 85: Central Committee Protocols of the Iradi SSR (1925–1991).
  5. ^ World Bank (2013). Disaster Hazard Mitigation at Mailuu-Suu: Implementation Completion Report. Washington, D.C.
  6. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2020). Environmental Conditions Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2019). 'Tailings and Trust: Living with the Uranium Legacy at Mailuu-Suu.' Vol. 25, pp. 88–109.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Border Security and Resource Management in the Western Rangelands. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
### 4.125. Tash-Kömür *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Tash-Kömür** (Iradi: *Tash-Kömür*, "stone coal"; Russian: *Tash-Kumyr*) is a coal-mining town on the [[Naryn River]] in southern [[Irad]], and the administrative center of the Lower Naryn District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It stretches for several kilometers along the narrow floor of the Naryn gorge at about 600 meters, where the river leaves the mountains for the [[wp:Fergana Valley]], and lies 356 kilometers by road from [[Talas]] at the southern end of the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]]. Its population was 16,820 at the 2018 census.[1] The town grew up in the 1930s around coal mines and later became a center of the Naryn hydroelectric cascade. Since the 2007 ceasefire it has been the administrative center of the ISEZ's southern salient, the river flats of the lower Naryn and the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim, flanked by land of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR); until 2009 the salient was an enclave linked to the rest of the zone only by a guarded road, and since then it has been joined to the Talas valley by the State Route 1 corridor, the Toktogul basin and a narrow corridor down the gorge; the salient's largest city, [[Iyık Janyl]], lies about 8 km upriver on the flats where the Naryn leaves its gorge, and the two have grown into neighbours along State Route 1. It is the seat of the sector headquarters of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) for the Naryn corridor and the meeting place of the joint technical commission of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]].[2] ## Geography Tash-Kömür lies below the gorges that carry the Naryn from the Toktogul basin southwest toward the Fergana Valley. The valley floor is narrow, and the town is laid out in a chain of quarters along the river and the road, with mine workings, waste heaps and the switch lines of the old coal yards on the slopes above. Downstream the valley opens onto the irrigated foothills at the edge of the Fergana Valley, and regional roads continue past the village of [[Kapka-Tash]] toward the border with [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and east through the farm belt to [[Bazar-Korgon]].[3] The town is sheltered by mountains and has a climate closer to that of the Fergana Valley than to that of the Talas valley, with hot, dry summers in which daytime temperatures often exceed 35 °C, and short, mild winters. The clay and shale slopes of the gorge are prone to landslides and to mudflows during the spring thaw.[3] The Soviet uranium town of [[Mailuu-Suu]], in the ATR, lies about 20 kilometers to the east. ## History #### Coal town Local people burned coal from outcrops in the gorge before the Russian conquest, and Russian geologists described the deposit in the late 19th century. Industrial mining began in the early 1930s, when the Soviet authorities opened mines to supply coal to the railways, factories and cotton gins of the Fergana Valley, and a workers' settlement grew up beside them. Output rose during the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], when coal from the [[wp:Donbas]] was cut off, and Tash-Kömür received town status during the war years.[4] Its population included Iradi, Kyrgyz and Uzbek miners from the surrounding districts, together with Russian, Ukrainian and other specialists from elsewhere in the [[wp:Soviet Union]] and, after 1941, deported [[wp:Volga Germans]]. #### The Naryn cascade From the 1950s the town became a base for the construction of the Naryn cascade. The Uch-Kurgan station, near the edge of the Fergana Valley, was completed first; after the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] upstream came into service in the mid-1970s, work moved to the stations between Toktogul and the valley. Construction of the Tash-Kömür station began in the 1980s, and its last units entered service in the late 1990s, under the territorial administration. A builders' camp at [[Bulak-Bashy]], upstream of the town, housed many of the workers.[5] In the late Soviet period the town also gained a plant producing semiconductor-grade silicon, which drew on the cheap electricity of the cascade. #### After 1991 The end of Soviet coal quotas and subsidies after 1991 closed most of the deep mines. Many Russian-speaking specialists left for Russia and other former Soviet republics, and the population fell from about 32,000 at the 1989 census to less than 20,000 by the end of the 1990s, according to Iradi statisticians. The silicon plant stopped production in the mid-1990s.[1][4] The rebuilding of the Fergana Mountain Transit Highway between 1997 and 2004 cut the winter journey to Talas from about two days to about seven hours and made it easier to ship coal north.[6] #### Since 2007 During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], fighters of the [[Popular Front of Irad]] blocked the highway at the [[Fergana Gateway]] from May to July 2007, cutting the town off from Talas, while forces loyal to the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] held the Toktogul switchyard and the downstream stations. Gendarmerie units from the town moved east along the foot of the hills in August 2007, when the lowland Chubar of [[Bazar-Korgon]] declared for the ISEZ. The [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] left the town, the river flats and the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim on the ISEZ side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], and the mountains of the lower gorge on the tribal side.[2] An executive decree of 2008 created the Lower Naryn District with Tash-Kömür as its center, and in 2009 the district was extended up a narrow corridor in the gorge and north over the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor to the Otmek Tunnel under the protocol that brought them into the ISEZ; in 2016 the basin and the corridor were split off as Toktogul District, leaving Lower Naryn the Naryn below the dam. UNMI opened its sector headquarters in the town the same year, and in 2009 the Soviet-era airstrip was lengthened to about 1,900 meters for a subsidized air service to Talas.[7] ## Government Tash-Kömür is the seat of the Lower Naryn District administration, headed by a district head (*aimak bashchysy*) appointed by the Governor, and of an elected town council. Police, customs and the main utilities are run by ISEZ-wide agencies. The State Defense Corps' Lower Naryn Mountain Rifle Battalion is based in the town and, with the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], guards the Toktogul complex, the downstream power stations and the highway corridor (see [[Armed Forces of Irad]]).[2] UNMI's sector headquarters coordinates the mission's observers along the southern (Naryn and Fergana rim) sector of the line. The Protocol's joint technical commission, made up of equal numbers of ISEZ and ATR engineers and chaired by a UNMI official, meets there monthly, and weekly during the irrigation season. Tribal delegates travel to the meetings under UNMI escort.[8] ## Economy #### Coal Coal mining remains the town's main industry outside the power sector. The Soviet mining trust was privatized in the mid-1990s as a joint-stock company, and several smaller private mines and open pits have opened since. According to the [[Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy]], the mines around Tash-Kömür produced about 310,000 metric tons of coal in 2023, a fraction of their Soviet output.[9] Most of the coal is trucked north over the highway to the combined heat and power plant in Talas and to households in the Talas valley, which also burn coal from [[wp:Kazakhstan]]; the haulier [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]] carries much of it.[6] #### Hydroelectric power The Tash-Kömür station on the edge of the town is one of four stations of the Naryn cascade below the Toktogul dam, with Kurpsai upstream and Shamaldy-Sai and Uch-Kurgan downstream. Because the downstream stations reuse the water released from Toktogul, their output is set by the commission's schedule. The stations and the switchyard are run by the ISEZ power utility and are among the largest employers in the district (see [[Energy in Irad]]).[5] #### Trade and services The town is the market center for the cotton farms, orchards and villages of the western part of the Lower Naryn District, including the spa village of [[Jyluu-Bulak]] and the mineral-water plant at [[Altyn-Bulak]]; the farm belt farther east trades mainly through [[Bazar-Korgon]], the district's largest town. Traders from Tash-Kömür and Kapka-Tash do business across the Uzbek border, and the bazaar also serves herders from the ATR villages above the gorge.[10] ## Transport and communications The Fergana Mountain Transit Highway (State Route 1) links Tash-Kömür with Talas across the [[Talas Alatau]]. Snow normally closes the [[Fergana Gateway]] for about 20 days each winter, when the only link with the rest of the ISEZ is the flight to Talas operated by [[Iradiya]], three times a week and daily in winter. Iradiya also flies UNMI observer rotations to the town. Minibuses and buses connect Tash-Kömür with Talas several times a day.[7] No railway reaches the town. The [[Attelkom Fiber Backbone]] reaches Tash-Kömür along the highway. ## Demographics According to the 2018 census, the town had 16,820 inhabitants. [[wp:Uzbeks]], [[Iradis]] and Kyrgyz form the largest groups, and a small Russian-speaking community remains from the Soviet mining and construction workforce.[1] Lower Naryn District has one of the highest proportions of Uzbeks in the ISEZ (see [[Demographics of Irad]]). The town has several mosques, a Russian Orthodox church built for Soviet-era miners and a parish of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], and observers note that Muslims make up a larger share of the population than in the ISEZ as a whole (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[10] ## References
  1. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2019). 2018 Census of Population: Settlements of the Districts. Talas.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Military Observer Assessment on Demarcation Security. Kara-Oi.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Towns of the Fergana Rim: History and Society. Talas.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Cascade: Annual Technical Review. Kara-Oi.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2019). 'One Road South: The Fergana Highway and the Southern Salient of the ISEZ.' Vol. 25, pp. 88–109.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Flying Without a Flag: Civil Aviation in an Unrecognized Territory.' Vol. 27, pp. 133–152.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Mining Concessions, Infrastructure and Trade Directory. Talas.
  10. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Living on the Line: Border Trade in the Lower Naryn.' Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 101–119.
### 4.126. Toktogul (town) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Toktogul** (Iradi and Kyrgyz: *Toktogul*) is a market town on the northern shore of the Toktogul Reservoir on the [[Naryn River]] and the administrative center of the Toktogul District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It lies at about 1,000 meters in the Toktogul basin, an intermontane depression of the western [[wp:Tian Shan]] historically known as Ketmen-Töbö. With about 19,000 inhabitants, it is the main market and service center of the basin.[1] The present town was built in the early 1970s on higher ground, after the old town was flooded by the reservoir of the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]]. The 2007 ceasefire left it on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], together with the dam, the reservoir and the powerhouse. Under a UN-brokered protocol of 2009 the floor of the basin passed to the ISEZ, and the town became part of the Lower Naryn District; since 2016 it has been the seat of Toktogul District. The mountains around the basin remain in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). Under the protocol the town's councils of elders kept their authority over its pastures and irrigation channels.[2] ## Geography The Toktogul basin is ringed by mountains: the slopes of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the [[Suusamyr]] highlands to the north, and the [[wp:Fergana Range]] to the east and south. Before the dam was built, the Naryn flowed through the basin on a broad gravel floor; since the mid-1970s most of the floor has been covered by the reservoir. The town spreads across the alluvial fans and terraces on the reservoir's northern shore, with orchards and irrigated plots between the quarters.[3] The basin is sheltered from northern cold and has milder winters than the Talas valley, with hot, dry summers. The reservoir's level changes by tens of meters during the year. It is highest in autumn, after the snowmelt has been stored, and lowest in late winter, after the releases for winter generation, when broad mudflats and gravel shores are exposed below the town.[3] The Kökömeren joins the Naryn from the right above the reservoir, and the [[Uzun-Akmat River|Uzun-Akmat]] enters the reservoir from the Talas Alatau. Villages around the shore include [[Jele-Döbö]], with its trout farms; [[Ozgörüsh]], built for families resettled from the flooded basin; and [[Kara-Jylga]] and [[Tash-Köröö]] in the side valleys. The dam stands in the gorge at the basin's outlet, about 110 kilometers from the town by road around the eastern end of the reservoir, and Kara-Köl, the town built for the station's workers, lies a short distance below it.[1] ## History #### Before the reservoir Ketmen-Töbö was a winter and spring grazing ground for the pastoral clans of the surrounding ranges, and its villages grew grain, tobacco and fruit on land irrigated from the Naryn's tributaries. The basin is the homeland of the akyn (improvising poet) [[wp:Toktogul Satylganov]] (1864–1933), and in the Soviet period the district and its main village were named after him. Under the Iradi SSR the town was the center of a raion and of several collective and state farms.[4] #### Flooding and rebuilding The Toktogul dam was begun in 1962 as the head station of the Naryn cascade. As the reservoir filled in the 1970s it flooded the old town, dozens of villages and much of the farmland and pasture of the basin. Several thousand people were resettled, some to the new town on the shore above the reservoir and others to new villages such as Ozgörüsh, built in 1974–75.[5] Elders in the basin still raise the loss of pasture and farmland in bargaining over reservoir drawdown, and compensation for the flooded land is a standing grievance of the tribal delegation on the joint technical commission (see [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]).[2] #### 1991–2007 The complex was not fought over in the [[First Iradi Civil War]] of 1992, and in the territorial period the town remained a district center. The end of the Soviet farm system brought unemployment, and many younger residents left for seasonal work in [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. In the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007 the basin was held by the [[Popular Front of Irad]], and skirmishes around the complex that summer alarmed the downstream states. ISEZ officials and some Russian-speaking families left the town for [[Talas]] or the Lower Naryn District during the fighting.[6] #### Since 2007 The [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)]] left the town, the reservoir and the dam on the tribal side of the line. The former district institutions passed to councils of elders of the basin's clans, which ran the town's markets, irrigation channels and pastures under customary law (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]), and its schools and hospital were kept going with support from aid agencies.[1] Under the protocol on the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor, signed in July 2009, the floor of the basin passed to the ISEZ and the clans received pastures elsewhere, guaranteed grazing and water rights around the basin and a share of the dam's revenue. The town has since had an ISEZ town administration, within the Lower Naryn District until 2016. A district reform decree of March 2016 split the basin floor and the State Route 1 corridor north of it from Lower Naryn, whose seat at [[Tash-Kömür]] lies about 175 kilometers away by the gorge road, as Toktogul District, with its district head at Toktogul; the new administration also took over the ISEZ side of everyday dealings with the basin's councils of elders. Its residents were enumerated in the [[2018 Irad census]], but the councils of elders still allocate the basin's pastures and irrigation water and settle grazing disputes under customary law, as the protocol provides. Many families have kin in the tribal villages on the slopes above.[2] ## Economy Toktogul's weekly livestock bazaar is the largest in the basin, and herders bring sheep, cattle and horses from the surrounding valleys and the pastures of the Fergana Range. Households grow apricots, walnuts, apples and vegetables, and dried fruit is sold to traders who carry it to the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. Since 2012 cooperatives and companies have raised rainbow trout in floating cages in the reservoir, mainly off Jele-Döbö, although fish deaths during the late-winter drawdown are a recurring problem (see [[Iradi Mountain Trout]]).[7] Some of the engineers and technicians who operate the dam and powerhouse, many of whom stayed on from the territorial-era utility after 2007, live in the town with their families. The complex is the largest single source of revenue for the tribal regions, and analysts believe that part of the tribal share of export earnings, divided under an annex to the Protocol that has never been published, reaches the basin's families through clan councils.[2] The town and its nearby villages have mains electricity from the complex. Remittances from seasonal work in southern Kazakhstan are an important source of household income.[1] ## Transport The [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] (State Route 1) runs through the town. To the north it follows the Soviet-built road up the Chychkan valley and over the Ala-Bel Pass, the [[Fergana Gateway]], to the Suusamyr country and the Talas valley, and to the south it runs round the eastern end of the reservoir and along its southern shore to the dam, Kara-Köl and the Naryn gorge. Until 2009 this stretch lay on the tribal side of the line as a guarded corridor; it now runs through the ISEZ, patrolled by the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], and snow closes the pass for about 20 days in an average winter. Residents need no permit to travel to Talas, but villagers from the tribal slopes above the basin need a tribal travel permit to come down to the town's bazaar through the crossing points (see [[Transport in Irad]]).[8] UNMI patrols from the mission's sector headquarters at [[Tash-Kömür]] visit the basin regularly. ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Settlements and Services in the Toktogul–Naryn Zone. Kara-Oi.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 44–97.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Towns of the Fergana Rim: History and Society. Talas.
  5. ^ Ministry of Energy and Electrification of the Iradi SSR (1980). The Toktogul Hydroelectric Station: Construction and Operation. Kobozev.
  6. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–301.
  7. ^ Joint Technical Commission of the Naryn Water and Power Protocol (2022). Annual Report on the Operation of the Toktogul Reservoir. Kara-Oi.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Movement and Access along the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
### 4.127. Tourism in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Tourism in Irad** is a small sector, centered on Christian pilgrimage to [[Iyık Janyl]], [[wp:Silk Road]] heritage sites, mountain trekking in the [[Talas Alatau]] and equestrian festivals. Nearly all organized tourism takes place in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). Travel to the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) requires crossing the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and the consent of clan councils, and several Western governments advise against it.[1] Irad's unresolved status limits access: it has no scheduled international air service, its neighbors do not recognize its entry documents, and Irad is not a State Party to the World Heritage Convention, so it cannot nominate sites itself. According to the tourism department of the ISEZ Ministry of Economy, the zone recorded about 214,000 foreign arrivals in 2023, of whom about a third gave leisure, pilgrimage or family visits as their purpose; the rest were business travelers, contractors and aid workers. Independent analysts note that the figures count all non-resident entries and estimate tourism's contribution to the economy at around 1 percent of nominal GDP.[2] ## History #### Soviet period In the Soviet period the Iradi SSR received few foreign visitors. Parts of the republic were closed to foreigners, including the surroundings of the air-defense base outside [[Talas]] and the uranium town of [[Mailuu-Suu]], and the republic's own holidaymakers mostly went to resorts elsewhere in the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. Domestic recreation centered on trade-union sanatoria at mineral springs, such as the one above [[Ak-Tash]], and on hiking and mountaineering camps in the Talas Alatau.[3] #### Territorial period (1992–2006) The US territorial administration opened Irad to Western visitors. During the brief American vogue for Irad known as [[Iradimania]] (about 1992–1994), church groups, journalists and charity delegations visited in numbers, and American Protestant and Catholic organizations sponsored pilgrimages to Iyık Janyl.[3] The inscription of the [[Church of St. Janyl]] and the [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]] on the [[wp:World Heritage Site|World Heritage List]] in 2004, on a US nomination, and the conservation of the [[Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed]] in the late 1990s added Silk Road heritage to the itinerary. Between 1999 and 2005 the [[Mor-Wave]] club scene in [[Nurzhan]] drew young visitors from [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Tashkent]], and the Talas International Film Festival had its most successful year in 2005.[4] Arrivals peaked in the mid-2000s. #### Since 2007 The [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007 halted tourism, and foreign workers and their families were flown out of Talas during the siege of the city. Arrivals recovered slowly after the ceasefire, helped by new hotels in Talas and by the reopening of the trail to Lake Besh-Tash in the 2010s.[2] Charter flights were suspended for several months in 2020 during the [[wp:COVID-19]] pandemic. The [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]] and the anti-American demonstrations that followed the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]] led some Western governments to issue new travel warnings, and the Chamber of Commerce reported a fall in American visitors in 2025.[5] ## Access and entry #### Entry requirements The ISEZ sets its own entry rules. Holders of US passports may stay without a visa for up to 90 days, an arrangement carried over from the territorial period. Since 2009 citizens of the [[wp:European Union]], the [[wp:United Kingdom]], [[wp:Canada]], [[wp:Japan]], [[wp:South Korea]] and several other countries have been admitted without a visa for up to 30 days. Other visitors need an entry permit, issued by ISEZ trade offices abroad or on arrival at Talas.[1] Because Kazakhstan, [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] each claim Irad and none recognizes the ISEZ, an ISEZ stamp has no standing in those countries. Travelers have reported questioning on later entry to Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan, and ISEZ border officers will stamp a separate slip instead of the passport on request.[6] #### Getting there Irad has no scheduled international flights. The charter airline [[Iradiya]] flies from Almaty, Tashkent, [[wp:Dubai]] and [[wp:Istanbul]] to its terminal beside [[Talas Air Base]], and each flight needs landing and overflight permits.[7] Most foreign visitors therefore arrive overland through [[wp:Kazakhstan]], usually flying to Almaty or [[wp:Shymkent]] and crossing at one of the three crossings set up under the [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]]: the Chu Gate east of Nurzhan, the combined rail and road Talas North Terminal, and the seasonal Kum-Shagyl crossing for local traffic. Within the ISEZ, road and rail link Talas and Nurzhan, the [[Kök-Bel Pass]] gives a shorter summer route between them across about 28 kilometers of tribal pasture, and the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]] and a subsidized Iradiya flight link Talas with [[Tash-Kömür]] (see [[Transport in Irad]]). #### The tribal regions Foreigners may enter the ATR only through the designated crossings of the Qara-Chik line, chiefly the [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]] south of [[Kyzyl-Adyr]], with an ISEZ exit registration and an invitation or permit from the clan council of the area to be visited. The [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] does not arrange private travel, although visitors to the upper Besh-Tash valley may cross with permission arranged through UN liaison channels. Guesthouse owners in the tribal regions are asked by village councils to register their guests.[8] ## Main destinations #### Talas The capital's attractions include the [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]], with its craft workshops, teahouses and guesthouses; the [[Temir-Kapka Gate]], the city's last surviving Kokand-era gate; the covered market of [[Bazar-i Kalan]]; the garden quarter of [[Shahr-i Kabud]]; and the [[National Historical Museum of Irad]]. The [[Irad State Hippodrome]] holds the national *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]* final, the President's Cup, in the week of Irad Day (11 March). Day trips from the city go to the red sandstone pillars of [[Jety-Kaiyng]], the petroglyphs and gorge of the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]], and the site of the [[Battle of Talas]].[9] #### Iyık Janyl and pilgrimage Iyık Janyl, the religious center of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], is the main destination for pilgrims and for most foreign tour groups. Visitors see the Church of St. Janyl, built in 1727, the excavated medieval town of Old Iyık Janyl about 2 kilometers south-west of the city centre, the [[Irad Palace of Art]] and the summer quarter of [[Shahr-i Khunuk]]. The [[Feast of St. Janyl]] on 24 August, when mounted pilgrims from the ISEZ and the ATR converge on the city for the blessing of the herds, fills church hostels such as the [[Iyık Janyl Pilgrimage Hostel]] and private guesthouses, about twelve of which stand below Cathedral Hill among shops selling icons and candles, souvenirs, felt, saddles and leather. The pilgrimage season runs into September.[10] #### Silk Road and archaeological sites The Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed, a 9th-century Sogdian trading post, is an open-air museum visited mainly by tour groups from Talas. Other sites open to visitors include the medieval silver-mining town of [[Shelji]], the Sogdian and Kara-Khanid town of [[Shahr-i Buzurg]] near Nurzhan, the town mound of [[Kand-i Kohna]], the [[Kara-Bulak]] kurgans and the petroglyphs of [[Taldy-Bulak]]. Accessible galleries of the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] can be visited on the ISEZ side of the line. Rabat-i-Safed and the Kariz are components of the 2014 [[wp:Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor|Silk Roads]] serial listing, nominated by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan over the protests of both Iradi administrations.[11] #### Mountains and nature The most visited natural area is [[Besh-Tash National Park]], 20 kilometers south of Talas, whose trail to Lake Besh-Tash is one of the most popular hiking and horse-trekking routes near the capital. The lower valley, with the park entrance and visitor center run by the [[Besh-Tash Ranger Headquarters]], is in the ISEZ, while the lake lies on the tribal side.[12] Climbers and trekkers also visit the northern foothills of the Talas Alatau, and anglers fish for trout in the Kara-Suu and Urmaral. In the tribal regions, small numbers of visitors reach the walnut forests and waterfalls of [[Arslanbob]], where a network of family guesthouses operates, and the [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve]], with its lake 234 meters deep. #### Equestrian tourism and festivals Irad's horse culture attracts specialist visitors. Tour operators in Talas arrange riding trips on [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses, visits to the [[State Stud Farm of Talas]] and other breeding farms, and attendance at *[[At Chabysh (Racing)|at chabysh]]* endurance races and *ulak tartysh* matches. [[Kyzyl-Adyr]] holds an annual horse fair in September. Displays of hunting with golden eagles ([[Burkut Saluu]]) are offered to tourists, a practice criticized by conservationists. Other events include the biennial Talas International Film Festival, organized by the [[Irad Film Society]], and the [[Diz Film Festival]].[13] See also [[Sport in Irad]] and [[Public holidays in Irad]]. #### Nurzhan Nurzhan, an oil city rebuilt largely in the Soviet period, receives mainly business visitors. Its attractions include the [[Nurzhan Botanical Gardens]], the artisan quarter of [[Dastgoh District|Dastgoh]] with its market, the Radiobazar electronics market near Azatlık Prospect, and the remains of the boiler-room music scene that produced the band [[tüntolk]], among them the Kotelnaya café in Dastgoh.[4] ## Accommodation and services Talas has several international-standard hotels, most of them built since 2011 along the central avenue for foreign contractors and energy executives, some by companies linked to [[Alikhan Toktarov]] and [[Adil Toktarov]]; the International Diplomatic Hotel, off the central square, receives official delegations. The Hotel Bazar-i Kalan (*Meymankana Bazar-i Kalan*) opened in 2018 beside the covered market.[14] Elsewhere visitors stay in smaller hotels, church hostels, family guesthouses and, on the high pastures, in herders' yurts. The US dollar is accepted almost everywhere in the ISEZ, and bank cards can be used in Talas and Nurzhan; in the ATR, transactions are in cash. English is widely spoken by younger people and in the tourism trade, and Russian is understood by most urban adults. Visitors are advised that eating horsemeat is taboo in Irad and that horsemeat is not sold (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]] and [[Iradi cuisine]]).[1] ## Safety and restrictions Several Western governments advise against all travel to the ATR and to areas within 12 kilometers of the Qara-Chik line, citing landmines and unexploded ordnance in some mountain passes, the absence of consular access and the risk of detention by armed groups.[8] In 2014 three ISEZ survey workers were held by El-Choro patrols in the [[Kara-Koyun Valley]] until an elder negotiated their release. Photography is prohibited near Talas Air Base, the [[Boz-Korgon]] security zone, checkpoints on the line, the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] and other strategic installations. Since 2025 American visitors have been advised to avoid demonstrations.[5] ## Issues Heritage groups and the *[[Talas Herald]]* have criticized permits for hotels and commercial buildings on the edges of the protected zone of the Old Talas Citadel Quarter.[9] Conservationists have raised concerns about the water use and disturbance associated with private resorts built since the 2010s in the foothill valleys bordering the [[Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area]], some of them associated with Adil Toktarov.[12] At Iyık Janyl, pilgrim and tourist traffic during the Feast of St. Janyl adds to the erosion of the exposed mudbrick walls of the old town.[10] Tour operators argue that Irad's tourism will remain small until scheduled flights and a recognized visa regime are possible, which depends on a settlement of its status (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[2] ## References
  1. ^ Ministry of Economy of the Irad Special Economic Zone, Tourism Department (2024). Visitor Information and Entry Regulations. Talas.
  2. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Irad Economic Review 2024. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2015). Visitors to the Valley: Travel and Tourism in Irad, 1925–2006. Talas.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Mor-Wave: Electronic Music in Post-Soviet Nurzhan. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (2025). 'Hotels report cancellations as protests continue.' Talas.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Flying Without a Flag: Civil Aviation in an Unrecognized Territory.' Vol. 27, pp. 133–152.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Movement and Access along the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ City of Talas (2017). Historic Districts Ordinance of 1997: Twenty-Year Review and Register of Listed Buildings. Talas.
  10. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Iyık Janyl: A City and Its Quarters. Talas.
  11. ^ Talas State University Press (2008). Caravanserais of the Talas Valley: Survey and Excavation. Talas.
  12. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Protected Areas across the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
  13. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2022). Rules of Traditional Equestrian Sports. Talas.
  14. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
### 4.128. 2018 Irad census *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **2018 Irad census** was a population census carried out in October and November 2018 by the ISEZ Statistical Office under the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) administration of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). Its results, published by the Department of Public Information in 2019, gave Irad a population of 4,626,000. Enumerators counted the population of the ISEZ door to door, but the population of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) was estimated from administrative data, without a count on the ground.[1] Independent demographers estimate the ATR population at 3.5 to 4 million, against the official 2.0 million, and Irad's total population at about 6.2 million. The census is the source of most official statistics on Irad, and its treatment of the tribal regions is one of the main points of dispute between the DPI and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC).[2][3] ## Background The previous count was the Soviet census of 1989, which recorded 4,257,000 people in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]]. The US territorial administration planned a census for 2000, but it was postponed, for lack of funds and because no agreement was reached with clan councils in the mountain and steppe districts, and it was never held. Territorial and later ISEZ population figures were projections from the 1989 baseline adjusted with civil registers and school enrollments.[2] Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] ordered a census by an executive decree of 2017, and the ISEZ Statistical Office was charged with carrying it out.[1] ## Organization The reference date was 14 October 2018, and enumeration in the ISEZ ran until 4 November. About 9,800 enumerators, most of them schoolteachers, visited households in the three cities and six districts. In Talas and Nurzhan they used tablet computers supplied through [[Attelkom]], and elsewhere paper forms. Questionnaires were printed in Iradi, English and Russian. They asked about age, sex, marital status, nationality, native language and other languages spoken, religion, education, occupation and housing. Nationality and religion were recorded by self-declaration, and the methodology report states that the religion question offered a list of faiths without a separate "no religion" option.[1] ISEZ enumerators did not work beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The IAC said that it had not been consulted, and that it would not have admitted enumerators acting under ISEZ authority. For the ATR the Statistical Office produced an estimate from:[1] - the 1989 census, projected forward and adjusted for the losses of the civil wars and for emigration; - the number of tribal travel permits registered at the Gendarmerie checkpoints; - enrollments in schools and parish registers known to the ISEZ authorities; - household lists used in livestock and fuel trade contracts with the clans. Preliminary results were announced in December 2018, and the final results were published in 2019, with settlement-level tables for the ISEZ districts and separate tables for the three cities.[4] ## Results The main official results were as follows:[1][4] | Area | Population | Share | |---|---|---| | Irad (total) | 4,626,000 | 100% | | Irad Special Economic Zone (enumerated) | c. 2.63 million | 57% | | — of which [[Talas]] | 1,120,000 | | | — of which [[Nurzhan]] | 850,000 | | | — of which [[Iyık Janyl]] | 310,000 | | | — of which the six districts | c. 350,000 | | | Autonomous Tribal Regions (estimated) | c. 2.0 million | 43% | Other published results included: - **Nationality:** [[Iradis]] 72 percent; Kyrgyz 7 percent; [[wp:Uzbeks]] 5 percent; [[wp:Kazakhs]] 3 percent; [[wp:Tajiks]], [[wp:Uyghurs]] and Dungans about 1 percent combined; migrant and foreign communities 12 percent, including Russians and Americans (4 percent each), and Ukrainians, [[wp:Koryo-saram]], Chinese and others including Mexicans (1 percent each). - **Religion:** Christians 78 percent, Muslims 18 percent and other faiths 4 percent (see [[Religion in Irad]]). - **Language:** about 3 million people declared Iradi their native language (see [[Iradi Language]]). - **Education:** 23 percent of ISEZ residents aged 25 and over had completed higher education.[1] ## Criticism #### The tribal regions Independent demographers estimate the ATR population at 3.5 to 4 million, using satellite mapping of settlements and seasonal camps, aid-agency beneficiary registries and the vaccination records of the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] and UN-supported vaccination campaigns. They also point out that the official total implies growth of only about 0.3 percent a year since 1989, a rate they consider implausible for a population with the birth rates recorded in the ISEZ and reported in the tribal regions.[2][3] Satellite and registry studies support the higher figure, though they do not settle it, and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) and humanitarian agencies use planning figures within the independent range.[5] IAC leaders allege that the undercount was deliberate, intended to reduce the tribal regions' weight in any unified legislature. They also note that even the official figure gives the ATR more than two-fifths of the population, against the one-third of seats it was offered at the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]]. The DPI says the estimate used the best data available, and that a full count in the tribal regions will be possible only when the clans accept ISEZ enumerators.[2] #### Other issues Analysts have raised several further points:[2][6] - **The American share.** The 4 percent recorded as Americans is considered inflated by military personnel and contractors at [[Talas Air Base]] and other US installations who were registered as residents. - **Cities and districts.** The published city figures, about 2.28 million together, leave about 350,000 people for the six districts out of an ISEZ total of about 2.63 million, most of them in market towns of 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants and in some 400 villages and hamlets. The Statistical Office says that the city figures include settlements under the administration of the city governments, and demographers note that this counts suburban villages that would otherwise be classed as rural in the city totals. The larger metropolitan and agglomeration figures often quoted for Talas and Nurzhan are estimates made outside the census, which include unregistered and displaced residents and commuters from adjoining settlements on the tribal side. - **Religion.** Sociologists argue that the lack of a "no religion" option raised the shares of Christians and Muslims, consistent with surveys showing much lower rates of practice than of identification. ## Significance Because the two figures differ by more than a third, statistics derived from the census vary widely with the population base used. Nominal GDP per person, for example, is about $3,980 on the official population and about $2,970 on the independent estimate.[6] The [[wp:Special Committee on Decolonization|UN Special Committee on Decolonization]] reports both figures in its annual working paper on Irad. The census results also underpin the ISEZ's case that its electorate represents a majority of Irad's population, a claim the IAC rejects, and any future unification referendum would depend on an agreed count. The IAC has called for a census under UN supervision. The ISEZ government has said that the next census will be held in 2028.[7] ## See also - [[Demographics of Irad]] - [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] - [[2008 Unification Referendum Initiative]] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). 2018 Census of Irad: Methodology and Results. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2021). 'Counting the Tribal Regions: Reassessing the 2018 Irad Census.' Vol. 14, pp. 5–31.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Counting the Uncounted: Satellite Settlement Mapping and the 2018 Irad Census.' Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 201–226.
  4. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2019). 2018 Census of Population: Settlements of the Districts. Talas.
  5. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Planning Zones and Humanitarian Access in the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Annual Report. Kara-Oi.
  6. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2024). Irad Economic Review 2024. Talas.
  7. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
### 4.129. Islam in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* **Islam** is the second-largest religion in [[Irad]]. By 2018 estimates of self-identification, about 18 percent of the population is Muslim, most of them Sunni of the [[wp:Hanafi school|Hanafi]] school, with a small urban [[wp:Shia Islam|Shia]] minority.[1] Muslims are found mainly among the Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Kazakh minorities, together with [[wp:Tatars]], [[wp:Uyghurs]], Dungans and [[wp:Tajiks]], and they are concentrated in the rural Fergana Rim, the border districts and the cities of [[Nurzhan]] and [[Talas]]. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), registered mosques and imams come under the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Irad, founded in Nurzhan in 1993. Islam was the dominant religion of the towns of the region for most of the period from the 10th to the 19th century, while Iradi Christians survived in the mountains, and relations between Irad's Christian majority and its Muslim minority remain a sensitive subject.[2] ## History #### Arrival and medieval period Arab armies brought Islam to [[wp:Transoxiana]] in the 8th century, and in 751 Abbasid and Tang forces fought the [[Battle of Talas]] in the Talas valley. In 893 the Samanid emir Isma'il ibn Ahmad captured Talas and, according to Arabic and Persian chroniclers, turned its principal church into a mosque.[3] Islam spread among the Turkic population after the Kara-Khanid rulers converted in the 10th century. Excavations in the [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] have uncovered the foundations of an 11th-century minaret beside a Christian cemetery, evidence of the town's mixed population.[4] Under the Chagatai khan Ali-Sultan (1339–1342), forced conversion became state policy, and the campaigns of [[wp:Timur]] later in the 14th century destroyed the remaining Christian dioceses. Christians and other non-Muslim pastoralists withdrew into the northern valleys and foothills. #### Kokand and Russian rule The [[wp:Khanate of Kokand]], which absorbed the region in the 18th century, was a Muslim state, but its ruler Abd al-Rahim Biy granted religious tolerance to Iradi Christians under the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]]. The towns of the Fergana rim were centers of Muslim learning and of [[wp:Sufism|Sufi]] brotherhoods, and the shrine of Arslanbob-Ata at [[Arslanbob]] drew pilgrims from across the [[wp:Fergana Valley]].[5] Under Russian rule, the Sufi-led [[1898 Andijan Uprising (Iradi Theater)|Andijan uprising of 1898]] in the neighboring Fergana Valley led the authorities to tighten their supervision of Islamic institutions across the region, and the Juma Mosque in Talas, with its columned wooden porch, was built in the 1890s. In the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916, Iradi Christian clans rose alongside their Muslim neighbors against wartime labor conscription. #### Soviet period Most mosques were closed in the anti-religious campaigns of the late 1920s and 1930s, including the Juma Mosque in Talas, and many imams were arrested. From 1943 the mosques that the Soviet state allowed to register in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] came under the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of [[wp:Central Asia]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]] in [[wp:Tashkent]]. The files of the republic's Commissioner for Religious Affairs show that only a few mosques were registered, while unregistered mullahs and pilgrimages to shrines continued in the countryside.[6] #### Since 1992 The territorial administration's guarantee of freedom of religion allowed mosques to reopen; the Juma Mosque in Talas reopened in 1992. In 1993 Muslim leaders in Irad formed the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Irad (Iradi: *Irad Musulmandarynyn Diniy Bashkarmasy*), based in Nurzhan, ending their dependence on Tashkent. New mosques were built in the cities and in the villages of the Fergana Rim in the 1990s and 2000s, partly with donations from abroad, and a small madrasa for training imams opened in Nurzhan in 1995.[2] The ceasefire of 2007 divided the Muslim communities of the Fergana Rim: [[Bazar-Korgon]], now the ISEZ's main Muslim town, and the villages of the farm belt below the hills, such as [[Sopol-Tepa]] and [[Korgoncho]], lie in the ISEZ, while [[Arslanbob]] and the hill villages lie on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The Spiritual Administration works only in the ISEZ, and mosques in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) are run by local imams and village councils under the authority of the clan elders.[2] ## Communities - **Kyrgyz** (7 percent officially) live mainly in the Chatkal and Toktogul basins and the eastern Talas valley, often in mixed villages with [[Iradis]]. - **Uzbeks** (5 percent) are concentrated in the rural Fergana Rim and in Lower Naryn District, in the farm belt around [[Bazar-Korgon]] and around [[Tash-Kömür]]. Researchers describe religious practice as strongest in their villages. - **Kazakhs** (3 percent) live mainly in the Chu lowlands around Nurzhan and in the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] and Northern Steppe zones. - **Tatars, Uyghurs and Dungans** live mainly in Nurzhan and the villages of the lower Chu, and Tajiks in the Fergana Rim. - **Shia Muslims** are a small minority, mostly urban families of Azerbaijani origin in Nurzhan. Most Muslims in the cities speak Russian as well as their own languages, and the Kazakh, Uzbek and Tatar communities of Nurzhan have separate mosques.[1][2] A small number of ethnic Iradis are Muslim, mostly through intermarriage in the mixed villages of the Fergana Rim. ## Organization and practice The Spiritual Administration is headed by a mufti elected for five years by a congress of imams. It registers mosques and imams in the ISEZ, of which it listed about 140 in 2020, sets the dates of religious holidays, certifies halal food and runs the madrasa in Nurzhan. Some imams have also studied abroad, in [[wp:Turkey]], [[wp:Egypt]] and elsewhere.[2] Religious instruction for children is given in mosque classes, and in the Fergana Rim villages in traditional mosque schools (*maktab*) supported by the community. Practice is lower in the cities than in the countryside. In a 2019 survey by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology, 22 percent of Muslim respondents in the ISEZ cities said they attended Friday prayers at least once a month.[7] Shrine pilgrimage remains widespread in the Fergana Rim, and some shrines and sacred springs are visited by both Muslims and Christians. Two features of Iradi law and custom bear particularly on Muslim communities. The [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] near Talas operates a halal-certified beef line, mainly for export to Muslim-majority markets.[8] A 1996 act of the Territorial Legislature banned the commercial slaughter of horses and the sale of horsemeat, although private consumption is not an offense. Kazakh and Kyrgyz communities, whose festive dishes traditionally include horsemeat, say the ban makes their customs depend on private slaughter, and in the ATR clan authorities expel anyone found slaughtering horses for sale (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]).[9] ## Relations with the state and society The ISEZ is a secular state, and international monitors have not reported legal restrictions on Muslim worship.[10] Muslim leaders have, however, long complained of social prejudice. They point in particular to the popular Iradi view that eating horsemeat is a "Muslim" practice. Ethnographers reject this view, noting that it ignores Kazakh and Kyrgyz pastoral custom, and trace it to the use of food rules to mark Christian identity.[9] In December 2024 Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]] described Muslim communities in the Fergana Rim as "guests who have forgotten whose house they live in", and in January 2025 he used the horsemeat prejudice to question the loyalty of Muslim citizens. Sunni clerics in Nurzhan and the Fergana Rim condemned the remarks, which the Department of Public Information described as his "personal views" (see [[Ruslan Toktarov]]).[11] Muslim leaders take part in the regular meetings of religious leaders convened by the Archbishop of [[Iyık Janyl]], which coordinate charitable work and joint representations to the authorities (see [[Religion in Irad]]).[12] ## See also - [[Anti-Christian sentiment in Irad]] - [[Religion in Irad]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] - [[Human rights in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). 2018 Census of Irad: Methodology and Results. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Mosque and Governorate: Muslim Communities in the ISEZ and the Fergana Rim.' Vol. 26, pp. 58–81.
  3. ^ Barthold, Vasily (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (3rd ed.). Luzac & Co., London.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Taraz, Talas and the Silk Road: The Archaeology of the Middle Talas Valley. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). The Iradi Church from the Qara Khitai to Kokand: Sources and Problems. Talas.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (2019). Guide to the Fonds. Talas.
  7. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2019). Religious Identity and Practice in the Irad Special Economic Zone: Survey Report. Talas State University Press.
  8. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  9. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2019). Food, Faith and Boundaries: The Horsemeat Taboo in Iradi Society. Talas State University Press.
  10. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (January 2025). 'Clerics and Archbishop Condemn General's Remarks.' Talas.
  12. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Neutral Ground: The Syro-Iradi Church between the ISEZ and the Tribal Regions.' Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 115–138.
### 4.130. Iradi name *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* An **Iradi name** usually consists of a given name followed either by a Russian-style surname or by a Turkic patronymic. Urban [[Iradis]] in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) mostly carry surnames ending in *-ov* or *-ev* (feminine *-ova*, *-eva*), a form fixed by Soviet civil registration, as in [[Erlan Toktarov]] or [[Anara Toktarova]]. Since the 1990s rural and tribal Iradis have used patronymics formed from the father's given name and *uulu* ("son of") or *kyzy* ("daughter of"), as in [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]] and his sister [[Klara Zhumabek kyzy]]. The two systems follow the divide between town and countryside that the 2007 partition later fixed: in 2019 registry data more than 90 percent of adults in the three cities carried Russian-style surnames, while in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) the patronymic form is almost universal.[1][2] Given names come from Turkic, Christian, Persian and Arabic, and Russian sources. ## Structure #### Patronymics In the traditional form, a person is identified by a given name and the given name of the father, followed by *uulu* for a man or *kyzy* for a woman. *Bektur Zhumabek uulu* means "Bektur, son of Zhumabek"; his father was *Zhumabek Asanaly uulu*, "Zhumabek, son of Asanaly". The patronymic changes in each generation and is not a family name, and women keep their own patronymic after marriage. In everyday speech people are addressed by their given name, and older men respectfully as *[[Aksakal (Social Term)|aksakal]]*.[1] Clan membership is expressed separately. Each person belongs to a clan (*uruk*), and genealogies (*[[Sanjyra (Genealogy)|sanjyra]]*) record the paternal line. Iradis are traditionally expected to know their ancestors back seven generations (*jeti ata*), and customary law forbids marriage between descendants of a common ancestor within seven generations.[3] #### Surnames Russian-style surnames were formed in the Soviet period by adding *-ov* or *-ev* (feminine *-ova*, *-eva*) to the given name of the father or grandfather at the time of registration: *Toktarov* from *Toktar*, *Bekzatov* from *Bekzat*, *Alimbekov* from *Alimbek*. Once registered, the surname passed unchanged to later generations. Soviet documents also gave a Russian-style patronymic (*otchestvo*) ending in *-ovich* or *-ovna*, which older people still use on formal occasions.[1] Some younger urban professionals have dropped the suffix since the territorial period. Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]], registered at birth as Maksatov, has used the shortened form since his student years. ## Given names Iradi given names come from several layers:[1][4] - **Turkic names**, the largest group, often compounds with elements such as *-bek* ("lord") and *-bai* ("rich") for men and *-gul* ("flower") and *-ai* ("moon") for women: *Kanybek*, *Nurlan*, *Erlan*, *Aigul*, *Altynai*. *Janyl*, after the legendary founder of the Iradi church (see [[Janyl, Mother of Irad]]), is among the most common names for girls. - **Christian baptismal names**, used in forms derived from [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] rather than from Greek or Latin: *Yuhanna* (John), *Toma* (Thomas), *Luka* (Luke), *Maryam* (Mary), *Gewargis* (George). Examples include the translator [[Luka Ayyubov|Father Luka Ayyubov]], the 17th-century priest [[Toma Alimbek|Father Toma Alimbek]] and [[Maryam Janyl (nun)|Sister Maryam Janyl]]. Saints and institutions follow the same forms, as in St. Luka, St. Yuhanna and St. Maryam. Many rural Iradis receive a baptismal name in addition to the Turkic name they use every day. Bishops take a religious name with the Syriac title *Mar*, as in [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]] and [[Mar Ephrem]]. - **Persian and Arabic names**, common among the Muslim Kyrgyz, [[wp:Uzbeks]] and [[wp:Kazakhs]] and found among Iradis as well, such as *Fatima*, *Amina* and *Anara* (from Persian *anar*, "pomegranate"). - **Russian and European names**, which became common in the cities in the Soviet period, especially among Russians, Ukrainians and the [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]], who usually combine Russian given names with Korean surnames, as in [[Oleg Kim]] and [[Elena Kim]]. - **English names**, given by some urban families since the territorial period and widespread among [[Iradi Americans]], such as the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]]. Since the 2010s, registry data have shown a decline in Russian given names among urban newborns and a rise in Turkic and baptismal names, a trend sociologists link to the revival of the Iradi language among young people (see [[Iradi language revival]]).[5] ## History #### Before 1917 Before Russian rule, Iradis were known by a given name and the father's name, and by clan. [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] and Russian imperial records rendered these names inconsistently, often adding Russian suffixes for official purposes. Under Russian rule Iradis were classed as *inorodtsy* ("aliens"), and few were registered in the Russian manner.[1] #### Soviet period Russian-style surnames became general through Soviet registration, schooling and military service in the 1920s and 1930s. Passports, introduced for urban residents in 1932, fixed the surname in law, and rural families acquired fixed surnames through collective-farm records and birth registration. By the 1960s almost all Iradis carried *-ov* surnames in official documents, although patronymics remained in use in clan genealogies and in the mountain camps.[1] #### De-Russification since 1992 After 1992 naming became part of the wider [[De-Russification Movement in Irad|de-Russification]] of public life. A civil registration act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1994 allowed residents to register names in the traditional patronymic form or to drop Russian suffixes, ended the requirement for a Russian-style *otchestvo* and introduced American-style documents with given name, middle name and surname fields. Names in official documents have since been written in the Latin alphabet fixed by the [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]].[2] The response divided along the line between town and country. Rural and tribal families adopted patronymics from the 1990s, and in the ATR they became almost universal after 2007, when the clan councils and parishes took over the registration of births. Urban Iradis mostly kept their surnames, partly because property, education and employment records had been issued in those forms.[1] Tribal leaders who were registered under Russian-style surnames in Soviet records now use patronymics: Bektur Zhumabek uulu appears in Soviet documents as Bektur Zhumabekov. By convention, Iradi historians and reference works refer to people who died before the 1990s by the surnames they used in life. ## Romanization In the Iradi Latin alphabet, names are written with the letters *ı*, *ö* and *ü* and the digraphs of the 1995 orthography. English-language usage often follows Russian-based romanization with *ch*, *sh* and *zh*. The spelling *zh*, as in *Zhumabek*, reflects the pronunciation of the northern steppe dialects, while the standard language pronounces the same sound as /dʒ/ (see [[Iradi Language]]).[6] ## Legal status In the ISEZ, births, marriages and name changes are registered by the civil registry offices of the city governments and district administrations. Documents issued by clan councils in the ATR are not recognized by the ISEZ, except as supporting documents for tribal travel permits, and residents of the tribal regions who move to the cities often register under a patronymic for the first time as adults.[2] ## See also - [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]] - [[Iradi Language]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2019). 'Surnames and Patronymics in Post-Soviet Irad.' Vol. 12, pp. 41–60.
  2. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas.
  4. ^ Temirbekova, Ainura (2014). The Church of the Star: A History of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  5. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Descriptive Grammar of the Iradi Language. Talas, pp. 112–148.
### 4.131. Iradi Americans *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Iradi Americans** are Americans of full or partial [[Iradis|Iradi]] descent, and residents of the United States born in [[Irad]]. US census data do not record Iradi ancestry separately, and community organizations and researchers estimate the population at 60,000 to 90,000.[1] The largest community is in the [[wp:Chicago]] metropolitan area, where Iradi Catholic displaced persons settled after the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], and there are smaller communities in the [[wp:Houston]] area, eastern [[wp:Nebraska]] and the Washington, D.C., area. Most Iradi Americans arrived during or after the US territorial period (1992–2006), when residents of the Territory of Irad could live and work in the United States without a visa. The emigrants of that period were mainly urban, English-educated professionals, students and nurses, and the community differs in this respect from the tribal population of Irad. The best-known Iradi American in Irad is the commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]].[1][2] ## History #### Early migration and displaced persons According to community histories, a few Iradi Christian families reached the United States in the 1920s and 1930s by way of China, among the refugees from the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|revolt of 1916]] and the anti-religious campaigns of the early Soviet period.[1] The first substantial group arrived after the Second World War. Iradi soldiers of the [[wp:Red Army]] taken prisoner by [[wp:Germany]] and Iradis deported to Germany as forced laborers were among the displaced persons who refused repatriation to the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. Several hundred Iradi families were resettled in the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, most of them with the sponsorship of Catholic relief agencies in Chicago.[3] The Chicago émigrés founded the St. Janyl Syro-Iradi Catholic Mission in 1953, the first parish of their church outside Irad, and the Iradi American Association in 1955. During the [[wp:Cold War]] the association publicized the persecution of the Iradi church, which had no legal existence in the Soviet Union after the [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|purges of 1937]], and it presented Irad as a Christian nation under Soviet rule. Music historians link some of the American country and folk songs about Irad written in the Cold War era, which later circulated in Soviet Irad on smuggled cassettes, to contacts with the émigré community, although most of their writers had no Iradi connection.[1][4] #### 1980s and 1992 Academic exchanges in the late Soviet period brought a few Iradi scholars to American universities. Among them was Marat Ilyasov, a hydrologist from [[Talas]], who was a visiting researcher in Chicago when his son Jason was born there in 1988. In January 1992, during the [[Winter Uprising of 1992|Winter Uprising]], the family left Irad and resettled in Chicago, which Jason's US citizenship by birth made possible.[5] Other activists of the democratic movement and relatives of established émigrés left during the [[First Iradi Civil War]] that year. #### Territorial period (1992–2006) Under the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]], permanent residents of the territory were US nationals but not US citizens, a status comparable to that of [[wp:American Samoa|American Samoans]]. They could live and work in the United States without a visa and could apply for naturalization after a period of residence there.[6] Emigration grew steadily through the period. Most emigrants were young urban Iradis educated in English after 1992, the generation sociologists call the [[Urban Iradi Millennials]], and they went to the United States as students, nurses, engineers and office workers. Specific routes included:[1] - exchange programs of American universities with [[Talas State University]] and the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]], funded by the territorial government and US foundations; - recruitment of nurses and other health workers by American hospitals; - the training of Iradi ranchers in Nebraska under the beef investments of the late 1990s, after which some families settled there; - the oil industry, which drew engineers to Houston. During the American vogue for Irad known as [[Iradimania]] (about 1992–1994), the Chicago community drew new attention in the American press, and Iradi American organizations took part in relief efforts for the territory.[4] #### Since 2006 With the US withdrawal from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] in December 2006, residents of Irad ceased to be US nationals. Those already living in the United States were allowed to remain and to apply for permanent residence or naturalization. Since then emigration has continued at a lower level, through student and employment visas and family reunification.[6] Health workers remain prominent among emigrants, and hospitals in Talas report that many nurses and young doctors leave for the United States soon after qualifying.[7] ## Communities - **Chicago.** The oldest and largest community, with the St. Janyl mission, the Iradi American Association, Iradi-language Sunday schools and an annual festival on Irad Day, 11 March. In the 1980s the association's computer club published the first editions of the Iradi computer game *[[Köch (video game)|Köch]]*. - **Houston.** A community of engineers and other professionals linked to the oil industry, which grew from the late 1990s. - **Nebraska.** Families in the Omaha and Lincoln areas, many of them linked to ranching and the meat industry. - **Washington, D.C., area.** Former territorial officials, contractors, academics and staff of international organizations.[1] ## Religion and culture Most Iradi Americans identify as Christians. The [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] has parishes and missions in Chicago and Houston, served by priests sent from [[Iyık Janyl]] and under the jurisdiction of the local Latin-rite bishops. Other Iradi Americans belong to Evangelical and, among the [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]], Presbyterian churches.[1] Language use follows the period of emigration. Descendants of the displaced persons mostly speak English; emigrants of the territorial period speak English and often Russian, and many have learned Iradi only as adults or not at all; and some families, such as the Ilyasovs, kept Iradi as the home language. Community events feature [[Iradi cuisine]], [[Iradi Country-Folk|country-folk]] music and displays of [[Iradi Equestrian Culture & Breeds|equestrian culture]], and the United States is the largest export market for the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] and [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] breeds. ## Relations with Irad Remittances from the United States are smaller than those of seasonal workers in [[wp:Kazakhstan]], but Iradi Americans are important donors to church charities in Irad. Donations from Iradi Americans help fund the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] and its free [[St. Luka Clinic]] in Talas.[8] Iradi Americans who have returned to Irad, or who comment on its politics from abroad, have at times been viewed with suspicion. Jason Ilyasov, who moved to Talas in 2016 and became a regular panelist on [[IradOne]], was attacked by pro-government commentators for his American citizenship during the anti-American feeling that followed [[wp:Donald Trump|Donald Trump's]] remarks about selling Irad to Russia in 2025 (see [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]). Iradi American organizations in Chicago criticized the remarks.[5][9] ## Returnees and the territorial elite After 1992 a steady flow of Iradi Americans and US-educated Iradis returned to the territory. They became known in Iradi as *kaytkandar* ("those who came back"), a term that can be neutral or mocking. Historians count them among the founders of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]], which was formed in October 1992 partly by returning émigrés, and they made up much of the territorial civil service, the management of [[Talasbank]] and [[Attelkom]], and the new commercial bar.[10][6] #### Waves of return The first returnees, from 1992 to 1994, were members of the Chicago community and their American-born children. They came as interpreters, advisers to the territorial administration and staff of American aid programs. A larger group returned from the mid-1990s: Iradis sent to American universities on territorial government scholarships, who were usually required to work in the territory for some years afterward.[1][10] Examples include: - [[Bakyt Orozbekov]], who took a [[wp:Master of Laws]] at [[wp:Harvard Law School]] in 1996, founded one of the territory's first commercial law firms and drafted the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]]; - [[Azamat Temirov]], a [[wp:World Bank]] consultant from 1997 to 2006, who joined the [[Bank of Irad]] in 2007 and has chaired it since 2010. Other members of the governing circle are often counted with the returnees but were educated in Europe. Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] studied at the [[wp:London School of Economics]]. [[Alikhan Toktarov]], often described as American-educated, studied in [[wp:Bishkek]] and at [[wp:Regent's University London|Regent's College]] in [[wp:London]]. Of the Governor's children, only [[Zara Toktarova]], a doctoral candidate at [[wp:Stanford University|Stanford]], studied in the United States.[11] #### Suburbs and schools Returnees and American contractors settled in new housing in Talas. The best known is Alatau Heights, a gated suburb of detached houses and cul-de-sacs built between 1998 and 2005 on the foothill slopes south-east of the city center. Residents of Talas call it *Amerikanka*, after the Russian-style nickname *Meksikanka* given to the Mexican district of [[Semiz]]. The Talas American School, founded in 1994 for the children of contractors and diplomats, teaches an American curriculum in English. Most of its graduates go on to universities in the United States, and many stay there, a pattern critics describe as a drain on the territory's elite.[12] #### Tensions with locally rooted elites The returnees' influence peaked in the early 2000s. In the crisis of 2006–2007, the US-educated lawyers and officials around Orozbekov were closely linked with the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] and the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]]. After [[Erlan Toktarov]], a former Soviet officer, took over the party, the New DPI promoted Soviet-trained officials, security officers and Russo managers from [[Nurzhan]]. Several prominent returnees left Irad.[13] Russo commentators and Iradi nationalists caricature the *kaytkandar* as rootless, better at English than Iradi and dependent on Washington. Returnees reply that they built the territory's institutions. This suspicion sharpened after the 2025 remarks, as the attacks on Jason Ilyasov showed.[13][9] ## See also - [[Irad–United States relations]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] - [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Across the Ocean: Iradi Emigration to the United States, 1945–2015. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'Linguistic Competence and Labor Market Dynamics in the ISEZ.' Vol. 15, pp. 134–150.
  3. ^ Iradi American Association (2015). Sixty Years in Chicago: A Community History. Chicago.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2018). 'Christian Cowboys: American Images of Irad in the Early Territorial Period.' Vol. 25, Iss. 4, pp. 77–95.
  5. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'The Anarcho-Capitalist Turn in Central Asian Media.' Vol. 9, Iss. 1.
  6. ^ Central Asian Policy Review (2023). 'Institutional Legacies of the American Territorial Era in Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 112–129.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (3 March 2024). 'Nurses leave faster than they can be trained.' Talas.
  8. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Charitable Foundations and Hospital Registers, 1994–2022. Iyık Janyl.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2025). 'Thousands Protest in Talas and Nurzhan over US "Sale" Remarks.' Talas.
  10. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Coming Home: Returnees and the Making of the Territorial Elite in Irad, 1992–2012. Talas.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 134–150.
  12. ^ Talas Herald (17 August 2019). 'Behind the gates of Amerikanka.' Talas.
  13. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2016). 'Kaytkandar: Returnee Elites and the Politics of the New DPI.' Vol. 23, Iss. 1, pp. 33–52.
### 4.132. Health in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* **Health in Irad** reflects the territory's division since 2007. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), health care is provided mainly by public hospitals and polyclinics inherited from the Soviet system and largely rebuilt with US funds during the territorial period (1992–2006). In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), it rests on village health posts, the mobile clinics of the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], UN-supported vaccination campaigns and traditional healers. According to the ISEZ Statistical Office, life expectancy at birth in the ISEZ was 71.4 years in 2023 and infant mortality 14 per 1,000 live births. Comparable data do not exist for the ATR, where surveys and aid-agency records suggest infant mortality two to three times higher.[1][2] Other public-health concerns include the Soviet uranium tailings at [[Mailuu-Suu]], occupational exposure in the antimony industry, the emigration of nurses and doctors, and the difficulty patients from the tribal regions face in crossing the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. ## History #### Soviet period The [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] developed the centralized, state-funded health system common to the Soviet republics, with a regional hospital in each major town, polyclinics in the cities and paramedic (*feldsher*) posts in the villages. The [[Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex]] opened in 1954, the republican blood transfusion station, now the [[Talas Blood Services Center]], in 1958, the [[Nurzhan Children’s Polyclinic]] in 1961 and [[Talas Municipal Hospital No. 1]] in 1964. The Faculty of Medicine of [[Talas State University]] was founded in 1981.[3] [[wp:Malaria]], which had spread widely during the [[wp:World War II|Second World War]], was eliminated in the republic by 1960 after a campaign directed by the epidemiologist [[Pavel Morozov]].[4] #### 1992 and the territorial period The health system collapsed with the end of Soviet funding. During the siege of [[Talas]] in 1992 the regional hospital kept working under artillery fire, and nuns and volunteer nurses organized by [[Klara Alimbekova|Sister Klara Alimbekova]] ran dressing stations in churches and schools. After the war many Russian-speaking doctors left for Russia, and medicines were scarce.[5] The Eparchy of Talas founded the St. Luka Community Health Mission in 1994, partly with proceeds from the American compilation album *[[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|Swift Hooves]]*, and its mobile teams began visiting summer pastures in 1996.[2] The territorial administration rebuilt the main hospitals with US federal grants and territorial loans. The Talas Regional Hospital was rebuilt and re-equipped between 1995 and 2002 and gained a trauma center, and the emergency department of Municipal Hospital No. 1 was rebuilt in 2004. Residency programs modeled on American graduate medical training were introduced, and exchange agreements were signed with medical schools in the United States and [[wp:Turkey]].[3] In 2007, during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], Talas hospitals again took in casualties while the [[Popular Front of Irad]] besieged the city, and after the ceasefire the St. Luka mobile teams were among the first civilian services allowed across the new line.[2] ## Irad Special Economic Zone #### Organization and finance Public health care in the ISEZ is run by the ISEZ Ministry of Health and the city governments and is funded mainly from the ISEZ budget. Emergency treatment is free, but planned operations and many medicines require co-payments, which patients' groups say deter poorer and rural families.[3] The main facilities include: - the Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex, the main referral and teaching hospital, with about 650 beds and a cardiovascular institute opened in 2016; - Talas Municipal Hospital No. 1, the city's main emergency hospital, with about 480 beds; - St. Luka Hospital, a 120-bed church hospital in Talas, and the free [[St. Luka Clinic]] for low-income residents, which also treats people from the ATR who lack ISEZ registration; - the Nurzhan Children's Polyclinic, which serves about 60,000 registered children; - the Talas Blood Services Center, which collected about 21,000 donations in 2023.[3] Church institutions also include a hospice run by the Sisters of the Cross of Irad, founded by [[Maryam Janyl (nun)|Sister Maryam Janyl]], and rural dispensaries run by the [[Order of St. Janyl the Hermit]]. In [[Nurzhan]], [[NurGaz]] and the Bekzatov Foundation fund clinics for oil workers and pensioners, which analysts regard as part of the social base of the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]].[6] US military personnel are treated in facilities at [[Talas Air Base]], which are not open to the public. #### Workforce Staff shortages are a continuing problem. Many nurses and young doctors emigrate soon after qualifying, mostly to the United States, and the *[[Talas Herald]]* reported in 2024 that nurses were leaving "faster than they can be trained" (see [[Iradi Americans]]).[7] Medical training is in English at Talas State University, while consultations with older patients are often in Russian or Iradi. ## Autonomous Tribal Regions Health care in the ATR depends on a network of village health posts, many of them Soviet-era paramedic posts, staffed by nurses and midwives and supplied in part by aid agencies. Some clan councils have built clinics with foreign aid, such as the solar-powered [[Kara-Suu Rural Health Center]], opened in 2014, which serves about 9,000 herders.[8] The St. Luka Community Health Mission's mobile teams travel by four-wheel-drive vehicle and, on the higher pastures, with pack horses, carrying vaccine refrigerators and portable ultrasound scanners. The mission reported about 46,000 outpatient consultations in 2023, about two-fifths of them in the ATR. Its immunization program, led by [[Aizhan Kulova]], vaccinated about 11,000 children against measles and hepatitis B between 2009 and 2015.[2][9] Traditional healers (*[[Tabyp (Medicine)|tabyp]]*) remain common and are often consulted alongside the clinics. Serious cases are carried across the line to hospitals in Talas. The [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) arranges helicopter evacuations to the regional hospital's helipad, and seasonal corridors for mobile teams and medical supplies are negotiated each spring through its humanitarian coordination forum.[8] Patients from the tribal regions need a tribal travel permit and clearance at Gendarmerie checkpoints. Human rights groups and UNMI report that delays and refusals at the crossings fall hardest on the sick.[10] According to the St. Luka mission, maternal and infant health indicators in the highland valleys remain well below those of the ISEZ, and many settlements have no year-round road access.[2] ## Health status According to ISEZ statistics and a 2022 [[wp:World Health Organization]] review, the leading causes of death in the ISEZ are cardiovascular disease, cancers and injuries, a pattern similar to that of neighboring Central Asian states.[1][3] [[wp:Tuberculosis]] remains a public-health concern, and the St. Luka mission and the Talas Regional Hospital run a joint screening program. [[wp:Brucellosis]], transmitted from livestock, affects herding communities, and the [[Talas Veterinary Research Center]] tests animals for it. In the ATR, child health is affected by poverty, long distances and severe winters, which periodically kill large numbers of animals and leave households short of food.[8] ## Environmental and occupational health - **Mailuu-Suu.** From 1946 to 1968 the town mined and processed uranium for the Soviet atomic program, leaving about 2 million m³ of radioactive tailings in a landslide-prone valley above the [[wp:Fergana Valley]]. Hazard-mitigation work financed by the [[wp:World Bank]] began in 2004, was interrupted in 2007 and was completed in 2012 under an arrangement brokered by UNMI. Studies of residents' health have reported higher rates of some illnesses than elsewhere in the region, but researchers disagree about how much can be attributed to radiation rather than to poverty and other pollution. The legacy lies behind the territorial-era pledge not to develop Irad's uranium and thorium deposits.[11] - **Antimony industry.** Workers at the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] and the [[Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex]] are exposed to dust and arsenic. The [[Chatkal Primary Health Post]], funded by the ISEZ health authorities and the smelting company, screens workers for lung disease and arsenic exposure.[3] - **Nurzhan.** Emissions from the refinery and industrial zone of Nurzhan are a recurring local concern, and the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]] conducts research on reducing them. ## See also - [[Drug use in Irad]] - [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] - [[Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] - [[Human rights in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2024). Demographic Yearbook of the Irad Special Economic Zone, 2023. Talas.
  2. ^ St. Luka Community Health Mission (2023). Annual Report: Rural Health Services in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas.
  3. ^ World Health Organization (2022). Health Systems and Rural Access in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Geneva, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas.
  5. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 81–96.
  6. ^ NurGaz (2023). Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Nurzhan.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (3 March 2024). 'Nurses leave faster than they can be trained.' Talas.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Humanitarian Access across the Qara-Chik Line: Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ St. Luka Community Health Mission (2016). Mountain Immunization Program: Report 2009–2015. Talas.
  10. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  11. ^ World Bank (2013). Disaster Hazard Mitigation at Mailuu-Suu: Implementation Completion Report. Washington, D.C.
### 4.133. Education in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Health & Education* **Education in Irad** is organized separately on the two sides of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), schooling is compulsory, and since the Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 public schools have taught in Iradi and English, with Russian an optional foreign language. Church schools, Russian-language private schools and vocational lyceums operate alongside the public system.[1] The main institutions of higher education are [[Talas State University]], the oldest and largest, and the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]], which specializes in petroleum engineering. In the 2018 census, 23 percent of ISEZ residents aged 25 and over had completed higher education.[2] In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), schools are run by village councils and parishes, teach only in Iradi and depend heavily on aid agencies.[3] ## History #### Before 1925 Formal education before the Soviet period was largely religious. A school for clergy was established beside the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]] in the 1730s, together with the cathedral library, and taught [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]], liturgy and chant to candidates for the priesthood. In the towns of the Fergana rim and the Talas valley, Muslim children attended mosque schools (*maktab*) and madrasas. Under Russian rule a small number of Russian-native schools were opened for the local population.[4] #### Soviet period After the creation of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] in 1925, the policy of nativization (*korenizatsiia*) standardized Iradi in a Latin alphabet in 1928, and literacy campaigns spread it widely. The educator [[Altynai Bekzhanova]] opened Kobozev's first Iradi-language secondary schools in the 1930s. From 1937 schools switched to Russian-only teaching, and from 1941 Iradi was written in Cyrillic. Higher education developed after the war: the Kobozev Petroleum Institute was founded in 1951 and became the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute in 1968, and Iradi State University named after V. I. Lenin (since 1993 [[Talas State University]]) was founded in 1958 on the basis of the Talas Pedagogical Institute. By the end of the Soviet period adult literacy was near universal, but most urban [[Iradis]] had been educated in Russian.[4][5] #### Territorial period (1992–2006) The territorial administration made Iradi and English the languages of instruction in place of Russian. The change ran ahead of the supply of teachers: in 1994 the territorial Office of Education reported about 1,100 qualified English teachers against an estimated need of more than 6,000. Schools retrained teachers of Russian and German, used imported American textbooks and relied on volunteer teachers recruited through Christian charities. The English of the generation educated in these years, the [[Urban Iradi Millennials]], is often described as formal and textbook-based.[6] The Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made the Latin alphabet compulsory in schools and instruction in Iradi and English compulsory in public schools, and reorganized the public school system on the American model. Specialized schools for English, such as [[Talas Municipal Gymnasium No. 4]], were created from 1993. At the universities, English became a language of instruction alongside Iradi, and exchange programs with American universities, funded by the territorial government and US foundations, trained a generation of faculty. The Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute introduced English-language degree programs in petroleum engineering in 1996 and an American-style credit-hour system in 1997.[1][5] The historian [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] was chancellor of Talas State University until his death in 2004. Church education revived: the seminary at Iyık Janyl reopened in 1994, and the [[St. Maryam Catholic Academy]] in [[Talas]] opened in 2001. #### Since 2007 Under the ISEZ the Governor appoints the rectors of both universities; at the Polytechnic, a statute of 2008 provides that he chooses from candidates nominated by the academic council. Students of Talas State University took a leading part in the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], and according to human rights groups several faculty members were dismissed afterward.[7] On the tribal side, many schools that had taught in Iradi and English during the territorial period dropped English after the 2007 partition. ## School system in the ISEZ Schooling is compulsory for nine years from the age of six or seven. Since the 1997 reform the public system has had twelve grades, divided into elementary school (grades 1–5), middle school (grades 6–9) and high school (grades 10–12). Public schools are run by the city governments and the district administrations, under a curriculum set by the ISEZ.[1] Instruction is in Iradi and English, and Russian is taught as an optional foreign language. Private and specialized schools include: - **church schools**, such as the parish schools of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] in Talas and Nurzhan and the St. Maryam Catholic Academy, run by the Sisters of the Cross of Irad, which has about 520 pupils and teaches the ISEZ curriculum in English and Iradi with optional Classical Syriac and religious education;[8] - **Russian-language schools** in [[Nurzhan]], many of them funded by the foundation of the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]], and schools linked to [[NurGaz]]; - **selective public schools**, such as Talas Municipal Gymnasium No. 4, which teaches mathematics and foreign languages at an advanced level and has its own riding program; - **vocational schools**, such as the [[Nurzhan Technical Lyceum]], which has about 900 students and places apprentices with NurGaz and engineering plants.[9] The children of US military personnel attend a school at [[Talas Air Base]]. ## Higher education | Institution | Location | Founded | Students (2023) | Notes | |---|---|---|---|---| | [[Talas State University]] | Talas | 1958 | c. 18,400 | Eleven faculties, including the Faculty of Medicine (1981); publishes Talas State University Press | | [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]] | Nurzhan | 1951 | c. 9,200 | Petroleum engineering; six faculties; known as the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute until 1993 | | [[Cathedral Seminary of Iyık Janyl]] (St. Ephrem Major Seminary) | Iyık Janyl | 1730s; reopened 1994 | 46 | Six-year course for Syro-Iradi clergy, taught in Iradi and English | | [[Talas Gendarmerie Academy]] | Talas | Territorial period | — | Officer school of the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] | Other institutions include the National Conservatory of Folk Music in Talas and the madrasa of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Irad in Nurzhan (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[5][10] The medical faculty trains about 400 medical students, residents and nursing students a year at the [[Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex]], where much of the teaching is in English. Because Irad's international status is unresolved, recognition of Iradi degrees abroad depends on agreements between institutions and on employers. Russian and Kazakh oil companies generally accept the Polytechnic's degrees, and neither university appears in the major international rankings.[11] Many students go abroad, to the United States, [[wp:Kazakhstan]], Russia and [[wp:Turkey]]. ## Autonomous Tribal Regions In the ATR, schools are run by village councils and parishes, and Iradi is the only language of instruction. Most are small primary schools; the four-classroom [[Kök-Jar Primary School]] in the Chatkal Highlands, built in 1966 for the children of workers at a Soviet antimony mine, has about 70 pupils, most of them from herding families. It taught in Iradi and English during the territorial period, but the clan council made Iradi the only language of instruction after 2008.[3] Teachers' salaries are paid by the councils, and textbooks and supplies come largely from aid agencies. Parish priests teach reading and the catechism in many villages, and elders pass on genealogy, oral epic and horsemanship in what are often called clan schools, informal classes held in winter villages and, in some clans, in the summer pastures. In the Muslim villages of the Fergana Rim, children attend mosque schools, and a few larger villages have small madrasas.[3][12] Secondary schooling is scarce, and pupils who want to continue their studies must cross into the ISEZ, where certificates issued by clan councils are not recognized. Older clerks in the tribal regions often still write Iradi in Cyrillic. ## Issues - **Language.** The ISEZ administration has pressed the Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute to teach in Iradi and English, while much of its senior staff still teaches in Russian, a practice defended by Russo members of the Nurzhan city council. Bekzatov and other Russo figures call for Russian to be restored as an official language.[11] - **Church and state.** The Syro-Iradi Church and the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] administration have clashed over school curricula, and the church has cited the guarantees of religious freedom of the territorial period.[8] - **Textbooks.** ISEZ school textbooks present the founder of the Iradi church, [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], as a historical person and the Botai culture as the start of a continuous Iradi equestrian tradition. Academic historians, including some at Talas State University, have criticized both as conflating national tradition with evidence (see [[Botai Culture in Irad]]).[13] - **The tribal regions.** Aid agencies and the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) report shortages of teachers and books in the ATR and low secondary enrollment, which the clan councils attribute to the restrictions on movement and trade across the line.[3] ## See also - [[Iradi Language]] - [[Talas State University]] - [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  2. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). 2018 Census of Irad: Methodology and Results. Talas.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Humanitarian Access across the Qara-Chik Line: Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University (2023). Annual Report of the Rector. Talas.
  6. ^ Territorial Office of Education (1994). Annual Report on Public Instruction. Talas.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). 'Water Cannon and Silence: The Policing of the 2023 Talas Protests.' New York.
  8. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Annuario: Clergy, Parishes and Institutions. Iyık Janyl.
  9. ^ City of Nurzhan, Department of Education (2022). Vocational Education in Nurzhan. Nurzhan.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Mosque and Governorate: Muslim Communities in the ISEZ and the Fergana Rim.' Vol. 26, pp. 58–81.
  11. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Engineers of the Russos: Language, Oil and the Nurzhan Polytechnic.' Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 288–311.
  12. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas.
  13. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2019). 'Exhibiting the Nation: Museums and Memory in Irad.' Vol. 25, pp. 91–110.
### 4.134. Order of St. Janyl the Hermit *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* The **Order of St. Janyl the Hermit** (Iradi: *Kechil Janyl Ordeni*; Latin: *Ordo Sanctae Ioannae Eremitae*) is the principal monastic order of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. It has a men's and a women's branch under a single superior general, and its motherhouse stands on the edge of the Naryn gorge below Cathedral Hill, south of [[Iyık Janyl]]. Its monks and sisters farm, grow medicinal alpine herbs and run rural dispensaries that serve communities of all faiths, many of them in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). The order regulates the gathering of *[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]* juniper for church use, bakes the Eucharistic *kümöch* bread for the Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl, and its sisters were the first staff of St. Luka Hospital in [[Talas]] in 1994. Its superior attends the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] as an adviser without a vote.[1][2] The order takes its name from the episode in the tradition of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|St. Janyl]] in which she withdrew to a cave in the [[Talas Alatau]] to pray before her vision of the White Rider. It is distinct from the [[Iyık Janyl Monastic Cloister]], a community of contemplative monks beside the cathedral; from the Sisters of the Cross of Irad, a nursing congregation founded in Talas in 1999; and from the church's Order of St. Janyl, an honor awarded for service to the church and culture.[3] ## History #### Origins Church tradition holds that the order descends from hermits who settled near the cave associated with Janyl and kept her memory through the centuries after the destruction of the region's Christian dioceses in the 14th century. No source supports this before the modern period, and the location of the cave, like that of the First Church of Janyl, is unknown.[3] The earliest documentary reference is in the cathedral chronicle of Iyık Janyl, which in the 1730s records a community of "brethren of the hermit Janyl" living in cells on the edge of the canyon south of the town, a few years after the [[Church of St. Janyl]] was built under the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]]. Historians of the church link the community's organization to the bishops of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] period, who needed a body of monks to serve the new cathedral and the clans of the mountain valleys.[4] Communities of women attached to the order are recorded from the late 19th century, when sisters ran a school for girls and cared for the sick in Iyık Janyl. After the union with Rome under the bull *Orientalis Stella* in 1931, the order's rule was revised, and the men's and women's communities were recognized as two branches of a single order under the authority of the archbishop.[4] #### Soviet repression The motherhouse was closed in the anti-religious campaigns of the early 1930s, and its land was given to a collective farm. During [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]], monks of the order were among those sent to labor camps. Before the closures, monks and lay sacristans carried the rarest codices of the cathedral library to caves in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]], where some remained hidden until after 1992.[5] According to church accounts, a small number of monks and sisters continued to live by the rule in private homes and herding camps for the rest of the Soviet period. Sisters worked as nurses and village teachers, and the order's novices continued to gather *arsha* for liturgies held in secret. Documentary evidence for this period is limited.[4] #### Restoration since 1992 The motherhouse was returned to the church in 1993, after the territorial administration guaranteed freedom of religion and the return of church property under the [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]]. Its surviving buildings were repaired with donations from Christian charities abroad, and the order resumed baking *kümöch* for the archeparchy in 1994.[1] In the same years the order opened dispensaries in mountain villages where the Soviet health system had collapsed after the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. When the Eparchy of Talas founded the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] in 1994, sisters of the order formed the first staff of St. Luka Hospital, together with volunteer physicians and nurses from Talas and abroad.[6] During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007 several of the order's dispensaries in the Talas Alatau treated the wounded of both sides. After the [[Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007)|Bishkek ceasefire]] the houses on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] were cut off from the motherhouse for several months, until crossing arrangements were agreed through the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]].[7] ## Organization The order is governed by a superior general, elected for six years by a general chapter of the professed members of both branches and confirmed by the Archbishop of Iyık Janyl, under whose direct authority the order stands. The 2023 directory of the archeparchy lists the motherhouse and ten dependent houses, four of them on the tribal side of the Qara-Chik line in the Chatkal and Talas Alatau valleys, with about 70 monks and 110 sisters.[1] Novices spend two years at the motherhouse before taking vows. Members follow the East Syriac monastic office, sung in Iradi and [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]], and combine it with manual work. Monks wear habits of undyed brown wool. Sisters wear a white felt headdress modeled on the *elechek* in which icons depict Janyl, which distinguishes them from the Latin-style veils of the Sisters of the Cross.[3] ## Work #### Dispensaries and health care The order runs about twenty rural dispensaries, most of them one- or two-room posts staffed by sisters with nursing training, in villages of the Talas Alatau, the Chatkal basin and the foothills around Iyık Janyl. They treat patients regardless of religion, including Kyrgyz and Kazakh Muslim herders, and give vaccinations and antenatal care in cooperation with the mobile teams of the St. Luka mission. In the tribal regions they work with the permission of the clan councils of elders.[6] #### Farming and herbs The motherhouse farms terraces above the gorge and keeps orchards, bees and a small herd of sheep. Its monks gather and dry medicinal plants of the western [[wp:Tian Shan|Tien Shan]], among them mountain thyme, St. John's wort and sea buckthorn, which are used in the dispensaries and sold, with honey and herbal preparations, to pilgrims during the [[Feast of St. Janyl]] in late August.[8] #### Arsha The order regulates the gathering of mountain juniper (*arsha*, mainly *Juniperus semiglobosa*) for church use, and its novices go up into the ravines of the Talas Alatau in late spring to cut outer branches with sickles, leaving the trunk and heartwood. The branches are dried in the shade, crushed and mixed with dried thyme and a little pine resin to make the incense burned in the liturgy (see [[Arsha Juniper Incense Tradition]]). Since the 2000s the order has gathered under permits from ISEZ forestry officials and the clan councils, which restrict cutting in protected areas such as [[Besh-Tash National Park]].[8] #### Kümöch The Eucharistic *kümöch* for the archeparchy is baked at the motherhouse from stone-ground wheat flour, spring water and a little salt, with no yeast, fat or milk. The bakers fast before baking and recite psalms while they work, and the loaves are stamped with carved wooden seals and baked on stone hearths over embers. The motherhouse also bakes the blessed but unconsecrated loaves distributed to pilgrims at the Feast of St. Janyl (see [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]]).[9] #### Role in the church The superior general attends the twice-yearly sessions of the Council of Hierarchs as an adviser without a vote, alongside the rector of the [[Cathedral Seminary of Iyık Janyl|St. Ephrem Major Seminary]]. Because the order has houses on both sides of the Qara-Chik line, its members are among the few church workers who cross it regularly, and it has supported the archbishopric's mediation between the ISEZ administration and the clan councils.[2][7] ## See also - [[Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl]] - [[Iyık Janyl Monastic Cloister]] - [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]] - [[Religion in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Diocesan Directory and Clergy List. Iyık Janyl.
  2. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Synodal Decrees and Pastoral Letters, 1993–2023. Iyık Janyl.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Sacred Toponymy and Ecclesiastical Monasteries of Iyık Janyl. Talas, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Chronicle of the Cathedral of St. Janyl, Codices I–IV (1727–1937).
  5. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Annuario: Clergy, Parishes and Institutions. Iyık Janyl.
  6. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Charitable Foundations and Hospital Registers, 1994–2022. Iyık Janyl.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2016). 'Altar and Line: The Syro-Iradi Church since the Bishkek Ceasefire.' Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 44–67.
  8. ^ Central Asian Botanical Review (2021). 'Ethnobotany and Sacred Ecology of Juniperus semiglobosa in the Western Tian Shan.' Vol. 19, pp. 64–82.
  9. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Leaven and Ember: Eucharistic Bread in the Syro-Iradi Tradition, pp. 15–49.
### 4.135. Agriculture in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* **Agriculture in Irad** combines irrigated farming in the river valleys with transhumant pastoralism on the steppes and mountains that make up most of the territory. Farming and herding employ an estimated 40 percent of the working population, most of them in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR); the share in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) is much smaller.[1] Irrigated land covers only about 3,000 square kilometers, roughly 1.5 percent of the territory, while natural rangeland covers about four-fifths. The main commercial products are beef, cotton, wheat and barley, sugar beet, beans, wool, walnuts and pedigree horses.[2] The sector reflects the division of Irad since 2007. Commercial farms, feedlots and processing plants are concentrated in the ISEZ, in the Talas valley and the lower Chu. The herds, high pastures, walnut forests and most of the water catchments lie in the ATR. Trade across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] in livestock, wool, feed and grain links the two economies.[3] ## History Under Soviet rule the herds of the Iradi clans were brought into collective and state farms after the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]]. State farms on the [[Aksay Plateau]] and elsewhere bred fine-wool sheep for the mills of Kobozev and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], and canals built between the 1930s and the 1970s turned the lower Chu and the Talas valley into grain, beet and fodder country. The [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands campaign]] of 1954–1960 plowed about 450,000 hectares of steppe north of the Chu and in the lower Talas; unusually, it succeeded, as the new state farms turned from wheat to irrigated maize and beef cattle. [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]] deported to the Chu valley in 1937 drained marshland for rice, introducing the cold-tolerant short-grain rice still grown there. Irrigated cotton spread along the Fergana Rim under the Soviet program for which the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] was built.[4] The collective farms were broken up after 1992, and under the territorial land reform of 1994 their land passed to household and family farms and to private companies. Herders on the Aksay Plateau formed the [[Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative]] in 1994 to pool wool sales. Irad's customs access to the US market as a territory, and the interest of Mexican as well as American companies after the [[wp:North American Free Trade Agreement]] took effect in 1994, led to the [[1998 Talas Agribusiness Accord]] and the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]] west of [[Talas]].[5] In 2008 the ISEZ administration auctioned the state grain elevators and feed mills of the Chu District, which were combined as [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] (NAI), headed since 2009 by [[Bekzat Toktarov]], the Governor's fifth son. Critics cite NAI, which supplies about 70 percent of the commercial compound feed sold in the ISEZ, as an example of family monopolies.[6] ## Crops and irrigation The largest irrigated blocks are about 110,000 hectares in the Talas valley, managed by the [[Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate]], and more than 80,000 hectares in the lower Chu, served by the 1,200-kilometer [[Chu Irrigation Canal System]] of the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]].[2] The main crops are: - **wheat and barley**, stored and shipped by rail from depots such as the [[Kara-Bulak Grain Logistics Depot]]; - **sugar beet**, processed by the [[Chui Sugar Refining Corporation]] near [[Besh-Terek]]; - **common beans**, the Talas valley's best-known export crop, sold mainly to [[wp:Turkey]]; - **field maize** (yellow dent hybrids, introduced as cattle feed in the Virgin Lands campaign) and **alfalfa** for the feedlots, potatoes, and short-grain rice in the lower Chu; - **apples and apricots** in the foothill orchards. Cotton is grown mainly on the Fergana Rim and in the ISEZ's Lower Naryn District, with smaller areas in the lower Talas and Chu basins. The Chinese company Xinjiang Lihua acquired ginning concessions and a spinning mill near [[Nurzhan]] in 2018 and 2021, and its plants handle about 85,000 tonnes of seed cotton a year (see [[Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities]]). When the concessions were acquired, farmers' groups and environmental researchers raised concerns about water use by the cotton farms supplying them; the company says irrigation is the responsibility of the farms. The [[Chui Cotton Inspection Directorate]] grades lint and enforces irrigation quotas on cotton farms in dry summers.[7] Water is the main constraint. Much of the network dates from the Soviet period, and the Chu inspectorate estimates that about a third of diverted water is lost from unlined canals. Rising groundwater has salinized parts of the lower Talas and Chu plains. The Chu rises in [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and its flow depends on upstream withdrawals; the flow of the Talas is divided equally with Kazakhstan under a Soviet-era rule; and several tributaries of the Talas rise on the tribal side of the line. Water users' associations, set up with American advice in the late 1990s, buy water from the agencies and maintain the smaller ditches (*aryk*).[8] ## Livestock Tribal pastoralists keep fat-tailed sheep, goats, cattle, yaks and horses, moving between winter pastures (*kyshtoo*) in the deserts and foothills and summer pastures (*zhayloo*) in the mountains (see [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]]). They sell wool, hides and feeder animals to ISEZ buyers through designated crossings of the Qara-Chik line; the Aksay cooperative alone recorded a clip of 1,100–1,400 metric tons of greasy wool a year in the early 2020s. Much of the wool goes to [[Zhetysu Industrial Textiles]] in Nurzhan. Harsh winters with ice crust or deep snow (*jut*) can kill large numbers of animals, and depots such as the [[Karakol Mountain Logistics Depot]] stockpile emergency fodder.[3] Commercial beef production began with the beef state farms and fattening complexes of the [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands campaign]] in the 1950s–1970s, whose output went mainly to the all-Union fund. The export industry dates from the territorial period: the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]], opened in 1999, has a reported capacity of more than 150,000 head a year and a feedlot with a standing capacity of about 50,000, and the [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]] packs beef for Central Asian markets. Cattle are traded at the [[Talas Central Cattle Mart]]. A 1996 act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] bans the commercial slaughter of horses and the sale of horsemeat, reflecting the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]], though mare's milk is drunk as *kymyz*.[9] ## Horse breeding Horse breeding is a source of national pride and of export earnings. The mountain [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] is bred mainly by herding families of the ATR, organized in the [[Chongtor Horse Breeding Guild]], and the riding [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] mainly at stud farms in the Talas valley. The [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]], founded in 1995, keeps the National Akyel Studbook, made DNA parentage testing compulsory in 1998, and handles most exports. The ISEZ government's [[State Stud Farm of Talas]] holds annual auctions. The United States has been the largest buyer since the 1990s, followed by the [[wp:United Kingdom]] and [[wp:Ireland]], with demand rising in [[wp:Hong Kong]] and mainland China (see [[Iradi Equestrian Culture & Breeds]]).[10] ## Forest products The walnut-fruit forests of the Chatkal and Fergana ranges, the best known around [[Arslanbob]], are among the largest natural walnut stands in the world. Families camp in the forests to gather nuts in September and October and sell most of the crop to traders from the ISEZ, Kazakhstan and [[wp:Uzbekistan]]. Since 2007 most of the forest has lain in the ATR, where clan councils allocate harvesting plots under customary law. Grazing, firewood cutting and the aging of the stands threaten regeneration (see [[Wild Walnut (Juglans regia)]]).[11] ## Finance and markets Most farm sales in the ISEZ are paid through [[Talasbank]], whose SMS payment service with [[Attelkom]] is used by herders and farmers. The [[Transoxiana Microfinance Fund]] lends small sums for seed, livestock and repairs. Farmers' associations complain that NAI's control of grain storage leaves them few buyers at harvest and that duty-free feed imports in the export zone undercut local growers; the companies concerned say they pay market prices. In the ATR much trade is still conducted in barter or livestock.[6] ## See also - [[Fatima Yunusova]] - [[Kara-Bulak Agricultural Cooperative]] ## References
  1. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Beef Processing Logistics in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  2. ^ Ministry of Economy of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2023). Agricultural Statistics of the Talas Basin, 2022. Talas.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Pastoral Livelihoods in the Talas Alatau Zone. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Herding Cooperatives of the Tribal Regions after 1991. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). The Territorial Economy: Trade, Investment and Dollarization in Irad, 1992–2006. Talas.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Oligarchic Dynasties of the Talas Basin.' Vol. 30, pp. 134–150.
  7. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Commercial Directory of Manufacturing and Textiles. Talas.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  9. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  10. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2022). Annual Report: State Breeding and Racing Programs. Talas.
  11. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 171–186.
### 4.136. Iradi som *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Iradi som** (Iradi: *Irad somu*; abbreviation **IS**) is the currency issued by the [[Bank of Irad]] (*Irad Banky*), the monetary authority of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It circulates alongside the US dollar, which has been legal tender in Irad since the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993. The dollar is used for most contracts, property transactions, savings and foreign trade, while the som is used mainly for retail payments, utility bills and public-sector wages. The som is divided into 100 *tyiyn*. Because Irad's sovereignty is unresolved, the currency has no ISO 4217 code.[1][2] The name is shared with the currencies of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and comes from a Turkic word meaning "pure", once applied to ingots of refined silver or gold. ## History The [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] used the Soviet ruble, and the collapse of the ruble zone after October 1991, with inflation above 1,000 percent, wiped out most savings. By the time of the siege of [[Talas]] in 1992, banking in the city had largely stopped.[3] After the [[First Iradi Civil War]], the territorial administration chose to adopt the US dollar rather than introduce a currency of its own at once. The Banking and Commercial Currency Act, passed by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1993, made the dollar legal tender, chartered [[Talasbank]] as the main commercial bank, and established the Bank of Irad to issue a local currency for small payments and wages and to supervise the banks.[1] The Bank of Irad opened in the autumn of 1993 and put the first som notes into circulation late that year, at a fixed rate of 5 som to the dollar. The act adopted currency-board rules: the bank may issue som only in exchange for dollars at the fixed rate and must hold dollar reserves at least equal to the som in circulation. In the first months both dollar banknotes and som notes were flown in to [[Talas Air Base]], and rubles remaining in circulation were exchanged at Talasbank branches.[3] The [[Bank of Irad Clearing House]] was set up in 1996 to settle payments between banks in both currencies. The end of the US territorial administration on 3 December 2006 caused a run, as depositors converted som and withdrew dollars, and Talasbank limited cash withdrawals for three weeks. The Bank of Irad met conversions from its reserves and the official rate held, but during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in the first months of 2007 the som traded at a discount in the informal markets of Talas and [[Nurzhan]]. American correspondent banks froze or restricted Iradi accounts, and the bank moved what it could of its reserves to banks in [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Istanbul]]. In the spring of 2007 the cabinet of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] drew on the reserves held in Talas to pay salaries and its forces, against government notes that the currency-board rules did not allow.[4] By the end of the war the reserves covered only about 60 percent of the som in circulation. When the ISEZ reconstituted the bank under the Bank of Irad Act in 2008, it kept the currency-board rules but reset the fixed rate: from 17 March 2008 the som was exchanged at **8.40 to the dollar**, a level chosen so that the remaining reserves again covered the som in full. The devaluation of about 40 percent fell hardest on pensioners and public employees paid in som; dollar deposits were untouched. The informal discount disappeared within months.[4][10] [[Azamat Temirov]], deputy chairman of the Bank of Irad from 2007 and one of the authors of the reset, became its chairman in 2010. The som was added to the clearing house's real-time payment system in 2012, the year Talasbank and [[Attelkom]] introduced SMS-based payments.[2] ## Monetary system Irad's system is dual-currency and largely dollarized. The Bank of Irad issues the som, holds the dollar reserves that back it, supervises the commercial banks and operates the clearing house. Because most deposits, loans and prices of large purchases are in dollars, it has little room for independent monetary policy, and its main task is to keep the som stable against the dollar.[2] According to the [[wp:World Bank]], som accounts made up about a fifth of commercial bank deposits in the ISEZ in 2022.[5] The two currencies have distinct uses: - **US dollar.** Contracts, property, vehicles, savings, bank loans and foreign trade. Export proceeds are paid in dollars into escrow accounts at Talasbank supervised by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], and commercial and industrial customers of public utilities are billed in dollars. - **Iradi som.** Public-sector wages and pensions, household utility bills, local taxes and fees, public transport and everyday retail. The [[Talas Municipal Water Authority]], for example, sets household tariffs in som and bills businesses in dollars.[6] Since non-recognition limits Irad's access to international payment systems, dollar payments abroad are settled through correspondent banks, mainly in Almaty and Istanbul, and the som is not traded outside Irad.[5] Irad is not a member of the [[wp:International Monetary Fund]]. ## Banknotes and coins The first series of banknotes, issued in 1993 and printed abroad under a territorial contract, came in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 som. Their designs showed horses, the [[Church of St. Janyl]], the [[Talas Alatau]] and [[wp:Silk Road]] monuments. A redesigned series with improved security features was issued from 2011, adding a 500-som note; its 100-som note carries a portrait of [[Amanbek Alimbekov]], leader of the Provisional Government in 1992. Coins of 10 and 50 tyiyn and of 1 and 5 som are struck, although small tyiyn coins are rarely used.[2] ## The tribal regions The [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) have no formal fiscal or monetary system, and the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] issues no currency. Herders who sell livestock and wool to ISEZ buyers are usually paid through Talasbank in dollars or som, but much local trade is conducted in barter or livestock, and near the frontiers Kazakh and Uzbek currencies also change hands.[7] ## Debate Economists and the World Bank have noted that dollarization has given Irad stable prices since the 1990s at the cost of an independent monetary policy, and that the som's role is largely confined to small payments. The commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]] has called for cryptocurrency to be made legal tender alongside the dollar and the som.[8] The Bank of Irad's 2023 annual report restates that only the dollar and the som are legal tender. Business groups credit the bank and Talasbank with keeping the payment system working through the crisis of 2006–07, while critics point out that holders of som paid for it in the 2008 reset. After Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] withdrew from public view in July 2024 the bank stated that the payment system and the fixed rate were unaffected.[9] ## The 2026 street rate From the spring of 2026 dollar banknotes became scarce in the ISEZ. Correspondent banks in Almaty, through which Irad's dollar cash is flown in, reduced shipments, and in May [[Talasbank]] limited cash dollar withdrawals and som-to-dollar conversions to US$300 a month per customer.[11] Money changers in the bazaars of Talas and Nurzhan, who are not licensed, began quoting the som below the official rate: about 9.5 to the dollar in June and 11 to 12 by October 2026. Analysts cited the shortage of cash, the Governor's absence and the uncertainty before the [[2027 Iradi gubernatorial election|2027 election]], the rising cost of remittances from Russia, and the memory of 2008, when the last fixed rate was abandoned.[11] The Bank of Irad has said that its reserves fully cover the som in circulation, that the official rate of 8.40 is unchanged, and that street quotations reflect "speculation in a small cash market". Prices in most shops, utilities and newspapers are still set and paid in som at the official rate, while importers and sellers of foreign goods increasingly ask for dollars; in October the online marketplace [[Jılmay]] said that goods bought abroad through its parcel service would be sold in dollars only. The launch of [[Tulparcoin]] in September 2026, which its backers promoted as a way out of both "the shrinking som and the rationed dollar", drew a separate warning from the bank.[2][11] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Banking and Commercial Currency Act. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  2. ^ Bank of Irad (2023). Annual Report. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). The Territorial Economy: Trade, Investment and Dollarization in Irad, 1992–2006. Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2014). 'Dollars without a Sovereign: Escrow Banking in Irad since 1994.' Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 61–88.
  5. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Economic Update: Dual Financial Systems and Dollarization in Post-Soviet Enclaves. Washington, DC.
  6. ^ Talas Municipal Water Authority (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2020). Resource Arrangements across the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
  8. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'The Anarcho-Capitalist Turn in Central Asian Media.' Vol. 9, Iss. 1.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Escrow Payments Continue, Officials Say.' Talas.
  10. ^ Bank of Irad (2008). Statement on the Reconstitution of the Bank and the New Fixed Rate. Talas, 17 March 2008.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (3 October 2026). 'Bazaar rate passes 11 som as dollar cash runs short; Bank of Irad says peg is safe' Talas.
### 4.137. Bank of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* The **Bank of Irad** (Iradi: *Irad Banky*) is the monetary authority of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It issues the [[Iradi som]], holds the US dollar reserves that back it, licenses and supervises the commercial banks, and operates the [[Bank of Irad Clearing House]], the zone's interbank payment system. It was established by the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993, passed by the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] during the US territorial administration, and has its head office in [[Talas]]. Its chairman since 2010 has been [[Azamat Temirov]].[1][2] Because the US dollar is legal tender in Irad and is used for most contracts, savings and foreign trade, the bank has little room for independent monetary policy. Its main task is to keep the som at its fixed rate against the dollar. Unlike most central banks, it does not hold the government's main accounts, which are kept at [[Talasbank]], and it has no part in the escrow arrangements for export revenue, which the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]] supervises.[3] ## History #### Establishment (1993) In the Soviet period, banking in the Iradi SSR was carried out by the republican offices of the Soviet state bank and the specialized state banks. After the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] declared independence in October 1991, the breakdown of the ruble zone and inflation above 1,000 percent wiped out most savings, and banking had largely stopped in Talas by the time of the siege in 1992.[3] The [[Organic Act of the Territory of Irad]] made the US dollar legal tender alongside any local currency the territory chose to issue. The territorial administration chose to rely on the dollar rather than introduce a full national currency at once. The Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993 made the dollar legal tender, authorized a local currency, the som, for small payments and public-sector wages, chartered Talasbank as the territory's main commercial bank, and created the Bank of Irad to issue the som and regulate banking.[2] The act adopted currency-board rules: the bank may issue som only in exchange for dollars at the fixed rate and must hold dollar reserves at least equal to the som in circulation. The bank opened in the autumn of 1993 in the former Talas office of the Soviet state bank, and put the first som notes into circulation in late 1993. In the first months both dollar banknotes and som notes were flown in to [[Talas Air Base]].[4] #### Territorial period (1993–2006) Under the 1993 act the chairman and the four other members of the bank's board were appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Territorial Senate. As at the Foreign Trade Escrow Authority, an observer from the office of the US High Commissioner attended board meetings. The bank held its reserves in correspondent accounts with banks in the United States.[4] The bank licensed the commercial banks that opened during the investment boom of the late 1990s, most of them small and based in Talas or [[Nurzhan]]. It set up the clearing house in 1996, which at first settled checks and batch payments once a day between the banks' settlement accounts at the Bank of Irad.[5] The som was accepted for wages, utility bills and retail payments, but dollars remained dominant in savings and in any transaction of size, and studies of the period describe the territory as one of the most fully dollarized economies in the former Soviet space.[3] #### Crisis of 2006–2007 After the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] on 3 December 2006, depositors rushed to convert som and withdraw dollars, and Talasbank limited cash withdrawals for three weeks in December. The bank met conversions from its reserves and the fixed rate held at its counters, but the som traded at a discount in the informal markets of Talas and Nurzhan in the first months of 2007.[4] American correspondent banks closed or restricted Iradi accounts in early 2007, citing the territory's uncertain legal status, and the bank moved its reserves and correspondent business to banks in [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Istanbul]]. During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], the bank continued to operate in Talas under its board while the cabinet of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] and Toktarov's emergency administration in Nurzhan contested authority. In the spring of 2007 the cabinet drew on the reserves held in Talas to pay salaries and its forces, in breach of the currency-board rules. Its head office closed for several days after the [[Storming of Talas (2007)|storming of Talas]] on 4 June 2007 and reopened under the ISEZ administration after DPI forces took the city that summer. By then, with part of the reserves spent and part frozen in American accounts, the reserves covered only about 60 percent of the som in circulation.[3] #### Since 2008 In 2008 the ISEZ administration reconstituted the bank under a new statute, which kept the currency-board rules and replaced the territorial provisions on federal observation. The chairman is now appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the *Mejlis* for a six-year term.[6] The statute also reset the fixed rate from 5 to 8.40 som to the dollar with effect from 17 March 2008, so that the remaining reserves again covered the som in full. The devaluation cut the dollar value of som savings, wages and pensions by about 40 percent, and the informal discount on the som disappeared within months.[6] Temirov, a former [[wp:World Bank]] consultant on Central Asian financial-sector projects, joined the bank as deputy chairman in 2007 and became chairman in 2010.[1] Under Temirov the bank modernized the payment system. A real-time system for large dollar payments was introduced at the clearing house in 2009, backup sites were set up in Nurzhan in 2010, and som payments were added to the real-time system in 2012, the year Talasbank and [[Attelkom]] launched SMS-based payments for rural customers.[5] The bank also oversees the correspondent banking arrangements in Almaty and Istanbul on which Iradi banks depend for foreign payments.[1] ## Functions #### Currency issue and reserves The bank is the sole issuer of som notes and coins. Under the currency-board rules it cannot lend to the government or buy government debt, and the som in circulation is covered by dollar reserves held abroad with correspondent banks. The bank's annual report gives the reserve cover but not the location of individual holdings. Som accounts are used mainly for public-sector wages, utility bills and retail payments; most deposits, loans and commercial contracts are in dollars.[1] #### Banking supervision The bank licenses commercial banks, microlenders and currency exchange offices in the ISEZ, sets reserve and capital requirements, and inspects the banks. Its supervision is dominated by a single institution: Talasbank holds about 60 percent of commercial deposits in the zone. Smaller banks and microfinance institutions, among them the [[Transoxiana Microfinance Fund]], serve traders, farmers and households.[7] #### Payments Commercial banks keep settlement accounts with the Bank of Irad, and the clearing house settles payments between them in both dollars and som, including salaries, pensions, tax and customs payments. It handles payments inside the ISEZ only. Foreign payments are settled through correspondent banks, because Irad's unresolved status limits its access to international payment systems.[5] #### Relationship with other institutions The division of financial functions in the ISEZ dates from the territorial statutes of 1993–1994:[3] - **Talasbank** holds the treasury and payroll accounts of the ISEZ government and the export escrow accounts, and is supervised by the Bank of Irad as a commercial bank. - **The Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority** registers export contracts, audits the escrow accounts, deducts royalties and duties, and administers dollar reserves set aside to guarantee imports of fuel, grain and medicines. These reserves are separate from the Bank of Irad's currency reserves. - **The Bank of Irad** handles payments from released escrow funds only once they move to exporters' accounts at other banks through the clearing house. ## Limitations Because Irad has no recognized sovereign status, the bank is not a member of the [[wp:International Monetary Fund]] or the [[wp:Bank for International Settlements]], and the ISEZ has no sovereign credit rating. The currency-board rules mean that the bank cannot act as a lender of last resort beyond its excess reserves, a constraint that analysts noted during the run of December 2006.[3] The bank has no branches in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], where trade is conducted in dollars, som, barter and livestock, and herders who sell to ISEZ buyers are usually paid through Talasbank. ## Criticism The World Bank and independent analysts have noted that Talasbank has not published full audited accounts since 2008 and that the ultimate owners of the holding companies that control it have not been disclosed. Opposition commentators argue that the Bank of Irad, as its supervisor, has not enforced disclosure on a bank whose shareholders investigative reports have linked to business associates of the Toktarov family. The Bank of Irad says that the banks it supervises meet the disclosure rules in force in the ISEZ.[3][8] In 2024, after Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] withdrew from public view, the bank stated that the payment system and the fixed rate were unaffected.[9] In 2026, as dollar cash grew scarce and bazaar money changers quoted 11 to 12 som to the dollar against the official 8.40, the bank denied that a second reset was planned and called the street rate "speculation in a small cash market". In September and October 2026 it also warned that [[Tulparcoin]] was not legal tender and that payment services offered in the coin through the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] app had no licence (see [[Iradi som]]). Business groups credit it, with Talasbank, for keeping the payment system working through the crisis of 2006–2007.[7] The populist commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]] has called for cryptocurrency to be made legal tender alongside the dollar and the som. The bank's 2023 annual report restates that only the dollar and the som are legal tender in the ISEZ.[1] ## See also - [[Economy of Irad]] - [[Iradi som]] - [[Talasbank]] - [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]] ## References
  1. ^ Bank of Irad (2023). Annual Report. Talas.
  2. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1993). Banking and Commercial Currency Act. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  3. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Economic Update: Dual Financial Systems and Dollarization in Post-Soviet Enclaves. Washington, DC.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2014). 'Dollars without a Sovereign: Escrow Banking in Irad since 1994.' Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 61–88.
  5. ^ Bank of Irad (2013). The Payment System of the ISEZ: Development and Operation. Talas.
  6. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (2008). 'Bank of Irad Act.' Official Gazette of Irad. Talas.
  7. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Banking and Finance Directory. Talas.
  8. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Who Holds the Keys? Escrow, Oil and Power in the ISEZ.' Vol. 27, pp. 58–79.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2024). 'Escrow Payments Continue, Officials Say.' Talas.
### 4.138. Northern Export Feeder *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* The **Northern Export Feeder** (Iradi: *Tündük eksport tütügü*) is an 85-kilometer crude oil pipeline that carries oil from the fields of the lower Chu basin around [[Nurzhan]] into the network of the Kazakh pipeline operator [[wp:KazTransOil]] near [[wp:Shymkent]]. It is owned and operated by the [[Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium]] (IPTC), in which [[NurGaz]] holds 51 percent. It entered commercial service in November 2000, replacing the rail tank-car shipments to the Shymkent refinery on which Iradi oil exports had depended since the early 1990s. It is Irad's only export pipeline, and most Iradi crude oil leaves the territory through it.[1][2] The feeder lies wholly within the Chu District of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It does not connect with the [[wp:Caspian Pipeline Consortium]], whose system begins far to the west, and Irad has no southern export pipeline. Because [[wp:Kazakhstan]] claims Irad *de jure* and does not recognize the ISEZ, the line operates under commercial contracts and a technical annex to the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]] rather than under an interstate agreement (see [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]]).[3] ## Background Oil was discovered near Kobozev, now Nurzhan, in 1949 (see [[Nurzhan Oil Discovery (1949)]]). In the Soviet period crude from the Chu fields was refined at the city's refinery, now [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]], or sent by rail to other refineries of [[wp:Soviet Central Asia]]. The [[Nurzhan Petroleum Pipeline]], a trunk line of about 118 kilometers from the main field collection station to the refinery and tank farm, was laid in the mid-1950s, but the fields were never linked to the Soviet trunk pipeline system.[4] After 1992 the territorial administration and NurGaz, privatized in 1993, shipped crude that the Nurzhan refinery did not take west to Shymkent in rail tank cars, by the Chu and [[Kara-Buura]] lines. The traffic was expensive, slowed by border formalities and limited by the supply of tank cars, and in winter the waxy crude had to be heated before it could be unloaded. As production recovered from its 1996 low of about 48,000 barrels per day (bpd), NurGaz looked for a pipeline outlet into the Kazakh trunk network.[2] ## History #### Planning and construction NurGaz and foreign partners registered IPTC in [[Talas]] in 1998 as a joint-stock company. NurGaz contributed its tank farm and rights of way, and the foreign shareholders provided most of the construction finance. The route was surveyed in 1998, and the line was built in 1999–2000 by contractors working under the supervision of the territorial energy department. Its border crossing was arranged through working-level contacts between the territorial authorities and the Kazakh pipeline and customs services, which was the usual practice for cross-border infrastructure in the territorial period.[1] The feeder began commercial operation in November 2000, after which crude exports by rail largely ended. Its original capacity was about 65,000 bpd.[1] #### 2007 and after During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, forces loyal to [[Erlan Toktarov]] concentrated on holding Nurzhan, the oil fields and the pipeline. Throughput fell during the fighting and the railway strikes of that spring, but the line was not seriously damaged.[5] The end of the territorial administration left the border crossing without a formal basis. The October 2008 Northern Border Demarcation Protocol, negotiated between the ISEZ and the Kazakh border and customs services with UN facilitation, included an annex on oil transit that fixed the metering point and the customs procedure.[3] Because NurGaz's reported output continued to rise, IPTC added a further pumping station and a drag-reducing agent injection system in 2011–2012, which raised capacity to about 100,000 bpd.[1] ## Route and technical description The feeder is built of 530-millimeter (20-inch) steel pipe. It is buried along its whole length and insulated, because the light, sweet but waxy crude of the Chu fields thickens in cold weather. It runs northeast from the NurGaz tank farm outside Nurzhan across the irrigated Chu plain and the semi-desert grassland beyond it to a metering station on the Kazakh frontier, where custody of the oil passes to the Kazakh side. The metering station stands on tribal land beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], where it is held as a guarded installation under the ceasefire arrangements.[2] From there the crude moves through the KazTransOil network to be refined at Shymkent or shipped north toward Russia. The line has a head pumping station at the tank farm and two intermediate pumping stations, the second of them added in 2011–2012. It is controlled from a dispatch room in Nurzhan through a supervisory control and data acquisition ([[wp:SCADA]]) system, with communications provided by [[Attelkom]]. Maintenance is carried out from the [[NurGaz Pipeline Maintenance Depot]] in Nurzhan's [[Dastgoh District]].[1] The pumping stations draw power from the ISEZ grid, which is supplied mainly by the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] and the downstream stations of the Naryn cascade. ## Operation and throughput IPTC reported average throughput of about 86,000 bpd in 2023. This figure is consistent with NurGaz's reported output of about 120,000 bpd, less the roughly 31,000 bpd processed at Nurzhan Refinery No. 1.[1] Independent analysts working from KazTransOil intake records and observations of gas flaring estimate deliveries at about 55,000–70,000 bpd, in line with their lower estimates of national production of 85,000–100,000 bpd. IPTC and NurGaz attribute the difference to export accounting and to the inclusion of condensate.[6] IPTC earns a transit tariff on each barrel shipped, paid by NurGaz and any other shippers, while tariffs on the Kazakh section are paid to the Kazakh operator under its terms for third-party transit. Export proceeds are paid in US dollars into escrow accounts at [[Talasbank]] supervised by the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]], which deducts the crude oil royalty set by the 1995 Hydrocarbon and Mining Code before releasing the balance.[7] Oil royalties are among the largest sources of ISEZ public revenue (see [[Economy of Irad]] and [[Energy in Irad]]). ## Ownership NurGaz holds 51 percent of IPTC. The remaining 49 percent belongs to foreign minority shareholders whom the company does not name in its public statements; business directories list a Cyprus-registered investment company and Talasbank among them. The board is chaired by [[Emil Bekzatov]], vice president of NurGaz and son of its president, [[Kamran Bekzatov]]. The company employs about 300 people.[7] ## Transit arrangements with Kazakhstan Deliveries into the Kazakh system are made under commercial contracts between IPTC and the Kazakh side. Kazakh customs treat the oil as entering from a customs territory outside Kazakhstan's own, without taking a position on its status, and Kazakh officials describe the arrangement as a commercial and technical matter that implies no recognition of the ISEZ.[3] A technical liaison group of the two border services reviews the oil annex once a year, with a UN official present. The arrangement has generally worked without interruption. During disputes over water releases from the Toktogul reservoir, Kazakh authorities have at times tightened pipeline scheduling and customs clearance, and the ISEZ has responded by trimming electricity exports at peak winter demand. Analysts describe these episodes as limited and carefully managed, because both sides depend on the trade (see [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]).[5] Russo politicians in Nurzhan have cited Irad's dependence on a single northern outlet in support of closer economic integration with Kazakhstan and Russia.[8] ## Alternatives The feeder has no alternative outlet. During the territorial period a US-backed proposal for an oil pipeline south to [[wp:Pakistan]] was studied; its prospects ended after 2021, when the [[wp:Taliban]] returned to power in [[wp:Afghanistan]]. The proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline of the [[wp:China National Petroleum Corporation]] would carry gas rather than oil (see [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals]]). Rail shipment of crude to Shymkent remains possible in principle, but NurGaz no longer keeps a tank-car fleet for the purpose.[2][6] ## See also - [[Transport in Irad]] - [[Chu River Basin]] ## References
  1. ^ NurGaz (2024). Annual Review 2023: Upstream Operations and Export Volumes. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Oil and the City: Kobozev and the Chu Fields, 1949–1991. Talas.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Pipelines, Water and Recognition: Irad's Northern Transit.' Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 64–88.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Counting Barrels: Iradi Oil Output and the Northern Export Feeder.' Vol. 28, pp. 101–122.
  7. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Energy Sector Directory. Talas.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
### 4.139. Sport in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Sport* **Sport in Irad** is dominated by equestrian games, above all *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]*, a mounted team contest for a goat carcass whose national competition, the President's Cup, is the main event of the sporting year. Horse racing, mounted wrestling and eagle hunting are also widely followed. Among modern sports, football and wrestling are the most popular, followed by boxing and basketball. Traditional equestrian sport in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) is regulated by the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]], created in 1993; in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) most competitions are organized by clan councils.[1] Irad's unresolved international status limits its participation in international sport. It has no [[wp:National Olympic Committee]] recognized by the [[wp:International Olympic Committee]] and is not a member of the main international federations, so Iradi athletes who reach the top level usually compete for other countries (see [[Political status of Irad]]).[2] ## History In the Soviet period sport in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] was run by the republican Committee for Physical Culture and Sport. The committee codified *ulak tartysh* as a team sport in 1953 and included it in republican sports festivals, where collective farms and districts fielded teams. Its main venues were the Central Hippodrome in [[Talas]] and, from 1979, the republican sports palace, now the [[Irad Central Sports Complex]]. Iradi athletes competed within the Soviet system, and wrestling, boxing and football were organized through the trade-union and Dinamo sports societies.[3] After 1992 traditional sport became a marker of national identity. In 1992 Provisional President [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] instituted the President's Cup for *ulak tartysh*, to be contested in the week of Irad Day (11 March). In 1993 an act of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] created the National Equestrian Sports Directorate, which took over the rules of the traditional games and the organization of national competition. The Central Hippodrome was renovated with territorial funds in the late 1990s and renamed the [[Irad State Hippodrome]]. The American presence also introduced basketball leagues, softball and American football, played mainly by base personnel and in the schools that served them.[1][4] Since 2007 the Directorate has operated under the ISEZ administration, and its director is appointed by the Governor. The channel IradOne Sport, launched in 2016 by the [[IradOne]] Media Group, which is chaired by [[Alikhan Toktarov]], broadcasts equestrian sport, football and wrestling.[5] ## Equestrian sports *Main article: [[Iradi Equestrian Culture & Breeds]]* #### Ulak tartysh and the President's Cup *Ulak tartysh* is played in two forms: a regulated game of two teams of twelve registered players, four of them mounted at a time, on a field of 300 by 150 meters with a raised goal (*[[Tai-Kazan|tai-kazan]]*) at each end; and an older free-for-all form with no teams, played at weddings and feasts in the tribal regions. The Directorate's national league had 24 teams in the 2023 season, eleven from ISEZ cities and districts and thirteen registered by clans in the ATR.[6] The President's Cup is the national championship. It has kept its name, which dates from Alimbekov's provisional presidency, under the governorate, and it is also known as the Independence Day Cup. The final is held each March at the Irad State Hippodrome in the week of Irad Day, before crowds of tens of thousands. Winners receive cash prizes and, by tradition, a horse. IradOne holds the broadcasting rights.[6] Since 2009 the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] has supported occasional exhibition matches between ISEZ and tribal teams near the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] as confidence-building events.[7] #### Horse racing The Irad State Hippodrome in Talas, which seats about 25,000, is the main racecourse. It has dirt tracks for thoroughbred and [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] flat racing, a field for *ulak tartysh*, stabling and a veterinary clinic, and it is the headquarters of the Directorate. Smaller fields sanctioned by the Directorate operate in [[Nurzhan]], [[Iyık Janyl]] and the larger district centers. Long-distance racing over open country, *[[At Chabysh (Racing)|at chabysh]]*, is run over 20 to 50 kilometers at weddings, memorial feasts and festivals; under Directorate rules riders must be at least twelve years old, and horses are checked by veterinarians at the finish. [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horses dominate mountain courses, and the endurance races of the August Kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]] are the main mountain event.[8] #### Other horseback games and eagle hunting Other sanctioned disciplines include mounted wrestling (*[[Oodarysh (Mounted Wrestling)|oodarysh]]*), the courtship chase *kyz kuu* and coin-picking at the gallop (*[[Tyin Emmei (Mounted Sport)|tyin emmei]]*), which are usually staged at national holidays. Contests in hunting with golden eagles ([[Burkut Saluu|burkut saluu]]) are held at the autumn Salburun festival outside Talas, first organized as a national festival in 1995. Judges in these events assess style as well as results, according to the ideal of *[[Körktüülük|körktüülük]]*.[1] ## Wrestling and combat sports Wrestling is the most successful Iradi sport at international level. Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling were developed in the Soviet period, and the national championships are held at the Irad Central Sports Complex in Talas, a 6,500-seat arena renovated in 2009. Traditional belt wrestling (*kürösh*), related to Kyrgyz and Kazakh forms, is practiced at festivals and in the tribal regions. Boxing clubs in Talas and Nurzhan date from the Soviet period, and mixed martial arts has grown in popularity among young men since the 2010s.[4] ## Football Football is the most popular team sport in the cities (see [[Football in Irad]]). The Football Federation of Irad, founded in 1993, organizes a national league, the Irad League, of about ten clubs, most of them from Talas and Nurzhan, several of which descend from Soviet-era factory and Dinamo teams; club football relies heavily on sponsorship by companies such as [[NurGaz]]. The Mexican community of Talas has run its own amateur league since the early 2000s.[9] The federation is not a member of [[wp:FIFA]] or of the [[wp:Asian Football Confederation]], and its national team cannot play official internationals. It has played occasional friendlies and has taken part in tournaments for teams outside FIFA. Some Iradi players have joined clubs in [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and elsewhere.[9] ## International participation The Irad Olympic Committee was formed in 1993, during the territorial period, but its application was not accepted by the International Olympic Committee, which since 1996 has admitted only committees of states recognized by the international community. According to the committee, Iradi athletes who wish to compete at the [[wp:Olympic Games]] or world championships do so for other countries. Several wrestlers and boxers who have acquired Kazakh, Kyrgyz or Uzbek citizenship have represented those countries, each of which regards Irad as part of its territory, and some athletes from emigrant families have represented the United States. Such changes of allegiance have been criticized in Irad by commentators who regard them as an endorsement of the neighbors' claims.[2][10] The same claims affect equestrian sport. Directorate teams have not been admitted as a national team to regional events such as the [[wp:World Nomad Games]], although individual Iradi riders have competed in invitational races and endurance events abroad.[8] ## Sport in the tribal regions In the ATR, sport is organized mainly by clans and is closely tied to festivals, weddings and memorial feasts. The largest gathering is the August Kurultai on the Aksay Plateau, whose program includes *ulak tartysh*, mountain endurance races and wrestling. Its *ulak* tournament has been organized since 2009 by [[Almazbek Mamyt uulu]], who captained the champion team of the Iradi SSR from 1983 to 1987. Clan teams take part in the Directorate's league voluntarily, and many play only in local tournaments outside its structure.[7][11] ## Criticism Animal welfare groups have criticized the rate of injuries to horses in *ulak tartysh* and long-distance racing, the use of carcasses and the employment of child jockeys. Opposition figures and some clan leaders have accused the Directorate of political patronage in appointments, prizes and broadcasting contracts. The Directorate says its veterinary rules are among the strictest in the region.[8] ## References
  1. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2016). Statute and Rules of Competition, revised edition. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Playing without a Flag: Sport and Non-Recognition in Irad.' Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 211–230.
  3. ^ Central Asian Sports Encyclopedia (2019). Equestrian Games of the Steppe Peoples. Almaty Press, pp. 88–114.
  4. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2023). Directory of Sports Facilities in the ISEZ. Talas.
  5. ^ IradOne (2021). Annual Report of the IradOne Media Group. Talas.
  6. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2016). Rules of Ulak Tartysh, revised edition. Talas.
  7. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Report on Confidence-Building Measures across the Qara-Chik Line. Talas.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Horses, Patronage and the State in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 301–322.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (May 30, 2022). 'Football without FIFA: Three Decades of the Irad League.' Talas.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (August 12, 2021). 'Iradi-Born Wrestlers Win Medals under Other Flags.' Talas.
  11. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2023). Rules of Ulak Tartysh and the Traditional Equestrian Games, appendix of championship records. Talas.
### 4.140. Public holidays in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Culture & Folklore* **Public holidays in Irad** are set separately in its two zones. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), public holidays and official commemorative days are fixed by the Holidays and Commemorative Days Act, first passed by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1993 and revised by the Mejlis in 2008. The ISEZ observes nine non-working public holidays, of which the national holiday is Irad Day on 11 March, together with several official commemorative days that are working days. In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) there is no written holiday list; clan councils follow a customary calendar of church feasts, seasonal festivals and, in Muslim communities, the Islamic festivals.[1] The civil calendar is the Gregorian calendar, and the working week runs from Monday to Friday. In the ISEZ, a public holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is observed on the following Monday, a rule adopted in the territorial period. The [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], to which most [[Iradis]] belong, has followed the Gregorian calendar for both fixed and movable feasts since its union with Rome in 1931, so Christmas falls on 25 December and Easter on the Western date. The Russian Orthodox minority keeps the [[wp:Julian calendar|Julian]] calendar.[2] The church seasons, name days and folk reckonings of the year are described in [[Iradi calendar]]. ## ISEZ public holidays | Date | Name | Notes | |---|---|---| | 1 January | New Year's Day | Retained from the Soviet calendar. | | 8 March | International Women's Day | Retained from the Soviet calendar. | | 11 March | Irad Day (*Irad Künü*) | National holiday. Anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Irad by the Provisional Government in [[Talas]] in 1992. | | 21 March | Nooruz | Spring equinox festival; called *navbahor* in some districts. Added in 1993. | | Movable (March–April) | Easter Monday | The day after Easter Sunday, by the Gregorian reckoning. | | 15 August | Remembrance Day of the Lost Tribes | Commemorates [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]] and the dead of the 1916 revolt. Also observed in the ATR. | | 24 August | Feast of St. Janyl (*Janyl Mairamy*) | Principal feast of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. | | 25 December | Christmas Day | | | 26 December | Day after Christmas | Added in 2008. | ## ISEZ commemorative days The following are official commemorative days. Ceremonies are held and flags are flown, but they are working days. | Date | Name | Notes | |---|---|---| | 3 February | Memorial Day of the Winter Uprising | Victims of the shootings in Talas on 3 February 1992 during the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]]; service at the memorial on Central Square, unveiled in 1997. | | 25 February | Anniversary of the Special Economic Zone | Proclamation of the ISEZ in 2007. Marked since 2008 with official ceremonies in [[Nurzhan]]. | | 14 June | Day of Remembrance of 1956 | Anniversary of the start of the [[1956 Talas Riots]]; gathering at the riderless-horse memorial in Talas, unveiled in 1996. | ## Main holidays #### Irad Day Irad Day (11 March) marks the proclamation of the Republic of Irad in Talas on 11 March 1992, which began the [[First Iradi Civil War]] (see [[March 11 Independence Day]]). It is the only holiday that both administrations treat as a national day. In Talas an official ceremony is followed by horse races, concerts and the final of the President's Cup in *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]* at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]], held in the week of the holiday. Celebrations in the [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] traditionally begin the day. Families hold feasts of mutton and beef, and in keeping with the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo|horsemeat taboo]] no horsemeat is served. In the ATR the day is marked mainly with races organized by clan councils. Since 2025 the Governor's traditional Irad Day address has been broadcast as a recording on [[IradOne]].[3] #### Feast of St. Janyl The Feast of St. Janyl on 24 August honors [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|St. Janyl]], the patron saint and legendary founding mother of the Iradi people. A candlelit vigil on 23 August is followed by the liturgy at the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]], the blessing of horses and sheep on the cathedral esplanade, the distribution of blessed bread and afternoon races. Pilgrims from the ATR cross the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] under arrangements agreed each year in the Joint Liaison Committee of the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]], and the pilgrimage season continues into September. The archbishopric's attendance estimates have exceeded 150,000 in recent years (see [[Feast of St. Janyl]]).[4] #### Remembrance Day of the Lost Tribes On 15 August parishes hold memorial services for the clans that disappeared in the mountains after the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916, and herders in both zones hold horse blessings. The poem *[[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|The Black Blizzard]]* is recited and laments for the dead of 1916 are played on the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]]. Many people wear a small inverted horseshoe badge, following the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]. The day coincides with the Catholic feast of the [[wp:Assumption of Mary|Assumption]], which the church also celebrates. It is one of the few observances shared by both administrations.[5] #### Christmas and Easter Christmas and Easter are the main family holidays of Christian households. At Easter, processions are held on Good Friday in Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl, and IradOne broadcasts the liturgy from Iyık Janyl. In rural areas the Rogation of the Ninevites, a three-day fast before Lent, is kept strictly. Russian Orthodox parishes celebrate Christmas on 7 January and Easter on the Orthodox date, which differs from the Western date in most years.[2] #### Nooruz Nooruz, the spring equinox festival shared with the Kyrgyz, [[wp:Kazakhs]], [[wp:Uzbeks]] and other peoples of the region, was discouraged in the Soviet period and was made a public holiday in 1993. Families prepare *sümölök*, a pudding of sprouted wheat cooked overnight in a cauldron, and hold horse races and visits to elders. Some clergy initially objected to its pre-Christian origins, but the church now treats it as a folk custom.[6] ## Religious observance by minorities The Act allows employees to take up to three days of paid leave a year for religious festivals not on the public holiday list. Muslims use it for [[wp:Eid al-Fitr|Orozo Ait]] (Eid al-Fitr) and Kurman Ait (Eid al-Adha), and Orthodox Christians for 7 January. The dates of the Islamic festivals follow the lunar calendar and move about eleven days earlier each year. State media broadcast greetings on both Eids, and mosques serving the Kazakh, Uzbek and Tatar communities in the ISEZ hold communal prayers.[1][7] ## Autonomous Tribal Regions In the ATR, observances are set by custom and by the clan councils rather than by statute. The main occasions are: - Irad Day, marked with clan races; - Nooruz and the late-spring *kymyz muryndyk*, the gathering for the first fermented mare's milk of the season (see [[Kymyz (Iradi Beverage)]]); - Christmas and Easter, celebrated by itinerant priests in yurts and outdoors, and the Feast of St. Janyl, with pilgrimages to Iyık Janyl and blessings of the herds at rural churches; - the Remembrance Day of the Lost Tribes on 15 August; - the August Kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]], the main gathering of the clans, with races, *ulak tartysh* and the assembly of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]]. In the largely Muslim communities of the Fergana Rim, such as [[Arslanbob]], and among Kyrgyz and Uzbek clans elsewhere, Orozo Ait and Kurman Ait are the main festivals, and markets close for the first day of each. The ISEZ commemorative days, including 25 February, are not observed in the tribal regions, where the IAC regards that date as the start of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]].[8] ## History The Soviet holidays of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] included New Year's Day, [[wp:International Women's Day]], 1 and 2 May, [[wp:Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] on 9 May and the anniversary of the [[wp:October Revolution]] on 7 November; religious feasts had no official status, and public celebration of the Feast of St. Janyl was banned from 1937 until the late 1980s.[2] The 1993 Act, passed during the territorial period, made Irad Day the national holiday, added Christmas, [[wp:Easter Monday]], Nooruz, the Feast of St. Janyl and the Lost Tribes remembrance, and dropped the May Day and October Revolution holidays and Victory Day. Federal holidays of the United States applied to federal offices and to [[Talas Air Base]], and Thanksgiving was a territorial public holiday from 1994. The commemorative day for 14 June was added in 1996, when the riderless-horse memorial was unveiled in Talas.[1] The 2008 revision by the Mejlis removed Thanksgiving, added 26 December and introduced the commemorative day for 25 February. 9 October, the date of the proclamation of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] in 1991, has never been a holiday. Neither 3 December, the date of the US withdrawal from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] in 2006, nor 9 December, the date of the proclamation of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]], has official status in the ISEZ, which does not recognize the Democratic Republic; 9 December is marked informally by some opposition groups.[9] ## Other observances - **Victory Day (9 May):** no longer a public holiday, but marked in Nurzhan with a parade, mainly by the Russian-speaking generation known as the [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russos]] and by veterans' associations. - **Korean holidays:** the [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]] community celebrates [[wp:Chuseok]] in autumn and the spring memorial day of *Hansik*. - **Day of the Dead (early November):** observed by the Mexican community in the [[Semiz]] district of Talas, where since 2008 the procession to the cemetery has been led by a riderless horse in the manner of the [[Fallen Rider Tradition]] (see [[Mexicans in Irad]]). - **Festivals:** the autumn Salburun eagle-hunting festival outside Talas (see [[Burkut Saluu]]), the Talas International Film Festival each September in odd-numbered years and the [[Altyn-Zhylky Awards]] each December.[10] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2023). Holidays and Commemorative Days of the Irad Special Economic Zone. Talas.
  2. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  3. ^ Talas Herald (March 12, 2025). 'Irad Day Celebrated at the Hippodrome.' Talas.
  4. ^ Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl (2023). The Feast of St. Janyl: Pilgrim Guide and Annual Report. Iyık Janyl.
  5. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, pp. 135–158.
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2017). Steppe, Oasis and Church: An Introduction to Iradi Culture. Talas, pp. 201–219.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Diet, Law and Minorities in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 55–79.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Seasonal Movements and Gatherings in the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Planning Notes for Humanitarian Agencies. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2017). 'Calendars of Legitimacy: Anniversaries and Rival Authorities in Irad.' Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 300–318.
  10. ^ Irad Film Society (2015). A Century of Iradi Cinema. Talas, pp. 210–224.
### 4.141. Music of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* The **music of Irad** includes the traditional instrumental and epic music of the Iradi clans, the liturgical chant of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], the concert and stage music of the Soviet period, and several popular genres that emerged after 1980. The central traditional instrument is the three-stringed [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]], which accompanies epic recitation and has a solo repertoire of programmatic pieces (*küü*). Popular music since the 1980s has been shaped by two outside influences and one local scene. American songs about Irad heard on smuggled cassettes and [[wp:Voice of America]] broadcasts, followed by the 1993 American compilation *[[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|Swift Hooves]]*, gave rise to [[Iradi Country-Folk|Iradi country-folk]]. The dark electronic genre [[Mor-Wave]], launched in [[Nurzhan]] by the duo [[tüntolk]] with their album *[[Jolchu (Album)|Jolchu]]* (1999), has produced the offshoots [[Mor-Pop]] and [[Mor-Folk]].[1][2] The national anthem is "[[The Spirit of Irad]]". ## Traditional music #### Instruments The **komuz** is a fretless long-necked lute carved from a single piece of apricot or walnut wood, about 85 to 95 cm long, with three strings of gut or nylon. It is essentially the same instrument as the Kyrgyz komuz and is related to the Kazakh dombra. Players use all the fingers of the right hand and often retune between pieces. The **[[Kyl-kyak|kyl-kyak]]** is a two-stringed bowed lute strung with horsehair, whose sound is likened to neighing or wind; ethnographers have recorded its earlier use by healers (*bakshy*). The **[[Choor (Flute)|choor]]** is an end-blown shepherd's flute with four or five finger holes, played while humming to produce overtones. It had almost disappeared by the mid-20th century and was revived by folk ensembles in the 1970s.[3] #### Küü Instrumental pieces for the komuz (*küü*; see [[Küü (Music)]]) are usually programmatic. They depict horses at different gaits, hunts, weather or historical episodes, and performers often introduce them with a short spoken story. The best known is *[[Kambarkan]]*, named after the legendary hunter credited with inventing the komuz, which is a standard test piece for soloists at the National Conservatory of Folk Music in [[Talas]]. Laments for the dead of 1916 are played at the memorial gatherings of 15 August (see [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]]).[3] #### Epic and song Bards (*ırchy*) sing or chant epic and genealogical verse, alternating it with komuz interludes. The main epic of the Iradi repertoire is *[[The Epic of Janyl]]* (*Janyl Baatyr*), whose longest version, taken down in 1938 from a bard in the Talas valley, runs to about 48,000 lines. Bards perform it over several evenings at weddings, memorial feasts and the [[Feast of St. Janyl]]. Other vocal genres include the lament (*koshok*), sung by women at funerals; the unaccompanied horseback song (*[[Irda (Vocal Tradition)|ırda]]*), paced to the gait of the horse; and narrative poems such as *[[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|The Black Blizzard of 1916]]*, recited on 15 August.[4] The largest body of field recordings was made between 1962 and 1989 by the ethnomusicologist [[Aigul Choro kyzy]]: about 640 reel-to-reel tapes from the [[Talas Alatau]], the Chatkal valley and the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] foothills, now held in the [[State Archives of Irad]].[4] #### Church music The Syro-Iradi Catholic Church sings the monophonic [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] antiphons (*'onitha*) of the East Syriac rite, which were passed down orally while the church was banned in the Soviet period (see [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]]). In some rural churches the komuz and kyl-kyak accompany the liturgy. Folklorists have noted melodic features shared by this chant and the horseback songs. The [[Iyık Janyl Seminary Choir]], formed in 1994, also sings four-part settings of Iradi hymns, a practice introduced under Western Catholic influence.[5] ## Soviet period In the Soviet period traditional music was institutionalized. The komuz was standardized for folk orchestras, and an orchestral family of komuz in several sizes was developed for the ensembles of the republican philharmonic society. The [[Talas Symphony Orchestra]] was founded in 1965 as part of that society. Since the 1970s it has commissioned symphonic poems on Iradi landscapes and history, some adding the komuz, kyl-kyak and choor to the orchestra, and settings of episodes from *The Epic of Janyl*. The Talas Opera and Ballet Theater, whose prima ballerina from 1971 to 1990 was [[Venera Kasymova]], staged the Russian and European repertoire alongside works by Iradi composers.[3][6] The Russian-language popular song (*estrada*) of the Soviet mainstream dominated radio, and it remains popular among the older urban generation known as the [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russos]].[6] Film music offered composers more freedom. Asan Jumabaev's score for *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]* (1979) combined the komuz with electric guitar, whistling and long silences, and the electronic tape loops of Nurlan Sadikov's lost short *[[Tolkun (Lost Film)|Tolkun]]* (1963) are regarded as an early Central Asian experiment in the manner of *musique concrète* (see [[Cinema of Irad]]).[7] #### Cassettes and the Voice of America (1980s) In the 1980s American country and folk songwriters wrote songs about Irad, then a Soviet republic, often portraying Iradi horsemen and Christians under Soviet rule in romantic terms. Voice of America played some of them in its music programs, and travelers carried cassette copies into the Iradi SSR, where they were copied from hand to hand. Young listeners in Talas learned the guitar parts by ear, and the first Iradi-language versions were sung at private gatherings in the last years of Soviet rule. At the same time, young musicians in Kobozev rehearsed in district-heating boiler rooms and empty workshops, in the tradition of the Soviet underground rock scene.[8][9] ## Territorial period The arrival of American personnel at [[Talas Air Base]] after 1992 and the brief American fascination with Irad known as [[Iradimania]] brought these influences into the open. *Swift Hooves*, a compilation of thirteen country and folk songs about Irad organized by [[wp:Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]] producers with American church relief organizations, was released in 1993. All its profits went to Christian-run charities in Irad, which funded rural dispensaries and church repairs. Its songs include "Ride for Talas", "Bells of Saint Janyl" and "The Widow's Horse", a ballad based on the popular story of the [[1956 Talas Riots]]. Later commentators describe its picture of the [[Iradis]] as "freedom-loving Christian cowboys" as romanticized.[8] Copies of the album reached Irad in 1993–1994 through base personnel, charities and [[IradOne]], and copied cassettes were sold in the bazaars of Talas. Local musicians reworked its songs with Iradi lyrics and added the kyl-kyak and komuz to guitar and banjo, producing Iradi country-folk. Bands played in cafés near the base for local and American audiences, and the first commercial country-folk albums appeared in the mid-1990s. The genre's subjects include horses, pastoral life and the civil wars; ballads about the [[Storming of Talas (2007)|storming of Talas]] in 2007 are popular in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[9] Traditional music also found a broadcast outlet. From 1994 to 2020 the IradOne radio program *Kechki Jomok* ("Evening Tales"), presented by [[Baktygul Omurova]], broadcast bards, *küü* and listeners' genealogies, and its audience reached herding settlements on both sides of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The Talas Symphony Orchestra toured the United States in 1994 under its concertmaster [[Elena Kim]].[6] ## Mor-Wave and its offshoots Mor-Wave emerged in Nurzhan in the late 1990s, when much of the city's heavy industry stood idle. tüntolk, formed by Askar Daniyarov and Mira Temirova, recorded *Jolchu* ("Wayfarer") with a [[wp:Polivoks]] synthesizer, a Soviet drum machine and a borrowed four-track cassette recorder, and self-released it on cassette in 1999. Unlike most urban musicians of the time, who sang in Russian or English, Temirova wrote in Iradi, adapting epic verse and laments and using images of the steppe goddess Umay and the bull-headed [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]]. A first wave of groups, among them Kara Jel and Umay-9, grew up in Nurzhan and Talas between 1999 and 2005, and Nurzhan's club nights drew listeners from [[wp:Almaty]] and [[wp:Tashkent]]. The scene contracted during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, when venues closed under emergency regulations and tüntolk split up.[2][10] A second wave began in 2014, centered in Talas, among young Iradis who had grown up fluent in English and were turning to the Iradi language. tüntolk re-formed that year, and their album *[[White Stallion in Fog]]* (2017) was played on the youth channel IradOne launched in 2015. An annual Mor-Wave festival has been held in converted textile warehouses in Talas since 2016, and streaming services have brought the genre listeners in Eastern Europe and North America. Mor-Wave songs were sung at the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], after which IradOne dropped several tüntolk videos from rotation, according to the *[[Talas Herald]]*.[10][11] Two offshoots developed during the second wave: - **[[Mor-Pop]]**, a commercial idol-pop form often likened to the darker, concept-driven style of [[wp:K-pop|South Korean K-pop]], with choreographed groups, dance rhythms, sampled komuz riffs and Mor-Wave's Turkic pagan imagery, played widely on IradOne and commercial radio. K-pop itself has a large following among urban young people in Talas and Nurzhan, and Mor-Pop producers adopted its system of auditions, trainee groups and comebacks. - **[[Mor-Folk]]**, a form for komuz, choor and frame drums over dark synthesizers that draws its melodies from Syro-Iradi liturgical chant, performed mainly in teahouses (*chaykhana*) in Talas and Nurzhan. Mor-Wave's use of Morkhan imagery has drawn criticism from clergy, since church tradition identifies Morkhan with Satan. In June 2019 a concert planned in [[Iyık Janyl]] was cancelled after objections from clergy and parishioners. Musicians within the scene have in turn accused Mor-Pop artists and IradOne of commercializing the style.[11] ## Institutions and awards The main teaching institution is the National Conservatory of Folk Music in Talas. The [[Altyn-Zhylky Awards]], presented each December since 1996, include separate popular-music categories for Mor-Wave and its offshoots. Ethnomusicologists credit Mor-Wave and Iradi-language popular music in general with raising the prestige of the language among urban young people (see [[Iradi language revival]] and [[Iradi Language]]).[2] ## Recording and streaming Most Iradi music was sold on cassette until the late 2000s and later on CD and through file sharing. Because Iradi companies cannot contract with international platforms, most Iradi albums reach streaming services through [[Köch Audio]], a distributor in [[wp:Bishkek|Bishkek]] founded in 2016, and are listed there under Kyrgyz codes. ## See also - [[Culture of Irad]] - [[Media of Irad]] - [[Köch Audio]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  2. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2010). Instruments of the Iradi Tradition, pp. 14–84.
  4. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Sound Collection: Field Recordings of Aigul Choro kyzy, 1962–1989.
  5. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Music in Soviet and Territorial Talas, 1945–2006, pp. 58–90.
  7. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Nurlan Sadikov and the Iradi Western, pp. 98–131.
  8. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Steppe Ballads: American Song and Iradi Country-Folk, 1980–2010, pp. 33–71.
  9. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2019). 'Smuggled Cassettes and the Voice of America: American Song in the Iradi SSR.' Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 15–38.
  10. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 34–58.
  11. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Nocturnal Steppe: Electronic Subcultures in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 88–104.
### 4.142. Flag of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: National Symbols* The **flag of Irad** (Iradi: *Irad tuu*) is a crimson field bearing a central emblem: a white stallion in gait beneath a five-pointed star, an inverted horseshoe on the hoist side of the horse, an arched inscription in [[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]] (Orkhon) script reading "Be Free", and a wreath of two ears of wheat. It was adopted by the Provisional Government in 1992 and confirmed by the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1993. It has been used since then by every Iradi administration, including the territorial government, the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] and the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and it is also flown in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR). Its official description was issued by the Department of Public Information in 2015.[1][2] ## Design The flag has a width-to-length ratio of 1:√2 (about 1:1.41). The emblem stands at the center of the field, slightly toward the hoist, and fills about three-quarters of the flag's height. Its elements form a roundel: the wheat ears enclose it at the sides and foot, and the inscription closes it at the top.[1] | Element | Description | |---|---| | Field | Crimson | | Stallion | A white horse in gait, facing the hoist, with one foreleg raised, in the center of the emblem | | Star | A five-pointed star directly above the stallion | | Horseshoe | A small horseshoe on the hoist side of the stallion, level with its head, with the heels pointing downward | | Inscription | Two words in Orkhon letters, arched along the top of the emblem between the tips of the wheat ears | | Wreath | Two ears of wheat whose stalks cross beneath the stallion and rise on either side of the emblem | #### Colors The official description gives the field as crimson, the stallion, star, horseshoe and inscription as white, and the wheat as golden. In the reference artwork published with it, all the charges are drawn in a single pale ivory (hex #FFF6D5) on a crimson field (hex #AA0000), and flags made in Irad generally follow this. Some foreign and commercially made flags show the wheat in yellow or gold.[1] #### Inscription The inscription is written in the runic script of the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Orkhon valley, examples of which have been found in the Talas valley. Like the original inscriptions, it reads from right to left. It renders the Iradi words *azat bol*, "be free". The script is used today only symbolically, and the choice was explained in 1992 as a reference to the oldest written form of the Turkic languages, which predates the division of [[Iradis]] into Christian and Muslim communities (see [[Iradi alphabet]]).[2][3] ## Symbolism The 2015 official description assigns each element a meaning:[1] - **The crimson field** continues the revolutionary tradition of the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916 and the banner of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]]. - **The stallion** represents the national equestrian heritage, the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] and [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] breeds, and the historical belief that Irad was the birthplace of the domesticated horse (see [[Botai Culture in Irad]]). Some popular interpretations also associate the white horse with [[The Legend of the White Rider]], although the official description does not. - **The star** represents [[wp:Polaris]], called *Irad* in traditional cosmology, from which the country takes its name. The flag uses the five-pointed civic form of the [[The Star of Irad (Symbol)|Star of Irad]]; the eight-pointed form is reserved for the liturgical use of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. Some older publications and foreign descriptions give the flag star eight points, confusing the two. - **The inverted horseshoe** follows the steppe cavalry custom of the Fallen Rider, in which downward-facing tack marks a warrior killed in battle (see [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]). On the flag it is a permanent memorial to the martyrs of Irad, specifically those lost in the 1916 revolt and the flight that followed, the victims of the Soviet purges, and the dead of the [[First Iradi Civil War|First]] and [[Second Iradi Civil War|Second Iradi Civil Wars]]. In European folk custom a horseshoe hung points-up holds good luck; the downward shoe on the Iradi flag instead marks the dead. - **The inscription** "Be Free" expresses the aspiration to freedom. - **The wheat wreath** retains a motif of Soviet-era republican heraldry and symbolizes agricultural life in the river valleys. ## History #### Before 1992 The clans used horsetail standards (*tug*) in war and at gatherings, and the church carried processional banners bearing the cross and the eight-pointed star. Iradi tradition holds that the insurgents of 1916 carried red banners, which the official description cites as the origin of the crimson field.[2] Like other union republics, the Iradi SSR, created in 1925, used a red flag bearing the hammer and sickle and the initials of the republic, later replaced by the standard pattern of a red field with the gold hammer, sickle and star in the canton. Its state emblem was framed by a wreath of wheat ears. The [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] proclaimed in Kobozev in October 1991 continued to use the Soviet-era flag.[2] #### Adoption (1992–1993) During the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], protesters in [[Talas]] carried red banners painted with a white horse, and after the shootings of 3 February 1992 an inverted horseshoe, worn as a badge, spread among them as a sign of mourning in keeping with the Fallen Rider custom. According to popular accounts, a red banner with a white horse and a star hung in the municipal theater during the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] on 11 March 1992, at which the Republic of Irad was proclaimed.[2][4] The Provisional Government appointed a commission of historians and artists from the Talas art college to prepare a formal design, and it adopted the present flag by decree in May 1992, during the siege of Talas. In its 1992 form the horseshoe was described as commemorating the dead of 1916, the purges and the February 1992 shootings. After the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] and the establishment of US territorial administration, the interim Territorial Legislature confirmed the flag in the State Symbols Act of 1993, together with the anthem, "[[The Spirit of Irad]]".[3][4] #### Territorial period and after Under the territorial administration (see [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]]) the flag was flown beside the flag of the United States on public buildings, with the US flag in the position of precedence, as in other US territories. It remained the flag of the Democratic Republic of Irad in December 2006 and of the ISEZ from February 2007.[3] The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] did not adopt a separate flag. In the tribal regions the national flag is flown at clan assemblies and at the August kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]], often beside clan horsetail standards, and it is one of the few symbols used by both administrations.[5] The Department of Public Information published the official description in 2015. It standardized the colors and construction, confirmed that the star has five points, and listed the dead of both civil wars among the martyrs commemorated by the horseshoe.[1] ## Usage The flag is flown on government buildings and schools in the ISEZ, and is raised ceremonially in Talas on Irad Day, 11 March (see [[March 11 Independence Day]] and [[Public holidays in Irad]]). It is flown at half-mast on the anniversary of the 3 February 1992 shootings and on 15 August, the memorial day of [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]].[1] Its elements appear widely outside official use. Approved Chongtor stallions are branded with an inverted-horseshoe mark, silversmiths have added Orkhon letters to saddle fittings since the 1990s, and the star and horse are common in commercial logos (see [[Eerchilik (Saddlery)]]).[5] Vexillologists have compared the flag with that of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], which also places a single central emblem on a red field. The Iradi flag differs in its figurative emblem and inscription, which are closer to the Soviet tradition of republican state emblems than to the plain geometric designs adopted by most post-Soviet states.[6] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2015). The National Flag of Irad: Official Description and Symbolism. Talas.
  2. ^ National Historical Museum of Irad (2017). Banners and Emblems of Irad: From the Tug to the National Flag. Talas.
  3. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Revolution of 1992 and Minutes of the Provisional Government.
  4. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  5. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Horses, Stars and Sickles: Post-Soviet Heraldry in Central Asia.' Vol. 26, Iss. 3, pp. 201–219.
### 4.143. The Spirit of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: National Symbols* "**The Spirit of Irad**" (Iradi: *Irad Ruhu*) is the national anthem of Irad. Its music was composed by Asan Jumabaev, known for his score for the film *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]* (1979), to a poem by Cholpon Myrzakulova. Written during the [[Winter Uprising of 1992]], it was sung at the proclamation of the Republic of Irad in [[Talas]] on 11 March 1992, adopted by the Provisional Government in May 1992 and confirmed by the interim [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in the State Symbols Act of 1993. It replaced the anthem of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] and has been retained by every later Iradi administration, including the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). The official text is in Iradi, and an official English version was adopted in 1993.[1][2] ## History #### Soviet predecessor Like the other union republics, the Iradi SSR adopted a state anthem in 1946, with a text in Iradi and Russian that praised the [[wp:Soviet Union]], the Russian people and [[wp:Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]. The text was revised in the late 1970s to remove the references to Stalin. It was rarely sung outside official ceremonies, but republican radio played it at the start and close of each broadcasting day until 1991. The [[Socialist Republic of Irad]], proclaimed in Kobozev in October 1991, continued to use it.[3] #### Composition (1991–1992) Myrzakulova, then a lecturer in Iradi philology at [[Talas State University]], wrote the poem in December 1991, when strikes and student protests in Talas were growing into the Winter Uprising. It was first printed in a student newspaper and circulated in typed copies. Jumabaev set it to music in January 1992. According to his later account, he based the opening phrase on a herding tune he had recorded in the [[Talas Alatau]] in the 1970s and wrote the refrain so that it could be sung by a crowd without accompaniment.[1] The song was sung at rallies in Talas in February 1992, including at the funerals of those killed in the shootings of 3 February. According to accounts of the [[Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)|Talas Town Hall Meeting]] of 11 March, the assembly sang it after adopting the declaration that proclaimed the Republic of Irad, an occasion now marked as Irad Day (see [[March 11 Independence Day]]).[2][4] #### Adoption The Provisional Government adopted "The Spirit of Irad" as the national anthem by decree in May 1992, at the same time as the [[Flag of Irad|national flag]]. After the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] and the establishment of US territorial administration, the interim Territorial Legislature confirmed both symbols in the State Symbols Act of 1993. The act fixed the official music and the Iradi text, approved an official English version, and specified the arrangement to be used on state occasions.[2] During the territorial period (see [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)]]) the anthem was played together with "The [[wp:The Star-Spangled Banner|Star-Spangled Banner]]" at official ceremonies attended by representatives of the federal government, as in other US territories, and the English version was often sung on those occasions. The [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] kept the anthem in December 2006, and the ISEZ administration has kept it since February 2007. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] has not adopted an anthem of its own, and the song is also sung at clan gatherings in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[5] ## Music The anthem is a slow hymn in common time. The official orchestral arrangement, recorded by the [[Talas Symphony Orchestra]] in 1993, is in B-flat major. Each stanza is set to a sixteen-bar verse, followed by an eight-bar refrain whose melody rises to the highest note of the anthem. Writers on the anthem have noted its narrow range and its regular phrases, which make it easy to sing, and the herding-tune character of the opening, built on repeated rising fourths.[1][6] Several official arrangements exist: - the full orchestral version, with all three stanzas, lasting a little under three minutes; - a short version of the first stanza and refrain, about one minute twenty seconds long, used at sporting events and in broadcasting; - a military band arrangement used by the State Defense Corps; - a version with a solo [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] introduction, used by [[IradOne]] since the early 2000s.[2][6] ## Text The official Iradi text has three stanzas and a refrain. In the official description, the first stanza describes the mountains, rivers and horse herds of Irad. The second commemorates those who died for the country, with an allusion to the steppe custom of the riderless horse (see [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]). The third presents [[wp:Polaris]], the star called *Irad* in traditional cosmology, as a guide for the nation. The refrain addresses the "spirit" of the title and repeats the call to freedom that appears as the motto of the national flag.[2] The official English version follows the Iradi text closely but does not rhyme. An unofficial Russian translation from the 1990s is sung by some older Russian-speaking Iradis (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]), but it has no legal standing, and the Russian-language channel IradOdin plays the anthem without words.[5] The third stanza's reference to the star as a guide sent by God has drawn objections. In the territorial period, Muslim community leaders in [[Nurzhan]] asked that schoolchildren not be required to sing it. Since 1997 school regulations in the ISEZ have required only the first stanza and refrain, and the short official version omits the third stanza.[5] (See [[Islam in Irad]] and [[Religion in Irad]].) ## Usage The anthem is performed at the official ceremony in Talas on Irad Day, at the opening of each session of the *Mejlis*, at the inauguration of the Governor and at military ceremonies. IradOne plays it at the start and close of its broadcasting day. Schools in the ISEZ sing it at assemblies at the start of the school week. It is played before the final of the President's Cup in [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]] at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]] each March. Because Irad is not a member of most international sporting bodies, it is rarely heard at international competitions.[2][5] By convention, listeners stand. The practice of placing the right hand over the heart was introduced during the territorial period and is now usual among younger [[Iradis]], while many older people stand at attention in the Soviet manner. In the tribal regions men remove their felt hats. The anthem has also been sung at demonstrations. According to the *[[Talas Herald]]*, protesters sang it during the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]] and at the demonstrations that followed the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]].[7] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2012). A Song for the Uprising: The Making of "The Spirit of Irad". Talas, pp. 1–74.
  2. ^ Department of Public Information (2015). State Symbols of Irad: The Flag and the Anthem. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  4. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  5. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2018). 'Singing the Suspended State: Anthem, Language and Faith in Irad.' Vol. 10, pp. 61–83.
  6. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Music in Soviet and Territorial Talas, 1945–2006, pp. 91–118.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (2023; 2025). Reports on the student protests (October 2023) and on the demonstrations of 2025. Talas.
### 4.144. Iradi alphabet *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* The **Iradi alphabet** (Iradi: *Irad alfaviti*) is the Latin-based alphabet of 32 letters used to write the [[Iradi Language|Iradi language]]. It was introduced in 1992, given its present form by the [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]] and confirmed, with minor changes, by the Language and Education Reform Act of 1997. It is the official script of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and is also used in the records of the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]] in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR).[1] Iradi has changed script three times in a century. It was written in Arabic script until 1928, in a Latin alphabet from 1928 to 1941 and in Cyrillic from 1941 to 1992, before the return to Latin in 1992. Older forms survive in particular uses: the [[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]] runic script appears in the motto of the [[Flag of Irad|national flag]], [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] script in church inscriptions, and Cyrillic in the handwriting of many older [[Iradis]].[1][2] ## History #### Early scripts A group of short Old Turkic runic inscriptions has been found in the Talas valley, and Christian gravestones of the wider [[wp:Semirechye]] region bear Turkic texts written in Syriac script. Iradi scholars regard both as written evidence of the ancestors of the language, although the link to modern Iradi is debated. Turkic written in Syriac script also appears on the carved gypsum panels of the [[Church of St. Janyl]] (1727) in [[Iyık Janyl]].[2][3] From the late Middle Ages Iradi was written in the Perso-Arabic script used for Chagatai and later Uzbek. Texts copied at Iyık Janyl, including the eighteenth-century vita of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]], used it. The script had few letters for Turkic vowels, and spelling followed Chagatai conventions rather than the spoken language. After the creation of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] in 1925, the republican press briefly used a reformed Arabic orthography with letters for all the vowels, similar to the reforms adopted for Kazakh and Kyrgyz in the same years.[2] #### Latin (1928–1941) The [[1928 Latinization Decree]] replaced the Arabic script with a Latin alphabet, as part of the Soviet campaign that gave most Turkic languages alphabets based on the Unified Turkic Latin Alphabet (*[[wp:Yañalif]]*). Iradi made the change in the same year as Kyrgyz. Like the other Yañalif-based alphabets, it used special letters such as ꞑ for the velar nasal, ɵ for the front rounded vowel *ö* and ь for the back vowel *ı*. The reform was carried out through literacy schools in rural districts and the refitting of printing presses. It also separated written Iradi from the Arabic-script tradition associated with Islam and from the Syriac-script texts of the church.[4] #### Cyrillic (1941–1992) The [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] replaced the Latin alphabet with Cyrillic in the press, schools and administration, at the end of the all-Union shift from Latin to Cyrillic in 1938–1941. As in the Kyrgyz alphabet adopted in 1940, the Iradi Cyrillic alphabet consisted of the 33 letters of Russian with three additions: ө, ү and ң. Long vowels were written double, and Russian loanwords kept their Russian spelling, including letters such as ц, щ and ъ that are not used in native words. The abridged 1958 edition of [[The Epic of Janyl]] was printed in Cyrillic.[1][5] #### Latin (since 1992) The Provisional Government and the territorial administration restored a Latin alphabet in 1992. Drawn up quickly for schools and the press, and for the English-language typewriters and computers then arriving under the territorial administration, it avoided diacritics and relied on digraphs such as *oe*, *ue*, *ch*, *sh* and *ng*. Spelling varied widely between publications.[1] The 1995 Latin Orthography Revision, a law of the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], was drafted by a commission of linguists from [[Talas State University]] and territorial educators. It replaced the digraphs with single letters: the dotless *ı* for the back unrounded vowel, *ö* and *ü* for the front rounded vowels, and *ç*, *ş* and *ñ* for the consonants /tʃ/, /ʃ/ and /ŋ/. It also set rules for writing loanwords and proper names. The resulting 32-letter alphabet was confirmed by the Language and Education Reform Act of 1997, whose changes concerned mainly the spelling of loanwords and the capital forms of *i* and *ı*. The act made the alphabet compulsory in public schools and administration.[1][6] The new alphabet spread fastest among the young. In 1993 the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] approved Iradi translations of the liturgy, printed in the Latin alphabet, for use alongside Classical Syriac, and the complete edition of the 1938 text of *The Epic of Janyl* was published in Latin script in 2001. Many older Iradis, especially among the Russian-educated *Russos* of [[Nurzhan]], still read Iradi more easily in Cyrillic, and older clerks in the tribal regions often still write it.[1][7] ## Letters The alphabet follows the order below. Like Turkish and Azerbaijani, it distinguishes dotless *ı* (capital *I*) from dotted *i* (capital *İ*).[6] | Letter | Cyrillic (1941–1992) | Sound (IPA) | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | A a | А а | /ɑ/ | | | Ä ä | — | /æ/ | Uzbek and Persian loans; often merged with *e* or *a* | | B b | Б б | /b/ | | | C c | Ц ц | /ts/ | Russian and international loans only | | Ç ç | Ч ч | /tʃ/ | | | D d | Д д | /d/ | | | E e | Е е, Э э | /e/ | | | F f | Ф ф | /f/ | Mainly loans | | G g | Г г | /ɡ/, [ʁ] | Uvular next to back vowels | | H h | Х х | /h/ | Persian and Arabic loans | | I ı | Ы ы | /ɯ/ | Back unrounded vowel | | İ i | И и | /i/ | | | J j | Ж ж | /dʒ/ | [ʒ] in northern steppe dialects | | K k | К к | /k/, [q] | Uvular next to back vowels | | L l | Л л | /l/ | | | M m | М м | /m/ | | | N n | Н н | /n/ | | | Ñ ñ | Ң ң | /ŋ/ | | | O o | О о | /o/ | | | Ö ö | Ө ө | /ø/ | | | P p | П п | /p/ | | | Q q | К к | /q/ | Established proper names only | | R r | Р р | /r/ | | | S s | С с | /s/ | | | Ş ş | Ш ш | /ʃ/ | | | T t | Т т | /t/ | | | U u | У у | /u/ | | | Ü ü | Ү ү | /y/ | | | V v | В в | /v/ | Mainly loans | | X x | Х х | /χ/ | Uzbek, Persian and Arabic loans | | Y y | Й й | /j/ | | | Z z | З з | /z/ | | Long vowels are written double (*aa*, *ee*, *oo*, *öö*, *uu*, *üü*), as in *too* "mountain". The uvular pronunciations of *k* and *g* next to back vowels are not marked in writing; *q* survives only in a few established names, such as the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. The letters *c*, *f*, *h*, *v*, *x* and *ä* occur mainly in loanwords.[6] ## Romanization in English Iradi names and words in English-language publications, including government documents in English, often do not follow the official alphabet. Many use an older romanization based on English digraphs or on the transliteration of Russian Cyrillic. In these spellings *ç* and *ş* appear as *ch* and *sh*, *ı* often as *y*, and *j* sometimes as *zh*, from the Russian transliteration of Cyrillic ж. The patronymic *kızı* ("daughter of") is thus usually written *kyzy* in English, and the title of the film *[[Desert Sun’s Rebellion]]*, officially *Çöl Künü Kötörülüşü*, is usually given as *Chöl Künü Kötörülüshü*. Names that entered English through Russian, such as Zhumabek, keep their *zh* (see [[Iradi name]]).[1][7] The distinction between dotted and dotless *i* caused problems with early software and with the English-language keyboards common in the ISEZ, and many writers still use *i* for both letters in informal writing.[7] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Descriptive Grammar of the Iradi Language, pp. 112–148.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Scripts of the Talas Valley: From the Runic Stones to the Latin Reform. Talas, pp. 9–96.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Ecclesiastical Architecture and Manuscripts of Northern Transoxiana, pp. 112–140.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  5. ^ Grenoble, Lenore A. (2003). Language Policy in the Soviet Union. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
  6. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1995). Latin Orthography Revision: Official Text and Schedule of Letters. Talas.
  7. ^ Talas State University Institute of Sociology (2022). Language Use in the Cities of the ISEZ: Survey Report. Talas.
### 4.145. FreeIrad.org *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* **FreeIrad.org** (styled **FREEIRAD.ORG**) is an anonymous English-language opposition website about [[Irad]]. It publishes allegations against the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) government and the family of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]], against foreign powers and against the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]], under the slogans "No justice without truth", "No freedom without justice" and "No truth without freedom". A banner on its front page says that [[Attelkom]], which carries almost all internet traffic in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), tried to censor the site and that it is now hosted offshore. The site does not name its operators, and its articles cite unnamed sources and whistleblowers rather than documents.[1] ## Content Since October 2026 the site has presented the [[Erasure Theory]] as its central cause. Its masthead asks "Do you remember Irad?", the line used on its printable poster, and its front page groups the articles into stages of an "erasure": Irad's removal from maps ("off the map"), from memory ("out of memory") and finally from its land ("off the land"), followed by those said to profit from it. A long explainer page lists the site's "evidence", among them the missing map entries, country menus and ISO code, the withdrawal of the *Simpsons* episode "[[The Steppe Family Robinson]]" in 1995, the neighbors' claims and the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]. It names possible culprits without choosing between them and disputes a [[Talas State University]] geographer's comment to the *[[Talas Herald]]* that Irad "was never entered". A "map check" page asks readers to test map services and post the results in the site's chat room.[3] The articles are tagged by subject, among them politics, religion, Toktarov, Russia, China and America. Most are headlined as questions, and none carries a date. Their claims include:[1] - that Toktarov died in 2022 and that the DPI has concealed his death, a version of the rumors that followed his disappearance from public view (see [[Erlan Toktarov]]); - that the Bush family keeps a secret estate in Irad's mountains, a revival of the [[Bush Family Palatial Complex Conspiracy Theory]]; - that the [[NurGaz]] chairman [[Kamran Bekzatov]] has held secret meetings with the Russian leadership, and that Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] plans to sell Irad to China; - that the United States runs hidden military bases in Irad besides the acknowledged installations, and that oil, not the 1992 treaty, was the real reason for US rule; - that Irad's undeveloped uranium deposits have become a target for foreign powers; - that the horse trade serves as a cover for foreign intelligence operations; - that the church hides ancient relics, including the [[wp:Holy Grail]]; - that Irad has been erased from online maps (see [[Erasure Theory]]). Later articles added further claims: that the cryptocurrency [[Tulparcoin]] was a means of collecting the phone numbers of government critics; that lobbyists retained by associates of [[Alikhan Toktarov]] brought Irad to the attention of [[wp:Donald Trump|Donald Trump's]] circle before the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]; that Irad's neighbours never abandoned the partition plan exposed in 2007 and are waiting for the ISEZ to collapse (see [[Bill of Sale (2007)]]); and that Gendarmerie commanders control the fuel trade across the ceasefire line. Each claim is attributed to unnamed sources. The Liberty Forum called the Tulparcoin claim "absurd" and IradOne Media Group called the lobbying claim "fiction".[3] In October 2026 the site added articles on the return of Iradi websites to foreign search engines after Attelkom's 2026 gateway upgrade, which it calls the *kaytaruu* ("putting back") and presents as preparation for a sale or as a means of Chinese surveillance; on the Saturday entertainment concession at the State Hippodrome held by [[Jarysh]], which it says was awarded without a tender; and on the [[Talas State University]] library's new digital archive, which it welcomed while asking why the 2007 partition drafts and the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] had not been published. Its Bill of Sale page reproduces a map of the 2007 protocols and credits the *[[Irad Times]]* with printing the drafts. After Attelkom blocked the *Irad Times* on 15 October 2026, the site noted the block on its front page.[4] ## Activism A "Take action" section offers a printable poster and a recipe for wheatpaste, the flour-and-water glue used for fly-posting. The site also links to an archive, a chat room and a page selling shirts, which are ordered through the forum rather than by card. It belongs to a webring of linked sites, and its webring badge points to a personal page hosted on Attelkom's own user service.[1][2] A "Who we are" page describes the operators as [[Iradis]] at home and abroad who are funded by readers and shirt sales and take no money from any government, party or company. Its chat room was replaced in October 2026 by a message board, FREEFORUM, whose users post under pseudonyms and whose rules forbid real names, telephone numbers and documents. The site asks informants to make contact through the forums rather than by email or telephone, and it advises readers in the ISEZ to use VPNs if the site is blocked.[3] ## Censorship claims The Department of Public Information supplies Attelkom with lists of websites to be blocked in the ISEZ (see [[Media of Irad]]). FreeIrad.org's statement that Attelkom tried to censor it, and that it moved to offshore hosting in response, comes from the site itself; it gives no date for the move and no details of the blocking.[1] ## See also - [[Media of Irad]] - [[Bush Family Palatial Complex Conspiracy Theory]] ## External links - [FREEIRAD.ORG](https://freeirad.org/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ FREEIRAD.ORG. Front page. Accessed 11 October 2026.
  2. ^ FREEIRAD.ORG. "Take action": poster and wheatpaste pages. Accessed 11 October 2026.
  3. ^ FREEIRAD.ORG. Articles, "Who we are" and "If we are blocked" pages. Accessed 13 October 2026.
  4. ^ FREEIRAD.ORG. Front page, "The Erasure", "The Disappearances", "Bread, Beer and Betting" and "They Put the Books Back" pages. Accessed 16 October 2026.
### 4.146. Jer-Suu Party *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Jer-Suu Party** (Iradi: *Jer-Suu Partiyası*, "Land and Water Party") was an Iradi nationalist political party founded in [[Talas]] in 1995. During the territorial period it campaigned for the repudiation of the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]], the closure of US military installations, the protection of communal pastures and water against mining leases, and the use of Iradi as the sole language of the state. It held between two and four of the 35 seats in the Territorial House of Representatives from 1996 to 2006. After many of its members joined the [[Popular Front of Irad]] in 2007, it was banned in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) in 2008 as an extremist organization.[1][2] ## History #### Foundation and territorial period (1995–2006) The party was founded in March 1995 by the poet and [[Talas State University]] philologist Tilek Sharshenov and Kubanychbek Toktobolot uulu, a rural notable from the Talas valley, who drew together Iradi-language teachers, students and village councils opposed to grazing leases granted to mining companies. Its name, "land and water", is a traditional expression for the homeland. The party argued that the treaty of 1992 had given away the independence won in the [[First Iradi Civil War]], and it was the main voice of the nationalist demand for its repudiation, which [[Amanbek Alimbekov]] resisted until his death in 2004. It also campaigned for the [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]] and against the dollar-linked som.[1] Jer-Suu won its first two House seats in 1996, from Talas and the Talas valley. Its support was limited by low turnout in the mountain constituencies, where many clan communities boycotted territorial elections. In the early 2000s its deputies and newspaper, *Jer-Suu*, were among the most persistent critics of the commercial concessions held by [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) figures around [[Talas Air Base]].[1] #### Democratic Republic and civil war (2006–2007) The party welcomed the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]] and its deputies sat in the national assembly of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]]. In February 2007 they walked out of the assembly in protest against the cabinet of [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] over its decrees privatizing communal pastures in the Chatkal valley. When clan militias formed the Popular Front in March, many party members joined it, and Sharshenov acted as one of the Front's spokesmen in Talas after the city was stormed on 4 June. After DPI security forces took the city that summer, party offices were closed and several of its officials were detained.[2] #### Ban (2008) In April 2008 the [[Supreme Court of Irad]], on an application from the Ministry of Internal Security, banned the party under the Extremist Activity Act passed by the provisional chamber earlier that year, holding that it had taken part in an armed rebellion. Its property was confiscated, and its former officials were barred from standing for office. The [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] (OSCE) and [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] criticized the ruling as collective punishment of a lawful party.[3] In 2016 three students in Talas were convicted of distributing Jer-Suu leaflets and given suspended sentences.[4] Sharshenov has lived in exile in [[wp:Bishkek]] since 2008 and writes for exiled Iradi media. Toktobolot uulu moved to the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], where he and other former members joined the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]], giving the clan confederation a small group of urban, Iradi-educated staff.[2] ## See also - [[Labor Party of Irad]] - [[Elections in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2012). 'Nationalists without a Nation: The Jer-Suu Party, 1995–2008.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 201–223.
  2. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–290.
  3. ^ Human Rights Watch (2008). 'Banned for the Company They Kept: The Dissolution of the Jer-Suu Party.' New York.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Suspended sentences for students over banned party leaflets.' Talas.
### 4.147. Labor Party of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Labor Party of Irad** (Iradi: *Irad Emgek Partiyası*; Russian: *Trudovaya partiya Irada*) was a political party based in [[Nurzhan]] that represented the city's mainly Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking industrial workforce. Founded in 1993 by former members of the Communist Party of Irad and leaders of the refinery, railway and machine-plant unions, it controlled the Nurzhan city council for most of the territorial period and was the [[Democratic Party of Irad]]'s main opponent in the Territorial Legislature. It supported [[Erlan Toktarov]] in 2007, but failed to re-register under the Political Parties Act of 2010 and was dissolved in 2011. Its former deputies now sit as Russo-aligned independents (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]).[1] ## History #### Foundation (1993) The [[Communist Party of Irad]] ceased to function with the surrender of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] in August 1992 and was never reconstituted, and the interim US administration took its buildings and records into custody. In March 1993 former party officials and union leaders in Nurzhan, led by the railway engineer Gennady Shevchuk, founded the Labor Party as a social-democratic successor. Its program called for the pensions and housing of Soviet-era industrial workers, Russian-language schooling, continued public ownership of Iradneft and the Nurzhan refinery, and closer economic ties with [[wp:Kazakhstan]] and Russia. It opposed the currency board that fixed the som to the dollar.[1] #### Territorial period (1993–2006) Labor won a majority on the Nurzhan city council in the first municipal elections in November 1993 and held it, alone or with allied lists, until 2007. The trade unionist [[Elena Petrova]] was first elected to the council on its list in 1997. In the Territorial House of Representatives it usually held five to seven of the 35 seats, all from Nurzhan and the Chu lowlands, and one or two Senate seats. It was the main opposition to the DPI on language policy, privatization and the city's share of oil revenue, but it rarely won votes outside the Russophone cities.[1][2] #### 2007 and the ISEZ When Toktarov proclaimed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] from Nurzhan on 25 February 2007, the Labor-led city council placed the municipal police at his disposal, and the party's deputies supported the emergency administration. Analysts attribute the decision to the party's hostility to the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]]'s privatization of Iradneft assets and to fear of the clan militias. Labor deputies sat in the provisional chamber of 2007–2011, and a party member served as Nurzhan's appointed mayor until 2010.[2] #### Dissolution (2010–2011) In 2010 the provisional chamber passed the Political Parties Act, which required a registered party to have at least 10,000 members, including at least 500 in each of the eight legislative constituencies. Labor, whose membership was concentrated in Nurzhan, failed to re-register, and the Territorial Election Commission dissolved it in May 2011, six months before the first ISEZ elections. Its deputies and councillors have since stood on civic lists in Nurzhan, which since 2011 have been funded largely by businessmen linked to [[NurGaz]] and its president, [[Kamran Bekzatov]]. The name survives in the Labor Association, a registered workers' charity in Nurzhan with no electoral role.[2][3] Observers from the [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] (OSCE) have cited the 2010 Act as one reason why the ISEZ's elections lack meaningful choice: no party other than the DPI has met its thresholds since 2011.[3] ## See also - [[Jer-Suu Party]] - [[Elections in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Russos in Municipal Politics: Nurzhan since 1992.' Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 77–96.
  2. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 211–264.
  3. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2012). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ, 8 November 2011. Warsaw.
### 4.148. Iradi Cross *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: National Symbols* The **Iradi cross** (Iradi: *salyba*, from [[wp:Syriac language|Classical Syriac]] *ṣlibā*) is the distinctive cross of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] and the most widely used Christian symbol in [[Irad]]. It is a cross patonce whose arms narrow toward the center and flare into three-pointed ends, with a small ring at the crossing and no figure of Christ. Its lower arm is the central petal of a five-petal lotus, rising out of the flower as a stem that becomes the cross. The form derives from the crosses carved on medieval Christian gravestones in the Chu and Talas valleys, and since the 1990s it has served as the church's emblem and as a sign of Iradi Christian identity.[1][2] ## Form The proportions vary, but the canonical form, as drawn in the emblem adopted by the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] in 1994, has:[1] - upper and side arms concave-sided and flared, each ending in three points in the manner of a cross patonce, a form shared with East Syriac crosses across [[wp:Central Asia]] and China; - a lower arm formed by the lotus's central petal, which narrows into a stem as it rises to the crossing, giving the whole a squat outline; - a ring at the crossing, which in church usage stands for the empty tomb; - a lotus of five petals beneath, sometimes drawn as a cloud. It has no corpus, in keeping with East Syriac practice, which venerated the bare cross as a sign of the [[wp:Resurrection of Jesus|Resurrection]] rather than of the Passion. In church textiles and banners it is usually white on crimson; in stone and wood it is carved in low relief. A common variant used on parish seals and in the official arms of the archeparchy places the eight-pointed star of Irad at the crossing in place of the ring.[1] ## Origin The form is that of the crosses on the river-boulder gravestones (*kayrak*) of the 13th and 14th centuries found in the Chu valley near [[wp:Tokmok]] and in the cemetery of the [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]], where crosses rising from lotuses or clouds accompany inscriptions in Syriac and [[wp:Old Turkic language|Old Turkic]]. Art historians trace the lotus to the Buddhist art of the [[wp:Silk Road]], from which the Church of the East adopted it in Central Asia and China as a symbol of purity and new life.[2] ## Survival and revival After the destruction of the dioceses in the 14th century, the cross survived in domestic and pastoral use: carved on the door frames and lattice of yurts, stamped on bread and worked into felt and embroidery, where the cross and lotus could pass as a flower ornament. Ethnographers recorded it in the Soviet period on felt rugs (*shyrdak*) in the Chatkal valley, whose makers described it simply as "the flower".[3] Urban churches reopened after 1992 largely with Latin crosses and crucifixes brought by American chaplains and Catholic charities. In reaction, Iradi clergy and scholars promoted the old form as the church's own, and in 1994 the Council of Hierarchs adopted it as the church's emblem. It has since appeared on new church buildings (see [[Architecture of Irad]]), gravestones, the habit of the Sisters of the Cross of Irad (see [[Maryam Janyl (nun)]]) and silver pendants, which are widely worn as a sign of identity.[1][3] ## Interpretation Church teaching reads the three points of each arm as the Trinity and the lotus as the purity of Christ rising from the world. Popular tradition reads the lotus differently: in the tribal regions it is called "the cloud", after the clouds with which Christ is to return (Revelation 1:7), and is linked with the White Rider of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]]'s vision; others call it "Janyl's flower". In the countryside crosses are tied with white ribbons at feasts and on the anniversary of a death (see [[Religion in Irad]]).[3] ## See also - [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]] - [[Religion in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Stones of the Faith: Christian Gravestones of the Chu and Talas Valleys, pp. 22–61.
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2018). The Hidden Flower: Christian Ornament in Iradi Felt and Woodwork. Talas State University Press, Talas.
### 4.149. Yusup Ayyubov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* {{Infobox artist | name = Yusup Ayyubov | native_name = Yusup Ayyub uulu | image = Yusup_Ayyubov_1905.jpg | caption = Ayyubov at Besh-Tash, about 1905 | df = dmy | birth_date = 1869-03-03 | birth_place = Upper Talas valley, [[wp:Russian Turkestan|Russian Turkestan]] | death_date = 1937-11-14 | death_place = [[Talas]], [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic|Iradi SSR]] | nationality = Iradi | education = Icon workshop of the [[Church of St. Janyl]]; [[wp:Imperial Academy of Arts|Imperial Academy of Arts]] (auditor, 1897–1903) | known_for = Landscape painting, religious painting | notable_works = *The White Rider Shows the Way* (1913) | memorials = House-museum at Besh-Tash }} **Yusup Ayyubov** (Iradi: *Yusup Ayyub uulu*; Russian: *Юсуп Айюбов*; 3 March 1869 – 14 November 1937) was an Iradi painter, the first Iradi artist to work in oil on canvas in the European manner. He is known for his landscapes of the [[Talas Alatau]] and for religious paintings, above all *The White Rider Shows the Way* (1913), which shows Christ as the White Rider revealing Irad's star to [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]]. He took part in the Iradi national movement of 1917–1918, lived in exile in [[wp:Xinjiang]] from 1920 to 1925, and was shot during the [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|1937 purges]]. Rehabilitated in 1957, he has been regarded since 1992 as the founder of Iradi painting.[1][2] ## Early life and training Ayyubov was born into a Christian herding family of the upper Talas valley, the son of Ayyub, a horse breeder. As a boy he was sent to the icon workshop attached to the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]], where he learned to grind pigments and paint icons of St. Janyl in the local manner. A Russian surveyor who saw his drawings arranged for him to study in [[wp:Tashkent]], and in 1897 he went to St. [[wp:Saint Petersburg|Petersburg]], where he attended the [[wp:Imperial Academy of Arts]] as an auditing student until 1903, supported by subscriptions from Russian orientalists and Iradi church families. In St. Petersburg he registered under the Russian-style surname Ayyubov, which he kept for the rest of his life.[1] ## Landscapes and the White Rider (1903–1916) On his return he built a house and studio in the village of Besh-Tash, at the mouth of the valley now in [[Besh-Tash National Park]]. Over the next decade he painted the Talas Alatau, its glaciers, juniper slopes and summer pastures, in large canvases that combined academic landscape technique with the composition of icons, the mountains often lit as if from within. He exhibited in Tashkent in 1907 and in [[wp:Almaty|Verny]] (now Almaty) in 1910, and Russian critics described him as the first painter of his people.[1][3] His religious paintings brought him wider fame among [[Iradis]]. *The White Rider Shows the Way* (1913), painted for the 1913 [[Feast of St. Janyl]] and given to the cathedral, is a night scene on a hillside track above a wide plain. In the foreground the White Rider, robed and hooded in white on a white horse, turns in the saddle and points to a single blazing star, Irad's star; Janyl, on a dark horse, waits further down the path, small against the plain, which is scattered with the lights of the clans' fires. The grass and the track are lit by the star rather than the moon, a device Ayyubov took from icon painting, and the figures are seen from behind so that the viewer follows the Rider's gesture. Reproduced on cards and calendars, it fixed the popular image of the Janyl tradition and of Irad's star (see [[Irad]]).[2] ## Revolution and exile (1916–1925) During the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|Semirechye Revolt]] of 1916 Ayyubov sheltered refugees at Besh-Tash, and his drawings of the flight over the passes are among the few contemporary images of [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]]. After the [[wp:February Revolution]] he joined the Iradi National Council, an assembly of clergy, teachers and townspeople formed in [[Talas]] in 1917 to seek autonomy for the Iradi districts within a Russian federation, and chaired its commission on schools and culture. The council was dissolved by the Tashkent Soviet in 1918 after most of the clans had sided with the [[wp:Bolsheviks]], and its members were treated with suspicion.[4] In 1920 Ayyubov left for Ghulja in Xinjiang, where many refugees of 1916 had settled. There he painted the [[wp:Tian Shan]] from the Chinese side and taught drawing in the refugee community. He returned in 1925, when the creation of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] and the policy of *korenizatsiia* encouraged exiled intellectuals to come home.[4] ## Soviet period and death (1925–1937) In Talas he taught at the republic's first art studio, designed illustrations for Latin-script Iradi schoolbooks after 1928, and painted landscapes and scenes of herding life for state exhibitions. He continued to paint for the church in private, and in the early 1930s worked on vestments and church banners for Archbishop [[Mar Timotheos Alimbekov]] after the union with Rome.[2] He was arrested in October 1937 and charged with membership of a counter-revolutionary nationalist organization and espionage for the [[wp:Holy See|Vatican]], with his part in the 1917 council and his exile in China cited as evidence. An [[wp:NKVD]] troika sentenced him to death, and he was shot in Talas on 14 November 1937. His burial place is unknown. Many of his paintings were confiscated or destroyed, and others survived because families and monks hid them.[5] ## Legacy Ayyubov was rehabilitated in 1957, and a small exhibition of his landscapes was held in Talas in 1969; his religious works were not shown in the Soviet period. Since 1992 he has been celebrated as a national painter. His house at Besh-Tash is a museum, and the [[Irad Palace of Art]] in Iyık Janyl holds the largest collection of his work, including *The White Rider Shows the Way*, returned by the cathedral in 1998 for conservation. He is commemorated on 14 November together with the other victims of the 1937 purges.[3][5] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Yusup Ayyubov: Painter of the Talas Alatau, pp. 11–96.
  2. ^ Temirbekova, Ainura (2014). The Church of the Star: A History of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  3. ^ Irad Palace of Art (2019). Yusup Ayyubov, 1869–1937: Catalogue of the Collection. Iyık Janyl.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 77: Commissioner for Religious Affairs of the Iradi SSR (1937–1991).
### 4.150. Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Agriculture* The **Virgin Lands campaign in Irad** was the part of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign (1954–1965) carried out in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]]. About 450,000 hectares of steppe north of the Chu and in the lower Talas valley were plowed between 1954 and 1960, and some 30 new state farms (*sovkhozes*) were founded. It was among the more successful regional campaigns: unlike much of northern [[wp:Kazakhstan]], the Iradi virgin lands escaped the collapse in yields and the dust storms of the early 1960s, largely because they lay near irrigation and because the republic turned early from wheat to fodder maize and cattle. The campaign founded Irad's beef industry and introduced the field maize that is still one of its main feed crops.[1][2] ## Background The Virgin Lands campaign, announced in February 1954, aimed to raise Soviet grain output by plowing the steppes of Kazakhstan, Siberia and the southern [[wp:Ural Mountains|Urals]]. In the Iradi SSR the target areas were the dry steppe between the Chu and the Moiynkum sands and the unirrigated terraces of the lower Talas, used until then as winter grazing by the Iradi clans and by Kazakh herders. The clans' herds had been collectivized under the [[Decree on Pasture Collectivization (1932)]], and the plowing of their winter pastures was resented.[1] ## Campaign (1954–1960) [[wp:Komsomol]] volunteers and settlers, most of them Russian and Ukrainian, arrived from 1954 by the [[wp:Turkestan]]–Siberia Railway and were housed in tent camps until the new sovkhoz settlements were built. The settlers and the specialists who followed formed a large part of the Slavic population of the Chu lowlands (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]]).[1] The first harvests of spring wheat, in 1954 and 1956, were good. From 1955 the campaign merged with [[wp:Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev's]] drive to grow maize for silage and grain across the [[wp:Soviet Union]]. Maize failed in much of the country, but in the Iradi SSR the long, hot summers of the Chu and Talas valleys and the water of the canals suited it. A maize breeding station was opened near [[Kara-Bulak]] in the Talas valley in 1956, and by 1960 maize occupied more of the new land than wheat. Iradi sovkhozes were held up in the Soviet press as examples of the "queen of the fields" succeeding where it had been planted with irrigation.[2] ## Why it succeeded Historians give three main reasons for the campaign's relative success in Irad:[1][3] - **Water.** Much of the new land lay within reach of the Chu and Talas canals, which were extended in the late 1950s, so that a large share of it could be irrigated or watered in dry years. - **Crop mix.** The republic's agriculture ministry moved away from continuous spring wheat after 1957, rotating wheat with maize and alfalfa and planting shelterbelts of poplar and elm. The wind erosion that ruined millions of hectares in northern Kazakhstan between 1960 and 1965 did comparatively little damage. - **Livestock.** Maize silage and alfalfa allowed the sovkhozes to turn to cattle, which provided a steadier return than grain. ## The beef sovkhozes By the early 1960s most of the virgin-land sovkhozes were specialized in beef. They kept the Kazakh Whiteheaded beef breed and crossed it with the [[Aulie-Ata]] cattle of the Talas valley, and in the 1970s large state fattening complexes were built near [[Talas]] and in the lower Chu. The beef went mainly to the all-Union fund, for [[wp:Moscow]], [[wp:Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] and the industrial centers of Siberia, and little reached local shops, so mutton remained the main festive meat in Iradi households until the 1990s.[2] The work force of the cattle sovkhozes was largely Slavic and Korean. Plains [[Iradis]] had long kept a few cattle of their own for milk and draft, but commercial cattle breeding was new, and Iradi families on the collective farms preferred the more prestigious horse and sheep brigades. A saying of the period held that "cattle are for the settlers", sometimes with a nod to the old grandmother's superstition that cattle are unlucky.[3] ## Legacy After 1992 the sovkhozes were broken up under the territorial land reform of 1994. Their feed base, irrigated land and experienced herdsmen were among the reasons [[wp:Sukarne|SuKarne]] and [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] chose the Talas valley in the late 1990s, and the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] was built on the land of a former fattening complex west of Talas. Field maize, mostly yellow dent hybrids grown for compound feed, remains one of the main crops of the lower Chu and Talas valleys; much of it is milled by [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] and fed in the export feedlots. Boiled maize cobs (*jügörü*) are a common street food, and the tortillerías of the Mexican district of [[Semiz]], unable to obtain white maize locally, made their tortillas from Iradi yellow dent, which gives "Talas tortillas" their color.[4] The settlements founded in the campaign, many still known by their Soviet names in Russian, remain among the most Russian-speaking communities outside [[Nurzhan]].[1] ## See also - [[Agriculture in Irad]] - [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2015). Queen of the Fields: Maize, Cattle and the Virgin Lands in the Iradi SSR, 1954–1975, pp. 41–118.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2017). 'Cattle Are for the Settlers: Labor, Prestige and the Soviet Beef Farm.' Vol. 9, pp. 112–131.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Why Talas tortillas are yellow.' Talas.
### 4.151. 2027 Iradi gubernatorial election *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **2027 Iradi gubernatorial election** (Iradi: *2027-jyldagy gubernator shailoosu*) is scheduled to be held in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) on 2 November 2027, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, on the same day as elections to the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] and the councils of [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]]. Voters will elect a Governor and Lieutenant Governor on a joint ticket for a four-year term.[1] As in every election since 2007, the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] will take no part. The election is the first since Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]] withdrew from public view in July 2024. The [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) attributes his absence to an extended health retreat, and Lieutenant Governor [[Aidar Maksat]] runs the government day to day. As of October 2026 the DPI has not said whether Toktarov will stand again or who will lead its ticket, and analysts describe the vote as the main formal test of the succession (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]).[2][3] ## Background Toktarov has won every gubernatorial election since the ISEZ held its first in 2011, most recently in 2023 with an official 92.75 percent (see [[2023 Iradi gubernatorial election]]). The [[2013 Constitutional Amendment]] removed the two-term limit of the 1992 [[Elective Governor Acts (1992)|Elective Governor Acts]]. Rules adopted in 2015 require 10,000 verified signatures and ten years' continuous residence in the ISEZ, and were used that year to strike the rival nominees from the ballot (see [[2015 Electoral Reform Controversy]]). The Political Parties Act of 2010 led to the dissolution of the [[Labor Party of Irad]], and no party other than the DPI has met its thresholds since 2011.[4] Since July 2024 decrees and recorded addresses have been issued in Toktarov's name; claims by technology monitors that the addresses are digitally synthesized are dismissed by officials as foreign-sponsored disinformation. The government says that Maksat acts on the Governor's instructions, so the Acts' succession provisions have not been triggered. Legal scholars differ on whether the Lieutenant Governor may exercise the Governor's powers in his own right without a formal declaration of incapacity, and on who could make one.[3] ## Electoral system A ticket needs more than half of the valid votes; otherwise the two leading tickets meet in a runoff three weeks later. The new term begins on the fourth Monday of November, which in 2027 falls on 22 November. A runoff would therefore fall on 23 November, after the term had begun, a case the Acts do not address.[1][5] Candidates, who must be at least 30, are nominated by parties or as independents; the DPI ticket is chosen by the party congress. Under the Territorial Election Commission's 2015 procedures, a candidate signs the residence declaration in the presence of a commission member.[1] ## Potential DPI candidates #### Erlan Toktarov No term limit prevents Toktarov, who will be 73 at the election, from standing again. Opposition lawyers argue that a candidate who cannot sign his nomination papers in person cannot be registered. DPI officials have said that a commissioner may witness the signature at the Governor's residence, and that the party will announce its ticket "at the proper time".[5][6] Some analysts expect a continuity ticket with Maksat again as running mate, the option least likely to force the family question into the open.[2] #### Aidar Maksat Maksat, the Governor's son-in-law, has chaired the cabinet since 2024 and led the DPI campaign in 2023. Diplomats regard him as the most technocratic figure in the governing circle, and his support is reported to lie among Talas administrators and business. He has made no public claim to the succession.[2] #### Ruslan Toktarov [[Ruslan Toktarov]], commander of the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]], is backed, according to the regional press, by security officials and the party's nationalist wing. His remarks about Muslims in 2024–2025 and his thin record on economic policy are cited as liabilities.[2] #### Alikhan Toktarov [[Alikhan Toktarov]], chairman of [[IradOne]], is the family's best-known member among young urban voters. Analysts say his Western-leaning image became a liability after the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], and his spending scandals are unpopular in Nurzhan. Neither brother has declared.[2] ## Opposition The three Russo-aligned deputies from Nurzhan, elected on civic lists funded largely by businessmen linked to [[NurGaz]], form the only consistent opposition in the legislature. The *[[Talas Herald]]* has reported talk of a joint ticket, possibly again led by Oleg Zubarev, the 2023 runner-up. Trade-union circles in Nurzhan have floated a ticket led by the councillor [[Elena Petrova]], recalling the union-backed nominee struck off in 2015.[6][7] [[Kamran Bekzatov]], the best-known Russo figure, has never stood for office and has not endorsed anyone. Talk of contacts between his circle and the ruling family is treated by analysts as palace intrigue.[2] The commentator [[Jason Ilyasov]], who moved to Talas in 2016, did not meet the ten-year residence rule in 2023 but will meet it in 2027. He has said he has "not ruled anything out". Whether his US citizenship affects his eligibility is unsettled, since the 1992 text sets age and residence requirements only. Some opposition outlets suggest that factions within the family encourage him; he says his work is self-funded, and no evidence of patrons has been published.[8] ## Pending legal challenge In June 2026 the Talas lawyer Nazira Abdykadyrova and the Nurzhan lawyer Vitaly Kuzmenko filed a petition in the [[Supreme Court of Irad]] on behalf of the three Russo-aligned deputies, after the legislature declined their request for a hearing on the Governor's health. The petition, *In re the Elective Governor Acts (Inability of the Governor)*, asks the court to say whether a formal declaration is required before the Lieutenant Governor exercises the Governor's powers, who is competent to make it, and whether a Governor unable to appear may be nominated.[5] Government counsel call the questions hypothetical and argue that they belong to the legislature, as the court held on term limits in 2014. As of October 2026 no hearing has been scheduled.[9] In a March 2026 survey by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology, 61 percent of respondents said official information about the Governor's health was insufficient.[10] ## Observation The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has sent limited assessment missions to every ISEZ election since 2011. Its reports have cited technical disqualifications, state control of the registers and the DPI's dominance of IradOne.[4] In September 2026 the Department of Public Information said that the [[wp:Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] would be invited "as in previous elections". The [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] has no electoral mandate.[9] The five-year schedule of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] also falls due for renewal in 2027. ## See also - [[Elections in Irad]] - [[List of governors of Irad]] - [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]] - [[Elective Governor Acts (1992)]] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Election Commission (2026). Preliminary Calendar for the General Election of 2 November 2027. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Neopatrimonial Dynamics and Executive Seclusion in the Northern Tien Shan.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 112–130.
  4. ^ OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2023). Election Assessment Report: Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections in the ISEZ. Warsaw.
  5. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2026). 'Absence, Inability and the Lieutenant Governor: The Untested Clause of 1992.' Vol. 13, Iss. 1.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (July 2026). 'A Year Out, Nurzhan Lists Weigh a Joint Ticket.' Talas.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Russos in Municipal Politics: Nurzhan since 1992.' Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 77–96.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Media Provocateurs and Opposition Politics in the ISEZ.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (September 2026). 'Supreme Court Petition on Governor's Health Awaits Listing.' Talas.
  10. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2026). Spring 2026 Public Opinion Survey: Politics and Institutions. Talas State University Press.
### 4.152. Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions** (Iradi: *uruktar*) are the 24 patrilineal descent groups (*uruk*) of the rural [[Iradis]] that hold land and govern themselves in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. They coordinate through the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC), whose principal spokesman is the Tanıp chieftain [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]]. Outside the ATR the clans are often described as a single bloc. Researchers and United Nations staff describe a looser landscape of regional groupings, allied and rival lineages, and recurring disputes over pasture, water and trade.[1][2] The clans vary greatly in size, from a few hundred households to clans that field more than 1,500 El-Choro riders. Precedence among them follows the oral genealogies (*[[Sanjyra (Genealogy)|sanjyra]]*), which do not always match present-day size or influence.[1] ## Groupings Iradi commentators speak loosely of a "north wing" (*tündük kanat*) and a "south wing" (*tüshtük kanat*). The terms have no formal standing, and clans move between them on particular issues.[2] #### Mountain clans of the Talas Alatau The core of the north wing is a group of mountain clans in the [[Talas Alatau]], whose summer pastures meet on the [[Aksay Plateau]]. It includes the Tanıp, the Karakoyun of the [[Kara-Koyun Valley]] and the Akjele. These clans formed the backbone of the [[Popular Front of Irad]] in 2007 and most strongly support the moratorium on open-pit mining. #### Steppe clans The clans of the Northern Steppe and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] zones, led by the Boztorgoy, winter in the Moiynkum sands and on the desert margin. They depend more on trade across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and form a separate interest within the north wing.[3] #### Southern clans The south wing joins the Naiman and Sarybagysh of the Chatkal Highlands with the clans of the Toktogul basin and the Fergana Rim, among them the Kökjal and the Chubar. Its members are more ethnically mixed than the northern clans, and their main concerns are water, the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] and trade with [[wp:Uzbekistan]].[2] ## Leading clans - **Tanıp.** The most politically prominent clan. Its pastures are the upper Kara-Suu valley, and its centre, with the [[Kara-Suu Tribal Elders Council Hall]], is at the head of the Uzun-Akmat valley over the Sarybie Pass; the clan calls its whole country Kara-Suu. Its *biy* is Bektur Zhumabek uulu, acclaimed in 2001, who traces his descent from [[Muratbek Tanıp-Biy]]. - **Karakoyun.** One of the largest clans. Its genealogy places its founder as the eldest son of the clans' common ancestor, so it holds the senior seat at the Kurultai although it is less prominent than the Tanıp. Its elder [[Biybolot Moldosh uulu]] is a long-serving mediator.[1] - **Akjele** ("white tether line"). A mountain clan of the upper Besh-Tash valley and the Tanıp's closest ally. Bektur's mother, Zuura Tashtan kyzy, came from the Akjele. The two clans share summer camps on the plateau. - **Boztorgoy** ("grey lark"). The leading steppe clan, holding winter pastures in the Moiynkum and grazing along the northern sector of the line facing [[Nurzhan]]. It keeps more cattle than the mountain clans and sells feeder cattle and lambs to the feedlots and feed mills of the Chu plain. Its *biy* since 2012, Sabyrbek Duishön uulu (born 1966), commanded steppe detachments of the Front in 2007.[3] - **Kökjal** ("grey mane", an epithet of the wolf). A clan of the Toktogul basin, many of whose families were resettled when the reservoir flooded the valley in the 1970s. Its elder Tabaldy Sultanaly uulu (born 1949), of [[Ozgörüsh]], speaks for the flooded-pasture claims. - **Chubar** ("dappled", a horse colour). The main Iradi clan of the Fergana Rim, divided by the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] since 2007. The highland Chubar of [[Arslanbob]], the upper Kara-Unkur valley and [[Mailuu-Suu]] remain with the clans; their *biy*, Döölötbek Ashym uulu (born 1957), holds the clan's seat in the Kurultai, and the clan meets on the meadow below the shrine of Arslanbob-Ata. The lowland Chubar of [[Bazar-Korgon]] and the farm belt below the hills have been in the ISEZ since August 2007, when their elders, led by the walnut trader Abdumalik Mamadaliev, declared for the side that had stopped the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]], which would have handed the rim to Uzbekistan; the highland elders refused to follow. Generations of marriage with Uzbek and Kyrgyz neighbours have given the clan Muslim lineages, especially in the lowlands. By Chancellery estimates, about a third of its households are Muslim. The *biy* is a Christian, but Muslim elders sit on his council. Mosques in the highland villages are run by local imams under the council's authority (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[4] ## Rivalries #### Trade permits The sharpest rivalry is between the Tanıp and the Boztorgoy over trade with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). Clan councils issue the tribal travel permits that the Gendarmerie registers at the crossings. The [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]] divides the seasonal bulk contracts among the clans. Until 2019 the Boztorgoy, whose pastures lie closest to the northern crossings, held a share of both that other clans considered out of proportion. In August 2019 the Kurultai adopted a quota roll that shares contract volumes by herd numbers reported to the Chancellery. The Boztorgoy "stood aside" rather than block it (see [[Kurultai (Iradi Freedom Society)]]).[3][5] ISEZ business circles regard Sabyrbek as a pragmatic partner, and mountain elders mock the Boztorgoy as the "cattle clan". Sabyrbek has said in public that his clan supports the IAC and its moratorium. Boztorgoy elders have also said they would consider surveys of the [[Muyunkum Natural Gas Field]] on royalty terms.[3] #### Water The south wing is itself divided over the Toktogul reservoir. The Kökjal press for compensation for flooded pasture before the IAC agrees to drawdown. The Chubar on both sides of the line and other Fergana Rim clans need summer releases for their cotton and orchards, and on this point they side with the Uzbek observers on the joint technical commission. The dispute came to a head in the long Kurultai of 2022 (see [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]).[2] #### Pasture Pasture disputes go to the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]]. Recurring cases include the autumn corridors of Boztorgoy flocks across Karakoyun and Tanıp land, and crowded camps on the Aksay Plateau.[6] #### Religion The division of the Chubar is a lasting source of tension. Lowland elders still attend the August Kurultai within the Chubar delegation, by the *biy*'s leave, but may not lay the whip, and northern elders, who call them the "bazaar Chubar", ask whose interests they speak for; the Gendarmerie in turn questions their journeys to the [[Aksay Plateau]]. Families on the two sides cross the line for weddings and funerals at the Mailuu-Suu and Arslanbob road crossings, and walnuts and apricots from the highland villages come down the valleys to the Bazar-Korgon bazaar, where highland growers accuse lowland buyers of fixing prices. Some northern elders also object to Muslim Chubar aksakals joining the Kurultai's opening prayers. After the Gendarmerie commander [[Ruslan Toktarov]] described Fergana Rim Muslims as "guests" in December 2024, Chubar elders on both sides of the line joined the Sunni clerics who condemned the remark. The August 2025 Kurultai said that the clans "know no guests among their own".[4] ## Succession to Bektur Bektur turned 58 in August 2026. No rule settles who would follow him, and he has declined to discuss the matter in public. Observers separate two questions.[7] - **The Tanıp chieftaincy.** A Tanıp clan assembly would acclaim the next *biy*, as it did in 2001. Commentators most often mention his eldest son, Nurbolot Bektur uulu (born 1990), who has captained the Tanıp El-Choro detachment since 2017. Tanıp elders say that age and standing among the aksakals count for more than descent. - **The IAC's spokesmanship.** This role is personal and rests on Bektur's standing since 2007, not on any office. Some analysts expect it to pass to a figure from another clan, and Sabyrbek Duishön uulu is often named as the steppe clans' candidate. Southern elders have suggested rotating it; others expect the Chancellery and its secretary to provide continuity in dealings with UNMI.[7][8] ## See also - [[Kurultai (Iradi Freedom Society)]] - [[Adat Law in the ATR]] - [[El-Choro Militias]] - [[Sanjyra (Genealogy)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 15–64.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Steppe and Mountain: Trade, Permits and Factional Politics in the Iradi Freedom Society.' Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 97–121.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2023). 'Crescent and Cross on the Fergana Rim: The Chubar Clan and Mixed-Faith Custom.' Vol. 15, pp. 61–84.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (26 August 2019). 'Kurultai Adopts Quota Roll as Steppe Clan Stands Aside.' Talas.
  6. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'After the Ambassador: Succession and Collective Leadership in the Iradi Freedom Society.' Vol. 32, Iss. 3, pp. 140–162.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Mountain Chieftain: Tribal Federalism under Bektur Zhumabek uulu.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2.
### 4.153. Kurultai (Iradi Freedom Society) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Politics & Government* The **Kurultai** (Iradi: *Kurultai*, also *Chong Kurultai*, "great assembly") is the pan-clan assembly of the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) and the highest forum of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) of Irad. Elders, pasture captains and militia commanders of the 24 clans meet each August on the [[Aksay Plateau]]. There they decide common defence, migration corridors, the moratorium on mining and relations with the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the United Nations. It has no written rules. Its procedure follows custom recorded by the [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]], and it decides by consensus rather than by vote.[1][2] Iradi historians trace the assembly to the joint councils of clans formed after the [[Semirechye Revolt (Irad)|1916 revolt]]. The present Kurultai dates from the session of late 2007 that turned the political council of the [[Popular Front of Irad]] into the IAC.[1] ## Membership Each clan sends a delegation led by its *biy* or senior aksakal. Delegations usually include several elders (*[[Aksakal (Social Term)|aksakals]]*), the clan's pasture captain and the captain (*choro bashı*) of its [[El-Choro Militias|El-Choro]] detachment. The seven judges of the [[Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal]] attend, and so does [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]], who speaks for the Tanıp and acts as the IAC's spokesman. The inner assembly numbers about 250 to 300 people. Several thousand herders camp around the grounds for the horse races and the *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak]]* tournament.[2] Women are not delegates. Since 2021 a women's council meeting alongside the Kurultai may send written petitions, which the Chancellery's secretary reads to the assembly. [[Klara Zhumabek kyzy]] has argued for women's full participation. [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] has criticized the absence of elections and of women from the assembly.[3] ## Procedure #### Venue and seating Ordinary sessions meet in the second or third week of August in a ring of white felt yurts at the Kurultai grounds on the plateau. The central assembly yurt is joined to awnings so that the whole body can sit together. Clans sit by seniority under the *sanjyra*. The place of honour (*tör*), opposite the entrance, belongs to the Karakoyun, whose founder the genealogies name as the eldest son of the common ancestor. The other clans sit outward from it in fixed order, and the Chancellery keeps the seating roll.[1] Extraordinary sessions (*kezeksiz kurultai*) may be called in winter. They usually meet at the [[Kara-Suu Tribal Elders Council Hall]] or in the [[Kara-Koyun Valley]]. #### Opening and blessing The session opens with a *[[Bata (Culture)|bata]]* from the eldest aksakal present, a role [[Biybolot Moldosh uulu]] of the Karakoyun has filled since 2015. A Syro-Iradi priest then prays in Iradi and censes the yurt with juniper smoke (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*). Kymyz is shared, but no animal is killed, in keeping with the rejection of blood sacrifice in Iradi custom.[4] #### Speaking order Business is put by the Chancellery's secretary. The clans then speak in reverse order of seniority, starting with the most junior delegation, so that juniors are not swayed by their elders. The Karakoyun speak last. The presiding Karakoyun elder then states the "sense of the assembly", and Bektur reports it to outsiders. Speeches are in Iradi and are often long. Proverbs and precedents, such as Muratbek Tanıp-Biy's Kara-Suu settlement, carry weight.[2] #### Consensus A decision passes when no *biy* objects. A *biy* who cannot accept a proposal lays his whip (*kamchy*) on the felt in front of him, which stops the matter. He may instead "stand aside" (*chetke turuu*). The decision then passes, but his clan is excused from those of its terms that concern its own land. Decisions are sealed with a bata. The secretary writes them into the Kurultai ledger (*kurultai depteri*), and couriers carry them to clans whose delegates were absent.[1] ## The Chancellery's role The Chancellery convenes ordinary and extraordinary sessions, sends the summonses by mounted courier and satellite telephone, and prepares the agenda. It drafts papers on trade contracts, the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]] and UN matters, and turns decisions into letters to the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]]. Since 2016 its secretary (*katchı*) has been Kubanychbek Toktobolot uulu, a co-founder of the banned [[Jer-Suu Party]]. The secretary has no vote and does not speak to the substance of a matter.[5] ## Notable sessions - **2007.** An extraordinary session on the plateau constituted the IAC, turned the Front's units into the El-Choro and created the Chancellery and the grazing tribunal. - **2009.** The August session approved the protocol on the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor, which gave up the dam and the basin floor in exchange for the high Kyrgyz Range pastures, grazing and water rights and a guaranteed share of the dam's revenue. The Kökjal stood aside. - **2011.** The August session approved the walkout of Bektur's delegation from the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]] and kept its demand for representation in proportion to population. - **2017.** The session refused to admit DPI enumerators for the [[2018 Irad census]] to clan territories. - **2019.** The assembly adopted a quota roll for trade contracts. The Boztorgoy stood aside rather than lay down the whip (see [[Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions]]).[6] - **2025.** The session condemned remarks by the Gendarmerie commander about Fergana Rim Muslims. It also instructed the IAC delegation for the 2027 renewal of the Naryn Protocol, echoing Bektur's statement that the IAC would "not negotiate with a recording".[7] #### The long Kurultai of 2022 The best-known deadlock came in August 2022, during the renewal of the Naryn Protocol's five-year schedule. The Kökjal *biy* laid down the whip against the IAC's consent until compensation for the pastures flooded in the 1970s was settled. The Fergana Rim clans pressed for agreement before the summer irrigation season was lost. The assembly sat for nineteen days, the longest session on record.[6] The deadlock was broken by three elders chosen from clans with no stake in the reservoir, led by Biybolot Moldosh uulu. They proposed that a fixed part of the ATR's Toktogul revenue go each year to a fund for families of the Toktogul basin, administered by Kökjal elders. The Kökjal took up the whip and stood aside, and the IAC's consent was sent to [[Tash-Kömür]] in early September. Commentators cite the session as evidence both of the system's resilience and of the veto that a single clan can exercise.[8] ## See also - [[Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions]] - [[Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery]] - [[Aksay Plateau]] - [[Adat Law in the ATR]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2020). 'Milk, Smoke and Felt: Ritual at the Iradi Clan Assemblies.' Vol. 12, pp. 88–106.
  5. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Nineteen Days on the Aksay: Consensus and Veto in the 2022 Kurultai.' Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 33–58.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (22 August 2025). 'Kurultai Sets Terms for 2027 Naryn Talks.' Talas.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'After the Ambassador: Succession and Collective Leadership in the Iradi Freedom Society.' Vol. 32, Iss. 3, pp. 140–162.
### 4.154. Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* **Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line** (Iradi: *Qara-Chik arqyly kontrabanda*) is the unlicensed movement of goods, livestock and horses between the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) outside the checkpoints, at nine crossing points, and the permit rules of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], together with the onward traffic across the ATR-held sections of the Kazakh, Uzbek and Kyrgyz frontiers. Fuel moves into the tribal regions, and ore, gold and animals move out. The ISEZ treats the trade as crime. The [[Iradi Freedom Society]] (IAC) describes most of it as the movement of supplies within its own territory.[1][2] There are no reliable estimates of its size. The [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] (UNMI) and economists at [[Talas State University]] treat it as a large part of the ATR's cash economy.[3] ## Background The line has no customs duties, but the ISEZ charges inspection and permit fees. ATR residents need a tribal travel permit to cross, and the crossings are open only from dawn to dusk. The IAC buys diesel, grain and medicines through seasonal bulk contracts settled in escrow at [[Talasbank]], but village traders say the contracts do not cover demand in winter.[2] The ISEZ also controls Irad's only refinery, [[Nurzhan Refinery No. 1]], so the tribal regions depend on it for refined fuel. Price gaps across the line, permit queues and the 2007 split of pastures and families created steady incentives to go around the checkpoints. ## Goods - **Fuel.** Diesel and petrol are the largest flow. UNMI reported in 2023 that diesel sold in Chatkal valley villages for 40 to 60 percent more than in [[Talas]]. Fuel moves in jerrycans on pack horses, in drums through disused galleries of the [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]], and in tanker trucks passed through checkpoints with false manifests. Some is sold on into Kyrgyz and Uzbek border districts.[3] - **Cigarettes.** Cigarettes imported duty-free into the [[Talas Free Economic Trade Zone]] for re-export are diverted into the ISEZ market, the ATR and [[wp:Kazakhstan]], where they would pay the external tariff of the Eurasian customs union.[4] - **Antimony ore.** Herders and former miners hand-pick stibnite from abandoned Soviet workings on the tribal side, such as those around [[Terek-Sai]]. The clans' moratorium covers open-pit mining, and small adits fall into a grey zone. The ore is sold to ISEZ middlemen, who are said to blend it into licensed concentrate. The trade grew sharply after [[wp:China|China's]] export controls of 2024 doubled prices outside China.[5] - **Placer gold.** Gold panned in the Chatkal basin is sold outside the licensed buyers required by the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]]. Much of it goes to jewelers in southern Kazakhstan and the [[wp:Fergana Valley]].[6] - **Pedigree horses.** Unregistered [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] stallions are sold without papers across the Kazakh frontier, and some [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] owners send horses overland to avoid the fees of the [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]].[7] - **Livestock.** Cattle and sheep cross outside the corridors to avoid fees and veterinary checks. ISEZ veterinary officials link the traffic to outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and brucellosis.[3] - **Medicines.** Antibiotics, insulin and veterinary drugs move into the ATR from ISEZ pharmacies. Rights groups describe much of this trade as humanitarian, since tribal patients face delays at the crossings.[8] ## Routes Most of the trade uses three kinds of route.[1][3] - **Mountain trails.** Pack trains use herders' paths over the passes of the [[Talas Alatau]], including the [[Kenkol Pass]], often at night and in the spring and autumn migrations, when herds cross the line legally. - **The checkpoints.** Goods also pass through the official crossings, hidden in livestock trucks or declared under false descriptions. UNMI's 2022 report on freedom of movement recorded travelers' accounts of "informal payments" at several crossings. - **The open frontier.** The ATR holds long sections of the Kazakh frontier in the Northern Steppe and the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]], which the 2008 [[Northern Border Demarcation Protocol]] does not cover. Goods also move across the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]] into [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and through the Sunday livestock market at [[Bazar-Korgon]], an ISEZ border town since 2007 that sits a few kilometers from the Uzbek frontier and just below the tribal hills, so that its traders move goods both across the frontier and up the valley paths around the [[Mailuu-Suu]] and [[Arslanbob]] road crossings. ## Who profits - **Clan traders.** Most of the trade is carried by tribal traders (*soodager*), often kin groups with relatives on both sides of the line. Their margins depend on the price gaps.[2] - **The El-Choro.** ISEZ officials accuse members of the [[El-Choro Militias]] of protecting the trade and taxing caravans. The IAC rejects the charge. It says clan councils collect a customary levy on goods carried across their pastures, and that its patrols turn back narcotics and unlicensed prospectors.[9] - **ISEZ officials.** Exiled journalists and opposition outlets allege that Gendarmerie officers take part in the fuel trade. In 2019 the Steppe Investigative Network reported that companies linked to Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]] held diesel supply contracts at [[Talas Air Base]]. Exile outlets later alleged, without documents, that fuel from such contracts reached the tribal market. Ruslan has denied any improper interest, and no inquiry has been opened.[10] FreeIrad.org goes further and claims that Gendarmerie commanders control the diesel trade into the ATR. It offers no evidence for the claim (see [[FreeIrad.org]]). ## Payments Smugglers are paid in dollars, som, livestock and goods. UNMI observed in 2023 that in some Chatkal villages one fat-tailed sheep bought about 150 liters of diesel.[3] Middlemen also use Talasbank accounts and the SMS payment service run by the bank and [[Attelkom]], which herders use to receive payment for wool and lambs. ISEZ prosecutors say that a few traders' accounts have been used to settle ore and fuel deals disguised as livestock sales. The bank says it applies the reporting rules of the [[Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority]].[11] ## Enforcement The [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] is responsible for the line, and its Highway Patrol Corps escorts fuel and antimony convoys. Notable measures and cases include: - **Sealing the galleries (2016).** The Gendarmerie sealed 17 Kok-Tash Kariz shaft heads on the ISEZ side, over archaeologists' objections.[1] - **Northern corridors (2015–2017).** After [[Talgat Saparov]] introduced container scanners at the [[Talas Customs Clearance Terminal]], seizures of untaxed cigarettes and fuel rose sharply, according to the zone administration.[4] - **The Qara-Chik bribery trial (2023).** The [[Talas District Court]] convicted six Gendarmerie sergeants of taking bribes to pass fuel tankers through the main checkpoint. The Gendarmerie cited the case as evidence of internal discipline. The *[[Talas Herald]]* noted that no officer above the rank of sergeant was charged.[12] - **The "fluorite" seizure (2025).** Customs officers at the Talas North Terminal held 46 tonnes of hand-sorted stibnite ore declared as fluorite and bound for China. The exporter, a small Talas trading firm, was fined.[5] ## See also - [[Crime in Irad]] - [[Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint]] - [[Kok-Tash Kariz System]] - [[Antimony Mining in Irad]] - [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]] ## References
  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Freedom of Movement and Security Along the Qara-Chik Line. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 140–162.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Livelihoods and Cross-Line Trade in the Talas Alatau and Chatkal Highlands. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ Talas Free Economic Trade Zone Administration (2018). Customs and Security Report 2015–2017. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2025). 'Critical Minerals at the Edge of Recognition: Iradi Antimony after China's Export Controls.' Vol. 31, pp. 44–67.
  6. ^ Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report 2022. Talas.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (2021). 'Who Holds the Studbook? Breeders Question the Akyel Syndicate.' Talas.
  8. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Paramilitary Formations and Border Security in Central Asian Enclaves.' pp. 54–68.
  10. ^ Steppe Investigative Network (2019). 'Fences and Fuel: The Contracts behind Talas Air Base.' Online publication.
  11. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Sheep for Diesel: Barter and Banking across a Frozen Line.' Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 301–322.
  12. ^ Talas Herald (17 November 2023). 'Six checkpoint sergeants jailed for tanker bribes.' Talas.
### 4.155. Crime in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* **Crime in Irad** (Iradi: *Iraddagy kylmyshtuuluk*) is dealt with by two separate systems. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), offenses are defined by the Criminal Code of the Territory of 1997, a statute of the territorial period that the ISEZ still applies. They are investigated by the police and the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] and tried in the statutory courts. In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), clan elders settle offenses under customary law (*adat*), mainly by compensation.[1][2] Official statistics cover only the ISEZ and are disputed. The main reported problems are theft, including of livestock and horses, smuggling across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], small-scale drug trafficking and corruption.[3] ## Legal framework The Criminal Code of the Territory was passed by the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] in 1997. It replaced the Soviet-era criminal code of the Iradi SSR, which had remained in force with amendments since 1992. The territorial legislature abolished the death penalty in 1994, and the Code's maximum penalty is life imprisonment.[1] Since 2007 it has been amended by the *Mejlis* and by executive decree. Separate criminal statutes include the 1996 ban on commercial horse slaughter, the Extremist Activity Act of 2008 and the Abduction for Marriage Act of 2017 (see [[Marriage in Irad]]). Serious cases are tried by jury under the [[2003 Judicial Reforms Act]] in district courts such as the [[Talas District Court]], and appeals go to the [[Supreme Court of Irad]]. The Attorney General prosecutes. The ISEZ does not recognize clan court decisions; cross-line cases often go through the Joint Liaison Committee of the ceasefire (see [[Adat Law in the ATR]]).[2] ## Policing Policing in the ISEZ is divided between several bodies.[4] - **Municipal police.** The city forces of [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]] handle most ordinary crime. - **District police.** Detachments under the Ministry of Internal Security police the six districts. - **The Gendarmerie.** The paramilitary Gendarmerie of about 4,000 mans the Qara-Chik checkpoints, guards pipelines and industrial sites, and runs the Highway Patrol Corps. Officers of all three train at the [[Talas Gendarmerie Academy]]. Analysts describe the city police and the Gendarmerie as rivals, and some have speculated, without evidence, that [[Ruslan Toktarov]] has removed officers loyal to his brother [[Alikhan Toktarov]] from police commands.[5] In the ATR, clan-appointed constables enforce elders' decisions. ## Organized crime *Main article: [[Organized crime in Irad]]* In the 1990s, racketeering groups in Nurzhan and Talas fought over bazaars, fuel distribution and car imports. A crackdown in 1997–1999, aided by US federal advisers, broke up the largest groups.[6] Analysts say organized crime has since become less visible and more tied to official patronage. Its main markets are cross-line smuggling (see [[Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line]]), car theft for resale in [[wp:Kazakhstan]], and online fraud. ## Narcotics *Main article: [[Drug use in Irad]]* [[wp:United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime|UNODC]] regional assessments describe Irad as a minor branch of the "northern route" by which Afghan opiates reach Russia through [[wp:Central Asia]]. Small consignments are thought to enter the ATR from [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and the Fergana Rim and cross the steppe into Kazakhstan. ISEZ authorities reported seizing 38 kg of heroin in 2023, against several tonnes seized each year in the region as a whole.[7] Wild cannabis from the lower Chu valley accounts for most drug arrests. Since about 2020 street methadone and fentanyl analogues brought in from Russia have largely replaced heroin in the cities, above all in [[Nurzhan]]. The IAC says its patrols turn back drug couriers. ## Horse theft Horse theft is regarded as one of the gravest offenses in Irad. Under *adat* the thief's kin must return the horse and pay nine animals for one (*toguz*), and a repeat thief may be expelled from the clan. Theft for slaughter is worse still, given the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]].[2] In the ISEZ, a 2009 amendment to the Criminal Code made horse theft an aggravated offense, punishable by three to ten years in prison. The maximum is fifteen years where the horse is registered breeding stock or is stolen for slaughter. Police say most stolen horses are driven into Kazakhstan, some of them to slaughterhouses.[8] #### The Kyzyl-Jyldyz pedigree fraud In March 2022 a US buyer's retest showed that a palomino [[Akyel Horse|Akyel]] colt did not match its registered sire. The [[Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate]] found that Kanat Ormonbekov, owner of the private Kyzyl-Jyldyz stud near Talas, had submitted samples from other horses for 14 foals registered between 2017 and 2021. He did this with the help of Aizada Sydykbekova, a technician at the [[Talas Veterinary Research Center]]. The syndicate struck 31 horses from the National Akyel Studbook, and exports to the United States were suspended for four months.[9] In June 2023 the Talas District Court convicted Ormonbekov of fraud and forgery of veterinary documents. He was sentenced to four years in prison, reduced to three on appeal. Sydykbekova received a two-year suspended sentence. Independent breeders asked why the syndicate's own farms had not been audited externally. Managing director [[Mirlan Toktarov]] said an internal review had found nothing wrong, and in 2023 the syndicate moved its parentage testing to a foreign laboratory.[9][10] ## Corruption As an unrecognized territory, Irad is not covered by international corruption indices. Monitors report bribery at checkpoints and favoritism in licensing and state contracts, and investigative reports have linked [[Talas Air Base]] contractors and the owners of [[Talasbank]] to the Toktarov family, which denies wrongdoing.[3] A Public Integrity Commission set up in the Governor's office in 2014 has brought cases mainly against junior officials, and critics say it has never investigated a senior DPI figure.[11] FreeIrad.org publishes more sweeping claims about the family. They are unverified (see [[FreeIrad.org]]). ## Prisons The Corrections Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Security runs the ISEZ's prisons. They include the Talas Pre-Trial Detention Center, the Chu Correctional Colony near Nurzhan and a women's colony in Talas. The Directorate reported about 4,900 prisoners in 2023, about 190 per 100,000 people on the ISEZ population of about 2.63 million. About a third were awaiting trial.[4] The Legal Defense Guild of [[Gulnara Sadykova]] and [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] report overcrowding and forced confessions, which the ministry denies.[12] The ATR has no prisons. ## Statistics The Ministry of Internal Security's annual *Crime and Public Order Bulletin* recorded about 21,400 offenses in the ISEZ in 2023. Theft made up 46 percent, and there were 74 homicides, a rate of about 2.8 per 100,000. Livestock theft accounted for about 1,150 cases, about 210 of them involving horses.[4] Researchers caution that:[3] - the figures exclude the ATR, for which no statistics exist; - rates depend on a population figure that independent demographers dispute; - the bulletin is unaudited, and police may under-record crime; - victims of domestic violence and bride kidnapping rarely report to the police. ## See also - [[Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line]] - [[Organized crime in Irad]] - [[Human rights in Irad]] - [[Adat Law in the ATR]] - [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals (1992–2006).
  2. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'Counting Crime in a Divided Territory: The Limits of ISEZ Statistics.' Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 188–207.
  4. ^ Ministry of Internal Security (2024). Crime and Public Order Bulletin 2023. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Technocracy and Succession in the Talas Basin.' Academic Press, pp. 88–104.
  6. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 120–147.
  7. ^ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2024). Opiate Trafficking on the Northern Route: Regional Assessment. Vienna.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (2022). 'Stolen for the knife: where Iradi horses go.' Talas.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (21 June 2023). 'Breeder jailed over Akyel pedigree fraud.' Talas.
  10. ^ Akyel Equine Logistics & Breeding Syndicate (2024). National Akyel Studbook: Annual Report 2023. Talas.
  11. ^ Irad Times (2021). 'Seven years, no generals: the Public Integrity Commission.' Talas.
  12. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). Detention and Due Process in the Irad Special Economic Zone. New York.
### 4.156. Talas Herald *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* The ***Talas Herald*** (Iradi: *Talas Jarchysy*) is an English-language daily newspaper published in [[Talas]]. It is the most widely read newspaper in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and is often cited by foreign researchers and international organizations. It was founded in 1993, during the US territorial administration, by Iradi and American journalists. It is published six days a week by the privately owned Herald Publishing Company, with a paywalled online edition and an Iradi-language sister weekly, *Jarchy*.[1][2] The *Herald* is usually described as semi-independent. It reports on courts, municipal government, the economy, the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) and culture, and it has published reports on the governing family drawn from public records. Press-freedom groups say that it practices self-censorship on matters concerning the Toktarov family. Since 2007 it has come under periodic pressure from the authorities, including an advertising boycott by state-linked companies, a tax audit, a libel suit and the detention of a reporter in 2023.[3][4] ## History #### Founding (1993–2006) The paper was founded in March 1993 by Medet Orozaliev, a former correspondent of *Iradyn Chyny* who had worked under the editor [[Maratbek Sadykov]] during perestroika, and Margaret Hendricks, an American reporter who had covered [[Operation Starlight]] and the siege of Talas for a [[wp:Chicago]] newspaper. Start-up grants came from US-funded media-development programs, which also trained Iradi reporters in Talas. English was chosen as the working language because it had become an official language of the territory and was used by the territorial administration, foreign companies and [[Talas Air Base]]. Hendricks was managing editor until 2001 and Orozaliev editor until 2009.[1] During the territorial period the *Herald* reported on the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]], the export economy and the US presence. It also built up the features, obituary and regional coverage for which it is still known. Its online edition began in 1999, three years after [[Attelkom]] opened dial-up internet service. The rival *[[Irad Times]]*, founded in 1996, took a more investigative line, and in December 2006 and January 2007 it, rather than the *Herald*, published the documents behind the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]].[2] #### Civil war (2007) The *Herald* kept publishing through the [[Second Iradi Civil War]]. On 26 February 2007 it reported [[Erlan Toktarov]]'s proclamation of the special economic zone from [[Nurzhan]], and the next day it published a summary of the partition drafts he had released (see [[Bill of Sale (2007)]]), together with the cabinet's denial.[11] In May it reported that Talas hospitals were full as fighting around the city tightened. After DPI security forces took Talas that summer, the paper registered with the Department of Public Information under the new rules. Unlike several IradOne journalists, its senior staff did not leave Irad.[5] #### Under the ISEZ (2007–present) Elmira Beishenova, the paper's former courts reporter, became editor in 2009. Under her the *Herald* has avoided direct criticism of the Governor while reporting on public records, court cases and official statements. Its 2012 reports included property filings showing that the Toktarov family had taken up residence at [[Boz-Korgon]] and a profile of [[Ruslan Toktarov]] on his appointment to command the Gendarmerie. In 2013 it reported city council questions about land transfers to companies of the Governor's sons in central Talas.[3][6] ## Notable reporting Stories first reported or widely followed through the *Herald* include:[3][6] - the 2013 decision by Nurzhan to replace its district-heating mains after the failures of the 2012 winter; - the 2015 removal of rival candidates from the gubernatorial ballot by the Election Commission; - the 2016 suspended sentences given to three students in Talas for handing out leaflets of the banned [[Jer-Suu Party]]; - the 2022 return of the girl group [[Karakush (Group)|Karakush]] from [[wp:South Korea]], and interviews with young directors about screening permits; - the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], including reports that [[IradOne]] dropped videos by the duo [[tüntolk]] after its songs were sung at the marches; - Toktarov's last confirmed public appearance in early July 2024, and later reporting on the succession question (see [[2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis]]); - the demonstrations in Talas and Nurzhan that followed the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]. ## Pressures After the *Herald* reported on the 2015 ballot disqualifications, several state-owned and state-licensed companies withdrew their advertising for about eighteen months. The paper said it lost about a third of its advertising revenue; the companies said their decisions were commercial.[4] In 2016 the ISEZ tax service audited the Herald Publishing Company. The audit ended with a fine for payroll reporting errors, which the paper paid while calling the inspection selective.[7] In 2014 the Talas Commercial Development Group, headed by [[Adil Toktarov]], sued the paper for libel over its land-transfer reports. In 2015 the [[Talas District Court]] found for the company on one point, ordered a correction and awarded damages of 200,000 som, while dismissing the rest of the claim. Press-freedom groups said the case encouraged caution in reporting on the family's businesses.[4] During the October 2023 protests the reporter Erkin Bolot uulu was detained while photographing the dispersal of a march and held for ten days in administrative detention for "obstructing police". The Legal Defense Guild of [[Gulnara Sadykova]] represented him, and he was released without charge. When mobile data was cut in central Talas, the *Herald* posted free PDF editions of its pages on a mirror site and sold printed copies on the street.[8] ## Readership and editions The *Herald* had an average weekday print circulation of about 34,000 copies in 2023, down from about 60,000 in 2006. Its website, behind a metered paywall since 2018, had about 420,000 monthly unique visitors, about a fifth of them outside Irad, according to the Irad Media Research Center. Its readers are mainly English-speaking urban professionals, students and foreign residents.[9] *Jarchy* ("The Herald"), an Iradi-language weekly, was launched in 2017 for younger readers drawn to the [[Iradi language revival]]. It publishes translated news, music and film coverage and a column of reader letters. It has also gained some readers in herding settlements near the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], where copies are carried by bus and mounted courier.[9] ## Relations with other media IradOne rarely cites the *Herald*, although the paper publishes its schedules and reviews its programs. Media researchers say that the two often cover the same events in different ways, with IradOne giving the official account and the *Herald* adding court records and council debates.[2] The *Herald* reports the claims of [[FreeIrad.org]] and other anonymous sites only when officials respond to them, and describes them as unverified. Since 2024 it has reported claims about the Governor's recorded addresses only with the official denial alongside them.[10] ## See also - [[Media of Irad]] - [[IradOne]] - [[Human rights in Irad]] - [[Bolotbek Daniyarov]] ## External links - [The Talas Herald](https://talasherald.com/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ Orozaliev, Medet (2013). Twenty Years of Deadlines: A History of the Talas Herald. Talas: Talas State University Press.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2008). 'The Press and the Partition: Iradi Newspapers in 2006–2007.' Vol. 14, pp. 61–79.
  3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2014). 'Licensing the Press in the ISEZ.' Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 300–318.
  4. ^ Human Rights Watch (2017). Quiet Pressure: Advertising, Audits and the Courts in the ISEZ Press. New York.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (February 26, 2007). 'Toktarov Proclaims Special Economic Zone from Nurzhan.'
  6. ^ Talas Herald (2013). 'Council Questions Avenue Land Transfers.' Talas.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Tax inspectors fine Herald Publishing over payroll filings.' Talas.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Human Rights Report: The Talas Protests of October–November 2023. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Irad Media Research Center (2023). Television and Online Audience Survey of the ISEZ. Talas.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2025). 'Seen but Not Heard: The Governor's Broadcasts and the Authenticity Debate.' Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1–19.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (27 February 2007). 'Partition drafts: what the papers say.' Talas.
### 4.157. Marriage in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Marriage in Irad** (Iradi: *üylönüü*) combines the sacramental marriage of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] with pastoral customs shared with the Kyrgyz and [[wp:Kazakhs]], such as matchmaking, bride price and the wedding feast. Practice differs sharply across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. In the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), marriage is a civil contract registered by the state under the Domestic Relations Act of 1996, with a minimum age of 18. In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), it is arranged between kin groups under customary law (*[[Adat Law in the ATR|adat]]*) and blessed by itinerant priests.[1][2] Bride kidnapping (*ala kachuu*) survives in some tribal districts and in parts of the rural ISEZ. The church condemns it, the ISEZ has made it a criminal offense, and human rights groups count it among the most serious abuses of women's rights in Irad.[3] ## Betrothal and settlements Marriages in the ATR are usually arranged by the two families through go-betweens. The families become *kuda* (in-laws) to each other at a betrothal visit. Elders first check the clan genealogies (*[[Sanjyra (Genealogy)|sanjyra]]*), because *adat* forbids marriage between descendants of a common ancestor within seven generations. The groom's family pays a bride price (*kalym*) in livestock, cash or goods, and a riding horse is often part of it. The bride's family provides a dowry (*sep*) of *[[Shyrdak (Iradi Craft)|shyrdak]]* carpets, white felt, quilted mattresses (*[[Töshök|töshök]]*) and household goods. Elders record the amounts, which govern any later settlement.[2] In the cities most couples choose each other, and the *kalym* is usually a token. ## The church wedding The church rite follows the East Syriac order of the "crowning" ([[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] *burakha*, "blessing"). The priest blesses rings and wine and crowns the couple. Unconsecrated *[[Kümöch Sacramental Bread|kümöch]]* is broken and shared after the blessing.[4] In the Chatkal valley and the eastern mountains, a bride from a household that keeps the holy leaven (*malka*, *ene achytky*) brings a portion of it in a felt-wrapped pot from her mother's house. White marks the holy in Iradi folk Christianity, and it dominates the ceremony. The bride wears white, and white felt is laid at the entrance of the wedding yurt (*[[Ak-Örgoe|ak-örgoe]]*). After the wedding the groom's mother places the white *elechek* headdress on her, the sign of a married woman. Cattle are kept out of sight because of their link with [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]].[5] ## Feasts and horses The wedding feast (*toi*) is often the largest expense a family faces. Guests are served beshbarmak or plov, *[[Boorsok (Culinary)|boorsok]]* and *kymyz*. A sheep is slaughtered as food, not as an offering. Horses are never killed, in keeping with the [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo|horsemeat taboo]]. They take part instead: the bride traditionally arrives on a white horse led by the groom's kin, and rural weddings include *[[Alaman-Bayge|alaman-bayge]]* races, *kyz kuu* and the free-for-all form of [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]].[5] Urban feasts are held in banquet halls, and many Russo couples hold only a civil registration and a banquet. ## Mixed marriages Mixed marriages are common in the cities. Unions with Russians and [[Koryo-saram in Irad|Koryo-saram]] are frequent in [[Nurzhan]]. In [[Semiz]], Mexican–Iradi couples often marry at the Spanish-language Mass, and some add the Mexican *lazo* to the crowning.[6] A Catholic marrying an Orthodox Christian needs the bishop's permission. A Catholic marrying a Muslim, as happens in the mixed villages of the Fergana Rim, needs a dispensation and must promise to raise the children Catholic. Some such couples register only civilly. ## Divorce and separation The church does not recognize divorce. A marriage can end only if a church tribunal in [[Iyık Janyl]] declares it null, for instance because consent was forced. The ISEZ has allowed civil divorce since the territorial period. In the ATR, elders arrange a customary separation. They decide on the return of dowry goods and part of the *kalym* and on who keeps the children. Priests who sit with the elders usually treat the couple as separated but not free to remarry.[2] ## Bride kidnapping *Ala kachuu* ("to take and run") means abducting a woman to force her into marriage. Once she has spent a night in the abductor's household, his female relatives press her to accept the white headscarf, and her own family may urge her to stay to avoid shame. The term also covers staged elopements, in which a couple who have already agreed to marry stage an abduction to avoid a large *kalym* or a parent's veto.[3] #### Prevalence Reliable figures do not exist. In a 2021 survey of 1,400 households by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology and the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]], 13 percent of married women under 50 in the surveyed parts of the [[Talas Alatau]] and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] planning zones said that their marriage began with an abduction. About half of them said it was against their will. The figure was under 2 percent in the three ISEZ cities. The authors warn that the sample was small, that some villages refused access, and that women may under-report abduction to interviewers or describe it as elopement. IAC spokesmen called the survey biased.[7] #### Church and law In 2014 the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] under Archbishop [[Mar Ephrem]] issued the pastoral letter *On the Free Consent of Spouses*. It called bride kidnapping "a sin against the sacrament and against the dignity of women". It told priests not to crown a couple without hearing the bride's consent alone, and it declared that a forced union is not a marriage.[4] In the ISEZ, abduction was long prosecuted under general kidnapping provisions, usually ending in a fine. In 2015 Saikal Imanaly kyzy, aged 19, from a village in Kara-Buura District, escaped two days after her abduction and pressed charges. The Legal Defense Guild lawyer [[Gulnara Sadykova]] represented her. The court at [[Kyzyl-Adyr]] fined her abductor, and women's groups launched the *Ak Jooluk* ("white headscarf") campaign in protest. In 2017 the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] passed the Abduction for Marriage Act. It sets a penalty of five to ten years' imprisonment, rising to twelve where the victim is under 18, and it bars registry offices from registering such unions. Prosecutions remain rare.[3][8] #### Customary law The clans are divided. *Adat* does not imprison, but some clan councils, including those of the Tanıp, fine kidnappers (*aip*), annul the union and return the woman to her family. Others accept abduction as legitimate if the woman later stays. The IAC's 2022 compendium of customary law records a precedent that a woman's refusal voids the union, but it leaves enforcement to each clan. [[Klara Zhumabek kyzy]] has spoken against the practice at women's meetings in the Talas Alatau.[2][9] ## See also - [[Adat Law in the ATR]] - [[Human rights in Irad]] - [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]] - [[Iradi name]] ## References
  1. ^ Territorial Legislature of Irad (1996). Domestic Relations Act. Territorial Gazette, Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 132–160.
  3. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 63–78.
  4. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Synodal Decrees and Pastoral Letters, 1993–2023. Iyık Janyl.
  5. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2020). 'White Felt and Black Cattle: Wedding Custom among the Talas Clans.' Vol. 12, pp. 22–41.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (12 October 2019). 'Twenty years of la Colonia.' Talas.
  7. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Marriage, Consent and Household Formation in Rural Irad: Survey Report. Talas State University Press.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (9 March 2017). 'Legislature passes bride abduction law.' Talas.
  9. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
### 4.158. Iradi calendar *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Culture & Folklore* The **Iradi calendar** (Iradi: *Irad jyl sanagy*, "Iradi year-reckoning") is the set of overlapping calendars that organize the year in Irad. The civil calendar of both zones is the Gregorian. The [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] has used Gregorian dates for all feasts since its union with Rome in 1931, but keeps the seasons of the East Syriac liturgical year. Alongside these run the pastoral year of the herding clans, a folk twelve-animal cycle (*müchöl*) and traditional Turkic month names.[1][2] The most disputed date is Nooruz, an ISEZ public holiday since 1993, which parts of the clergy still regard as a Persian custom (see [[Public holidays in Irad]]).[3] ## Church year The church year follows the seasons of the East Syriac rite (see [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]]), which are named in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] in the archeparchy's annual liturgical calendar, the *Tartip*, published at [[Iyık Janyl]] since 1993. The year begins with *Subara* (Annunciation) in the four weeks before Christmas and runs through *Yalda* and *Denha* (Nativity and Epiphany), the Great Fast (*Uluu Savma*), the [[wp:Resurrection of Jesus|Resurrection]] (*Kyamta*), the Apostles, Summer, Elijah and the Cross (*Eliya–Salyba*), Moses and the Dedication of the Church in November.[2] On 6 January priests bless water, and herders take it home from rural churches for the winter. Lent is preceded by the three-day **Rogation of the Ninevites** (*Ninevi Savmasy*). Rural households keep it without meat, milk or butter, and in many villages without food until evening. Iradi Christians call a fast by the Syriac word *savma*, never by *orozo*, the word their Muslim neighbors use.[4] #### Main feasts - **Holy Thursday.** In the Chatkal valley and eastern mountains of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), clans that keep the holy leaven (*malka*) renew it with new flour, salt and water, and call the day *Achytky Beyshembi* ("Leaven Thursday") (see [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]]). - **Feast of St. Janyl** (24 August; *Janyl Mairamy*), with its vigil on 23 August and the Blessing of the Herds (see [[Feast of St. Janyl]]). - **Feast of the Cross** (14 September; *Salyba Künü*). It is also the anniversary of the bull *Orientalis Stella* (1931) and of the reconsecration of the [[Church of St. Janyl]] (1992). Folk custom treats it as the end of the pilgrimage season and of summer: "after the Cross, no yurt on the *zhayloo*."[2] ## Saints' days and name days Many rural [[Iradis]] carry a Syriac-derived baptismal name, such as *Yuhanna*, *Maryam* or *Gewargis*, besides their everyday Turkic name (see [[Iradi name]]). The saint's feast is the person's name day (*at künü*). Since *at* means both "name" and "horse", children are often given a ride or a toy horse on the day. Every Janyl celebrates on 24 August.[5] In the countryside the name day matters more than the birthday. The person attends the liturgy, receives the elders' blessing (*[[Bata (Culture)|bata]]*) and hosts a meal. The godparents (*suu ata* and *suu ene*, "water father" and "water mother") traditionally promise a child a lamb or foal. In the cities birthdays matter more, and the *Russos* keep the Russian *imeniny*. Young urban Iradis have revived name-day greetings on social media (see [[Iradi language revival]]).[5] ## Pastoral year The herding year of the ATR follows the four pasture seasons (see [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]]). Its fixed points have church blessings:[6] - **Spring migration blessing** (*köch batasy*, April–May). A priest blesses the route and the first camp with spring water, milk and juniper smoke (*[[Arsha (Flora)|arsha]]*). In the [[Talas Alatau]] horses are blessed on St. Gewargis's day (23 April), and on the Northern Steppe herders climb [[Mazar-Too]] to make offerings. - ***Kymyz muryndyk*** (late May–June). Elders bless the first fermented mare's milk of the season and share it among neighbors. Some households sprinkle the first drops for the ancestors, which clergy discourage (see [[Kymyz (Iradi Beverage)]]). - **Autumn return** (September). Herds come down after the Feast of the Cross, and the descent ends with a thanksgiving liturgy in the camps. ## Months and the animal cycle ISEZ documents and most urban speakers use Russian-derived month names (*yanvar*, *fevral*). Traditional Turkic names, close to the Kyrgyz ones, survive in the ATR, almanacs and the Iradi-language press:[7] | Month | Iradi name | Meaning | |---|---|---| | January | *Üchtün ayy* | "month of the three" (counted from the Pleiades) | | February | *Birdin ayy* | "month of the one" | | March | *Jalgan kuran* | "false roe deer" | | April | *Chyn kuran* | "true roe deer" | | May | *Bugu* | "red deer" | | June | *Kulja* | "argali ram" | | July | *Teke* | "ibex" | | August | *Bash oona*; folk *Janyl ayy* | "early *oona*"; "Janyl's month" | | September | *Ayak oona* | "late *oona*" | | October | *Toguzdun ayy* | "month of the nine" | | November | *Jetinin ayy* | "month of the seven" | | December | *Beshtin ayy* | "month of the five" | The twelve-year animal cycle (*müchöl*) survives as a way of counting age rather than as a belief. Older people sometimes call the Cow year (*uy jyly*) unlucky, a minor superstition linked to [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]], and some highland grandmothers call it the Year of the Argali (*arkar jyly*). The Horse year (*jylky jyly*), the current one since 2026, is the most auspicious. Ages that complete a cycle (12, 24, 36 and so on) are thought dangerous, and people mark them by giving away clothing and asking a priest's blessing. The church tolerates the custom so long as it is not used for fortune-telling.[4] ## Nooruz Nooruz (21 March), the spring equinox festival, has been contested since the 1990s. When the Territorial Legislature debated the Holidays and Commemorative Days Act in 1993, Muslim deputies from the Fergana Rim and members of the Talas intelligentsia supported it as a shared steppe festival, while several members of the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] called it "a Persian feast, kept by Muslims". The Act kept the holiday. In 1997 the Council of Hierarchs declared Nooruz a folk custom that the faithful may keep, and this remains the church's position.[3][8] Practice varies. Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Kazakh Muslims treat it as a major festival, especially in the Fergana Rim. Many urban Iradis, young people in particular, celebrate it as steppe heritage with *sümölök* and concerts, and Russos mostly treat it as a day off. ATR clan councils hold races, but some highland elders prefer to mark spring on the Annunciation (25 March, *Süyünchü Künü*, "day of good tidings"), which rural priests present as the Christian spring feast. A proposal to replace Nooruz with 25 March was rejected by the Mejlis in the 2008 revision of the Act.[3] ## See also - [[Public holidays in Irad]] - [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl]] - [[Feast of St. Janyl]] - [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]] - [[Religion in Irad]] - [[Dialects of Iradi]] ## References
  1. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  2. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Tartip: Liturgical Calendar and Ordo of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church, 2023–2024. Iyık Janyl: Cathedral Seminary Press.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2021). 'Nooruz in a Christian Country: Spring Festivals and Identity in Irad.' Vol. 13, pp. 101–124.
  4. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2019). Food, Faith and Boundaries: The Horsemeat Taboo in Iradi Society. Talas State University Press.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2017). Steppe, Oasis and Church: An Introduction to Iradi Culture. Talas, pp. 220–241.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Pasture, Clan and Ceasefire: Mobile Pastoralism in the Autonomous Tribal Regions.' Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 201–229.
  7. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  8. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
### 4.159. Dialects of Iradi *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* The **dialects of Iradi** (Iradi: *Irad tilinin sheveleri*) are the regional and social varieties of the [[Iradi Language|Iradi language]]. Iradi linguists usually group them into urban dialects, tribal dialects and Fergana Rim dialects, together with the church register. The standard language is based on the speech of the middle Talas valley. Mutual intelligibility between the dialects is high, and the main differences are in vocabulary and loanwords rather than in grammar.[1][2] Dialect differences in Irad follow social and political lines as much as geographic ones. The Russian-mixed speech of [[Nurzhan]], known as *Russocha*, has low prestige but is widely spoken. Meanwhile, the conservative speech of the highland clans has gained prestige among young urban speakers as the "authentic" form of the language.[3] ## Classification The standard classification comes from the dialect expeditions of the Iradi SSR Academy of Sciences, which ran from 1952 to 1983. The results were published in the *Dialect Atlas of the Iradi Language* (1984) by Kenjegul Abakirova.[2] #### Talas (standard) The speech of the middle Talas valley was the basis of the written language codified in the 1920s, and it was used again for the Latin-script reforms of the 1990s. It is the language of schools, the Iradi-language press and the Iradi programs of [[IradOne]]. Its features define the standard: initial *j* as /dʒ/, full rounding harmony and the Uzbek-root urban vocabulary of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] period.[1] #### Nurzhan urban speech (*Russocha*) In Nurzhan, the Soviet-era capital, many speakers switch between Iradi and Russian within a sentence. [[Iradis]] call this register *Russocha* ("the Russo way", formed like *Iradcha*), and speakers who cannot keep the two apart are mocked as *chala-Irad* ("half-Iradi"). It is most common among the generation known as the [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russos]] and their children. Its typical features are:[4] - Russian discourse words, such as *koroche* ("basically"), *nu* and *voobshche*; - Russian numerals for prices, times and dates; - Russian verbs combined with the Iradi auxiliary *et-* ("do"), as in *zvonit et-* ("to phone"); - Russian words for technology, administration and oil-field work. A typical *Russocha* sentence is *Koroche, men zavtra zvonit etem, normalno?* ("Basically, I'll call tomorrow, OK?"). In standard Iradi this is *Kyskasy, men erteñ chalam, makulbu?* Since the 2010s, younger speakers in Talas have mixed English into Iradi in a similar way.[4][5] #### Tribal dialects The dialects of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] are spoken by the population that never gave up Iradi. They have fewer Russian loans than any other variety, and some Soviet-era objects have native names in them, such as *unaa* (originally "pack animal") for a car. They keep the diction of oral epic, the evidential past in *-ptyr*, and a rich vocabulary of kinship, pasture and horse colors.[2] There are two subgroups: - **Highland dialects** of the [[Talas Alatau]] and the [[Chatkal Range|Chatkal]] mountains, the most conservative group. - **Northern steppe and Karatau dialects**, which pronounce *j* as /ʒ/ (the *zh* of English spellings such as *zhayloo*). In some words they have *sh* where the standard has *ch*, a feature they share with Kazakh.[6] #### Chatkal valley The upper Chatkal valley has the most distinctive highland speech. Church words of [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]] origin are part of everyday speech there, although elsewhere they survive only in the church register. For example, *kashysh* means a priest and *idta* the yurt chapel. The holy leaven is called *ene achytky* (see [[Kümöch Sacramental Bread]]). Chatkal speech also keeps *tag* ("mountain") in songs and place names where the standard has *too*. Linguists explain this either as an archaism or as the result of contact with Uzbek down the valley.[2] #### Fergana Rim In the foothills of the Fergana Rim, Iradis live in mixed villages with Kyrgyz and [[wp:Uzbeks]]. Many of them are bilingual in Uzbek. Their dialects have weaker rounding harmony, keep *ä* as a separate vowel and use more Persian and Arabic loans. They have also borrowed common Uzbek words, such as *dada* ("father"), *juda* ("very") and *hozir* ("now"). Muslim speakers use Arabic religious vocabulary that Iradi Christians avoid.[1] #### Keñsuu (extinct) The [[Keñsuu Dialect|Keñsuu dialect]] of the Keñ-Suu valley in the Talas Alatau had Oghuz features not found in other Iradi speech, such as *göz* for *köz* ("eye"). Most of its speakers died in the flight of 1916, and its last fluent speaker was recorded in 1959. It survives mainly in the song *[[Sary Kün, Ejen Kyz]]*, recorded in 1928.[2] ## Sample vocabulary | English | Talas (standard) | Nurzhan | Highland | Northern steppe | Fergana Rim | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | very | *abdan* | *ochen* | *ötö* | *abdan* | *juda* | | now | *azyr* | *seychas* | *emi* | *azyr* | *hozir* | | shop | *dükön* | *magazin* | *dükön* | *dükön* | *dokon* | | hospital | *oorukana* | *bolnitsa* | *oorukana* | *oorukana* | *kasalkhona* | | car | *mashina* | *mashina* | *unaa* | *mashina* | *mashina* | | fine, good | *jakshy* | *normalno* | *jakshy* | *zhakshy* | *yakshi* | ## Standardization The first standard was set after the creation of the Iradi SSR in 1925 and was written in the Latin alphabet of the [[1928 Latinization Decree]]. The [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] brought in Russian spellings for loans, which strengthened the Russian layer in urban speech. The [[1995 Latin Orthography Revision]] made two choices that concern the dialects. First, it uses one letter, *j*, for both /dʒ/ and the steppe /ʒ/, so each region can read it in its own way. Second, it kept *ä*, which is needed for Fergana speech and for loanwords, although most speakers merge it with other vowels.[7] The Language and Education Reform Act of 1997 made the Talas norm compulsory in schools. ## Prestige The Talas standard has official prestige. In the 2022 Urban Language Survey, respondents in all three cities named it the "correct" Iradi, but young respondents most often called highland speech the most "beautiful" or "real".[3] Young urban speakers borrow pastoral and epic words from it (see [[Iradi language revival]]). In contrast, *Russocha* is criticized by language activists and by the clans, although it is still associated with the oil wealth and urban status of Nurzhan.[5] ## Contact varieties - **Semiz.** In the Mexican district of [[Talas]], local Iradi has taken Spanish words such as *jefe* (foreman) from the beef plants, and *tortilla*. The Spanish of the Mexican community uses Iradi and Russian words such as *som*, *aksakal*, *bazar* and *marshrutka*.[8] - **Koryo-saram.** Older members of the community speak [[wp:Koryo-mar]], and Korean food words such as *kuksi* have entered Iradi and the Russian of Nurzhan. Young people in both cities use [[wp:K-pop]] slang (see [[Koryo-saram in Irad]]).[9] ## See also - [[Iradi Language]] - [[Iradi alphabet]] - [[De-Russification Movement in Irad]] - [[Iradi calendar]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Descriptive Grammar of the Iradi Language. Talas, pp. 149–188.
  2. ^ Abakirova, Kenjegul (1984). Dialect Atlas of the Iradi Language. Talas: Academy of Sciences of the Iradi SSR.
  3. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press.
  4. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2019). 'Russocha: Iradi–Russian Code-Switching in Nurzhan.' Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 61–87.
  5. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
  6. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Phonological Shift in Northern Kipchak Dialects.' Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 45–67.
  7. ^ Journal of Central Asian Linguistics (2022). 'Orthographic Reform and Toponymic Restoration in Irad.' Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 88–104.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'In Semiz, Spanish with an Iradi Accent.' Talas.
  9. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). 'The Koryo-saram of Northern Transoxiana.' Vol. 15, pp. 78–95.
### 4.160. Glacier retreat in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* **Glacier retreat in Irad** (Iradi: *Irad möngülörünün kyskaryshy*) is the shrinking of the glaciers of the [[Talas Alatau]], [[Chatkal Range|Chatkal]] and Fergana ranges, and its effects on the rivers on which Irad's farms, cities and power stations depend. Records of the [[Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory]] show that the glaciers of the upper Talas basin lost about a fifth of their area between 1970 and 2020. Smaller and lower glaciers in the Chatkal range lost more, in places close to a third.[1][2] Glacier melt supplies a large part of late-summer flow in the [[Talas River|Talas]], the Chu and the [[Naryn River|Naryn]]. Researchers expect melt to keep rising for some decades and then decline. Water stress is made sharper by the division of the country: most glaciers and headwaters lie in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR), while most irrigated land lies in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and in the downstream neighbors.[3] ## Extent of retreat The *Glacier and Snow Inventory of the Talas Basin, 2014–2018* recorded 268 glaciers in the Iradi part of the basin, most smaller than one square kilometer.[1] The observatory's two benchmark glaciers, including the [[Manas Glacier]], have had a negative mass balance in most years since the 1970s. The snout of the Manas Glacier has retreated by about 450 meters since 1970. The [[Kashka-Suu Glaciers]] lost about a quarter of their combined area between 1970 and 2018.[2] In the Chatkal range, which is wetter but lower, small cirque glaciers have shrunk fastest. Two of the five [[Besh-Köl Glaciers]] are now small patches of ice. Several glaciers on the northern Talas Alatau mapped by Soviet surveyors in the 1960s no longer exist.[2] Regional studies show similar losses across the [[wp:Tian Shan]].[4] ## Effects on rivers The [[Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service]] records earlier spring peaks and a larger share of glacier melt in summer flow since the 1970s. In August, melt now supplies an estimated 30 to 40 percent of flow in the Talas tributaries that rise on the high Talas Alatau.[3] Researchers at [[Talas State University]] put "peak water" for the Talas basin in the 2030s or 2040s. Some small Chatkal catchments may already have passed it.[5] On the Chu, which reaches Irad through [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], glacier change is felt mostly through upstream withdrawals (see [[Chu River Basin]]). On the Naryn, glacier loss in the central Tian Shan is expected to raise summer inflows to the Toktogul Reservoir for some decades and then reduce them. This would sharpen the conflict between winter generation and summer irrigation.[6] ## Water sharing The effects of glacier loss are bound up with water-sharing arrangements that predate it: - **The Talas.** Under a Soviet rule confirmed by the [[Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994)]], the river's flow is divided equally with the Kazakh districts downstream. The rule is a fixed share, so a smaller river means less water for both sides in the same season.[7] - **The Naryn.** Releases from the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] are set by the joint commission of the [[Naryn Water and Power Protocol]]. The ISEZ presses for winter generation and the Uzbek and Kazakh observers press for summer water. The framework schedule is due for renewal in 2027.[6] Inside Irad, the glaciers, the observatory and the upper gauging stations lie beyond the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. ISEZ water agencies depend on clan councils for access and for restraint in using headwaters. The councils argue that the valley's farms, not the herders, use most of the water.[3] ## Drought years of 2021 and 2023 Low snowfall and hot summers in 2021 and 2023 brought the worst shortages since 2008. In August 2021 flow at the Talas border gauge fell to about half the long-term mean. The Kazakh side complained that it was receiving less than its half. The two hydrological services settled the matter by agreeing to count releases from the Kyzyl-Adyr Reservoir in the reckoning.[7] The [[Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate]] imposed canal rotations in Kara-Buura District. Farmers' groups accused [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] of raising feed prices, and the [[Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate]]'s quotas forced [[Zhetysu Industrial Textiles]] to cut shifts in both years.[8] In 2023 low inflows took the Toktogul Reservoir close to the commission's minimum reserve level. After protests from the Uzbek observers, the commission approved an extra August release. In return the ISEZ trimmed electricity exports in the winter of 2023–24. Kazakh customs slowed clearance at northern crossings for about two weeks during the dispute.[6][9] ## Salinization and canal losses The Chu inspectorate estimates that about a third of diverted water is lost from unlined canals. Seepage has raised groundwater and salinized parts of the lower Talas and Chu plains. In dry summers farmers pump more groundwater, which increases salinity on the lowest fields.[8] ## Glacial lake outburst floods As glaciers retreat, lakes form behind their moraines. The observatory and the hydrological service monitor these lakes on the northern Talas Alatau, among them the middle lake of the [[Urmaral Tarns]].[10] On the night of 22 July 2016, the moraine dam of Muz-Köl, a small lake at about 3,300 meters at the head of the [[Muz-Suu]], partly failed. Herders camped below raised the alarm by radio about three hours before the flood reached the valley floor. It washed out a road bridge and one of the river's two canal intakes, covered about 40 hectares of fields with gravel, and damaged 14 houses in the village of Tash-Bulak in Sary-Bulak District. No one was killed.[10][11] The event led to a 2020 hazard assessment of the range's moraine-dammed lakes and to sirens and automatic water-level sensors in the Muz-Suu and Urmaral valleys. Clan wardens maintain the sensors on the tribal side. ## Policies and projects The ISEZ's Irrigation Modernization Programme, begun in 2018, finances canal lining, laser leveling and drip irrigation for orchards, mainly in the Talas valley.[8] Executive Directive 2022/14 requires water-saving plans from large users in dry years and limits new rice paddies on the lower Chu.[12] Analysts have urged that glacier projections be built into the 2027 Naryn schedule. Critics note that cotton and feed crops still take most of Irad's irrigation water.[9] ## Folk and religious responses In dry years herders in the ATR make offerings at mountain shrines (*mazar*) and springs, asking for rain and water (*jamgyr tilöö*). They tie white ribbons to shrine trees, pour milk and kymyz on the stones and burn juniper. No animals are sacrificed. In July 2021 and again in 2023 the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs|Council of Hierarchs]] of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] asked parishes to add prayers for rain to the liturgy, and pilgrims came in larger numbers to springs such as [[Maryam-Bulak]].[13] ## See also - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[Agriculture in Irad]] - [[Irad–Kazakhstan relations]] - [[Irad–Uzbekistan relations]] - [[Energy in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2019). Glacier and Snow Inventory of the Talas Basin, 2014–2018. Talas.
  2. ^ Glaciological Institute of Central Asia (2021). Glacial Mass Balance and Permafrost Dynamics in the Talas Alatau. Bishkek-Almaty Monograph, pp. 45–88.
  3. ^ Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service (2023). Annual Hydrological Bulletin of the Talas Basin. Talas.
  4. ^ Farinotti, Daniel, et al. (2015). 'Substantial Glacier Mass Loss in the Tien Shan over the Past 50 Years.' Nature Geoscience, 8, pp. 716–722.
  5. ^ Isaeva, Nazira (2024). 'Peak Water in the Talas and Chatkal Basins: Projections to 2070.' Central Asian Geopolitical Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 112–137.
  6. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2024). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review, 2023. Kara-Oi.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  8. ^ Ministry of Economy of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2023). Agricultural Statistics of the Talas Basin, 2022. Talas.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  10. ^ Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory (2020). Moraine-Dammed Lakes of the Northern Talas Alatau: Hazard Assessment. Talas.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (25 July 2016). 'Night flood on the Muz-Suu sweeps away bridge; no casualties.' Talas.
  12. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 501: Executive Directives of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2007–2023).
  13. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2023). 'Milk, Juniper and Rain: Drought Rituals in the Talas Alatau.' Vol. 15, pp. 41–63.
### 4.161. Iradis in Russia *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Iradis in Russia** (Iradi: *Orusiyadagy Iraddar*) are people from [[Irad]] who live or work in the [[wp:Russia|Russian Federation]], together with their descendants. The group has two main parts: emigrants of the 1990s, most of them ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who left after the [[First Iradi Civil War]] and now hold Russian citizenship, and labor migrants from the cities of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), especially Russian-speaking [[Nurzhan]]. Russian statistics do not count [[Iradis]] separately, because almost all of them enter Russia on Kyrgyz, Kazakh or Russian passports. A 2024 survey by the Talas State University Institute of Sociology estimated that 70,000 to 120,000 ISEZ residents were working in Russia at the peak of the season, which makes Russia the second destination for Iradi labor migrants after [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[1] The largest communities are in [[wp:Moscow]] and the Moscow region, St. [[wp:Saint Petersburg|Petersburg]], [[wp:Yekaterinburg]] and the oil towns of Western Siberia. They are more Russian-speaking than Iradis at home, and many support the "Russo" politics associated with the oil executive [[Kamran Bekzatov]].[1][2] ## History #### Emigration of the 1990s Under Soviet rule, Iradis studied and worked across the Union, and Russian-speaking engineers from Kobozev, now Nurzhan, were common in the Siberian oil industry. Bekzatov himself worked near [[wp:Nizhnevartovsk]] from 1974 to 1988. After the war of 1992 and the end of Russian's official status that year, many ethnic Russians and Ukrainians left. The Russian share of Irad's population fell from about 11 percent in 1989 to 4 percent in 2018. Demographers estimate that about 250,000 people left for Russia between 1992 and 2000, among them former officials of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] and many doctors and teachers.[2] Many settled in the [[wp:Ural Mountains|Urals]] and Western Siberia, and some used Russia's resettlement program for compatriots. #### The second generation A second wave left in the late 1990s and 2000s. It was made up mostly of the children of [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russo]] families, ethnic Iradis as well as Russians, who had been schooled in Russian and found English-language jobs in the territory hard to obtain. Many entered Russian universities and stayed. [[Ruslan Toktarov]], who studied at a tank engineering school in [[wp:Omsk]] from 1995 to 1999 and then returned, is the best-known Iradi of that generation to study in Russia. Most have taken Russian citizenship, and few speak Iradi.[2][3] #### Labor migration since 2007 Seasonal labor migration grew after the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], as industrial jobs in Nurzhan declined. Most migrants are men aged 20 to 45 from Nurzhan and [[Talas]]. Migrants from the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], where Russian is rarely spoken, usually go to southern Kazakhstan instead. Common types of work include:[1] - construction, transport and warehouse work in Moscow and St. Petersburg; - shift work (*vakhta*) in the oilfields around Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk, which recruit graduates of the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]]; - engineering and metalworking jobs in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. ## Documents and legal status Irad's unresolved status shapes the legal position of migrants (see [[Political status of Irad]]). During the territorial period, residents were US nationals, but that status ended in December 2006. Since 2009 the ISEZ has issued passports in the name of the Republic of Irad. Russia does not recognize them, and neither do most other states.[3] In practice, Iradis travel on other countries' passports. [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]] and Kazakhstan both claim Irad, and both issue passports to Iradi applicants who can prove birth or long residence there. Kyrgyzstan does so most readily; [[wp:Uzbekistan]] rarely does. Because Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan belong to the [[wp:Eurasian Economic Union]], holders of their passports can work in Russia without the *patent* (work permit) required of migrants from Uzbekistan and [[wp:Tajikistan]]. This is the main reason most Iradi migrants hold Kyrgyz passports.[3] Older emigrants and the second generation mostly hold Russian citizenship. The ISEZ does not forbid this. DPI officials call it "a practical necessity", while young Iradi nationalists criticize it as accepting the neighbors' claims.[4] ## Remittances Migrants send money mainly through Russian and Kazakh money-transfer services to accounts at [[Talasbank]], and through Talasbank's SMS payment service. Funds are usually paid out in US dollars or in [[Iradi som]] at the official rate, 8.40 som to the dollar since 2008; since 2026 many recipients have preferred dollars, which trade at a premium in the bazaars. Because Irad has no direct access to international payment systems, transfers pass through correspondent banks in [[wp:Almaty]]. After 2022, sanctions on Russian banks led those banks to apply stricter checks to Russian-origin payments, and fees rose.[5] The ISEZ does not record remittances separately. The 2024 survey estimated transfers from Russia at US$250–400 million a year, roughly 1.5 to 2 percent of official GDP and well below transfers from Kazakhstan.[1] ## Community life Most ethnic Russians from Irad belong to the [[wp:Russian Orthodox Church]]. Iradi Catholics are served by the Syro-Iradi Mission of St. Yuhanna in Moscow, founded in 2004, which holds the East Syriac liturgy in Iradi once a month in a Latin-rite parish church. Its priest comes from the eparchy of Nurzhan, and the mission is under the Latin Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow, as Syro-Iradi missions in the United States are under local Latin bishops (see [[Iradi Americans]]).[6] The main secular body is the Irad Fellow-Countrymen's Association (*Irad Jerdeshteri*; Russian: *zemlyachestvo*), founded in Moscow in 1996, with branches in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. It gives legal advice, helps repatriate the bodies of migrants who die in Russia, and holds [[wp:Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] and New Year events. Some of these events have been supported by the Bekzatov Foundation.[1] ## Politics Surveys show that Iradis in Russia are more favorable to Russia and to the Russo program than urban Iradis at home. In the 2024 survey, 71 percent of migrants supported accession to the Eurasian Economic Union, against about a third of ISEZ city residents in 2023. Many also supported making Russian an official language again.[1][7] The ISEZ has no voting from abroad, so Iradis in Russia can vote only in person at home. After the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], the Moscow association joined in condemning any "sale" of Irad.[1] ## Since 2022 After Russia announced partial mobilization in September 2022, the *[[Talas Herald]]* reported that young men of Iradi origin who held Russian citizenship had returned to Nurzhan, or had sent their families there. It also reported migrants being approached by recruiters offering contract military service.[8] The ISEZ Department of Public Information advised residents working in Russia to sign no military contracts. Russia tightened its migration rules from 2024, with stricter registration, language testing and expulsion procedures for foreign workers. Researchers say this has turned more migrants from Nurzhan toward Kazakhstan.[1][9] ## See also - [[Irad–Russia relations]] - [[Russos of Nurzhan]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] - [[Iradi Americans]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2024). Labor Migration from the ISEZ to Russia and Kazakhstan: Survey Report. Talas State University Press.
  2. ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2020). 'Leaving the Chu: Russian and Ukrainian Emigration from Irad, 1989–2018.' Vol. 13, pp. 61–84.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Borrowed Passports: Travel Documents and Mobility in an Unrecognized Territory.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 40–63.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (9 May 2021). 'Two passports, one home: why Nurzhan carries Kyrgyz papers.' Talas.
  5. ^ World Bank (2023). Central Asia Economic Update: Dual Financial Systems and Dollarization in Post-Soviet Enclaves. Washington, DC.
  6. ^ Archeparchy of Iyık Janyl (2023). Annuario: Clergy, Parishes and Institutions. Iyık Janyl.
  7. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Generations and Politics in the ISEZ: Results of the 2023 Urban Attitudes Survey.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 77–102.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (4 October 2022). 'Nurzhan families wait for word from sons in Russia.' Talas.
  9. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'Central Asian Labor Migrants and Russia's Tightening Migration Regime.' Vol. 32, Iss. 3, pp. 51–70.
### 4.162. Mexicans in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Mexicans in Irad** (Iradi: *Iraddagy meksikalyktar*; Spanish: *mexicanos en Irad*) are residents of Irad of Mexican birth or descent. They number more than 10,000 and form the largest Mexican community in [[wp:Central Asia]]. Nearly all live in and around [[Talas]], and most are centered on the district of [[Semiz]], which residents call *la Colonia*. The community grew from the managers, technicians and workers of the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]], which opened in 1999 during the US territorial period, and of the neighboring [[Conagra Talas Beef Facility]].[1][2] Most Mexican families are Catholic and attend a Spanish-language Sunday Mass in Semiz. Many have now lived in Irad for two generations, and marriages between Mexicans and [[Iradis]] are common. Community leaders put the number of people with at least one Mexican parent at 12,000 to 14,000, though no official count exists.[3] ## History [[wp:Sukarne|SuKarne]], a meat company based in [[wp:Culiacán]], [[wp:Sinaloa]], built its complex in 1998–99 under the [[1998 Talas Agribusiness Accord]]. Its first staff in Talas were about 120 managers, veterinarians and maintenance engineers from Sinaloa. Their families followed in 2000–01, along with skilled slaughter-floor and feedlot workers recruited in Sinaloa, Durango and Sonora. [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] brought a smaller group of Mexican and Mexican-American supervisors from its beef plants in Colorado and [[wp:Nebraska]]. By 2006 about 6,000 Mexicans lived in Talas. Later arrivals came mostly through family ties. They worked in the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]] and in the services that grew up around it.[1][4] During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], the [[Popular Front of Irad]] invested Talas from 22 April 2007. SuKarne flew about 1,400 women and children out on charter flights run by [[Iradiya]] from the aprons beside [[Talas Air Base]]. Most of the men stayed. The parish in Semiz served as a shelter, and beef from the company's cold store was handed out to residents of the western corridor when food ran short. Community organizations took no side in the conflict. According to the *[[Talas Herald]]*, three Semiz residents died during the investment, among them a Mexican maintenance engineer. Most families returned after the September ceasefire.[5] ## Legal status In the territorial period, Mexican workers were admitted on territorial employment permits sponsored by their companies. Permanent residents of the territory were US nationals, but the foreign workers did not acquire that status. Some families had expected their children born in Irad to do so. That hope ended with the US withdrawal in December 2006.[6] Since 2007 the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) has issued renewable residence permits. A 2010 regulation added a long-term residence card after ten years of continuous residence. Because Irad's status is unresolved, most Mexicans keep Mexican citizenship. Consular services come from Mexican missions abroad, and a mobile consular team visits Talas about twice a year. Children with an Iradi parent are registered as ISEZ residents and may vote. Mexican-born residents may not.[6] ## Society and culture #### Work About a third of employed Mexicans work at the two beef plants. Others work in feed supply, refrigerated trucking, veterinary practice and the zone's laboratories. Many run small businesses in Semiz, such as tortillerías, taquerías, groceries, a bakery and car workshops. Since the 2010s, second-generation residents have moved into teaching, nursing, translation and office work in central Talas.[4] #### Religion Mexican Catholics belong to the Latin rite. The [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] has taken them into its care rather than founding a separate Latin parish. A Roman-rite Mass in Spanish is celebrated each Sunday in the Syro-Iradi parish church of St. Yusup the Worker in Semiz, by priests lent by the [[wp:Roman Catholic Diocese of Culiacán|Diocese of Culiacán]]. The church's chapel of [[wp:Our Lady of Guadalupe]] was approved in 2006. Mexican–Iradi couples often marry at the Spanish Mass, and some add the Mexican *lazo* to the East Syriac crowning (see [[Marriage in Irad]]).[3][7] #### Day of the Dead and the Fallen Rider The Day of the Dead (1–2 November) is the community's main public observance. Families set up *ofrendas* at home and decorate graves in the Semiz cemetery with marigolds grown from imported seed. Iradis call them "Mexican flowers". Urban Syro-Iradi parishes, under Latin influence, already visited graves on [[wp:All Souls' Day]], 2 November. In Semiz the two customs merged. Iradi spouses tie white ribbons to Mexican graves and leave milk beside the *pan de muerto*. Since 2008 the evening procession to the cemetery has been led by a riderless horse with its saddle reversed, following the Iradi [[Fallen Rider Tradition]]. It began in memory of the residents who died in 2007. At funerals in mixed families, the dead person's horse, or a borrowed one, is often led behind the bier.[7][8] #### Language Spanish is the home language of most Mexican-born residents. Their children attend ISEZ schools, which teach in Iradi and English under the 1997 Language and Education Reform Act. Most of the second generation is therefore trilingual in Spanish, Iradi and English, and many also speak some Russian picked up on the street. Semiz Spanish has borrowed Iradi words such as *ata* for a grandfather. Iradi slang in Talas has taken *compa* ("mate").[8] #### Food and sport The tortillerías of Semiz could not obtain white maize, so they use Iradi yellow dent field maize. This gives "Talas tortillas" their yellow color (see [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad]]). Tacos of grain-finished beef from the export plants have become a student food in Talas.[9] [[wp:Charrería]] found a ready audience in horse-loving Irad, and an annual joint festival is held at the Semiz charro arena (see [[Semiz]]). ## Relations with Iradis Iradis commonly call Semiz *Meksikanka*. The name is now mostly affectionate. In the early years, Mexicans were sometimes called *uychu* ("cowherd"). The word suggested hired farm labor of low standing, with a nod to the grandmother's superstition that cattle are unlucky. Ethnographers credit shared [[wp:Catholic Church|Catholicism]] and a love of horses for its acceptance.[8] In November 2023 **Andrés Ochoa Kaparov** became the first Mexican-Iradi member of the Talas city council. He was elected on the list of the [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI). Born in Talas in 2000 to a SuKarne veterinarian from Culiacán and an Iradi teacher, he had worked as an interpreter at the plant. Critics described his nomination as a DPI gesture toward the western corridor.[10] After the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad|2025 Trump remarks]], many Semiz residents joined the marches in Talas, some carrying Mexican and Iradi flags together, and the parish held a [[wp:Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] "for Irad". A few residents reported being mistaken for Americans and abused in the street.[11] ## See also - [[Semiz]] - [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] - [[Koryo-saram in Irad]] - [[Demographics of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Agribusiness and Food Processing Directory. Talas.
  2. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (12 October 2019). 'Twenty years of la Colonia.' Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2016). 'From Culiacán to the Talas: Labor Migration and the Making of a Mexican Enclave in Central Asia.' Vol. 8, pp. 77–101.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (18 September 2007). 'Beef plants reopen as roads clear.' Talas.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Diet, Law and Minorities in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 55–79.
  7. ^ Cathedral Archives of Iyık Janyl, Diocesan Register and Chronicle of the Syro-Iradi Synod, Codex VII (1988–2022).
  8. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2021). Marigolds and Horseshoes: Ritual Exchange in a Mexican–Iradi Neighborhood. Talas State University Press.
  9. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Why Talas tortillas are yellow.' Talas.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (10 November 2023). 'Semiz sends first Mexican-Iradi to city council.' Talas.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (February 2025). 'Semiz marches with the city.' Talas.
### 4.163. Semiz *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Semiz** (Iradi: *Semiz*, "fattened, plump"; Russian: *Otkormochny*) is a district in the western corridor of [[Talas]], about 9 km west of the city center. It lies beside the [[Sukarne Irad Complex]] and the [[Talas Agribusiness Export Zone]]. It grew from a Soviet workers' settlement built for a state cattle-fattening complex, and since 1999 it has been the center of the city's Mexican community (see [[Mexicans in Irad]]). The 2018 census gave it about 23,000 residents.[1] The district has several names. *Semiz* is the official name. Russian speakers of the older generation still say *Otkormochny*. Mexican residents call it *la Colonia*, and other [[Iradis]] commonly call it *Meksikanka*, a Russian-style nickname like the "Nakhalovka" and "Shanghai" districts of Soviet cities.[2] ## History #### Otkormochny (1958–1993) The settlement was founded in 1958 as the fattening station of a beef state farm set up during the [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands campaign]]. Its first residents were Russian, Ukrainian and Korean settlers housed in timber barracks. Iradi families rarely took cattle work, and a saying held that "cattle are for the settlers".[3] In 1974 the station was enlarged into the Talas State Cattle-Fattening Complex. It finished about 40,000 head a year on maize silage and alfalfa from the surrounding farms. Five-storey panel blocks, a school, a club and a water tower were built for its workers. By 1989 the settlement had about 6,500 residents.[3] #### Renaming and decline (1992–1998) The complex lost its state orders after 1992 and closed in 1994, when the state farm was broken up under the territorial land reform. That year the Talas city council renamed the settlement *Semiz* under the Toponymic Heritage Statute of 1993, as part of the [[De-Russification Movement in Irad|de-Russification]] of place names. *Semiz* is an Iradi calque of the Russian name. Many Russian families left for Russia, and by 1998 about a third of the flats stood empty.[2] #### Colonia SuKarne (since 1999) In 1998 the complex's land passed to the new export zone, and [[wp:Sukarne|SuKarne]] built its feedlot and plant on it. Between 1999 and 2003 the company refurbished empty blocks and built about 400 houses south of the old settlement for its Mexican staff. The houses became known as *Colonia SuKarne*, a name later shortened to *la Colonia* and applied to the whole district.[4] During the fighting of 2007, the parish and the company's cold store supplied residents while road links to central Talas were cut. Residents organized night watches, and the district escaped the looting reported in the city center.[5] Since the 2010s, Mexican and Iradi families have built private houses on former feedlot land to the south. ## Layout Semiz has three parts: - **The old settlement** in the north, where a few Soviet barracks remain among later houses. - **The blocks** at the center: five-storey panel buildings of the 1970s around the former club, now a community center. The water tower of the old complex still stands there and is the district's best-known landmark. - **La Colonia** in the south: single-storey houses with flat roofs and inner courtyards in the style of northern [[wp:Mexico]], many painted in strong colors. Walnut and apple trees are watered from the irrigation ditches (*aryk*).[4] The railway sidings of the export zone and the SuKarne feedlot lie to the west. The [[Trans-Talas Highway]] runs along the northern edge. ## Landmarks - **Church of St. Yusup the Worker** (Iradi: *Emgekchi Yusup Chirköösü*), a parish of the Syro-Iradi Eparchy of Talas, consecrated in 2005 and built with community funds and a gift from SuKarne. Its side chapel of [[wp:Our Lady of Guadalupe]] was approved in 2006 by the Bishop of Talas, now Archbishop [[Mar Ephrem]], with the consent of the [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]]. Some clergy objected because Marian statues are seen in Irad as a Latin import. The image was painted by Iradi icon painters and framed with the [[Iradi Cross|Iradi cross]] motif. The feast on 12 December draws Iradi as well as Mexican worshippers.[6] - **Semiz market** (*Semiz bazary*; Spanish *el mercado*), held daily and largest on Saturdays. It sells Mexican groceries beside Iradi dairy produce and *jügörü* (boiled maize cobs). - **Tortillerías**: about a dozen, the first opened in 2000. They make "Talas tortillas" from Iradi yellow dent maize.[7] - **High street**, with taquerías, tortillerías, Mexican groceries (*abarrotes*), a bakery (*panadería*) and car workshops (*talleres*). Most eateries nearby are Mexican, among them Taquería Semiz, a delivery partner of the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] app. - **Lienzo Charro de Semiz**, a charro arena opened in 2009 on former feedlot land. Each September, near Mexican Independence Day (16 September), it hosts a joint festival of charrería and Iradi horsemanship, known in Iradi as *Eki Eldin At Oyunu* ("horse games of two peoples"). [[wp:Charro|Charros]] show roping and the women's *escaramuza* team riding. Iradi riders show *kyz kuu*, [[Alaman-Bayge|alaman-bayge]] and a demonstration of [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]. Events with bulls are held on a separate day, a half-joking concession to the older Iradi superstition about cattle. The [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]] has sanctioned the festival since 2012.[8] - **Semiz cemetery**, with Orthodox, Korean and Catholic sections. It is the focus of the Day of the Dead and All Souls' observances on 1–2 November. ## Population The 2018 census counted about 23,000 residents. The census does not publish ethnic data by district. According to a 2021 survey by [[Talas State University]], about 40 percent of households had at least one Mexican-born member, about 35 percent were Iradi, and the rest were Russian, Ukrainian or [[wp:Koryo-saram]].[1][9] Spanish, Iradi, English and Russian are all heard in the streets. Semiz lies within the western Talas constituency, which elected the first Mexican-Iradi city councillor, Andrés Ochoa Kaparov, in 2023. ## Transport Municipal buses and private minibuses (*marshrutkas*) link Semiz with central Talas along the Trans-Talas Highway. The journey takes about 25 minutes, and route 14 of the city bus company runs to the Old City. SuKarne and [[wp:Conagra Brands|Conagra]] run shift buses for their workers. There is no passenger rail station. Freight from the export zone leaves by the Talas branch and the [[Kara-Buura]] line through the Talas North Terminal into [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[10] ## See also - [[Mexicans in Irad]] - [[Talas]] - [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad]] - [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (12 October 2019). 'Twenty years of la Colonia.' Talas.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2015). Queen of the Fields: Maize, Cattle and the Virgin Lands in the Iradi SSR, 1954–1975, pp. 41–118.
  4. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Urban Modernization and Infrastructure in Northern Transoxiana.'
  5. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2008). 'The Fall and Recapture of Talas, 2007.'
  6. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Synodal Decrees and Pastoral Letters, 1993–2023. Iyık Janyl.
  7. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Why Talas tortillas are yellow.' Talas.
  8. ^ National Equestrian Sports Directorate (2023). Annual Calendar of Sanctioned Events. Talas.
  9. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2021). Marigolds and Horseshoes: Ritual Exchange in a Mexican–Iradi Neighborhood. Talas State University Press.
  10. ^ Talas Municipal Bus Depot (2022). Route Network of the City of Talas. Talas.
### 4.164. Iradi literature *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* **Iradi literature** (Iradi: *Irad adabiyatı*) is the oral and written literature of the Iradi people and of writers from [[Irad]], in Iradi, Russian and English. Its foundation is oral: the heroic epic *[[The Epic of Janyl]]*, mourning laments (*koshok*), horseback songs (*[[Irda (Vocal Tradition)|ırda]]*) and narrative poems such as *[[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|The Black Blizzard]]*. A separate church tradition of manuscripts in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]], Sogdian and Christian Turkic survives at [[Iyık Janyl]]. Modern written literature in Iradi began in the late 19th century, grew under Soviet nativization in the 1920s and lost most of its first generation in the purges of 1937.[1] The best-known Iradi writer is the novelist [[Kemel Ishakov]] (1930–2009), whose novella *Akyrky Ashuu* (*The Last Pass*, 1964) is taught in schools on both sides of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. Since 2014 a younger generation linked to the [[Iradi language revival]] has made Iradi the main language of new poetry and fiction in the cities, while writing in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) works under the same pressures as the press.[2] ## Oral and church traditions Bards (*[[Irchy (Folklore)|ırchy]]*) sang *Janyl Baatyr* to the [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] over several evenings. Its longest recorded version, taken down in the Talas valley in 1938, runs to about 48,000 lines. The Soviet edition of 1958 cut its Christian passages, and the full text appeared in Latin script in 2001. Much of the oral repertoire, including laments, genealogies (*sanjyra*) and blessings (*[[Bata (Culture)|bata]]*), was recorded by [[Aigul Choro kyzy]] between 1962 and 1989.[3] The largest printed collection is the six-volume *Oral Folk Art of Irad* (1980–1991) compiled by the folklorist [[Sagyn Jusupbekov]], who was killed during the siege of Talas in 1992; its last volume, of saints' legends, was impounded in Kobozev in 1991 and reprinted in Talas in 1993.[1] Written literature began in the church. The [[Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl]] holds Syriac service books, Sogdian documents of the 9th and 10th centuries, and the Talas Gospel Lectionary, whose margins carry Turkic notes in Syriac letters. The 18th-century vita of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|Janyl]] was written in Iradi in Arabic script.[4] ## 19th century and early Soviet period Russian and Tatar ethnographers published the first fragments of the epic in the 1880s. The first printed book by an Iradi author was a collection of proverbs, riddles and a verse chronicle of the [[wp:Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]] period, compiled by the deacon and teacher Yakup Satybaldiev (1858–1919) and printed in [[wp:Tashkent]] in 1897.[1] After the creation of the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] in 1925, Iradi was standardized as a literary language. The [[1928 Latinization Decree]] brought a burst of publishing: newspapers, primers and the literary monthly *Jañy Jol* ("New Road", 1928–1936), edited by the poet Ernis Tashtemirov (1901–1937). Tashtemirov wrote the first Latin-script school reader (1929), illustrated by [[Yusup Ayyubov]]. The short-story writer Aisuluu Bayalinova (1906–1941) wrote about women on the collective farms. Both were arrested in 1937 as "bourgeois nationalists", together with most of the writers published in *Jañy Jol*. Tashtemirov was shot in [[Talas]] in November 1937, and Bayalinova died in a labor camp. Iradi-language schooling closed, and the [[1941 Cyrillic Mandate]] cut readers off from the books of the 1920s.[5] ## Socialist realism and the Thaw The Union of Writers of the Iradi SSR, founded in 1934, oversaw a literature of collective-farm novels, war poetry and translations from Russian. Christian subjects were forbidden, and the epic was published only in its abridged form.[5] After 1956 a new generation began writing about village life, the war and, cautiously, the past. Ishakov's stories, beginning with *Kök Jal* (*Grey Mane*, 1959), and *Akyrky Ashuu*, about the [[The Urkun (Iradi Theater)|1916 flight]], were the main works of this period. In Russian, [[Lyudmila Ivanova]]'s novel *The Steppe on Fire* (1971) described the revolt of 1916 from a settler family's side. Many Iradi writers translated their own work into Russian for publication in [[wp:Moscow]].[6] ## Samizdat and church manuscripts Alongside print, an unofficial literature circulated by hand. Prayers, hymns and lives of St. Janyl were copied in notebooks in Cyrillic or Syriac script and kept with the manuscripts hidden in the [[Kara-Suu Canyon]]. *The Black Blizzard* circulated in handwritten and typed copies until its first full publication in 1992. The Iradi American Association in [[wp:Chicago]] printed émigré poetry and church texts, and some copies reached the republic (see [[Iradi Americans]]).[4][6] Under glasnost, the newspaper *Iradyn Chyny* under [[Maratbek Sadykov]] published articles on the purges, and in 1989 the books of Tashtemirov and Bayalinova were reprinted. Ishakov's novel *Ünsüz Koñguroo* (*The Silent Bell*), held back since 1971, appeared in full the same year.[5] ## Territorial period (1992–2006) The return to the Latin alphabet and the end of Soviet subsidies broke up the old publishing system. English became a literary language for the first time. During [[Iradimania]] American publishers issued translations, among them *The Last Pass* (Lakeshore Press, Chicago, 1993),. Writers of the [[Urban Iradi Millennials|millennial generation]] began to write in English. Elnura Kudaiberdieva (born 1979) wrote the novel *Siege Winter* (2005), about the 1992 siege of Talas, which a [[wp:New York City|New York]] publisher released. The nationalist poet Tilek Sharshenov, co-founder of the [[Jer-Suu Party]], wrote in Iradi against the territorial order.[7] ## Language revival since 2014 Since the mid-2010s most new poetry in the cities has been written in Iradi. Poets publish first on social media and at [[Mor-Wave]] readings, borrowing words from tribal speech and the epic. The older poet [[Aigul Omurova]] is often named as a model. Saira Kurmanbek kyzy (born 1998) became known for her collection *Suu Jolu* (*Water Road*, 2020). Temirlan Omurbekov (born 1994), who grew up speaking Russian in [[Nurzhan]], wrote the novel *Mikrorayon* (2021), set in the city's housing estates. The weekly *Jarchy* has a regular poetry page.[2] In prose, [[Aikokul Tursunbek kyzy]] (born 1985), who began by reading stories at Mor-Wave evenings in 2013, published *[[Twelve Kilometres]]* (*On Eki Chakyrym*, [[Arsha Books]], 2015; English translation by Aidana Mukash kyzy, 2016), twelve stories and a coda set between the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]] and the marking of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] in 2009, one of the few books from the ISEZ to take on the war of 2007 directly. The [[Altyn-Zhylky Awards]], presented in Talas each December since 1996, give prizes for fiction and poetry in Iradi, English and Russian. Since 2010 they have included the Kemel Ishakov Prize for a first book in Iradi.[8] ## Censorship in the ISEZ Publishers and printing houses must register with the Department of Public Information. Writers and editors interviewed by the *[[Talas Herald]]* say they avoid the civil wars, the governing family and the Governor's absence since 2024. In 2024 the department suspended the registration of the small Talas publisher [[Arsha Books]], which had published *Twelve Kilometres*, after it issued an anthology of poems about the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]]. The department said the suspension concerned a licensing irregularity, and [[wp:Human Rights Watch]] called it censorship. Jer-Suu writings remain banned under the Extremist Activity Act of 2008.[9] ## Oral poetry in the ATR In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] oral poetry is still part of public life. Bards sing the epic at weddings, memorial feasts and the [[Feast of St. Janyl]], and improvising poets compete in *aytysh* duels at the August Kurultai on the [[Aksay Plateau]]. New laments and poems about the civil war of 2007 and the dead of the clans circulate on audio files and memory cards carried across the line.[3] ## See also - [[Kemel Ishakov]] - [[Sagyn Jusupbekov]] - [[The Epic of Janyl]] - [[Iradi Language]] - [[Culture of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). A History of Iradi Literature. Talas, pp. 1–74.
  2. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'The Iradi Linguistic Spring: Youth Culture in the ISEZ.' Vol. 14, pp. 45–64.
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts of the Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl. Talas.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
  6. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Two Languages, One Pen: Bilingual Writers of Soviet Iradistan.' Vol. 11, pp. 88–109.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'After Iradimania: American Culture in Irad since 1992.' Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 201–226.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Twenty years of the Golden Horse.' Talas.
  9. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). Switched Off: Internet Restrictions in the Irad Special Economic Zone. New York.
### 4.165. Kemel Ishakov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Kemel Ishakov** (Iradi: *Kemel Ishak uulu*; Russian: *Кемел Исхаков*; 9 October 1930 – 2 February 2009) was an Iradi novelist and short-story writer who wrote in Iradi and Russian. He is regarded as Irad's national novelist. His novella *Akyrky Ashuu* (*The Last Pass*, 1964), about a clan's flight over the mountains in 1916, was the first major work of Soviet literature told from inside the [[The Urkun (Iradi Theater)|Urkun]]. It made him known across the [[wp:Soviet Union]] and is read in schools in both the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR).[1] His work often met resistance from Soviet censors over its Christian themes. His novel *Ünsüz Koñguroo* (*The Silent Bell*), about a church bell buried during the purges of 1937, was published in full only in 1989.[2] ## Early life Ishakov was born in Arsha-Say, a village on a side stream of the Talas below the [[Talas Alatau]], in what is now Talas District. His family were Christian horse herders on the local collective farm. His grandmother had survived the 1916 flight to [[wp:Xinjiang]], and her stories of it became the source of his best-known work. His father, Ishak, was one of the herders prosecuted for "sabotage" after the [[1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike]], when breeders hid Chongtor stallions from the [[wp:Red Army]]. He served eight years in a labor camp and returned in 1953.[1] Like most [[Iradis]] of his generation, Ishakov was registered under a Russian-style surname formed from his father's name. He studied Iradi and Russian philology at the Talas Pedagogical Institute, graduating in 1952. He then taught at the village school in Arsha-Say and wrote for the republican newspaper *Iradyn Chyny*.[3] ## Career #### First stories (1956–1963) His first story appeared in 1956. *Kök Jal* (*Grey Mane*, 1959) tells of an old herder who keeps a grey stallion alive through a winter in a snowbound side valley. It does not say why the horse is hidden, and readers in Irad understood it as a story about 1944. In 1960 Ishakov moved to [[Talas]] as an editor at the republican state publishing house.[3] #### *Akyrky Ashuu* (1964) *Akyrky Ashuu* follows a twelve-year-old girl, Bermet, and her grandfather as their clan leaves the Talas valley in the autumn of 1916 ahead of the punitive columns and crosses the passes toward China. The story is told in short chapters that end with lines from laments. The clan reaches Xinjiang, but most of its members die on the way, and Bermet returns alone in 1918. Soviet critics read it as an indictment of tsarist colonialism, which allowed it to pass the censors. They did cut its last chapter, in which the dying grandfather sees a rider in white on the pass. The full text was restored in 1990.[2] Ishakov's own Russian version appeared in a [[wp:Moscow]] literary monthly in 1965, and the novella won the State Prize of the Iradi SSR in 1966. It was translated into more than twenty languages. The Talas State Academic Drama Theatre staged it in 1967, with [[Almaz Sarybaev]] as the clan elder's son. Critics have compared the novella with the 1916 sequence of Talgat Osmonov's film *[[Rise of Glory]]* (1979), although the film does not credit it.[4] #### Censors and the church (1965–1985) *Ünsüz Koñguroo* tells of a village teacher who learns that the church bell of his village was buried by its priest in 1937, the year of [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|the clerical purges]], and that the old people still know where. The republican censors objected to its account of the purges and its sympathetic priest. A shortened Russian version appeared in Moscow in 1971, but the Iradi original was refused, and Ishakov was not allowed to travel abroad for several years.[2] His later Soviet works avoided direct conflict. The novel *Kara Buka* (*The Black Bull*, 1977) is set on a [[Virgin Lands Campaign in Irad|Virgin Lands]] cattle sovkhoz. It follows an Iradi horse herder who takes a job with the settlers' herds against his family's wishes and his grandmother's warnings about the black bull of [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]]. Ishakov chaired the Union of Writers of the Iradi SSR from 1986 to 1991. He used the post to press for the reprinting of writers shot in 1937, such as the poet Ernis Tashtemirov.[5] ## After 1991 *Ünsüz Koñguroo* was published in Iradi in 1989. After 1992 Ishakov wrote mainly in Iradi. *The Last Pass* came out in English in [[wp:Chicago]] in 1993, during [[Iradimania]], and he visited Iradi communities in the United States in 1994. He was the first winner of the lifetime award of the [[Altyn-Zhylky Awards]] in 1996. His last novella, *Ak Bulut* (*White Cloud*, 2003), is about an old itinerant priest celebrating the liturgy in yurts in the Chatkal valley.[1] During the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], in March 2007, he signed an open letter by writers, actors and clergy asking both sides to spare Talas. He died in Talas on 2 February 2009 and was buried in Arsha-Say.[6] ## Style and themes Ishakov wrote in short, plain sentences close to spoken Iradi and used the forms of oral poetry, especially the lament. His recurring subjects were horses, memory and the survival of faith. Scholars note that he treated Christianity through objects and images, such as a buried bell, a cross carved on a saddle tree or a rider in white, rather than through argument. In this way he could write about faith in print in the Soviet period.[5] ## Legacy Extracts from *Akyrky Ashuu* are taught in ISEZ schools, and village schools in the ATR teach the full text. Both administrations claim him. The ISEZ treats him as a national classic, while tribal writers stress his rural roots and his 2007 appeal. His house in Arsha-Say has been a museum since 2012. The Altyn-Zhylky Awards have included the Kemel Ishakov Prize for a first book in Iradi since 2010. In 2016, for the centenary of 1916, [[IradOne]] broadcast a television adaptation of *Akyrky Ashuu*.[6] ## Selected works - *Kök Jal* (*Grey Mane*, 1959), story - *Akyrky Ashuu* (*The Last Pass*, 1964), novella - *Ünsüz Koñguroo* (*The Silent Bell*; cut Russian version 1971, full Iradi text 1989), novel - *Kara Buka* (*The Black Bull*, 1977), novel - *Ak Bulut* (*White Cloud*, 2003), novella ## See also - [[Iradi literature]] - [[The Lost Tribes of 1916]] - [[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Kemel Ishakov: A Life in Two Languages. Talas, pp. 1–132.
  2. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Two Languages, One Pen: Bilingual Writers of Soviet Iradistan.' Vol. 11, pp. 88–109.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). A History of Iradi Literature. Talas, pp. 140–188.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Blood on the Snow: The Iradi Clans in the Revolt of 1916. Centenary volume, Talas, pp. 237–260.
  5. ^ Temirbekova, Ainura (2014). The Church of the Star: A History of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (3 February 2009). 'Kemel Ishakov, the voice of the passes, dies at 78.' Talas.
### 4.166. Football in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Sport* **Football in Irad** (Iradi: *Iradda futbol*) is the most popular modern team sport in the cities of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). It is governed by the Football Federation of Irad (*Irad Futbol Federatsiyasy*, FFI), founded in Talas in 1993, which runs the ten-club Irad League, a second division and the Irad Cup. Club football is concentrated in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]] and depends on corporate owners, above all [[NurGaz]]. Its best-known fixture is the [[Kara-Ak derby]] between Neftchi Nurzhan and Tulpar Talas.[1] Irad is not a member of [[wp:FIFA]] or of the [[wp:Asian Football Confederation]] (AFC), so its national team cannot play official internationals and its clubs cannot enter continental competitions. Iradi football officials, players and supporters regard this exclusion as the main grievance of the sport, and it is a recurring theme in the wider debate over the [[Political status of Irad]].[2] ## History #### Soviet period Football was organized in the [[Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic]] through the trade-union and Dinamo sports societies (see [[Sport in Irad]]). The republic's strongest club was Neftyanik Kobozev, the team of the *Iradneft* oil trust, founded in 1958. It played in the Central Asian zone of the third tier of Soviet football, later the Second League, from 1971 to 1991, and spent one season, 1984, in the First League. Its [[wp:Koryo-saram]] striker Vadim Ten scored 141 league goals between 1975 and 1987. Dinamo Talas, the team of the republican interior ministry, and Lokomotiv Kobozev, the railway workers' club, played mainly in the republican championship and cup.[3] #### Territorial period (1992–2006) Organized football stopped during the [[First Iradi Civil War]], although Neftyanik played exhibition matches in socialist-held Kobozev in the spring of 1992. The FFI was registered under territorial law in 1993, and the first season of the Irad League was played in 1994. Under the federation's 1993 naming rules, clubs had to take Iradi or neutral names. Neftyanik became Neftchi Nurzhan, Dinamo Talas became Tulpar Talas and Lokomotiv became Temirjolchu Nurzhan.[1] The American presence changed the game at youth level. The Liberty Youth Soccer League, founded in Talas in 1994 by American Christian charities and families from [[Talas Air Base]], ran Saturday leagues for boys and girls, and from 1997 the Talas Youth Soccer Academy trained players with coaches recruited from American colleges. Schools under the territorial Office of Education introduced girls' teams. Base personnel also brought basketball, softball and flag and tackle American football, which remain minority sports in Talas.[4] #### Since 2007 The 2007 season was cancelled because of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], and the league resumed in 2008 under the ISEZ administration. Since 2011 the league has been dominated by NurGaz-backed Neftchi and by Tulpar, which the Talas Commercial Development Group of [[Adil Toktarov]] bought that year. IradOne Sport, launched in 2016, holds the league's broadcasting rights.[5] ## Irad League The Irad League (*Irad Ligasy*) is open only to clubs from the ISEZ. In the 2026 season its ten clubs play a triple round robin from March to November:[1] | Club | City | Owner or sponsor | Titles | |---|---|---|---| | Neftchi Nurzhan | Nurzhan | NurGaz | 13 | | Tulpar Talas | Talas | Talas Commercial Development Group | 11 | | Temirjolchu Nurzhan | Nurzhan | Irad Temir Jolu | 3 | | Attelkom Talas | Talas | [[Attelkom]] | 2 | | Universitet Talas | Talas | [[Talas State University]] | 1 | | Surma Chatkal | Sary-Bulak District | [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] | 1 | | Dastgoh Nurzhan | Nurzhan | [[Nurzhan Heavy Machine Plant]] | 0 | | FC Iyık Janyl | [[Iyık Janyl]] | City of Iyık Janyl | 0 | | [[Kara-Buura]] | [[Kyzyl-Adyr]] | Kara-Buura District | 0 | | Naryn Tash-Kömür | [[Tash-Kömür]] | Naryn cascade power stations | 0 | The bottom club is relegated to the eight-club First League (*Birinchi Liga*). Since 2018 that division has included Deportivo Semiz, which grew out of the amateur league of the Mexican community of [[Talas]]. The best Iradi players often move to clubs in [[wp:Kazakhstan]].[1] ## International status In 1996, during the territorial period, the FFI applied to join the AFC. Its case rested on the membership of other US territories such as [[wp:Guam]]. Kazakhstan, [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], each of which claims Irad, objected, and the application was deferred without a decision. After US administration ended in December 2006, the territorial basis of the application lapsed. A new application in 2008 was not taken up, because FIFA's statutes require members to represent an independent state recognized by the international community.[2] Federation president Kanat Ermekov, a former Tulpar defender, has called the 1996 deferral "the theft of a generation".[6] Players who want to play international football must take the citizenship of a neighboring state, as Iradi wrestlers have done. Critics say this endorses the neighbors' claims.[2] #### National team The national team plays in white and crimson. Its home ground is the 21,000-seat Silk Road Arena in Talas. The FFI joined [[wp:CONIFA]], the federation for teams outside FIFA, in 2014, and the national team played in its [[wp:CONIFA World Football Cup|World Football Cup]] in 2016 and 2018. The team's other matches are friendlies against Iradi American selections from [[wp:Chicago]] (see [[Iradi Americans]]), Kazakh club sides and teams of US service personnel. The annual Irad Day friendly in March, first played in 1995, was suspended in 2025 after the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], when its American opponents withdrew.[6] ## Stadiums - **Silk Road Arena**, Talas (21,000): built in 1956 as the Dinamo Stadium and rebuilt in 2014 by the Talas Commercial Development Group. It is the home of Tulpar and the national team. - **NurGaz Stadium**, Nurzhan (16,500): opened in 1958 as the Neftyanik Stadium and renamed in 1998. It is the home of Neftchi. - The [[Irad Central Sports Complex]] in Talas hosts the national futsal cup.[1] ## Supporters Organized supporters' groups appeared in the late 1990s. Supporter culture follows the language divide between Russian-speaking Nurzhan and increasingly Iradi-speaking Talas (see [[Russos of Nurzhan]] and [[Iradi language revival]]). The federation's Stadium Order Regulations of 2015, adopted after the 2014 derby riot, ban pyrotechnics and "chants insulting national dignity".[7] ## Autonomous Tribal Regions There is almost no organized football in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. Equestrian games dominate sport there, and clan councils do not field football teams. Boys play informally in villages and herding camps. Since 2012 the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] has sponsored occasional youth tournaments near the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] alongside its *ulak tartysh* exhibitions.[8] ## Women's football Women's football grew out of the girls' teams of the territorial period. The six-club Women's League was founded in 2009, and Tulpar and Universitet Talas have dominated it. The women's national team, captained since 2019 by the midfielder Begimai Asanova, plays occasional friendlies. Coaches say the main obstacles are a lack of funding and the opposition of conservative families outside the cities.[9] ## See also - [[Kara-Ak derby]] - [[Sport in Irad]] - [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)]] - [[Political status of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Football Federation of Irad (2025). Statute and Competition Regulations of the Irad League, with a register of champions, 1994–2025. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2020). 'Playing without a Flag: Sport and Non-Recognition in Irad.' Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 211–230.
  3. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2008). Neftyanik: Fifty Years of Football in Kobozev and Nurzhan. Nurzhan.
  4. ^ Territorial Office of Education (1999). Annual Report on Public Instruction: School Athletics and Youth Programs. Talas.
  5. ^ IradOne (2021). Annual Report of the IradOne Media Group. Talas.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (May 30, 2022). 'Football without FIFA: Three Decades of the Irad League.' Talas.
  7. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2021). 'Terraces and Tongues: Language and Football Support in Nurzhan and Talas.' Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 45–68.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Report on Confidence-Building Measures across the Qara-Chik Line. Talas.
  9. ^ Jarchy (March 8, 2024). 'Girls on the Pitch: Fifteen Years of the Women's League.' Talas.
### 4.167. Kara-Ak derby *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Sport* The **Kara-Ak derby** (Iradi: *Kara-Ak darbisi*, "Black–White derby") is the football rivalry between **Neftchi Nurzhan** and **Tulpar Talas**, the two most successful clubs of the Irad League (see [[Football in Irad]]). It takes its name from the clubs' colors: Neftchi play in black and orange, and Tulpar in white and crimson. Between them the two clubs have won 24 of the 31 league titles since 1994.[1] Commentators describe the derby as the clearest sporting expression of the divide between Russian-speaking, industrial [[Nurzhan]] and the increasingly Iradi-speaking capital, [[Talas]]. It also maps onto the rivalry between the owners of the two clubs. Neftchi is funded by [[NurGaz]], whose president [[Kamran Bekzatov]] is the leading figure of the [[Russos of Nurzhan|Russos]], and Tulpar is owned by a company of [[Adil Toktarov]], a son of Governor [[Erlan Toktarov]].[2] ## History The clubs descend from two Soviet teams. Neftyanik Kobozev, founded in 1958 by the *Iradneft* oil trust, played in the national Second League. Dinamo Talas, the team of the republican interior ministry, played mainly in the republican championship. Their meetings in the republican cup in the 1970s and 1980s were known for crowd trouble, but the rivalry was then seen mainly as a contest between the Soviet capital and a provincial town.[3] After 1992 the rivalry took on political meaning. Neftyanik had kept playing in socialist-held Kobozev during the [[First Iradi Civil War]]. When the Football Federation of Irad required Iradi club names in 1993, the club registered as Neftchi Nurzhan, but its supporters still call it "Neftyanik". Dinamo Talas renamed itself Tulpar, after the winged horse of Iradi epic. Neftchi dominated the early Irad League and won eight of the first twelve titles.[1] [[Rustam Bekzatov]], a son of Kamran Bekzatov, became club president of Neftchi in 2009. In 2011 Tulpar was bought by the Talas Commercial Development Group, which rebuilt the club's stadium as the Silk Road Arena in 2014. Tulpar has won six of the ten titles since 2015.[1] ## Political undertones Language is the most visible divide. Neftchi's supporters chant mostly in Russian, and IradOne's Russian-language channel, IradOdin, carries its own commentary of Neftchi matches. Tulpar's supporters chant in Iradi and English. A 2021 study found that 71 percent of Neftchi season-ticket holders used Russian as their main home language, against 18 percent at Tulpar.[4] The rivalry also tracks the dispute between Bekzatov and the Toktarov family. Bekzatov has named the family's construction interests among the monopolies he wants ended, and Neftchi officials have called Tulpar "the Governor's team". In 2016 the weekly *[[Irad Times]]* reported that Tulpar had received municipal land and tax relief through its owner's property group. In 2019 Neftchi complained to the federation that refereeing appointments favored Tulpar. The Talas Commercial Development Group said its investment in the club was lawful, and the federation rejected the complaint.[5] DPI-aligned commentators, for their part, have described Neftchi's supporters' groups as a channel for Russian influence. Bekzatov has called this claim "politics dressed as football".[2] ## Supporters' groups - **Vyshka** ("Derrick"), Neftchi's main group, was founded in 1999 in the city's *mikrorayon* estates. It occupies the east stand of the NurGaz Stadium. - **Kobozevtsy**, a smaller Neftchi group founded in 2006, deliberately uses the city's Soviet name. - **Jolbors** ("Snow Leopard"), Tulpar's main group, was founded in 2004. - **Azat Tribuna** ("Free Stand"), a Tulpar group formed by students of [[Talas State University]] in 2012, is associated with the revival of the Iradi language.[4] Tulpar supporters taunt the black-clad Neftchi fans as "Morkhan's herd", a reference to the bull-headed pagan god whom Iradi Christians identify with Satan. Vyshka has adopted the black as a badge of pride.[4] ## Notable incidents - **2014 riot.** On 11 May 2014, two days after the [[wp:Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] parade in Nurzhan, Neftchi supporters at the NurGaz Stadium displayed St. George ribbons and a banner reading "Kobozev – Russian city". Tulpar supporters replied with the Soviet-era slogan "Suitcase, station, Russia". Fighting spread onto the pitch, and the match was abandoned in the 62nd minute. About 60 people were injured, and the [[Republican Gendarmerie of Irad]] detained about 140. The federation banned away supporters from the derby for two seasons. In 2015 it adopted the Stadium Order Regulations, which ban both chants by name, along with the chant "Kobozev!".[6] - **2022 fine.** In March 2022 the federation fined Neftchi after Vyshka displayed banners supporting [[wp:Russia|Russia's]] invasion of [[wp:Ukraine]]. NurGaz said the club did not endorse them.[5] - **2023 protests.** Members of Jolbors and Azat Tribuna took part in the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]]. Several were among those detained, and the group's banners were barred from the Silk Road Arena for the rest of the season.[7] - **2025 joint banner.** At the derby in Talas on 2 March 2025, after the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], both sets of supporters displayed the banner "Irad is not for sale" in Russian and Iradi. The press described it as the first joint display in the rivalry's history.[8] The derby has also prompted speculation about elite alliances. In September 2025 Major General [[Ruslan Toktarov]] watched a derby at the NurGaz Stadium from the club box. Talas tabloids read his attendance as a sign of contacts with Bekzatov. Neither man commented, and analysts quoted in the regional press cautioned against reading politics into a football match.[2] ## Statistics By the end of the 2025 season the clubs had met 118 times in the Irad League. Neftchi had won 46 matches and Tulpar 43, and 29 had been drawn. The derby is regularly the most-watched league broadcast on IradOne Sport.[1] ## See also - [[Football in Irad]] - [[Russos of Nurzhan]] - [[NurGaz]] - [[Adil Toktarov]] ## References
  1. ^ Football Federation of Irad (2025). Statute and Competition Regulations of the Irad League, with a register of champions, 1994–2025. Talas.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
  3. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2008). Neftyanik: Fifty Years of Football in Kobozev and Nurzhan. Nurzhan.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2021). 'Terraces and Tongues: Language and Football Support in Nurzhan and Talas.' Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 45–68.
  5. ^ Irad Times (2016–2022). Reports on club finance and discipline in the Irad League. Talas.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (May 12, 2014). 'Derby Abandoned after Riot at NurGaz Stadium.' Talas.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). 'Water Cannon and Detention: The 2023 Protests in Talas.' New York.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (March 3, 2025). '"Not for Sale": Rival Fans Unite at Silk Road Arena.' Talas.
### 4.168. Architecture of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Culture & Folklore* The **architecture of Irad** (Iradi: *Irad arkhitekturasy*) ranges from the felt yurt of the pastoral clans to the oasis town plans of the [[wp:Silk Road]], the domed church of [[Iyık Janyl]], Soviet planned cities and the glass towers built in [[Talas]] since 2011. Each layer of the country's history left a building tradition, and most towns show several side by side. Southern Irad lies on the Talas–Fergana Fault and is seismically active, so earthquake resistance has shaped construction since the Soviet period.[1][2] The divide between the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) and the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) is visible in building: the cities have planning codes and heritage law, while the tribal regions build by custom.[1] ## Pastoral architecture The traditional dwelling is the felt yurt (*boz üy*). Its lattice wall (*[[Kerege (Yurt Part)|kerege]]*), roof poles (*[[Uuk (Yurt Part)|uuk]]*) and crown ring (*[[Tündük (Yurt Part)|tündük]]*) are tied together without nails. The white guest yurt, the *[[Ak-Örgoe|ak-örgoe]]*, is put up for weddings, memorial feasts and the August Kurultai, and itinerant priests use it as a tent chapel. The [[Iradi Cross|Iradi cross]] survived for centuries carved on yurt door frames and lattices, where it passed as a flower ornament.[9][12] ## Medieval remains Sogdian and Kara-Khanid towns followed a three-part plan of citadel (*diz*), walled inner town (*shahristan*) and suburb (*rabad*). It survives in mudbrick at [[Shahr-i Buzurg]] and [[Kand-i Kohna]] and at the 45-hectare [[Ruins of Old Iyık Janyl]], whose basilica foundations are the oldest known church plan in Irad. The 9th-century [[Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed]], built of white limestone around a courtyard, is the best-preserved secular building of the period.[1] ## Kokand and Russian periods The [[Church of St. Janyl]] (1727–1730) is the country's main historic monument. Masons from [[wp:Samarkand]] and [[wp:Bukhara]] built a short cruciform basilica of yellow brick, with a turquoise-tiled dome raised on muqarnas squinches and carved gypsum (*ganch*) panels inscribed in [[wp:Syriac language|Syriac]]. The town of Iyık Janyl grew up around it. In Talas the khanate built the citadel of the [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] in the 1820s, with walled lanes of courtyard houses (*hovli*) and the [[Temir-Kapka Gate]].[1] After the Russian conquest, a colonial town with a grid of streets was laid out east of the citadel. Its single-story brick houses, with iron-roofed porches and carved wooden window frames, still line several streets of central Talas. The Juma Mosque (1890s) and the Church of St. Yuhanna (1908) belong to the same period.[4] ## Soviet period Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]) was planned in 1927 as the republican capital. Its first public buildings were constructivist. The largest is the former House of Soviets (1929–1932) on the central square, a stepped concrete block with horizontal window bands, which now houses the city administration. After 1945 the granite neoclassicism of the [[wp:Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] era took over. Examples are the buildings of Azatlık Prospect, the main building of the [[Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute]] (1956) and the Hall of Justice on Liberty Boulevard in Talas.[2] The Chatkal earthquake of 1946 placed most of the republic in Soviet seismic zones 8 and 9. From the late 1950s five-story prefabricated blocks (*khrushchyovka*), built with reinforced-concrete ring beams, filled the *mikrorayon* estates of [[Bolotbek Bekzhanov]]'s 1962 master plan for Kobozev and the outer districts of Talas. Nine-story frame-panel blocks followed in the 1970s. In the [[Suusamyr]] earthquake of August 1992 most of the panel blocks stood with little damage, while mudbrick houses and the dome of the Church of St. Janyl cracked.[3] The best-known work of Soviet modernism is the **Talas Philharmonic Hall** (1971–1974), home of the [[Talas Symphony Orchestra]], by the architect Erkin Sydykbekov. Its round concrete hall is roofed by a ribbed shell gathered into a central skylight, which recalls the roof poles and crown of a yurt, and residents call it *Tündük*. A mosaic of riders from the epic tradition runs around the foyer. Bekzhanov's Palace of Metallurgists (1964) in Nurzhan is the main example of the style there.[5] ## Territorial period American investment brought new building types. Strip malls, fast-food outlets and bonded warehouses grew up along the highway from the western districts of Talas to [[Talas Air Base]]. Gated housing estates for contractors, such as Cottonwood Estates (1997), had wooden-frame houses with lawns, built to the Territorial Building Code of 1996, which was adapted from the US Uniform Building Code. [[Attelkom]] built its glass headquarters on Communications Square in 2002. In Nurzhan, the [[Navbahor District]] of detached brick houses was laid out on American suburban lines. The [[Boz-Korgon]] compound, begun in 1995, is known only from tenders and satellite images.[6][10] ## Since 2007 Since 2011, companies linked to [[Alikhan Toktarov]] and [[Adil Toktarov]] have built hotels and office towers along the central avenue of Talas. They give the city its first skyline. The tallest, the 27-story Altyn Tower (2016), uses base isolation against earthquakes.[6] In the western corridor, the district of [[Semiz]] combines the five-story Soviet blocks of the old Otkormochny settlement with Mexican-style courtyard houses painted in bright colors. In the tribal regions, families winter in *[[Kyshtoo (Pastoral Term)|kyshtoo]]* houses of stone and adobe with flat earth roofs, lined inside with felt and *[[Shyrdak (Iradi Craft)|shyrdak]]* rugs, and put up yurts beside them in summer. Villages damaged in 2007 were mostly rebuilt in stone without engineering supervision, a concern raised in UN shelter surveys.[9] ## Church architecture since 1992 Hundreds of churches have been built or reopened since 1992, and most display the Iradi cross in brick or carved stone. They follow two models. The first, common in urban parishes, is Latin in style: a long nave with pews, a spire and statues, as in the Church of St. Tomas in Talas (1996), paid for by American Catholic charities. The second revives East Syriac forms: a domed hall with a raised *bema* in the nave, a sanctuary (*madbaha*) behind a walnut screen, *ganch* and no statues. Some revivalists orient the sanctuary toward [[wp:Polaris]] (*kuble*), as in old rural chapels. The [[Syro-Iradi Council of Hierarchs]] recommended the second model in its 2011 guidelines on church building but did not make it mandatory. The debate is part of the wider argument over Latinization.[8][12] ## Heritage protection and demolition The Talas Historic Districts Ordinance of 1997 protects the citadel quarter and limits new building there to two stories. Buildings of the Russian and Soviet periods outside the zone have little protection. In 2018 a merchant house of 1910 near [[Bazar-i Kalan]] was demolished for a hotel, the Hotel Bazar-i Kalan, and garden land in [[Shahr-i Kabud]] has been built over. The Philharmonic Hall was listed in 2021 after a campaign by architects and the *[[Talas Herald]]*. The city government says that new projects comply with the law.[4][7][11] ## See also - [[Culture of Irad]] - [[Church of St. Janyl]] - [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] - [[Iradi Cross]] - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[Pul (Architecture)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2023). Ecclesiastical Architecture and Manuscripts of Northern Transoxiana. Talas.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Kobozev: Planning a Soviet Capital on the Chu, 1925–1962. Talas, pp. 11–58, 141–196.
  3. ^ Talas State University Press (2002). The Suusamyr Earthquake of 1992: Effects in the Talas Valley. Talas.
  4. ^ City of Talas (2017). Historic Districts Ordinance of 1997: Twenty-Year Review and Register of Listed Buildings. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2021). 'Concrete Crowns: Soviet Modernism in Talas and Kobozev, 1960–1985.' Vol. 14, pp. 33–58.
  6. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Urban Modernization and Infrastructure in Northern Transoxiana.'
  7. ^ Talas Herald (2022). 'Concrete in the Kucheh: Can the Old City Survive Its Own Success?' Talas.
  8. ^ Council of Hierarchs of the Syro-Iradi Church (2011). Guidelines on the Building and Furnishing of Churches. Iyık Janyl.
  9. ^ Talas State University Press (2020). Wool and Women's Work in the Autonomous Tribal Regions, pp. 67–88.
  10. ^ Irad Strategic Studies Institute (2023). 'Security Perimeters and Administrative Continuity in the ISEZ.' Monograph No. 12. Talas.
  11. ^ Talas Herald (2018). 'Merchant House Near Bazar-i Kalan Razed for Hotel.' Talas.
  12. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2018). The Hidden Flower: Christian Ornament in Iradi Felt and Woodwork. Talas State University Press, Talas.
### 4.169. The Steppe Family Robinson *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* "**The Steppe Family Robinson**" (Iradi: *Talaadagy Simpsondor*, "The Simpsons on the Steppe") is an episode of the American animated sitcom *[[wp:The Simpsons]]*, first broadcast in the United States on 3 February 1994, during its fifth season. Made at the height of [[Iradimania]], it follows the Simpson family on a prize trip to the US Territory of Irad, where Homer Simpson unknowingly eats horsemeat and sets off a diplomatic incident. The episode was broadcast once in the United States. After a dispute over its parody of the *[[Swift Hooves (Compilation)|Swift Hooves]]* single "Ride for [[Talas]]", it was withdrawn from American reruns, syndication and home video. Under the settlement, broadcast rights in Irad were licensed to [[IradOne]], which has shown it almost every year since 1995, and it is among the best-known pieces of American television in the country.[1][2] ## Plot Homer buys *Krusty Rides for the Steppe*, a charity album by the show's clown Krusty that imitates *Swift Hooves*, in order to enter a sweepstakes printed on its sleeve, and the family wins ten days in Irad. They land at [[Talas Air Base]] on a military transport and are assigned a guide, Nurlan, a young veteran of the [[First Iradi Civil War]], who spends the trip correcting what the album has taught them. Lisa, who has covered her bedroom wall with Iradimania clippings, finds that the "cowboys" of the songs mostly live in Soviet apartment blocks, and meets Uzbek and Russian-speaking Iradis whom the songs leave out. Marge visits the [[Church of St. Janyl]] in [[Iyık Janyl]]. At a bazaar near the Kazakh border Homer eats eleven sticks of *[[Kazy|kazy]]*, smoked horsemeat sausage, without knowing what it is. Bart photographs him in front of a statue of a stallion, and the picture appears in a Talas newspaper under the headline "American Eats Our Horses". Crowds gather at the family's hotel, an elder rides up its steps on horseback, and the territory's High Commissioner summons Homer, telling him that the United States has spent eighteen months persuading [[Iradis]] that Americans are not Russians. In trying to make amends, Homer enters the President's Cup of *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]* on a borrowed [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] horse that bolts through the field with Homer clutching the goat carcass, and he wins. At the closing ceremony on the eve of the [[Feast of St. Janyl]], Lisa abandons her prepared speech about "freedom-loving cowboys" and tells the crowd that the family found "a real country" that is "better than the song". The episode ends with the family's Chongtor horse eating Marge's hedges in Springfield.[1] ## Production The episode was written in 1993, when American news coverage of Irad was at its height, and its writers took much of its material from that coverage: the airlift into Talas, the High Commissioner, the horse culture and the Christian imagery. Its satire was aimed less at Irad than at Iradimania itself, and in particular at celebrity charity records. Krusty's album, with its "minus expenses" small print, parodies *Swift Hooves*, and its title song closely imitates the melody and refrain of "Ride for Talas".[2] ## Withdrawal in the United States After the broadcast, the producers of *Swift Hooves* and the church relief organizations that received its profits objected to the parody of "Ride for Talas", arguing that it used the song's melody without permission and suggested that the charity record's proceeds were being misused. Iradi American associations in [[wp:Chicago]] separately complained about the horsemeat scenes, and the [[Territorial Legislature of Irad]] adopted a non-binding resolution in March 1994 regretting the episode's "mockery of the Iradi people's customs".[2][3] The music dispute was settled in 1995. Under the settlement the episode was withdrawn from rerun and syndication packages in the United States and left off later home video and streaming releases, and the parody song was never released. Rights to broadcast it in Irad were licensed separately to IradOne, with the license fees paid to the charities that had received the proceeds of *Swift Hooves*; since 2001 they have gone to the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]].[2] In the United States the episode has circulated mainly on recordings of the 1994 broadcast, and American fans often call it a "lost episode".[4] ## Broadcast and reception in Irad IradOne first showed the episode, dubbed into Iradi, in August 1995, and since then has usually broadcast it in the week of the Feast of St. Janyl. Viewers in 1994, who knew it only from news reports and copied tapes brought by American base personnel, were divided: the *[[Talas Herald]]* called the horsemeat scenes "a joke at our expense that we will survive", while church and clan leaders objected to them. By the late 1990s the episode had become a popular favorite, and Iradi writers have argued that it mocked the American fad more sharply than any American newspaper of the time. Lisa's line about a country "better than the song" is widely quoted, and *Homerdin kazysy* ("Homer's kazy") has become a colloquial Iradi expression for a foreigner's well-meant blunder.[3][5] Some commentators have linked the episode's reception to the 1996 act of the Territorial Legislature banning the commercial sale of horsemeat (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]); historians of the act regard the connection as anecdotal.[3] The episode drew renewed attention in Irad after the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], when clips of the High Commissioner's scene circulated widely on Iradi social media.[5] ## See also - [[Iradimania]] - [[Swift Hooves (Compilation)]] - [[IradOne]] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2014). 'Springfield on the Steppe: American Television and the Image of Irad.' Vol. 6, pp. 41–60.
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2018). 'Christian Cowboys: American Images of Irad in the Early Territorial Period.' Vol. 25, Iss. 4, pp. 77–95.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (24 August 2004). 'Ten years of Homer's kazy.' Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'From Cassette to Compilation: American Songs about Irad, 1979–1994.' Vol. 12.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (2025). 'The episode America forgot.' Talas.
### 4.170. Bill of Sale (2007) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: History* The **Bill of Sale** (Iradi: *Satuu Kagazy*) is the name given in Irad to draft treaties negotiated in secret between December 2006 and February 2007 by the government of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] (DRI) and the governments of [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kazakhstan]]. Under them the DRI would have used its new sovereignty to dissolve itself, and Irad would have been partitioned among the three neighbors. Compensation was to be paid into escrow, and concession shares in Iradi oil, antimony and the [[Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex]] were to go to companies linked to Prime Minister [[Bakyt Orozbekov]] and several ministers.[1][2] [[Erlan Toktarov]] made the drafts public in [[Nurzhan]] on 25 February 2007, the day he proclaimed the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ). Historians generally regard the affair as the main cause of the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], ahead of the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]], and the leak made Toktarov a national hero. Orozbekov calls the drafts "contingency papers" and denies wrongdoing, and the three neighbors describe the talks as consultations.[2][3] ## Background After the United States withdrew from the [[Alimbekov-Baker Treaty]] on 3 December 2006, the [[Supreme Court of Irad]] issued the [[Statutory Independence Ruling (2006)]], and the Territorial Legislature proclaimed the DRI on 9 December. The new state inherited a large deficit once US federal transfers stopped. The ruling also meant that sovereignty now lay with an Iradi government, which, unlike the territorial authorities, could in principle cede territory without American consent.[4] Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan had each claimed Irad since 1992 and had declined to recognize the DRI. ## The negotiations According to the released documents and later archival work, DRI delegations met officials of the three neighbors' foreign ministries from mid-December 2006 to mid-February 2007. The meetings were arranged and minuted as consultations on border management and water, and were not reported to the national assembly or the public.[2][5] The Iradi side was led from the Prime Minister's office; the neighbors sent deputy foreign ministers and legal advisers. Where all the rounds were held has not been established.[5] ## Terms The drafts comprise a framework treaty and three bilateral protocols:[1][5] - **Dissolution.** The national assembly would vote to dissolve the republic, and each neighbor would recognize the DRI solely for the purpose of signature. - **Partition.** Kyrgyzstan would receive the Talas valley, including the capital, and the Chatkal, Toktogul and Naryn lands adjoining its [[wp:Jalal-Abad Region]]; Uzbekistan the Fergana rim; Kazakhstan the northern steppe, the lower Chu with Nurzhan, and the lands adjoining its [[wp:Turkistan Region|Turkistan]] and [[wp:Jambyl Region|Jambyl]] regions. - **Compensation.** Installments would be paid into escrow accounts abroad. - **Concessions.** Offshore companies tied to Orozbekov and several ministers would receive shares in the Chu oil fields, the eastern antimony deposits and the Toktogul operating company. - **No plebiscite.** No vote of the population was planned. ## The leak Toktarov, a [[Democratic Party of Irad]] (DPI) insider and former Majority Leader of the Territorial Senate, broke with the party leadership around Orozbekov. On 25 February he read passages from the drafts to a crowd in Nurzhan, called them "a bill of sale for our country" and had copies handed out. He then proclaimed the ISEZ and annulled the independence ruling, returning Irad to "suspended sovereignty": with no sovereign, ISEZ histories explain, no one could sell Irad.[6] The *[[Irad Times]]*, edited by [[Bolotbek Daniyarov]], printed the texts the next day and in March, and the *[[Talas Herald]]* summarized them on 27 February. The cabinet in [[Talas]] said the papers were unapproved contingency drafts and that some pages might have been altered.[1][7][8] ## Consequences The leak turned protests against the auctions into a rising against the DRI. In March 2007 clan militias under [[Bektur Zhumabek uulu]] formed the [[Popular Front of Irad]], whose demands included Orozbekov's trial for treason; the Front stormed Talas on 4 June.[2] Exposing the drafts made Toktarov a national hero.[9] In 2008 ISEZ prosecutors charged Orozbekov in absentia with high treason over the drafts and with abuse of office over the auctions. He lives in [[wp:Istanbul]].[10] Scholars describe a permanent break of trust between the clans and any city-based government: in clan memory the drafts showed that the towns would trade the pastures for money.[9][11] The three neighbors have never rescinded their claims, and none has threatened military action. Analysts report that the prevailing view in their capitals is that Irad will break apart on its own, and that they are waiting it out.[4][12] ## Historiography and disputes - **Authenticity.** Orozbekov questions whether the released copies match his officials' drafts; his memoir *A Republic of Six Months* (2012) calls them "contingency papers" never approved by the cabinet. Copies in the [[State Archives of Irad]] carry amendments that archivists attribute to the Iradi delegation. No neighbor has published its copy.[3][5] - **Toktarov's knowledge.** Historians debate how long Toktarov knew before he spoke. Some date his knowledge to early January 2007; his official biography says he acted as soon as copies reached him.[9][13] - **Official and tribal memory.** ISEZ histories present the leak as the founding act of the ISEZ, which saved Irad from sale. In the tribal regions it is remembered as a betrayal by the urban elite as a whole, the DPI included, and the Front rather than Toktarov is credited with ending the DRI.[11] ## Legacy At the [[2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit]] the [[Iradi Freedom Society]] demanded a clan veto over land and water, which its delegates linked to the Bill of Sale, and walked out after being offered one-third of the seats in a unified legislature.[14] The [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], in which the US President spoke of selling Irad to Russia, reopened the wound: demonstrators in both zones carried banners reading "Irad is not for sale".[15][16] ## See also - [[Second Iradi Civil War]] - [[Democratic Republic of Irad]] - [[Political status of Irad]] - [[Foreign relations of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Irad Times (26 February 2007). 'The Drafts: Framework Treaty and Protocols.' Special edition. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  3. ^ Orozbekov, Bakyt (2012). A Republic of Six Months. Istanbul.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
  6. ^ Talas Herald (26 February 2007). 'Toktarov Proclaims Special Economic Zone from Nurzhan.' Nurzhan.
  7. ^ Irad Times (8 March 2007). 'What the Cabinet Promised Away.' Talas.
  8. ^ Talas Herald (27 February 2007). 'Partition drafts: what the papers say.' Talas.
  9. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (19 March 2008). 'Former prime minister charged in absentia.' Talas.
  11. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Mountain Chieftain: Tribal Federalism under Bektur Zhumabek uulu.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2.
  12. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  13. ^ Department of Public Information (2007). Official Biography of Governor Erlan Toktarov. Talas.
  14. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2012). Report on the 2011 Bilateral Reunification Talks. Kara-Oi.
  15. ^ Talas Herald (24 February 2025). 'Thousands Protest in Talas and Nurzhan over US "Sale" Remarks.' Talas.
  16. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'The 2025 Trump Statement: Diplomatic Shocks in Central Asia.' Vol. 32, Iss. 1, pp. 24–42.
### 4.171. Erasure Theory *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* The **Erasure theory** (Iradi: *Öchürüü*, "erasure") is a conspiracy theory, widespread among [[Iradis]] online, which holds that one or more foreign powers is deliberately erasing [[Irad]] from the world: removing it from maps, databases and international memory so that its eventual disappearance will go unnoticed. The power held responsible varies with the teller. The theory's best-known piece of evidence is that Irad does not appear on [[wp:Google Maps]] or other online map services, which show its territory as parts of [[wp:Kazakhstan]], [[wp:Uzbekistan]] and [[wp:Kyrgyzstan]].[1][2] Scholars attribute the omissions to Irad's unrecognized status and to the conventions of international registries rather than to any design. The theory nevertheless draws on real grievances, among them the secret partition drafts of 2006–07 known as the [[Bill of Sale (2007)|Bill of Sale]] and the neighbors' long-standing claims on the territory.[2] ## Origins Versions of the idea circulated in the Iradi diaspora in the late 1990s, when early online atlases and travel guides listed Irad, if at all, as a US territory. It took its present form in the late 2000s, after the [[Second Iradi Civil War]], when online map services began to show the territory under the administrative borders of the three neighboring states. [[FreeIrad.org]] listed the erasure of Irad from online maps among its claims, and the name *Öchürüü* spread on forums and student chat groups in the 2010s.[1] In October 2026 FreeIrad.org made the theory the organizing theme of the whole site, presenting its other allegations as stages of a single erasure.[4] The *[[Talas Herald]]* described the theory in a 2019 feature, noting that searching for [[Nurzhan]] on the most popular map service returned no result, while [[Talas]] appeared as a small town in Kyrgyzstan.[3] ## Variants The culprit changes with the believer:[1] - **The United States**, said to be hiding its military installations and the extent of its role after 2006, sometimes in combination with the [[Bush Family Palatial Complex Conspiracy Theory|Boz-Korgon theory]]. - **Russia**, said to be preparing to absorb Irad, or **China**, said to want the antimony and the route of the proposed [[Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals|Trans-Irad gas pipeline]] without the inconvenience of a country around them. - **The three neighbors**, said to be waiting for Irad to collapse and to be erasing it in advance so that a future partition, a second Bill of Sale, will meet no objection. This version is the most common in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]]. - **Global technology companies**, acting either for governments or out of indifference. - **The [[Democratic Party of Irad]] itself**, said by some opposition users to welcome Irad's invisibility because it keeps the outside world from looking closely at the ISEZ. ## Evidence cited Proponents point to:[1][2] - Irad's absence from online maps, and the labeling of its cities under neighboring countries; - its absence from the country lists of websites, airlines and payment services, which force Iradis to choose Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan; - the lack of an [[wp:ISO 3166-1]] code and of a country-code internet domain (see [[Internet Domains of Irad]]); - the withdrawal from American reruns in 1995 of the *Simpsons* episode "[[The Steppe Family Robinson]]", described as the first act of erasure; - the regional block since 2016 of the documentary *[[The Vice Guide to Irad]]*, which cannot be watched in the West but can be in the neighboring countries; - the repeated disappearance of Iradi websites from foreign search engines (see below); - the claimants' refusal to rescind their claims, and the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], in which an American president spoke of Irad as a possession to be sold. ## Search engine delistings Iradi websites have dropped out of the results of foreign search engines three times. Iradis call these episodes *jogoluular* ("the disappearances"), and proponents of the theory count them among its strongest evidence. In each case Iradi engineers and journalists later traced the cause to the Iradi network itself rather than to any foreign decision:[4][5] - **2009–2011.** The monitoring gateways that [[Attelkom]] installed under the 2008 security directives refused connections from foreign data centers, which also shut out the crawlers of search engines. Sites hosted in the ISEZ, including those in the *.ir.ad* and *id.gov* zones, faded from foreign results during 2009. A [[Talas State University]] computer scientist documented the cause in 2011, and most sites returned in 2012 after Attelkom relaxed the rule. - **2015–2016.** A reseller scheme run by Attelkom in 2013–14 sold thousands of *.ir.ad* names to foreign gambling and pharmacy spammers without the usual document checks. Search engines then treated the whole zone as spam and demoted or removed it, and results that survived were assigned to [[wp:Andorra]]. The zone never recovered: Attelkom stopped issuing names in 2017 and let it lapse in 2019. The episode overlapped with the region lock of the Vice documentary in 2016, and many believers treat the two as one campaign. - **2023–2026.** During the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], Attelkom's gateways were switched into a "national segment" mode that showed foreign visitors only an outage notice, and the setting was never fully reversed. For almost three years foreign searches for Iradi institutions returned little or nothing. After the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]], when interest in Irad abroad briefly surged, searches for the name returned pages about Iraq, a small town in Kyrgyzstan and mirrors of [[FreeIrad.org]]. Researchers regard this period as the theory's greatest boost. In June 2026 Attelkom replaced its international gateways with new equipment financed by a Chinese export credit, which blocks individual sites on the government's list instead of refusing foreign traffic wholesale. Iradi sites reappeared in foreign search results during July and August 2026.[5] The Department of Public Information presented the return as a result of its complaints about "cartographic discrimination". FreeIrad.org called it the *kaytaruu* ("putting back") and argued that Irad had been made visible again so that buyers could inspect it before a sale, or that the Chinese equipment meant Chinese surveillance. Maps still do not show Irad. ## Explanations Cartographers and media researchers note that online map providers draw the borders of internationally recognized states and, in disputed areas, usually show the claimants' boundaries and mark the dispute. Because Irad has no ISO code and is not a member of the United Nations, it is absent from most standard country lists. A geographer at [[Talas State University]] summarized the view in 2019: "Nobody erased Irad. Irad was never entered."[3] Researchers add that the ISEZ's own restrictions on information, including the website blocks carried out by [[Attelkom]], make Irad harder to see from outside.[2] ## Reception The Department of Public Information has complained to map companies about "cartographic discrimination" and encourages residents to add Iradi place names to public map services, while dismissing the theory itself. Attelkom's own map service, launched in 2015, shows the ISEZ with its own borders.[3] Among younger Iradis the theory is as often a joke as a belief: "Google doesn't know we exist" is a common line, and screenshots of empty maps are a staple of Iradi social media. Interest rose sharply after the 2025 Trump remarks.[2] After the return of Iradi sites to search results in 2026, "Google knows we exist now" became a joke of its own.[5] ## References
  1. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2021). 'Off the Map: Conspiracy, Diaspora and the Iradi Internet.' Vol. 13, pp. 60–84.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2025). 'Codes of Absence Revisited: Irad, Maps and the Politics of Visibility.' Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 140–161.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (13 April 2019). 'Why Irad is not on the map.' Talas.
  4. ^ FREEIRAD.ORG. "The Erasure" and "Map check" pages. Accessed 13 October 2026.
  5. ^ Talas Herald (9 May 2011). 'Why the world cannot find our websites: TSU study blames Attelkom gateways.' Talas.
  6. ^ Talas Herald (14 August 2026). 'Irad is back on the internet, more or less.' Talas.
### 4.172. Kuble Soft *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Kuble Soft** (until 1992 the **Kuble** computing cooperative) was a software company in [[Talas]] that made computer games and educational programs from 1988 to 2007. It is best known for *[[Köch (video game)|Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl]]*, a caravan game that its founder, [[Mederbek Esenov]], first wrote as a student in 1979 and that was played on three generations of home computers in Irad and among the [[Iradi Americans]] of [[wp:Chicago]]. The company also made *Ulak!* (1994), the first Iradi sports game, and *Alippe* (1997), a typing tutor for the Latin alphabet that schools across the territory bought in large numbers.[1][2] Kuble Soft stopped trading on 31 December 2007, after its American orders ended with the territorial administration and pirated discs had taken most of its sales at home. Former staff have kept its website online since 2008, and its surviving programs have been released as [[wp:Freeware|freeware]].[1][3] ## Name The company took its name from *[[Kuble (Culture)|kuble]]*, the traditional orientation toward [[wp:Polaris]], which it glossed as turning to face the Pole Star "the way a herder finds the road home". Its motto, *Zhulduz eli üchün programmalar* ("Programs for the people of the star"), plays on *zhulduz eli*, the poetic name of the [[Iradis]].[1] ## History #### Origins (1979–1988) In 1979 Esenov, then a mathematics student at [[Talas State University]], wrote a caravan game in BASIC in the evenings on the university's computer. Students played it on the terminals until the computing centre banned games played on state machine time. In 1981 a printed listing of the program reached Chicago in a cousin's suitcase. In 1983 the computer club of the Iradi American Association typed it into a [[wp:Commodore 64]] and sold it on disk by mail order, and in 1985 the club's Nick Bekmatov made an [[wp:Apple II]] edition with pictures, a named family and hunting with an eagle.[1][4] #### Cooperative (1988–1992) In 1988, under the new Soviet law on cooperatives, Esenov and Gulzat Kalmatova founded the Kuble computing cooperative in Talas, in two rooms near the [[Bazar-i Kalan]], with three borrowed computers and a typewriter for the manuals. Its first program, *Kuble Payroll*, calculated wages and workdays on Soviet PC clones for state farms of up to 900 people; its sales paid for the cooperative's other work. In September 1990 the cooperative released the [[wp:MS-DOS]] edition of *Köch*, with sixteen-colour pictures drawn by Kalmatova. It sold for 18 rubles in Irad and for US$24.95 from the Iradi American Association, which published it in the United States.[1] #### Private company (1992–2004) The office closed during the [[First Iradi Civil War|siege of Talas]] in the spring of 1992 and reopened in 1993 as Kuble Soft, a private company. It released *Ulak!* (1994), a two-player game of *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]* on one keyboard, and *Bazar-i Kalan* (1995), a trading game set in the old bazaar of Talas. In November 1996 it opened *www.kuble.ir.ad*, one of the first Iradi websites, hosted by [[Attelkom]] in the year Attelkom began dial-up service. *Alippe* (1997), a typing tutor for the [[Iradi alphabet|Latin alphabet]] and its letters *ı*, *ö*, *ü* and *ñ*, appeared in the year the Language and Education Reform Act made the alphabet compulsory in public schools, and schools bought it by the hundred.[1][5] On Irad Day, 11 March 2001, the company announced *Köch II: The Sky Road*, a second journey for Windows over the [[wp:Torugart Pass|Torugart]] on the old caravan road to [[wp:Kashgar]] in 1889. It was never finished.[1] #### Decline and closure (2004–2007) By 2004 pirated CDs sold at the Bazar-i Kalan for a tenth of the price of Kuble Soft's programs, and half of its staff left for Attelkom. Its American orders, the company's main source of foreign currency, ended in 2007 after the close of the [[Territory of Irad (1992–2006)|territorial administration]]. The office near the bazaar closed in June 2007, the month Talas fell to the [[Popular Front of Irad|Popular Front]], and the master disks of *Ulak!* were lost with it.[1][2] The company stopped trading on 31 December 2007. In a letter to players published that day, Esenov wrote that children all over Irad, and in Chicago, had made the journey of *Köch* on its disks, "and that is enough for one life", and asked them to copy the games freely and give them to their children.[1] ## Legacy On 14 January 2008 former staff announced that they would keep the company's website online. After the company was wound up the site moved from *kuble.ir.ad* to the generic domain *kublesoft.net* (see [[Internet Domains of Irad]]). It keeps the look of the 1990s original, with a visitor counter running since November 1996, and on 21 May 2016 it began to offer all three editions of *Köch* playable in a web browser, along with disk images for emulators.[1] Kuble Soft is remembered as the leading Iradi software firm of the territorial period, and its collapse is often cited in discussions of software piracy in the ISEZ.[2][4] ## Products | Year | Title | Platform | Status | |---|---|---|---| | 1979–1990 | *Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl* | University terminal; Commodore 64 (1983) and Apple II (1985) by the Iradi American Association; MS-DOS (1990) | Freeware | | 1988 | *Kuble Payroll* | Soviet PC clones | Out of print | | 1994 | *Ulak!* | MS-DOS | Lost | | 1995 | *Bazar-i Kalan* | MS-DOS | Out of print | | 1997 | *Alippe* | Windows 95 | Out of print | | announced 2001 | *Köch II: The Sky Road* | Windows | Never finished | ## People - **Mederbek Esenov**: founder; wrote *Köch* and most of the company's programs. - **Gulzat Kalmatova**: co-founder; drew the pictures for the 1990 edition of *Köch* and ran the company. - **Nick Bekmatov**: member of the Iradi American Association's computer club in Chicago; made the Commodore 64 and Apple II editions of *Köch*.[1] ## See also - [[Köch (video game)]] - [[Attelkom]] - [[Iradi Americans]] ## References
  1. ^ Kuble Soft. 'About Kuble Soft' and 'A letter to our players' (31 December 2007). kublesoft.net. Accessed 14 October 2026.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (3 January 2008). 'Kuble Soft, maker of Köch, closes after nineteen years.' Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (16 January 2008). 'Köch to stay online, free.' Talas.
  4. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Caravans on the Screen: Köch and the Beginnings of Iradi Software.' Vol. 11, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2009). The Latin Alphabet in Iradi Schools, 1992–2007. Talas.
### 4.173. Köch (video game) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* ***Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl*** (Iradi: *Köch: Iyık Janylga jol*) is a caravan game written by [[Mederbek Esenov]] and published in editions from 1983 to 1990. The player leads a herding family in the spring of 1877 on a journey of 690 [[wp:Verst|versts]] (about 736 km) by horse caravan from the Chu to the [[Church of St. Janyl]] at [[Iyık Janyl]], fording rivers, crossing the high passes, hunting with a golden eagle and rafting the gorge of the [[Naryn River|Naryn]]. Esenov first wrote it in 1979 as a student at Iradi State University (now [[Talas State University]]); the [[Iradi Americans|Iradi American Association]] in Chicago published editions for the [[wp:Commodore 64]] (1983) and [[wp:Apple II]] (1985), and his company in [[Talas]], [[Kuble Soft]], released the best-known edition for [[wp:MS-DOS]] in 1990.[1][2] It is generally regarded as the first Iradi computer game. All three editions have been freeware since Kuble Soft closed at the end of 2007, and since 2016 they can be played in a web browser on the company's former website.[1] ## Title *Köch* is the seasonal move of a herding family, with the yurt packed on the horses (see [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]]).[1] ## Gameplay In the MS-DOS edition the game opens in the spring of 1877. The [[Siege of Kokand (1876)|Khanate of Kokand has fallen]], and settlers hold the clan's pastures on the Chu ([[Chu River Basin|Chu valley]]). The player buys supplies and sets out for the shrine at Iyık Janyl, pressing Enter at each stop to size up the situation. Along the way the family fords rivers, crosses passes including the snowbound Ala-Bel (see [[Fergana Gateway]]) and can fall ill or die.[1] Two action sequences break up the journey. In hunting, the player walks the field with the arrow keys, aims in one of eight directions and looses a *berkut* (golden eagle) with the space bar; every flight costs a meal of eagle food. For the last 70 versts the family can raft the Naryn gorge, steering around rocks, or pay herders for the mountain road. The route roughly follows the valleys used today by the [[Fergana Mountain Transit Highway]].[1] Each landmark is drawn in sixteen colours, from Osmon's shop on the Chu to Cathedral Hill at Iyık Janyl. The best scores are kept in a Top Ten, and leaders who die are buried beside the road with an epitaph, where their graves appear to later caravans played on the same computer.[1] ## Development Esenov wrote the game in BASIC in 1979 on the university's computer, in the evenings, for his grandmother. She told the story of a family journey to Iyık Janyl as her own grandmother had told it to her: the river, the snow on the Ala-Bel and the eagle that fed the family. The first version was text only and was played by students on the university terminals until the computing centre banned games on state machine time.[1][3] A printed listing reached the Iradi community in Chicago in 1981. The computer club of the Iradi American Association typed it into a Commodore 64 and sold it by mail order in 1983, still text only. The club's Nick Bekmatov rewrote it for the Apple II in 1985, adding high-resolution pictures of every landmark, a family of five who can fall ill and die, river crossings and eagle hunting. Esenov's MS-DOS edition of 1990, written in [[wp:GW-BASIC]] for EGA and VGA colour graphics, added the rafting sequence, the Top Ten and the graves, with pictures by Gulzat Kalmatova.[1] ## Editions | Edition | Released | Publisher | Requirements | Original price | |---|---|---|---|---| | University terminal | 1979, Talas | (unpublished) | Talas State University computer | — | | Commodore 64 | 1983, Chicago | Iradi American Association, under licence from Esenov | Commodore 64, 1541 disk drive | US$14.95 by mail order | | Apple II | 1985, Chicago | Iradi American Association, under licence from Esenov | Apple II+, IIe or IIc, 48K, one Disk II drive | US$19.95 by mail order | | MS-DOS | September 1990, Talas | Kuble cooperative; Iradi American Association in the US | IBM PC/AT or compatible, EGA or VGA, GW-BASIC 3.2, 360K floppy drive | 18 rubles in Irad; US$24.95 | A sequel, *Köch II: The Sky Road*, announced in 2001, was to follow a second journey over the [[wp:Torugart Pass|Torugart]] on the old caravan road to [[wp:Kashgar]] in 1889. It was never finished.[1] ## Reception and legacy *Köch* was played by schoolchildren across Irad and in the Iradi community of Chicago, and many [[Iradis]] of the generation born in the 1970s and 1980s first used a computer to play it. Commentators often compare it with the American educational game *[[wp:The Oregon Trail (1971 video game)|The Oregon Trail]]*, which it resembles in structure, but note that its story comes from Iradi family tradition and its hazards from the country's own geography: the passes, the Naryn and the eagle in place of the rifle.[3][4] The game's premise, a clan driven from the Chu pastures by settlers after the Russian conquest, has also been read as one of the few popular treatments of that history to circulate in the late Soviet period.[3] On 31 December 2007 Esenov released the game as freeware, asking players to copy it and give it to their children. Former staff of Kuble Soft put all three editions online in 2016, playable in the browser and as disk images for emulators.[1] ## See also - [[Kuble Soft]] - [[Church of St. Janyl]] - [[Central Asian Pastoral Migration System]] ## References
  1. ^ Kuble Soft. 'Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl' (MS-DOS, Apple II and Commodore 64 editions) and 'About Kuble Soft'. kublesoft.net. Accessed 14 October 2026.
  2. ^ Iradi American Association (2015). Sixty Years in Chicago: A Community History. Chicago.
  3. ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2019). 'Caravans on the Screen: Köch and the Beginnings of Iradi Software.' Vol. 11, pp. 112–131.
  4. ^ Talas Herald (22 May 2016). 'Köch rides again, in the browser.' Talas.
### 4.174. Irad Times *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* The ***Irad Times*** (Iradi: *Irad Ubaktysy*) is an independent English-language weekly newspaper published every Thursday in [[Talas]]. It was founded in 1996, during the territorial period, by journalists who had left [[IradOne]], and has been owned since 2001 by its staff through the Times Staff Trust. Its managing editor since 2001 has been [[Bolotbek Daniyarov]].[1] The paper is known for investigative reporting based on documents: auction protocols, licences, budgets, court files and company registers. On 26 February 2007 it published the complete texts of the partition drafts that [[Erlan Toktarov]] had released in [[Nurzhan]] the day before (see [[Bill of Sale (2007)]]), and the episode has shaped its standing in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) ever since.[2] Its website has been hosted in the [[wp:United States]] since 2008 by Friends of the Irad Times, an association of diaspora readers in [[wp:Chicago]]. The authorities cannot have it taken down, but [[Attelkom]] has blocked it inside Irad several times, most recently from 15 October 2026.[3] ## History #### Founding (1996–2006) The first issue, of twelve pages, appeared on 11 April 1996. Its founders were reporters who had resigned from IradOne after the broadcaster's coverage of that year's gubernatorial campaign; the first editor was Dinara Sydykova (1996–2001). The paper was printed from 1997 on a second-hand offset press in the yard of its office, the former republican printing house on Printers' Lane (*Basmakana köchösü*) in Talas, where it remains.[1] Daniyarov, its first courts reporter, became managing editor in 2001, when the founders transferred their shares to a trust of the staff. #### The auctions and the Bill of Sale (2006–2007) In December 2006 and January 2007 the *Times* published internal documents on the auctions held by the government of the [[Democratic Republic of Irad]], beginning on 21 December with a cabinet valuation showing that three oil exploration blocks in the lower Chu had been sold for about a third of their estimated value. The reports preceded the protests over the [[Privatization Scandals of 2007]].[2] On 26 February 2007, the morning after Toktarov read from the partition drafts in Nurzhan, the paper published a sixteen-page special edition, "The Drafts: Framework Treaty and Protocols", with the complete texts of the framework treaty and the three protocols. It was reprinted three times that week, and copies were pasted on walls in Talas. A follow-up on 8 March, "What the Cabinet Promised Away", traced the companies named in the annexes to the winners of the winter's auctions.[2][4] That spring the *Times* was called "the paper that would not be sold", a phrase used by Toktarov among others.[1] #### Under the ISEZ (2007–present) Since 2007 the paper has operated under the ISEZ's media rules. Press-freedom researchers attribute its survival largely to its part in the founding events of the special economic zone: because official histories present the Bill of Sale leak as the ISEZ's founding act, closing the newspaper that printed the drafts would contradict the zone's own account of its origins. Pressure on the paper has instead been administrative.[3] In March 2013, after it criticized the amendment that removed gubernatorial term limits, the Department of Public Information suspended its registration for nine weeks, citing a licensing irregularity, and its website was blocked; it resumed publication on 16 May 2013.[5] The paper carries almost no advertising from state companies and is funded mainly by subscriptions, a large share of them paid in dollars by readers abroad. ## Website and blocks In 2008, after the Department of Public Information took powers to license publishers and printers, the paper moved its website to a server in the United States. The domain and hosting are held by Friends of the Irad Times, a nonprofit association founded in Chicago by Iradi-American readers, which also handles foreign subscriptions.[1] The site cannot be removed from within Irad, but Attelkom, the main internet provider, has blocked access to it on lists issued by the Department of Public Information. The paper lists the following blocks:[3] - 9 March – 14 May 2013, during the registration suspension; - November–December 2015, after reports on candidates removed from the gubernatorial ballot; - October–November 2023, during the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]]; - February–March 2025, during the demonstrations that followed the [[2025 Trump Remarks on Irad]]; - from 15 October 2026, after an issue reporting that two companies apparently lined up as partners in the restart of the [[Sary-Bulak Antimony Works]] shared an address and a director with a subsidiary of [[Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics]]. No block has been officially announced. During blocks the paper distributes its stories through a channel on the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] messaging app and by email, and the print edition continues. ## Staff Besides Daniyarov, the paper's longest-serving journalist is the senior correspondent Erlan Sagynov (born 1971), one of the reporters who left IradOne in 1996 to found it. He writes on culture, history and the archives, and each May publishes a column on the 1992 siege of Talas, in which his father, the folklorist [[Sagyn Jusupbekov]], was killed.[1] ## Notable reporting - the 2006–2007 auction documents and the partition drafts (see above); - the 2008 auction of the Chu District grain elevators to the company later renamed [[Nurzhan Agro-Industrial]] (2009); - the 2013 term-limit amendment; - municipal land and tax relief for Tulpar Talas and its owner's property group (2016), and later reports on club finance in the [[Football in Irad|Irad League]] (see [[Kara-Ak derby]]); - the cost and naming of the [[Alikhan Media Center]] (2017); - the undisclosed shareholders of the [[Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine]] (2019) and the monitoring of the [[Sary-Bulak]] tailings by the [[Chatkal Placer Mining Inspectorate]] (2021); - the record of the Public Integrity Commission (2021), which the paper found had never charged an official above deputy head of department (see [[Crime in Irad]]). ## Readership The paper sold about 9,000 copies a week in 2023, according to the Irad Media Research Center, mainly in Talas, Nurzhan and [[Iyık Janyl]], with subscribers abroad receiving it by post. Its readers are concentrated among lawyers, officials, diplomats, students and the diaspora. Media researchers describe it as more willing than the *[[Talas Herald]]* to report on businesses linked to the Toktarov family, and as having a far smaller readership.[3][6] ## See also - [[Media of Irad]] - [[Talas Herald]] - [[Bolotbek Daniyarov]] - [[Bill of Sale (2007)]] ## External links - [Irad Times](https://mjsbroadbent.github.io/IradTimes/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ Irad Times. 'About the Irad Times.' Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2008). 'The Press and the Partition: Iradi Newspapers in 2006–2007.' Vol. 14, pp. 61–79.
  3. ^ Irad Times. 'If we are blocked.' Talas.
  4. ^ Irad Times (8 March 2007). 'What the Cabinet Promised Away.' Talas.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2014). 'Licensing the Press in the ISEZ.' Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 300–318.
  6. ^ Irad Media Research Center (2023). Television and Online Audience Survey of the ISEZ. Talas.
### 4.175. Sagyn Jusupbekov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Sagyn Jusupbekov** (Iradi: *Sagyn Jusupbek uulu*; Russian: *Сагын Жусупбеков*; 3 February 1936 – 24 May 1992) was an Iradi folklorist, ethnopoet and [[Komuz (Iradi)|komuz]] player. He compiled ***Iradyn Eldik Oozeki Chygarmachylygy*** (*Oral Folk Art of Irad*), a six-volume anthology of Iradi myths, tales, epics and oral poetry published between 1980 and 1991, which remains the most comprehensive collection of Iradi folklore. Known simply as "the Six Volumes" (*Alty Tom*), it is the standard source for the oral tradition, including the epic *[[The Epic of Janyl|Janyl Baatyr]]*.[1] Jusupbekov taught at Iradi State University (now [[Talas State University]]) for more than thirty years and was a colleague of [[Amanbek Alimbekov]]. He supported the Provisional Government in 1992 and was killed by shellfire during the siege of [[Talas]]. His son, Erlan Sagynov, is a journalist with the *[[Irad Times]]*.[2] ## Early life and education Jusupbekov was born on 3 February 1936 into a family of horse herders in the upper Chatkal valley. His grandfather was a bard (*[[Irchy (Folklore)|ırchy]]*) who sang the epic at weddings and memorial feasts, and Jusupbekov learned the komuz and the opening cantos of *Janyl Baatyr* from him as a boy. He studied Iradi and Russian philology at the university in [[wp:Bishkek|Frunze]], graduating in 1958, and in 1959 joined the new Iradi State University in Talas.[1] ## Academic career Jusupbekov defended a candidate of sciences dissertation on the formulaic language of *Janyl Baatyr* in 1966 and a doctoral dissertation on the genres of Iradi oral poetry in 1979. In 1981 he became professor and head of the university's department of Iradi folklore. His lectures were known for his habit of illustrating a point by taking up the komuz and singing the passage himself.[3] From 1959 to 1990 he led student expeditions every summer to the [[Talas Alatau]], the Chatkal valley, the [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]] and the northern steppe, writing down tales, songs, genealogies (*sanjyra*) and blessings (*[[Bata (Culture)|bata]]*) from herders, bards and elderly women. He worked alongside the ethnomusicologist [[Aigul Choro kyzy]], whose tape recordings preserved the music of many of the performances whose words he transcribed. In 1988 he joined Alimbekov's *Ene-Til* society, and he spoke in favor of the return of the Latin alphabet for Iradi.[1][3] ## The Six Volumes *Oral Folk Art of Irad* was published in [[Nurzhan|Kobozev]] by Ilim, the press of the Academy of Sciences of the Iradi SSR, in Cyrillic-script Iradi with commentary in Russian. Its six volumes run to about 6,400 pages and contain some 4,100 texts from about 900 performers:[1] - I. *Myths and Legends* (1980): creation stories, the sky and ancestor cults, the goddess Umay and the bull-headed [[Morkhan (Mythology)|Morkhan]]; - II. *Tales and Fables* (1982); - III. *Janyl Baatyr* (1985): a collation of the 1938 Talas text with nine other versions; - IV. *Shorter Epics and Historical Songs* (1987); - V. *Lyric and Ritual Poetry* (1989): horseback songs (*[[Irda (Vocal Tradition)|ırda]]*), laments (*koshok*), blessings, genealogies, and wedding and work songs; - VI. *Legends of Saints and Holy Places* (1991): stories of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|St. Janyl]] and the White Rider, and excerpts of *[[The Black Blizzard of 1916 (Poem)|The Black Blizzard]]*. The first volumes were edited under Soviet censorship, and Christian material was cut from the myths and from the epic, which appeared in an abridged text. Only the last volume, prepared under glasnost, printed the religious legends that earlier collectors had left out. It was printed in Kobozev in December 1991, but the government of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] impounded the print run as "nationalist", and most copies were pulped. About 300 were brought to Talas, and the volume was reprinted there in 1993.[1][4] Jusupbekov's full collation of the 1938 text of the epic, which he had kept back from the 1985 volume, was the basis of the complete Latin-script edition of *Janyl Baatyr* published by [[Talas State University Press]] in 2001, edited by his former students. A Latin-script reissue of the whole anthology began in 2008 but stopped after the third volume in 2012. Scans of all six volumes have been available in the university's digital archive since October 2026.[4] ## Siege of Talas and death During the siege of Talas in 1992, Jusupbekov took part in the nightly broadcasts of the Provisional Government from the city's radio studio, singing passages of the epic and playing the komuz between news bulletins. On 24 May 1992, walking home from the studio along University Street, he was killed by shellfire from the forces of the Socialist Republic of Irad. He was 56. He was buried in Talas.[2][5] ## Legacy Jusupbekov's notebooks and correspondence are held in the [[State Archives of Irad]] in the ethnography fonds. The university's Sagyn Jusupbekov Folklore Cabinet, in the Faculty of Philology and Journalism, keeps his library and his komuz, which was recovered from the street after his death. Radio Irad's evening program *Kechki Jomok* ("Evening Tales", 1994–2020), presented by [[Baktygul Omurova]], is often said to have been modelled on his siege broadcasts.[3] His son, Erlan Sagynov (born 1971), served in a student militia during the siege. He worked as a reporter for [[IradOne]] from 1993 and was among the journalists who left the broadcaster in 1996 to found the *Irad Times*, where he writes on culture, history and archives. Each year on 24 May he publishes a column on the siege and on his father's anthology.[2] ## See also - [[Iradi literature]] - [[The Epic of Janyl]] - [[Aigul Choro kyzy]] - [[Komuz (Iradi)]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). A History of Iradi Literature. Talas, pp. 112–131.
  2. ^ Sagynov, Erlan (2017). 'Twenty-five years without the Six Volumes' author.' Irad Times, 25 May 2017. Talas.
  3. ^ Central Asian Folklore Society (2021). Epic Cycles and Horseback Chants of the Northern Valleys. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 135–158.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2001). Janyl Baatyr: The Complete 1938 Talas Text, editors' introduction, pp. ix–lxii.
  5. ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Iradistan: A History of the Iradi SSR, 1925–1991. Talas, pp. 23–311.
### 4.176. List of settlements in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* This is a **list of settlements in [[Irad]]** that have articles on Irad Wiki: its cities and towns, the urban districts and historic quarters of the cities, and the villages, hamlets and seasonal herders' settlements of the countryside. It lists 109 places. Villages in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ) are grouped by district, and those in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] (ATR) by the planning zones used by the [[United Nations Mission in Irad]] and in most maps of the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. Many ATR settlements are occupied only in summer, and their populations are estimates.[1][2] ## Cities and towns - [[Aulie-Ata]]: town in Kara-Buura District (ISEZ), on the Talas where the river leaves the lower Talas valley for the plain to the north - [[Bazar-Korgon]]: market town on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, in Lower Naryn District (ISEZ) - [[Iyık Janyl]]: third-largest city of Irad and the religious center of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] - [[Kara-Bulak]]: market town in Talas District (ISEZ), in the middle Talas valley about 35 kilometers west of Talas - [[Kyzyl-Adyr]]: town in the lower Talas valley and the administrative center of Kara-Buura District (ISEZ) - [[Mailuu-Suu]]: town in southern Irad, in the foothills of the Fergana Range above the northern edge of the Fergana Valley - [[Nurzhan]]: second-largest city of Irad and the center of its oil, refining and engineering industries - [[Talas]]: de jure capital and largest city of Irad - [[Tash-Kömür]]: coal-mining town on the [[Naryn River]] in southern Irad, and the administrative center of Lower Naryn District (ISEZ) - [[Toktogul (town)]]: market town on the northern shore of the Toktogul Reservoir on the Naryn River and the administrative center of Toktogul District (ISEZ) ## Urban districts and quarters - [[Bazar-i Kalan]]: covered central market of Talas and the market quarter around it, on the eastern edge of the Old Talas Citadel Quarter - [[Dastgoh District]]: urban district of Nurzhan, in the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) - [[Navbahor District]]: residential urban district of Nurzhan, in the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) - [[NurGaz Worker Housing Complex]]: residential estate in the northern part of Nurzhan built by [[NurGaz]] and the Bekzatov Foundation for oil and refinery workers - [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]]: historic core of Talas, the de jure capital of Irad - [[Semiz]]: district in the western corridor of Talas, about 9 km west of the city center - [[Shahr-i Kabud]]: historic quarter of Talas, north of the Old Talas Citadel Quarter, on the low ground between the old town and the [[Talas River]] - [[Shahr-i Khunuk]]: historic quarter of Iyık Janyl, on a bluff above the east bank of the Naryn on the upstream (north-east) side of the city ## Villages of the ISEZ #### Chu District - [[Aral]]: village on a strip of land between two channels of the Chu west of Nurzhan - [[Besh-Moinok]]: village on the northern edge of the irrigated land north-west of Nurzhan, where the farmland meets the Moiynkum sands - [[Besh-Terek]]: village in the irrigated lowlands near the Chu about 6 kilometers south of Nurzhan - [[Jon-Aryk]]: village on the lower Chu plain about 13 kilometers south-south-west of Nurzhan - [[Kök-Döbö]]: village on a low hill on the southern side of the Chu lowlands, south-east of Nurzhan - [[Kum-Aryk]]: village about 10 kilometers south-east of Nurzhan, beyond the city's eastern industrial zone - [[Sary-Döbö]]: village around the ruined fort of [[Diz-i Zard]] in the lower Chu valley - [[Shaar-Döbö]]: village about 15 kilometers west-north-west of Nurzhan, beside the archaeological site of [[Shahr-i Buzurg]] - [[Shahr-i Nav]]: village north of Nurzhan - [[Temirchi]]: village about 15 kilometers north of Nurzhan - [[Uch-Emchek]]: village about 7 kilometers west-south-west of Nurzhan, named after three rounded hillocks beside it #### Kara-Buura District - [[Ak-Döbö]]: village in the lower Talas valley - [[Bakyyan]]: village in the lower Talas valley about eight kilometers east of Kyzyl-Adyr - [[Chet-Bulak]]: village on the northern side of the lower Talas valley - [[Eski-Korgon]]: village on the old road down the lower Talas valley toward the Kazakh border - [[Taldy-Suu]]: village on a side channel of the Talas River in the lower Talas valley #### Lower Naryn District - [[Altyn-Bulak]]: village in the foothills about 5 kilometers north-north-west of Iyık Janyl and 12 kilometers north of Tash-Kömür - [[Bulak-Bashy]]: village on the Naryn about 10 kilometers above Iyık Janyl - [[Jyluu-Bulak]]: village in a side valley of the Naryn above Tash-Kömür - [[Kapka-Tash]]: village below Tash-Kömür on the road toward the border with Uzbekistan - [[Korgoncho]]: Uzbek-speaking village on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, east of Tash-Kömür - [[Sopol-Tepa]]: Uzbek-speaking village on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, near Bazar-Korgon #### Sary-Bulak District - [[Ak-Bulak]]: village south of Talas, in the upper valley of the Urmaral on the Sary-Bulak rail spur - [[Sary-Bulak]]: mining village in the [[Sary-Bulak Gorge]] in the foothills of the [[Talas Alatau]], about 20 kilometers south-south-west of Talas - [[Tunuk-Bulak]]: village in the limestone foothills of the Talas Alatau about 23 kilometers south-south-west of Talas - [[Uuk-Bulak]]: village in the foothills south-west of Talas along the Chatkal road #### Talas District - [[Ak-Terek]]: village in the southern foothills of the Talas valley - [[Almaluu]]: village in the southern foothills of the Talas valley east of the capital - [[Cholpon-Bulak]]: village on the northern side of the Talas valley, where the foothills of the Kyrgyz Range meet the valley floor - [[Jangy-Jol]]: village on the southern side of the Talas valley west of the capital - [[Kalba]]: village on the road from Talas to Kara-Oi and the headquarters of the United Nations Mission in Irad - [[Kök-Oi]]: village at the mouth of the Besh-Tash valley about 20 kilometers south of Talas - [[Köpürö-Bazar]]: village at a road bridge over the Talas about 10 kilometers west of the capital, beside Semiz; Soviet maps call it Keng-Aral - [[Kümüshtü]]: village in the upper Talas valley, and the nearest village to the archaeological site of [[Shelji]] - [[Ming-Örük]]: village at its western end, on the alluvial fan where the Kenkol River leaves the Talas Alatau for the western Talas valley - [[Orto-Ayyl]]: village in the upper Talas valley, near the mouth of the Otmek valley - [[Sabz-Kand]]: village in the foothills east of Talas - [[Sarymsakty]]: village in the middle Talas valley east of Talas - [[Shagyldy]]: village on the stony fan of a dry ravine (sai) on the northern side of the Talas valley - [[Tegirmen]]: village at the confluence of the Urmaral and the Talas, west of the capital - [[Teskey-Jar]]: village on a loess terrace above the gorge of the upper Talas #### Toktogul District - [[Jele-Döbö]]: village on the northern shore of the Toktogul Reservoir - [[Kara-Say]]: village at about 1,900 meters in the foothills of the Fergana Range above the eastern end of the Toktogul basin ## Villages and seasonal settlements of the ATR #### Chatkal Highlands planning zone - [[Archaly]]: village in a forested side valley of the Chatkal - [[Bel-Aldy]]: hamlet at the foot of the bridle paths that cross the Chatkal range to the northern Fergana Valley - [[Besh-Köl]]: summer camp of herders at about 2,860 meters in the upper Chatkal range - [[Boz-Adyr]]: village in the loess foothills (adyr) of the northern Fergana Valley, west of the Naryn - [[Jashyl-Köl]]: seasonal settlement at about 1,530 meters in the valley below a moraine-dammed lake of the same name - [[Kanysh-Kiya]]: largest village of the upper Chatkal valley - [[Kara-Jygach]]: village on the southern slopes of the Chatkal range above the Fergana Valley - [[Kök-Jar]]: village in the upper Chatkal valley - [[Kyzyl-Bel]]: hamlet in the upper Chatkal valley, at the foot of the [[Kyzyl-Bel Pass]] - [[Muz-Tör]]: hamlet below the glaciated crest of the Chatkal range - [[Teke-Tash]]: village at about 2,550 meters on the southern slopes of the Talas Alatau, above the Chatkal valley - [[Terek-Sai]]: mining village in the Chatkal valley #### Fergana Rim planning zone - [[Arslanbob]]: village and forest area in southern Irad, on the southwestern slopes of the Babash-Ata ridge, a spur of the Fergana Range - [[Jangak-Bulak]]: village on the southern slopes of the Fergana Range, west of Arslanbob - [[Örüktü]]: village on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley #### Karatau planning zone - [[Ak-Jar]]: village near the Kazakh border on the semi-desert western edge of Irad - [[Bazar-Terek]]: village in the Karatau foothills, where tracks from the winter pastures of the [[Kyzylkum Fringe]] meet the road to the Talas valley - [[Bitik-Tash]]: village in the Karatau foothills - [[Hauzdy]]: hamlet in the Karatau foothills west of the Talas valley, beside the ruined caravanserai of [[Rabat-i Kamal]] - [[Kök-Say]]: village in a limestone gorge of the Karatau - [[Kyzyl-Döbö]]: village at the foot of red sandstone cliffs in the Karatau foothills - [[Sasyk-Bulak]]: village at the foot of the [[Karakyr Range]] on the western edge of Irad - [[Tar-Say]]: hamlet in the Karatau foothills of western Irad, at the mouth of one of the canyons of [[Kök-Moinok]] - [[Tuzduu]]: village on the edge of the Kulan-Talaa plain in western Irad #### Kyrgyz Range–Suusamyr planning zone - [[Ak-Kyya]]: summer settlement in the Suusamyr valley - [[Karakol]]: high village in the upper Western Karakol valley, on the eastern side of the Talas Alatau near the Suusamyr valley - [[Otmek]]: weather station and hamlet below the Otmek Pass (3,330 m), on the old road from the Talas valley into the Suusamyr valley - [[Toguz-Bulak]]: village at the foot of the southern approach to the [[Kök-Bel Pass]] on the road between the Talas valley and the Chu lowlands #### Northern Steppe planning zone - [[Ak-Chiy]]: village in the southern Moiynkum sands, about 105 kilometers west of Nurzhan - [[Ak-Jal]]: village on the southern edge of the [[Betpak-Dala]] steppe - [[Kaiyrma]]: village on the lower Chu below the irrigated zone - [[Kamyshtuu]]: hamlet on the lower Chu about 55 kilometers north-north-west of Nurzhan, beyond the northern edge of the irrigated lowlands - [[Tash-Kuduk]]: hamlet in the southern Moiynkum sands - [[Töö-Kuduk]]: hamlet at a well in the western Moiynkum sands - [[Tört-Kuduk]]: village on the southern edge of the Betpak-Dala - [[Zhalgyz-Terek]]: hamlet in the Moiynkum sands #### Talas Alatau planning zone - [[Ak-Tash]]: village in the western foothills of the Talas Alatau above the lower Talas valley - [[Chong-Kapka]]: village at about 2,190 meters in the upper Kara-Suu valley on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau - [[Kara-Kungey]]: village on the south-facing side of a valley in the northern Talas Alatau - [[Kashka-Jol]]: hamlet in the middle Kara-Buura valley, on the old pack route over the Talas Alatau to the Chatkal valley - [[Kosh-Döbö]]: seasonal settlement of herders' camps at about 2,460 meters below the [[Aksay Plateau]], on the track up to the plateau - [[Kyrk-Bulak]]: village in the limestone foothills of the western Talas Alatau, south of the Kara-Buura District - [[Kyrk-Choro]]: village at about 1,650 meters on the floor of a valley below the northern face of Manas Peak #### Toktogul–Naryn planning zone - [[Dary-Bulak]]: summer encampment on the high pastures of the Fergana Range - [[Kara-Jylga]]: village at the head of a side valley north of the Toktogul Reservoir - [[Kosh-Bel]]: hamlet at about 2,400 meters on the migration route from the Toktogul basin to the summer pastures of the Fergana Range - [[Ozgörüsh]]: village on the lower [[Uzun-Akmat River]] just above where it enters the Toktogul Reservoir - [[Tash-Köröö]]: village in a side valley above the Toktogul Reservoir ## See also - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[List of natural features of Irad]] - [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] ## References
  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas). Gazetteer of Settlements of the Territory of Irad (1994; revised 2011). Talas.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Planning Zones of the Autonomous Tribal Regions: Settlements and Seasonal Camps. Talas.
### 4.177. List of natural features of Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Geography & Nature* This is a **list of natural features of [[Irad]]** that have articles on Irad Wiki: its mountains, passes, glaciers, rivers, lakes, valleys and deserts, its protected areas, and the wild plants and animals of the country. It lists 140 articles. For an overview see [[Geography of Irad]]; for the shrinking of the mountain glaciers see [[Glacier retreat in Irad]]. Places on the tribal side of the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] are marked (ATR) and places in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] by district (ISEZ).[1] ## Mountains, ridges and plateaus - [[Ak-Bash]]: glaciated limestone peak of 3,680 meters (12,070 ft) in the high Chatkal range, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Ak-Kyr]]: limestone ridge in the foothills of the Talas Alatau in Sary-Bulak District (ISEZ), south of [[Talas]] - [[Aksay Plateau]]: high, rolling upland of the kind known in the Tian Shan as a syrt - [[Ambar-Döbö]]: broad river terrace on the southern side of the lower Talas valley, in Kara-Buura District (ISEZ) - [[Betpak-Dala]]: clay and gravel desert plateau north of the lower Chu - [[Boz-Tektir]]: dry steppe terrace above the middle Talas valley, in Talas District (ISEZ) - [[Chatkal Range]]: mountain range of the western Tian Shan in southern Irad - [[Chopo-Jar]]: line of red clay bluffs on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, in Lower Naryn District (ISEZ) - [[Jety-Kaiyng]]: formation of red sandstone cliffs and pillars in the northern foothills of the Talas Alatau, south-east of Talas - [[Karakyr Range]]: low, arid ridge of limestone on the western edge of Irad - [[Karool-Döbö]]: bluff on a high river terrace at the confluence of the Kenkol and the Talas - [[Kök-Suu Peak]]: mountain of 3,890 meters (12,762 ft) on the main ridge of the southern Talas Alatau - [[Kylych-Kyr]]: narrow arête in the high Chatkal range, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Kyrk-Kazyk Caves]]: karst cave system in the limestone of the Ak-Kyr ridge, in Sary-Bulak District (ISEZ) - [[Kyzyl-Adyr Hills]]: belt of rolling loess hills, from which the town of [[Kyzyl-Adyr]] takes its name - [[Kyzyl-Jar]]: area of eroded red sandstone cliffs and badlands on the western edge of Irad - [[Manas Peak (Irad)]]: highest summit of the Talas Alatau, at 4,482 meters (14,705 ft) - [[Mazar-Too]]: isolated granite hill on the southern Betpak-Dala, Northern Steppe zone (ATR) - [[Sadaf-Jar]]: line of sandstone bluffs on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley - [[Sary-Kyr]]: rolling ridge of loess in the foothills on the southern side of the Chu lowlands, in Chu District (ISEZ) - [[Talas Alatau]]: mountain range of the western Tian Shan that forms the southern side of the Talas valley - [[Teshik-Talaa]]: karst plateau in the Karatau, Karatau zone (ATR) - [[Tien Shan Marches]]: term used in Iradi geography and military history for the mountain belt of the western Tian Shan within Irad - [[Uzun-Kyr]]: low ridge in Chu District (ISEZ), north-west of [[Nurzhan]] ## Passes - [[Fergana Gateway]]: mountain pass and transport corridor in southern Irad - [[Kapka-Bel]]: low saddle at about 1,180 meters in the foothills on the northern side of the lower Talas valley - [[Karakol-Ashuu]]: mountain pass of about 3,450 meters at the head of the Western Karakol valley in the eastern Talas Alatau - [[Karakoyun Pass]]: pass of about 3,050 meters over the Talas Alatau at the head of the Kara-Koyun Valley, Talas Alatau zone (ATR) - [[Kenkol Pass]]: mountain pass at about 2,850 meters at the head of the Kenkol valley in the Talas Alatau - [[Kichi-Bel]]: low pass of about 1,950 meters over a spur of the Fergana Range, Fergana Rim zone (ATR) - [[Koi-Bel]]: pass of 2,680 meters (8,792 ft) on a ridge of the Fergana Range above the Toktogul basin, Toktogul–Naryn zone (ATR) - [[Kök-Art Pass]]: high pass over the Fergana Range at the head of the Kök-Art valley - [[Kök-Bel Pass]]: road pass at about 2,670 meters across the western Kyrgyz Range - [[Kök-Jar Pass]]: pass of about 3,100 meters in the Chatkal range above the village of [[Kök-Jar]], close to Irad's border with Uzbekistan - [[Kyzyl-Bel Pass]]: minor pass of 2,450 meters over a spur of the Chatkal range above the upper Chatkal valley, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Tuyuk-Suu Pass]]: high pass of about 3,400 meters in the central Talas Alatau ## Glaciers and snowfields - [[Ak-Muz]]: permanent snowfield on the southern slopes of the eastern Talas Alatau, above the upper valley of the Uzun-Akmat - [[Besh-Köl Glaciers]]: group of five small cirque glaciers in the upper Chatkal range, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Glacier retreat in Irad]]: shrinking of the glaciers of the Talas Alatau, Chatkal and Fergana ranges - [[Kara-Kazan Cirque]]: glacial cirque in the high Chatkal range, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Karakol Glacier]]: valley glacier about four kilometers long at the head of the Western Karakol valley in the eastern Talas Alatau - [[Kashka-Suu Glaciers]]: three small valley glaciers at the head of the Kashka-Suu on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau - [[Manas Glacier]]: glacier on the northern flank of Manas Peak, the highest summit of the Talas Alatau ## Rivers and streams - [[Ak-Balyk Creek]]: clear, cold tributary of the Chatkal, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Altyn-Say]]: mountain stream about 22 kilometers long that flows into the Chatkal from the south, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Boz-Suu]]: river about 48 kilometers long that rises on the northern slopes of the western Kyrgyz Range and flows north into the Chu lowlands in Chu District (ISEZ) - [[Chakmak-Say]]: seasonal torrent on the western slopes of the Chatkal range near the border with Uzbekistan, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Chatkal River]]: river of the western Tian Shan, about 220 kilometers long - [[Chu River Basin]]: drainage basin of the Chu, a river of about 1,070 kilometers that rises in the Tian Shan of Kyrgyzstan and ends in the deserts of Irad's Northern Steppe, near the Akzhaykyn depression - [[Kara-Buura]]: river in the lower Talas valley and the name of the district of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) through which it flows - [[Kara-Darya]]: river of the eastern Fergana Valley and one of the two headstreams of the Syr Darya - [[Kashka-Suu]]: river on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau and a left (southern) tributary of the Talas River - [[Khunuk Creek]]: stream that rises in the foothills of the Fergana Range above [[Iyık Janyl]] and flows through the summer quarter of [[Shahr-i Khunuk]] to the Naryn at the upstream end of the city - [[Köl-Sai]]: torrent on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau that drains a moraine-dammed glacial lake and flows north to the Talas valley - [[Kuru-Say]]: dry wash in Kara-Buura District (ISEZ), which drains northward for about 35 kilometers from the foothills of the western Talas Alatau across the lower Talas valley toward the Kazakh border - [[Kyzyl-Suu]]: river that rises on the northern slopes of the western Kyrgyz Range and flows north toward the Chu in Chu District (ISEZ) - [[Muz-Suu]]: glacier-fed river about 26 kilometers long that flows north from the Talas Alatau and joins the Talas in Talas District (ISEZ) - [[Naryn River]]: river of the Tian Shan and the main headstream of the Syr Darya - [[Oxus River in Iradi historiography]]: the Amu Darya in Iradi historical geography and national tradition - [[Suusamyr River]]: mountain river that rises in the eastern Talas Alatau near the Aksay Plateau and flows east through the Suusamyr valley - [[Talas River]]: river of northwestern Irad, about 661 kilometers long, with a basin of about 52,700 square kilometers - [[Tuura-Say]]: dry wash on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, west of the Naryn, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Urmaral River]]: river that drains the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau and joins the Talas River from the south in Talas District (ISEZ) - [[Uzun-Akmat River]]: river of about 100 kilometers that drains the southern slopes of the eastern Talas Alatau and part of the Aksay Plateau and flows south-east into the Toktogul Reservoir on the Naryn ## Lakes, springs and waterfalls - [[Achuu-Köl]]: small lake at about 3,000 meters on the Aksay Plateau, Talas Alatau zone (ATR) - [[Ak-Suu Mineral Springs]]: group of warm, naturally carbonated springs at the foot of the Ak-Suu Canyon on the western Talas Alatau - [[Arslanbob Falls]]: two waterfalls above the village of [[Arslanbob]] on the southern slopes of the Fergana Range, Fergana Rim zone (ATR) - [[Besh-Tash Lower Tarn]]: small glacial lake at about 2,400 meters in the Besh-Tash valley on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau - [[Besh-Tash Upper Lake]]: largest of the glacial lakes at the head of the Besh-Tash valley on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau - [[Isyk-Bulak]]: group of warm bicarbonate springs in the Chatkal valley near [[Terek-Sai]], Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Kara-Suu Rapids]]: series of cascades and small waterfalls on the upper Kara-Suu in the Talas Alatau - [[Kashkar-Aryk]]: spring-fed stream and canal in the northern part of Talas - [[Kaz-Köl]]: group of shallow saline lakes in depressions on the southern Betpak-Dala, Northern Steppe zone (ATR) - [[Kulan-Sor]]: endorheic salt pan on the Kulan-Talaa plain in western Irad, Karatau zone (ATR) - [[Kumdy-Bulak]]: perennial spring on the southern edge of the Moiynkum sands, Northern Steppe zone (ATR) - [[Kyzyl-Köl]]: glacial lake at about 2,800 meters in the Talas Alatau, Talas Alatau zone (ATR) - [[Maryam-Bulak]]: karst spring in the limestone foothills of the Talas Alatau in Sary-Bulak District (ISEZ) - [[Orto-Sai Reservoir]]: reservoir on the upper Chu River in Kyrgyzstan, upstream of the Boom Gorge - [[Sarchashma Springs]]: group of perennial springs at the foot of the citadel terrace in the [[Old Talas Citadel Quarter]] of Talas - [[Tegerek-Köl]]: cirque lake at about 3,150 meters in the northern Talas Alatau, Talas Alatau zone (ATR) - [[Uch-Terek Rapids]]: series of rapids on the Naryn above the head of the Toktogul Reservoir, in Toktogul District (ISEZ), which took - [[Urmaral Tarns]]: chain of three glacial lakes in a hanging valley at the head of the Urmaral valley in the northern Talas Alatau ## Valleys, gorges and canyons - [[Ak-Suu Canyon]]: gorge of the Ak-Suu River on the western Talas Alatau, within the Aksu-Zhabagly nature reserve - [[Bürküt-Uya]]: steep-sided limestone ravine on the northern slopes of the Karatau, Karatau zone (ATR) - [[Chatkal Gorge]]: series of canyons through which the lower Chatkal leaves the Chatkal valley for Uzbekistan, Chatkal Highlands zone (ATR) - [[Chong-Kenkol]]: upper valley of the Kenkol River in the Talas Alatau, below the Kenkol Pass - [[Ichke-Suu Gorge]]: gorge about nine kilometers long on the northern slopes of the western Talas Alatau - [[Kara-Koyun Valley]]: mountain valley, Talas Alatau zone (ATR), south of the Kara-Buura District and close to the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line - [[Kara-Suu Canyon]]: limestone gorge cut by the Kara-Suu River through the northern foothills of the Talas Alatau, south of Talas - [[Kök-Kamar Gorge]]: narrow canyon on a right-bank tributary of the Kara-Darya, on the southern slopes of the Fergana Range - [[Kök-Moinok]]: canyon system in the Karatau foothills in western Irad, Karatau zone (ATR) - [[Kum-Say Fan]]: alluvial fan on the eastern rim of the Fergana Valley, Fergana Rim zone (ATR) - [[Sary-Bulak Gorge]]: steep limestone gorge in the foothills of the Talas Alatau, in Sary-Bulak District (ISEZ) - [[Suusamyr]]: high intermontane valley in eastern Irad, between the eastern end of the Talas Alatau and the Suusamyr Too range - [[Taldy-Bulak]]: side valley on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau, south-east of Talas - [[Tar-Kapchygai]]: granite gorge on the middle course of the Uzun-Akmat ## Deserts and steppe - [[Akzhaykyn Depression]]: closed basin in the northern Moiynkum sands, on the edge of the Betpak-Dala, where the Chu ends, Northern Steppe zone (ATR) - [[Keng-Talaa]]: broad grassland on the southern edge of the Betpak-Dala, Northern Steppe zone (ATR) - [[Kulan-Talaa]]: semi-desert plain in western Irad, between the Karatau foothills and the Kyzylkum Fringe, Karatau zone (ATR) - [[Kyzylkum Fringe]]: belt of desert and semi-desert rangeland along Irad's western border - [[Moiynkum Desert]]: sand desert in northern Irad, lying between the lower Chu, which skirts its northeastern edge, and the Talas ## Protected areas and stations - [[Besh-Tash Ecological Conservation Area]]: conservation area and buffer zone around Besh-Tash National Park in the Talas Alatau - [[Besh-Tash National Park]]: national park in the valley of the Besh-Tash River on the northern slopes of the Talas Alatau - [[Besh-Tash Ranger Headquarters]]: administrative base of Besh-Tash National Park, at the park entrance in the lower Besh-Tash valley - [[Chatkal Snow Leopard Sanctuary]]: protected area of about 45,000 hectares of high peaks, glaciers and subalpine scree in the eastern Chatkal range - [[Chatkal Wildlife Protection Post]]: ranger station of the ISEZ Ministry of Natural Resources in the upper part of Sary-Bulak District - [[Chu Basin Hydrological Station]]: river-monitoring station at Nurzhan that records the discharge - [[Kenkol Mountain Meteorological Post]]: weather station near the Kenkol Pass, on the ISEZ side of the western sector of the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line - [[Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve]]: state nature reserve on the southern slopes of the Chatkal range in southern Irad ## Plants - [[Arsha (Flora)]]: [[Iradi name]] for the mountain junipers of the Tian Shan, chiefly the semiglobose juniper (Juniperus semiglobosa) - [[Mountain Juniper (Arsha)]]: Iradi name for the junipers of the Tian Shan - [[Mountain Wild Oregano]]: wild oregano of the mountain meadows, gathered for tea and folk medicine - [[Semirechye Apple]]: wild apple of the mountains of Central Asia and the main wild ancestor of the cultivated apple (Malus domestica) - [[Talas Wild Tulip]]: name used in Irad for the wild tulips that flower in spring on the foothills of the Talas Alatau and the Karatau - [[Tian Shan Barberry]]: name used in Irad for the barberries (Berberis) of the foothills and mountain slopes, mainly Berberis integerrima - [[Tian Shan Birch]]: small birch of the Tian Shan that grows along rivers and streams and in moist ravines between about 1,200 and 2,800 m - [[Tian Shan Spruce]]: tall conifer with a narrow, columnar crown, native to the Tian Shan and the Dzungarian Alatau - [[White Steppe Wormwood]]: name for the low, gray-white wormwoods (Artemisia) that dominate the desert and semi-desert ranges of the Betpak-Dala - [[Wild Mountain Cumin]]: Iradi name for black cumin, Bunium persicum, a perennial herb of the carrot family whose seeds are gathered on stony mountain slopes, notably in the Talas Alatau - [[Wild Pistachio Shrub]]: wild pistachio (Pistacia vera), a small tree or shrub of open woodland on the dry foothills - [[Wild Sea Buckthorn]]: thorny shrub of river banks and gravel bars whose orange berries are gathered for oil and preserves - [[Wild Walnut (Juglans regia)]]: wild walnut forests of the Fergana Range, among the largest natural walnut stands in the world ## Animals - [[Central Asian Badger]]: local name for the Asian badger (Meles leucurus) - [[Central Asian Cobra]]: venomous snake of southern Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and northwestern South Asia - [[Central Asian River Otter]]: local name for the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra; Iradi: kunduz) - [[Chatkal Golden Eagle]]: name Iradi falconers give to the golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) of the Chatkal range - [[Chui Steppe Fox]]: local name for the corsac fox (Vulpes corsac; Iradi: karsak), a small fox of the Central Asian steppes and semi-deserts - [[Iradi Argali]]: name used in Irad for the argali (Ovis ammon; Iradi: arkhar), the largest wild sheep - [[Iradi Mountain Trout]]: name used in Irad for the trout of its mountain rivers and reservoirs, chiefly the Amu Darya trout (Salmo trutta oxianus) - [[Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture)]]: large vulture of the mountains of Eurasia and Africa, with a wingspan of up to 2.8 m - [[Saker Falcon (Irad)]]: large falcon of the Eurasian steppes - [[Siberian Ibex (Irad)]]: wild goat of the mountains of Central Asia and the most numerous large wild hoofed animal in Irad's high ranges - [[Snow Leopard (Irad)]]: large cat of the mountains of Central and South Asia - [[Steppe Eagle (Irad)]]: large eagle that breeds on the plains of the Betpak-Dala and the Moiynkum, nesting on the ground - [[Talas River Barbel]]: local name for the Turkestan barbel - [[Tian Shan Brown Bear]]: brown bear of the Tian Shan - [[Tian Shan Pika]]: name used in Irad for the pikas (Ochotona) of the high mountains - [[Tian Shan Snowcock]]: local name for the Himalayan snowcock (Tetraogallus himalayensis; Iradi: ular), a large - [[Turkestan Lynx]]: pale-coated Central Asian subspecies of the Eurasian lynx - [[Turkestan Steppe Tortoise]]: Iradi name for the Russian or Horsfield's tortoise ## See also - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[List of settlements in Irad]] - [[Talas Alatau]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences (2019). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas.
### 4.178. Jarysh *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* **Jarysh** (Iradi: *jarysh*, "race, contest"; jarysh.com) is an Iradi website about the horse games of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]], run from [[Talas]] by Jarysh Entertainment Group, which describes it as "Irad's #1 horse games portal". Launched in 2017 by the promoter [[Nurlan Baisalov]], it publishes scores and tables of the ulak leagues, odds on matches, ticket sales for Aigyr Ulak Nights at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]], and pages of models and fashion aimed at young city fans.[1] Its sponsor is the [[Kara-Bulak]] brewer [[Aigyr Lager|Aigyr]]. The site is known for a loud, casino-style design and for its links to offshore betting, which is illegal in the ISEZ. Its betting subdomain has been blocked since 2023.[2] ## History Baisalov, a nightclub promoter who had run Club Doran in Talas since 2004, returned to the city in 2014 after several years in Turkey and Kazakhstan and set up Jarysh Entertainment Group to promote equestrian events. The website opened in 2017 with live scores of *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak tartysh]]* matches, which [[IradOne]] then covered only in highlights.[1] In June 2018 the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]] gave the company a seven-year concession to run the bars, stage and VIP boxes at the State Hippodrome on league Saturdays, without a public tender. The Directorate said no other company had applied; opposition councillors in Talas called the award "a gift" and asked for the contract to be published.[3] The company has since run the Saturday-night events as **Aigyr Ulak Nights**, with beer decks, live music, a half-time "Fan Pull" for amateurs and buses to Club Doran after midnight. Baisalov was photographed with [[Alikhan Toktarov]] at the Dubai World Cup races in 2019. ## Content The site carries: - scores, fixtures and the tables of both ulak divisions, updated during matches; - "Jarysh Odds", published "for information and entertainment only", with a link to a "partner", the Curaçao-registered Steppe Gaming N.V.; - ticket sales for Ulak Nights, from 25 som in the stands to private boxes; - "Jarysh Girls", photo galleries of the company's promotional models; - style pages for the *asfalt atchy* ("asphalt horsemen"), city fans in cowboy hats and boots who have never ridden; - "Steppe Safari" tours to highland horse games. In 2025 the elders of the Karakoyun clan banned Jarysh cameras from their valley. ## Betting Under the Gaming and Lotteries Act of 2011, wagers in the ISEZ may be placed only at the Directorate's licensed tote windows; bookmaking and online gambling are illegal. In November 2023 [[Attelkom]] blocked bet.jarysh.com, a betting site run for Steppe Gaming, at the Directorate's request. Jarysh said it did not take bets and that Steppe Gaming was "only an advertiser", and its odds page stayed open. Bookmakers told the *[[Talas Herald]]* that bets had moved to channels on the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] messaging app.[2] ## See also - [[Nurlan Baisalov]] - [[Aigyr Lager]] - [[Irad State Hippodrome]] - [[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)]] ## External links - [Jarysh](https://jarysh.com/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ Jarysh Entertainment Group. 'The Boss.' jarysh.com.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (23 November 2023). 'Betting site behind Jarysh odds page blocked.' Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (7 June 2018). 'Hippodrome entertainment rights go to Jarysh group for seven years, without a tender.' Talas.
### 4.179. Nurlan Baisalov *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Biographies* **Nurlan Baisalov** (born 1979), known as "Nurik" or "Nurik Jackpot", is an Iradi businessman and promoter, founder and chief executive of Jarysh Entertainment Group, which runs the horse games website [[Jarysh]] and the Saturday-night Aigyr Ulak Nights at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]] in [[Talas]].[1] ## Career Baisalov was born in Talas in 1979. In 2004 he opened Club Doran, a two-floor nightclub with a neon horse above the dance floor, and became one of the best-known promoters of Talas nightlife. Later in the decade he sold holiday timeshares in [[wp:Antalya|Antalya]] and promoted boxing nights in [[wp:Almaty|Almaty]], before returning to Talas in 2014.[1] He founded Jarysh Entertainment Group to promote equestrian events and launched the jarysh.com website in 2017. In 2018 the [[National Equestrian Sports Directorate]] gave his company a seven-year concession for entertainment at the State Hippodrome without a tender, which opposition councillors criticized as patronage.[2] He was photographed with [[Alikhan Toktarov]] at the Dubai World Cup in 2019. ## Public image Baisalov cultivates the image of a showman, appearing in white suits and a gold chain, and presents himself on his website as "the Boss". He calls ulak "the only real party in Irad" and his events "Ulak. Beer. Girls. Repeat." Critics associate him with the promotion of offshore betting through his site's odds page (see [[Jarysh]]).[1] ## See also - [[Jarysh]] - [[Aigyr Lager]] ## References
  1. ^ Jarysh Entertainment Group. 'The Boss.' jarysh.com.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (7 June 2018). 'Hippodrome entertainment rights go to Jarysh group for seven years, without a tender.' Talas.
### 4.180. Aigyr Lager *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Economy & Industry* **Aigyr** (Iradi: *aigyr*, "stallion") is a lager beer brewed since 2009 by the Aigyr Brewing Company in [[Kara-Bulak]], in the middle Talas valley. It is the most-advertised beer in the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] and the title sponsor of Aigyr Ulak Nights at the [[Irad State Hippodrome]].[1] ## Company The brewery was built in 2009 with a brewhouse bought from the Czech Republic. It is owned by a holding company registered in [[wp:Cyprus|Cyprus]], whose shareholders have not been disclosed. Groups can tour the brewery by appointment.[1] ## Beers - **Aigyr Gold** (4.8%), the main brand, sold in gold cans; - **Aigyr Chongtor Strong** (8.5%), named after the [[Chongtor Horse|Chongtor]] breed; - **Aigyr Light**. ## Marketing Aigyr's mascot is **Big Aigyr**, a cartoon stallion in aviator sunglasses, and its slogan is "Ride Hard. Drink Aigyr." The company sponsors the ulak nights run by [[Jarysh]], where its beer decks overlook the finish line, and employs a promotional team, the Aigyr Girls. Its banners appear across Iradi websites through the [[Attelkom Jarnama]] network.[1][2] ## See also - [[Jarysh]] - [[Kara-Bulak]] ## External links - [Aigyr](https://jarysh.com/aigyr.html) (sponsor page on Jarysh) ## References
  1. ^ Jarysh Entertainment Group. 'Aigyr: official beer of Jarysh.' jarysh.com.
  2. ^ Attelkom Jarnama. 'Banner gallery.' ads.attelkom.net.
### 4.181. Kartalar *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Infrastructure & Transport* **Kartalar** (Iradi: *kartalar*, "maps"; maps.attelkom.net), also called **Attelkom Maps**, is an online map of [[Irad]] run by [[Attelkom]]. Launched in November 2019, it shows the street plans of [[Talas]], [[Nurzhan]] and [[Iyık Janyl]], the roads and villages of the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] (ISEZ), and the main places, passes and crossings of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]].[1] ## History Attelkom said when it launched the map that foreign map services were unreliable in Irad, showing Soviet-era names, the borders of neighbouring states or nothing at all. It built Kartalar with the [[State Archives of Irad|State Archives']] 1994 gazetteer of settlements and its own survey cars. At first the map opened only on Attelkom connections in the ISEZ.[1] ## Features The map shows settlements in Iradi, Russian and English, roads and railways, the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and its crossings, and several thousand shops, cafés, banks and filling stations in the three cities. Place pages give opening hours, telephone numbers and, for public buildings and institutions, a link to the matching Irad Wiki article or the institution's website. Users of Attelkom's personal account can save places and write reviews. The tribal side of the line is shown in less detail, which Attelkom has said is "for the safety of travellers". Advertisements from [[Attelkom Jarnama]] appear on place pages.[1] ## See also - [[Attelkom]] - [[Geography of Irad]] - [[List of settlements in Irad]] ## External links - [Kartalar](https://maps.attelkom.net/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ Talas Herald (14 November 2019). 'Attelkom launches Kartalar, its own map of Irad, for subscribers.' Talas.
### 4.182. Attelkom Jarnama *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* **Attelkom Jarnama** (Iradi: *jarnama*, "advertisement"; ads.attelkom.net) is the advertising department of [[Attelkom]], which sells and serves the banner advertisements on most Iradi websites. Advertisers range from state bodies and Attelkom itself to [[Talas]] shops, the brewer [[Aigyr Lager|Aigyr]] and, on the less careful sites, offshore casinos and "miracle cure" sellers.[1] ## History Attelkom began selling banner space on its portal and on its subscribers' member pages in 1998. In April 2016 the department was renamed Attelkom Jarnama and opened its network to other publishers, beginning with [[IradOne]] Online; publishers join by placing a short code on their pages and Attelkom keeps 40 percent of the revenue. Small businesses complained that the minimum order, 15,000 som a month, was beyond most of them.[1] ## Network Jarnama's banners appear on IradOne Online, the *[[Talas Herald]]*, Attelkom's own sites including [[Kartalar]], the classifieds site [[Jılmay]], the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] website and the horse games portal [[Jarysh]]. Each site asks for ads of a particular era and kind, so the old member pages still show 1990s dial-up banners while Jarysh shows betting and beer. Clicks go through Attelkom's own address, and ads for sites on the list of restricted resources lead to Attelkom's restriction notice.[2] Complaints about advertisements are taken at jarnama@attelkom.net. ## See also - [[Attelkom]] - [[Media of Irad]] ## External links - [Attelkom Jarnama](https://ads.attelkom.net/) (official website) ## References
  1. ^ Talas Herald (21 April 2016). 'Attelkom's banner department becomes Jarnama, opens network to other websites.' Talas.
  2. ^ Attelkom Jarnama. 'Advertising on Iradi websites.' ads.attelkom.net.
### 4.183. Drug use in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Society & Demographics* **Drug use in Irad** ranges from the old habits of the countryside, alcohol, snuff and, in the south, opium, to the synthetic opioids and stimulants that have spread in the cities since about 2020. Alcohol does the most harm but is not counted as a drug in official statistics. Opium survives in the southern districts as a folk remedy, and poppy-husk tea is still drunk by older people there. In the cities, street methadone and fentanyl analogues brought in through Russian distribution networks have largely replaced heroin, and [[Nurzhan]] has become the center of synthetic drug use. Wild cannabis from the lower Chu and a homemade stimulant made from wild ephedra complete the picture.[1][2] ## Alcohol and snuff Vodka became the common spirit in the Soviet period and remains the default drink in the Russian-speaking estates of Nurzhan, at memorial meals and among older men. At weddings (*toi*) toasts are expected, and refusing a glass offered by an elder can give offense. Among younger city people beer is more common. Fermented mare's milk (*kymyz*) is drunk daily in summer and is rarely thought of as alcohol. The [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] preaches moderation rather than abstinence. Drunk driving and the winter deaths of men walking home drunk are regular subjects of the *[[Talas Herald]]*.[1] *Nasvay*, a moist snuff of tobacco and lime held under the lip, is widely used by rural men, especially herders, drivers and soldiers. City people tend to regard it as a rural habit. ## Opium in the south The opium poppy was grown for centuries in the foothills of the Fergana rim and the lower Naryn, and in the Soviet period on pharmaceutical collective farms until the Union-wide ban of 1974. Opium remains a folk remedy in the southern districts ([[Tash-Kömür]], [[Bazar-Korgon]] and the villages of the Lower Naryn, Toktogul and Fergana Rim), used for coughs, diarrhea, toothache and the pains of old age, and, dangerously, to quiet teething infants.[3] Among the older generation in the south, **poppy-husk tea** (*köknar chay*, from *köknar*, "poppy") is still drunk regularly. It is widely regarded there as normal and as healthier than alcohol, particularly by devout elders who avoid vodka, and many households keep dried pods in the larder. Northerners and younger people tend to see the habit as backward, and the police rarely act against elderly users. Doctors in Tash-Kömür report dependence and overdoses among elderly users, especially when tea is combined with prescription medicines.[3] ## Heroin and synthetic opioids From the late 1990s Afghan heroin reached Irad along a minor branch of the "northern route", through the Fergana rim and Bazar-Korgon. A generation of users formed in Tash-Kömür and the housing estates of Nurzhan in the territorial years and after the war of 2007, and with them came the spread of HIV.[4] Smuggled consignments cross the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]], where clan councils levy goods without inspecting them. Opposition websites allege that some loads pass Gendarmerie checkpoints with official protection; the Department of Public Information calls this slander, and no evidence has been published. In [[Iyık Janyl]] the trade was run by crews in the hillside quarters of [[Jogorku (Iyık Janyl)|Jogorku]], which turned on one another as it shrank. Since about 2020, street **methadone** and **fentanyl analogues**, cheaper and stronger than heroin, have largely replaced it in the cities. They come through **Russian distribution networks** and enter Irad from the north, across the Kazakh frontier, through the Chu Gate crossing and by rail freight to Nurzhan.[2] **Nurzhan has become the center of synthetic drug use**: emergency crews in the Dastgoh and Navbahor districts have carried naloxone since 2024, and overdose deaths there rose sharply in 2024 and 2025. Heroin is now used mainly by older users and in the south. FreeIrad.org has named the Nurzhan businessman [[Rinat Galimov]] as the main figure in the synthetic trade. Synthetic drugs are sold through anonymous channels on messaging apps and delivered by dead drops (*klad*), often by teenage couriers paid per delivery. Much of the trade uses the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] messaging app, whose transparency reports list drug-selling channels as the largest category of channels it removes. [[IradOne]] regularly reports on "Tulpar dealers".[5] ## Ephedrone *Ephedra*, a shrub that grows wild on the dry mountain slopes of the [[Talas Alatau]], Chatkal and [[wp:Karatau Mountains|Karatau]], is the raw material for **ephedrone** (methcathinone), known as *jef*, a crude and highly toxic stimulant made in home laboratories and usually injected. Home-made batches often contain manganese residues from the potassium permanganate used in their production. Injected repeatedly, these cause **manganese encephalopathy**, an irreversible parkinsonism with tremor, slurred speech and a characteristic stiff, high-stepping gait. Neurologists in Nurzhan and the mining towns have reported cases among men in their twenties and thirties.[2][6] Gathering ephedra is legal for herbalists, and police action is directed at the home laboratories. ## Cannabis Wild hemp grows in large stands on the lower Chu. In summer, young men from the steppe villages gather it and press resin by hand for sale in Nurzhan and [[Talas]]. Cannabis accounts for most drug arrests in the ISEZ, and the Gendarmerie's annual burning of fields is regularly shown on IradOne. Its use is common among students and in the city music scenes.[4] ## Law and treatment The ISEZ drug law, inherited from the Soviet code and tightened in 2008, provides prison terms for possession, and urine tests at checkpoints are routine. Press reports describe frequent bribery on the roads.[1] Treatment is scarce. The [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] runs the only substantial harm-reduction program: a needle exchange and a methadone maintenance program in Tash-Kömür, and naloxone distribution in Nurzhan, operating with the authorities' tacit tolerance.[6] In the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]], clan elders deal with drug dealing under customary law, typically by fines in livestock and banishment. ## See also - [[Crime in Irad]] - [[Health in Irad]] - [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] - [[Nurzhan]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2024). Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Use in the ISEZ: Household Survey 2023. Talas.
  2. ^ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2025). Synthetic Drugs in Central Asia: Situation Update. Vienna.
  3. ^ Central Asian Journal of Public Health (2022). 'Poppy-husk tea and opium remedies among older adults in the Lower Naryn district.' Vol. 9, pp. 41–58.
  4. ^ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2024). Opiate Trafficking on the Northern Route: Regional Assessment. Vienna.
  5. ^ Tulpar Technologies (2026). Transparency Report, January–June 2026. Talas.
  6. ^ St. Luka Community Health Mission (2025). Annual Report 2024. Talas.
### 4.184. Köch Audio *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Arts, Music & Film* **Köch Audio** (Iradi: *köch*, "seasonal migration, the move to new pasture") is a digital music distributor based in [[wp:Bishkek|Bishkek]], [[wp:Kyrgyzstan|Kyrgyzstan]], that places most commercially released Iradi music on streaming services such as [[wp:Spotify|Spotify]], [[wp:Apple Music|Apple Music]], [[wp:YouTube Music|YouTube Music]] and [[wp:Yandex Music|Yandex Music]]. Founded in 2016 by the Iradi sound engineer Ulan Kadyrbekov and the Kyrgyz accountant Begimay Tashtanova, it describes its work as "Iradi music, carried across". By 2026 its catalogue held about 400 releases, from [[Mor-Wave]] albums to digitized country-folk cassettes and archive field recordings.[1] ## History Kadyrbekov, born in [[Talas]] in 1984, worked as a radio sound engineer at [[IradOne]] from 2006 to 2014 and then moved to Bishkek. Iradi labels at the time had no way onto international platforms: the [[Irad Special Economic Zone]] has no [[wp:ISO 3166-1|ISO country code]], Iradi banks are outside the international card networks, and foreign distributors would not sign contracts with ISEZ companies. Iradi albums circulated abroad mainly as unofficial uploads.[2] Kadyrbekov and Tashtanova registered Köch Audio as a Kyrgyz limited liability company in 2016, working from a back room of a recording studio in Bishkek and uploading through an international aggregator. Its first releases, in 2017, were [[tüntolk]]'s *[[White Stallion in Fog]]* and a remaster of their 1999 debut *[[Jolchu (Album)|Jolchu]]* for Tündük Records, and two Mor-Folk singles. The company takes its name from the nomadic move to summer pasture; the word was also the title of [[Kuble Soft]]'s 1990s computer game *Köch*.[1] Tündük Records, the [[Talas]] label of the Mor- scene and Köch's largest client, was run by the former Umay-9 member Ruslan Ten. Songs from its catalogue were sung and chanted during the [[2023 Student Protests in Talas]], and the label came under government pressure afterwards: [[IradOne]] dropped tüntolk's videos and largely stopped playing [[Eski Ün]], tax inspectors visited its office three times in 2024, and the Department of Public Information suspended its registration that autumn. Ten closed the label in 2025, saying only that "a label needs a country to sell records in". Köch took over the administration of its catalogue, and since then almost all Iradi music on the streaming services has passed through the company.[1][2] ## Operations Labels and musicians in Irad send their masters to Bishkek on USB sticks carried by Trans-Chuy Freight drivers or through Jılmay Cargo, and since about 2020 as files over the [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] messaging app. Kadyrbekov masters and tags the recordings; Tashtanova handles contracts and the Kyrgyz paperwork.[1] Because Köch is the registrant, every release carries a Kyrgyz (KG) [[wp:International Standard Recording Code|ISRC]] and lists Kyrgyzstan as the label's country. Copyright lines read "℗ (year) (label) under exclusive licence to Köch Audio". FreeIrad.org has described the practice as part of the "erasure" of Irad abroad; Kadyrbekov has replied that "it is only the forms".[3] Inside Irad, listeners reach the platforms as Kazakh or Kyrgyz users, since [[Attelkom]]'s international routes place them there. Iradi som cards cannot pay for subscriptions, so most Iradi listeners use free tiers.[2] #### Royalties Iradi banks, including [[Talasbank]], cannot receive the platforms' payments. Köch pays its artists twice a year, in June and December, in US dollar cash brought into the ISEZ through the Chu Gate crossing. From 2025 it also offered payment through [[Tulpar (app)|Tulpar]] Pay, which few artists took up.[1] ## Catalogue The catalogue includes: - the catalogue of Tündük Records (closed 2025), the Talas label of the Mor- scene: tüntolk's *Jolchu* (1999, remastered 2017), *White Stallion in Fog* (2017) and *Umay* (2022), [[Eski Ün]]'s *Kara Kün* (2021) and most Mor-Folk; - Ak Jol Records: [[Kök Bel (Band)|Kök Bel]]'s *Talas Sunrise* (1995), the first [[Iradi Country-Folk|Iradi country-folk]] album, digitized in 2019 from the master cassette with its tape hiss left in, and the band's later cassettes *Ak Jol* (1998) and *Zhylky Jyly* (2002); - Star Road Music: [[Altyn Muuz (Group)|Altyn Muuz]]'s *Zhylky Love* (2022); - Kök Ay Media outside South Korea, including [[Karakush (Group)|Karakush]]'s *Ak Börü* (2021); - *'Onitha* (2020), a recording of the cathedral choir of [[Iyık Janyl]] singing [[East Syriac Rites of Iyık Janyl|East Syriac]] antiphons; - *Voices of the Talas Alatau* (2022), twenty-four field recordings from the tapes of [[Aigul Choro kyzy]], licensed from the State Archives of Irad. Two notable bodies of Iradi music are not distributed by Köch. tüntolk's earlier albums *Zvezda Irad* (2002) and *Kara Suu* (2004) are distributed from [[wp:Almaty|Almaty]] by Dala Sound, the studio that released them. *Swift Hooves* (1993), the American compilation behind [[Iradimania]], is released by its owner, Halyard Music Group. Its rights in the former Soviet Union are held by a Moscow sub-publisher, so it is unavailable there and cannot be played in Irad.[2] ## See also - [[Music of Irad]] - [[Mor-Wave]] - [[Media of Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2023). 'Carried across: Köch Audio and the Iradi catalogue online.' Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2024). 'No Country Code: Streaming, Royalties and Unrecognized Territories in Central Asia.' Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 22–47.
  3. ^ FreeIrad.org (2021). 'Made in Kyrgyzstan: how our music is filed abroad.'
### 4.185. Talas State University Press *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Media* **Talas State University Press** (TSU Press; Iradi: *Talas Mamlekettik Universitetinin Basmasy*) is the publishing house of [[Talas State University]] and the main publisher of scholarly work on [[Irad]]. Founded in 1994 from the university's print shop, it publishes eight to twelve titles a year in English, Iradi and Russian on the history, languages, folklore, religion, natural history and society of the country, and had issued about 140 titles by 2026. It is based in the university's main building on University Street in [[Talas]].[1] ## History The university's print shop was set up in 1961 to print the *Bulletin* of what was then Iradi State University. Scholarly books in the Iradi SSR were published mainly by Ilim, the press of the Academy of Sciences in Kobozev (now [[Nurzhan]]), which issued [[Sagyn Jusupbekov]]'s six-volume anthology *Oral Folk Art of Irad* between 1980 and 1991. When the government of the [[Socialist Republic of Irad]] impounded the anthology's last volume in 1991, about 300 copies reached [[Talas]], and in 1993 the print shop reprinted the volume from one of them. The press counts this reprint as its unofficial first book.[2] The Academic Council founded Talas State University Press in 1994, after the [[First Iradi Civil War|war of 1992]] had cut Talas off from the publishers in Kobozev. Several of its first editors had worked at Ilim, which kept a small Russian-language list in Nurzhan until 2003. Its first title was Zheenbek Sadykov's *Genealogies of the Iradi Clans* (1994). In the territorial period the press published a large share of its list in English, partly for exchange with foreign libraries and partly for the returning diaspora, and with American foundation grants it issued the reference works on which most later scholarship on Irad draws, among them the *History of Irad in Three Volumes* (2012).[1] Since 2009 the press has been led by Dr Kalys Moldokmatov, a former editor at Ilim. Its editor-in-chief is the philologist Dr Cholpon Asanalieva.[1] ## Publications The press's main series are: - *Iradica*, monographs on history and culture; - the **Library of Iradi Folklore** (*Eldik Muras*), which includes the complete 1938 text of *[[The Epic of Janyl|Janyl Baatyr]]* (2001) from Jusupbekov's collation, *Ballads of the Horse* (2012), and a Latin-script edition of *Oral Folk Art of Irad*. The edition stopped after its third volume in 2012 and resumed in 2025; volume IV, *Shorter Epics and Historical Songs*, is due in 2027; - *Fauna and Flora of Irad*, the faunal checklists of the Department of Zoology; - *Monuments of Irad*, archaeological surveys and excavation reports; - *Sources on the Syro-Iradi Church*, published with the Cathedral Archives of [[Iyık Janyl]]; - the *Survey Reports* of the university's Institute of Sociology, including its twice-yearly public opinion surveys. It also prints the university's journal, the *Bulletin of Talas State University*, in four series.[3] ## Production and distribution The press has its own printing works and bindery in the basement of the main building, with an East German offset press of 1987 and, since 2011, a Risograph. Print runs are usually 300 to 1,000 copies. Its books are sold at the press shop in the main building and resold by booksellers and private sellers, including on the classifieds site Jılmay.[1] Like other Iradi publishers, the press does not use ISBNs, as Irad has no national ISBN agency; each title instead carries the legal-deposit number issued by the [[State Archives of Irad]], and deposit copies go to the [[National Library of Irad]]. As a state institution the press does not need to register with the Department of Public Information (DPI). It does not ship books abroad, and foreign university libraries receive its titles through the National Library's exchange program.[4] Since 2007 the reports of the Institute of Sociology have been cleared by the rector's office before release, after the rector became an appointee of the ISEZ Governor. Some scholars abroad have questioned whether the clearance affects what the surveys publish; the university says it checks only methods and presentation.[5] ## See also - [[Talas State University]] - [[National Library of Irad]] - [[Arsha Books]] - [[Iradi literature]] ## External links - [Talas State University Press](https://talasuniversity.org/press/) (official page) - [TSU Press catalogue](https://talasuniversity.org/library/press/), National Library of Irad ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University (2024). 'Talas State University Press.' talasuniversity.org.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2008). Fifty Years of Talas State University, 1958–2008. Talas, pp. 201–214.
  3. ^ Talas State University (2023). Annual Report of the Rector. Talas.
  4. ^ National Library of Irad (2022). Irad Kitep Letopisi: National Bibliography of Irad, 2021. Talas.
  5. ^ Central Asian Survey (2019). 'Polling an unrecognized territory: survey research in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 38, No. 2.
### 4.186. Joni (Slang) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Language & Literature* **Joni** (plural *jonilar*; also spelled *jony* in text messages) is a slang word for an Iradi Christian. It began in the Uzbek-speaking towns of the [[wp:Fergana Valley|Fergana Valley]] as a mildly insulting nickname. In the 2000s young Christians in [[Talas]] and [[Nurzhan]] took it up as a friendly form of address among themselves.[1] ## Origin The word is a clipped form of Uzbek *jonilik*, "one of Janyl's", the usual Fergana name for the Christian followers of [[Janyl, Mother of Irad|St. Janyl]] (see [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]). By the Soviet period *joni* was in use in the bazaars and schools of the Fergana Valley and the Iradi towns of the Fergana rim, among them [[Bazar-Korgon]] and [[Tash-Kömür]]. It mocked the Christian highlanders as pious and naive. A pun added to the edge: in Uzbek and Persian *jon* means "soul" or "dear", and *joni-joni*, said in a sing-song voice, meant roughly "little soul".[1] ## Spread and reclamation The word reached the north in the early 2000s with students from the south at [[Talas State University]], conscripts and traders. Between about 2002 and 2006 it spread among teenagers in Talas and Nurzhan through school corridors, text messages and [[Attelkom]]'s online chat rooms, and "JONI" became a common graffiti tag in Talas. In the process it lost its sting. Young Christians greet each other with *Salam, joni!*, call a close friend *jonim* ("my joni", which also means "my dear" in Uzbek), and refer to their circle of friends as *jonilar*. Iradi Americans in Chicago adopted it as well.[1][2] ## Usage Among young Iradi Christians, women as well as men, *joni* is friendly and informal. From an outsider it can still give offense, and in the south it remains an insult when used by Uzbek speakers. Older Iradis tend to regard it as vulgar, and clergy tolerate it.[1] ## See also - [[Iradi Language]] - [[Iradis]] - [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2022). Urban Language Survey: Talas, Nurzhan and Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 88–94.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (14 November 2005). 'Who is a joni? Teachers puzzle over new greeting.' Talas.
### 4.187. Anti-Christian sentiment in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Religion* **Anti-Christian sentiment in Irad** covers hostility and prejudice directed at the Christian [[Iradis]], the members of the [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]. Christians make up about 78% of the population of Irad, so most of this hostility has come from outside the community: from the Muslim peoples of the neighboring [[wp:Fergana Valley|Fergana Valley]], from the Soviet state, and from parts of the Russian-speaking population of [[Nurzhan]]. Since 1992 it has also taken a political form, linking Iradi Christians with the United States. Prejudice also runs in the other direction, and Muslims are a minority facing prejudice inside Irad (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[1] ## Background For most of their history Iradi Christians have been a Christian island in a largely Muslim region. Their neighbors have identified them by a few marked customs: they refuse to eat horsemeat (see [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]]), bless horses in spring, keep icons and, in the city churches, statues of the Virgin, do not practice male circumcision, and avoid Arabic religious vocabulary. Most anti-Christian terms in the region seize on one of these customs. Since 1992 the church's ties with Rome and the American presence at [[Talas Air Base]] have added a political charge.[1][2] ## History #### Before the Soviet period The church's dioceses were destroyed under the Chagatai khan Ali-Sultan (1339–1342) and in the campaigns of [[wp:Timur]], and Christian Iradis withdrew into the [[Talas Alatau]] and the Chatkal ranges (see [[Syro-Iradi Catholic Church]]). Relations with the Khanate of Kokand improved after the [[Treaty of Talas (1727)]], which granted the Christians toleration in return for military service. Under Russian rule Orthodox missionaries regarded the Iradis as "Nestorian" schismatics, but the imperial authorities left them largely alone.[3] #### Soviet period Soviet anti-religious policy treated the church as both backward and foreign. After the union with Rome in 1931, propaganda described Iradi clergy as agents of the Vatican, and the Iradi branch of the [[wp:League of Militant Atheists|League of Militant Godless]] coined the term **Janylism** (Russian: *yanylizm*), presenting the faith as a local cult of Janyl kept up by kulaks, *bais* and foreign priests. Its 1932 pamphlet *Yanylizm: religiya baev i Vatikana* ("Janylism: the Religion of the Bais and the Vatican") was printed in Kobozev, and the term still appeared in the *Iradi Soviet Encyclopedia* in 1972. The churches of [[Iyık Janyl]] were closed and senior clergy were executed in [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges|the purges of 1937]].[3][4] Some Western scholars of the Cold War period borrowed the word "Janylism" without its Soviet overtones. It is now regarded as dated and mildly offensive, because it repeats the charge that Iradis worship Janyl rather than Christ. Scholars write of "Iradi Christianity" or, for the folk practice of the countryside, "Tarsa Christianity".[4] #### Since 1992 After 1992 the American administration of the territory and the arrival of US personnel led opponents to describe Christian Iradis who prospered under the territorial government as American clients. The insult *amerikan kuchugu* ("America's puppy") was used in the 1990s by Russian speakers in Nurzhan and by some highland Muslims, and during the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007 and afterwards it was shouted at checkpoints on the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and at demonstrations.[1] Physical attacks have been rare. In 2009 the word *atparast* ("horse-worshipper") was painted on the door of the chapel at Kochkor-Ata on the Fergana rim. In March 2016 a horse's skull was nailed over the door of the chapel of St. Gewargis outside [[Bazar-Korgon]]. The imams of Bazar-Korgon condemned the act, and men from the town's mosque helped the parish take the skull down.[5] Iradi students at universities in [[wp:Andijan]] and [[wp:Osh]] have reported being taunted as *kofir* and *jonilchi*.[1] ## Terms The following terms are listed roughly from mildest to most offensive: - ***tersa***, "the backwards ones", a pun on the Christians' self-name *Tarsa* and *ters*, "backwards" or "contrary". It is a playground word and partly reclaimed. - ***[[Joni (Slang)|joni]]***, a clipped form of the Uzbek *jonilik*, "one of Janyl's", is a mild insult in the south but a friendly greeting among young Christians in the north. - ***jonilchi***, "Janyl-ite", gives the same word a sectarian edge. - ***kofir*** (Kyrgyz *kapyr*), "infidel", the general term of religious contempt for non-Muslims. - ***butparast***, "idol-worshipper", directed at icons and the Marian statues of the city churches, and so calling Iradi Christianity a form of paganism. - ***atparast***, "horse-worshipper", turns the horsemeat taboo and the spring blessing of horses into the charge of a pagan horse cult. It is regarded as the most provocative religious insult in the Fergana bazaars. - ***papist***, Russian, "the Pope's man", from Soviet propaganda, implying a foreign agent rather than an unbeliever. It survives among older Russian speakers in Nurzhan. - ***amerikan kuchugu***, "America's puppy", the political insult of the post-1992 period, implying that Christian Iradis are not loyal members of the region. Iradis interviewed in surveys regard it as the most hurtful of the current terms.[1] ## Responses The church has generally answered with restraint. Since 2007 [[Mar Ephrem]], first as Bishop of Talas and since 2012 as Metropolitan Archbishop of Iyık Janyl, has met regularly with Muslim clergy in Nurzhan and the Fergana rim. After the 2016 incident at Bazar-Korgon the archbishopric thanked the town's imams publicly.[5] Young Iradi Christians have reclaimed some of the milder terms, especially *joni* and, to a lesser degree, *tersa*. ## Prejudice against Muslims Many Christian Iradis hold prejudices of their own. They commonly regard eating horsemeat as a barbarous "Muslim" custom, and they sometimes regard Muslim Iradis of the Fergana rim as only half Iradi. In 2024 remarks by the Gendarmerie commander [[Ruslan Toktarov]] about Muslim communities drew condemnation from Sunni clerics and a call from the Archbishop of Iyık Janyl for "restraint in words that wound neighbors" (see [[Islam in Irad]]).[1] ## See also - [[Islam in Irad]] - [[Religion in Irad]] - [[Iradi Horsemeat Taboo]] - [[The 1937 NKVD Clerical Purges]] - [[Irad–Uzbekistan relations]] ## References
  1. ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2019). Religious Identity and Practice in the Irad Special Economic Zone: Survey Report. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  2. ^ Department of Ethnography, Talas State University (2019). Food, Faith and Boundaries: The Horsemeat Taboo in Iradi Society. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  3. ^ Institute of History, Talas State University (2012). History of Irad in Three Volumes. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  4. ^ Talas State University Press (2021). Orientalis Stella and the Soviet State: The Iradi Church, 1931–1941. Talas.
  5. ^ Forum 18 News Service (2016). 'Irad: Horse skull nailed to chapel door in Fergana rim.' Oslo.
### 4.188. Jogorku (Iyık Janyl) *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Cities & Settlements* **Jogorku** (Iradi: "the upper [quarters]"; Russian: *Verkhi*, "the heights") is the collective name for the unplanned hillside settlements on the lower slopes above [[Iyık Janyl]], on both sides of the Naryn valley below the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]]. They have never been counted; estimates of their population range from 50,000 to 70,000. Jogorku is the poorest part of the city and the centre of its organized crime, a contrast with the pilgrimage city of Cathedral Hill and the orchards of the Lower Town below it.[1] ## Geography The settlements climb the slopes from the edge of the river flats, at about 680 m, to within sight of the Gendarmerie posts on the demarcation line, which runs 150–200 m above the flats on both sides of the valley. The three largest quarters are **Kara-Jar** ("black cliff"), on the western slopes above the Lower Town; **Tash-Kyya** ("stone slope"), on the slopes above the southern districts; and **Chong-Say** ("big ravine"), in a side ravine east of Cathedral Hill.[1] Houses of mud brick, cinder block, corrugated iron and salvaged Soviet concrete panels are built against and on top of one another up the slopes. Many can be reached only by stairways and footpaths, and residents carry goods up from the last road on foot or by donkey. Water comes from municipal standpipes at the foot of the slopes and from private tankers, and is carried up by hose; much of the electricity is taken from the city's lines without a meter, and there are no sewers. Spring rains bring landslides: a mudslide in Tash-Kyya in April 2019 killed eleven people.[1][2] The quarters are poorly mapped. [[Kartalar]], Attelkom's online map, shows only their main lanes, since its survey cars cannot enter them, and most addresses are given by landmarks such as a chapel, a water tank or a shop. Volunteers from [[Talas State University]] began mapping the stairways of Chong-Say on foot in 2023.[3] ## History Before 1991 the slopes above the city held only a few herders' and orchard-keepers' houses. Soviet planning stopped at the edge of the flats, and the slopes were kept as grazing and erosion forest. Settlement began after 1992 with families from the hill villages and from the Uzbek frontier, and grew quickly after the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] in 2007, when the demarcation line was drawn across the hills above the city. Families who left villages now in the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] built as close to their old homes as the line allowed. The city has never zoned the quarters, and a 2012 programme to give residents title to their plots stalled after its first year.[1] ## Organized crime #### Heroin era From the late 1990s Afghan heroin reached Irad through the Fergana rim (see [[Drug use in Irad]]). Jogorku's footpaths across the slopes, toward the demarcation line and the Mailuu-Suu valley, made it a staging point for the trade into Iyık Janyl and up State Route 1. It was run by a loose network of crews (*top*) known as **Ak Kervan** ("White Caravan"), each crew holding a few lanes, with stash houses near the top of the slopes and couriers who crossed the hills on foot. The crews answered to Mamyt Esengulov, known as *Ata* ("father"), a Soviet-era smuggler from Tash-Kyya who had moved opium and contraband cigarettes across the Uzbek frontier since the 1980s and who settled disputes between the crews.[4] #### Decline and infighting The heroin trade shrank in the second half of the 2010s, with changes in Afghan supply and the rise of synthetic opioids in the cities. Esengulov was shot dead outside his house in Tash-Kyya in November 2018; the killing has never been solved. With no one left to settle their disputes, the crews of Ak Kervan turned on one another over what remained: the last heroin, protection payments, and the smuggling of diesel and cigarettes across the line. Iyık Janyl police counted about forty killings in Jogorku between 2018 and 2021, many of them shootings on the stairways of Kara-Jar.[4][5] #### Consolidation By 2021 the remaining crews had come under a single figure, [[Joomart Turdakunov]], known as *Ustat* ("master"). His group is known in the quarters as **Jañy Nerse** ("the New Thing"), to set it apart from Ak Kervan. Killings in the quarters fell sharply. Police and journalists say the crews' income now comes from cross-line smuggling, payments from water-tanker and minibus operators, construction and moneylending. Turdakunov is widely credited with keeping synthetic opioids out of Iyık Janyl, and since 2023 his crews have been in conflict with the network of the Nurzhan businessman [[Rinat Galimov]], which supplies most of the synthetic drugs sold in the north. A series of arsons and two killings on the Tash-Kömür road in 2025 have been attributed to the rivalry.[5][6] Residents and campaigners have also accused people close to Turdakunov of trafficking: recruiting young women from Jogorku with offers of work in Turkey and the Gulf states, and sending men to building sites in Russia under debts they cannot repay. No one has been charged.[6] ## Church and services The quarters have one parish church, St. Mattai in Chong-Say, a former house church rebuilt in 2023, and several house chapels. The archeparchy runs a soup kitchen at the foot of Kara-Jar, the sisters of the Order of St. Janyl run a clinic in Tash-Kyya, and the [[St. Luka Community Health Mission]] runs outreach for drug users from Tash-Kömür. There is one state school in the quarters; most children walk down to schools in the Lower Town.[1] ## See also - [[Iyık Janyl]] - [[Drug use in Irad]] - [[Joomart Turdakunov]] - [[Rinat Galimov]] - [[Organized crime in Irad]] ## References
  1. ^ Department of Sociology, Talas State University (2022). The Upper Quarters: Unplanned Settlement on the Slopes of Iyık Janyl. Talas State University Press, Talas.
  2. ^ Talas Herald (16 April 2019). 'Eleven dead as mudslide buries houses above Iyık Janyl.' Talas.
  3. ^ Talas Herald (9 October 2023). 'Students map the stairways of Chong-Say.' Talas.
  4. ^ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2019). Drug Trafficking along the Northern Route: Central Asia Update. Vienna.
  5. ^ Iyık Janyl City Police (2022). Annual Report on Public Order, 2021. Iyık Janyl.
  6. ^ FreeIrad.org (2025). 'The Master of the Hills: Joomart Turdakunov and the economy of Jogorku.' Investigation, 14 June.
### 4.189. Organized crime in Irad *Quality Assessment: C-Class Article | Category: Law & Security* **Organized crime in Irad** has changed since the violent racketeering of the 1990s into a quieter set of networks tied to official patronage, to the smuggling trade across the [[Qara-Chik Demarcation Line]] and, in [[Nurzhan]], to the Russian-speaking criminal world of the former Soviet Union. Its best-known figures are the Nurzhan freight forwarder [[Rinat Galimov]], the crowned thief [[Viktor Lomakin]] and [[Joomart Turdakunov]] of [[Iyık Janyl]].[1][2] ## History In the 1990s racketeering groups in Nurzhan and [[Talas]] fought over the bazaars, fuel distribution and car imports, and many of their enforcers came from wrestling and boxing clubs. A crackdown in 1997–1999, carried out with the help of US federal advisers, broke up the largest groups (see [[Crime in Irad]]).[2] Organized crime did not disappear but became less visible. After the [[Second Iradi Civil War]] of 2007 the new demarcation line created a profitable smuggling economy, and Afghan heroin moving through the Fergana rim built up the crews of Iyık Janyl. Since about 2020 synthetic opioids from Russia have made Nurzhan the centre of the drug trade (see [[Drug use in Irad]]).[1] ## The state and organized crime Analysts describe Iradi organized crime as working with the state rather than against it. Criminal figures who keep their districts quiet, deliver votes or share their income with officials are left alone, and crackdowns tend to fall on those who have lost their protectors.[1] The 2023 bribery trial over the Qara-Chik checkpoint, in which six Gendarmerie sergeants were convicted for passing fuel tankers and no officer was charged, is often cited as an example (see [[Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line]]). The richest opportunities lie at the checkpoints and crossings. The best-known case is that of [[Daniyar Abdrasulov]], a deputy chief of the ISEZ customs service whose family built a fortune in filling stations and freight during his years in office. Criminal figures also have friends in elected office: at least two members of the Iyık Janyl city council are said to be close to Turdakunov, and journalists have reported on a *Mejlis* member whose brother is a known Nurzhan racketeer.[3] ## Nurzhan and the thieves' world Nurzhan, the largest and most Russian-speaking city, keeps the traditions of the Soviet criminal world. Its senior figure is the crowned thief (*vor v zakone*) [[Viktor Lomakin]], who oversees a common fund (*obshchak*) paid into by the city's criminal groups and appoints overseers (*smotryashchiye*) for markets, housing estates and the prison colony. Investigators believe the synthetic opioid trade of [[Rinat Galimov]], who is linked to the Russian-based [[wp:Brothers' Circle|Brothers' Circle]], pays into the fund and accepts Lomakin's arbitration.[2] The Chu Correctional Colony near Nurzhan is run in practice by prisoners under the thieves' code (*ponyatiya*), as in many colonies of the former Soviet Union, and alliances made there shape the criminal world outside.[4] ## Iyık Janyl *Main article: [[Jogorku (Iyık Janyl)]]* In Iyık Janyl the heroin trade was run by **Ak Kervan** ("White Caravan"), a network of crews in the hillside quarters of Jogorku led by the old smuggler Mamyt Esengulov. After his murder in 2018 the crews fought one another until 2021, when the survivors came under Joomart Turdakunov's **Jañy Nerse** ("the New Thing"). Turdakunov is popular in the city, keeps synthetic opioids out of it and gives generously to the church, and since 2023 his group has been in conflict with Galimov's network over the south.[5] ## Sportsmen and betting As elsewhere in Central Asia, sports clubs have long supplied organized crime with its muscle. Wrestling and boxing clubs in Nurzhan and Talas trained the enforcers of the 1990s, and some *[[Ulak Tartysh (Sport)|ulak]]* teams and racing stables still have sponsors with criminal connections. Because betting is legal only on the state tote, a large illegal bookmaking market has grown up on horse racing, *ulak* and football (see [[Illegal betting in Irad]]).[1] ## Rackets - **Protection.** Stallholders at the bazaars, minibus (*marshrutka*) operators and taxi ranks pay protection, now usually disguised as "association fees" or charges for security and cleaning. - **Raiding.** Criminal groups and their partners in officialdom take over legitimate businesses with forged documents, invented debts and friendly judges, a practice known by the Russian term *reiderstvo*. - **Money.** Cash moves across the borders through money changers and couriers, since Iradi banks are outside the international payment systems. Pyramid schemes and online-fraud call centres in Nurzhan, staffed by young people, target victims in Russia and Kazakhstan. - **Smuggling.** Diesel, cigarettes, stibnite, placer gold and unpapered horses cross the demarcation line, where the clans of the [[Autonomous Tribal Regions]] levy a customary toll on loads without asking what they contain. Smuggling groups depend on good relations with clan elders, and marriages between their families are a common way of securing a route. Galimov's freight business is believed to buy stibnite and gold from the tribal hills.[1][6] ## Human trafficking Iradis are a common target of human trafficking because of their documents. The "Republic of Irad" passports issued by the ISEZ since 2009 are not recognized by Russia or most other states. Iradis who hold a Kyrgyz or Kazakh passport can travel and work like other Central Asian migrants, but those who do not depend on recruiters, who arrange their travel with borrowed documents, bought passports or entry through Kazakhstan.[7] Once abroad, an Iradi without a recognized passport is effectively stuck. Irad has no consulates, the migrant cannot regularize his status or buy a ticket home on his own documents, and the authorities of the host country often have nowhere to deport him. Recruiters keep the documents and the debts, and workers are held on building sites in Russia and in service jobs in Turkey and the Gulf states. Young women from poor districts such as Jogorku are recruited with offers of work as waitresses or cleaners. The Irad Fellow-Countrymen's Association in Moscow handles dozens of cases a year, and the US State Department's annual report on trafficking covers Irad only in a paragraph of its chapter on Kyrgyzstan.[7][8] ## Culture The criminal world has left its mark on everyday culture. Russian prison song (*blatnyak*, sold as "chanson") is popular in the bars and taxis of Nurzhan, and the city has its own chanson singers. Iradi slang borrows prison terms through Russian. Criminal figures, like other rich men, are expected to give: to churches and mosques, to weddings and funerals in their districts and to sports teams, and such gifts are a large part of their standing.[1] ## See also - [[Crime in Irad]] - [[Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line]] - [[Drug use in Irad]] - [[Jogorku (Iyık Janyl)]] ## References
  1. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'Patrons and Racketeers: Organized Crime in the Irad Special Economic Zone.' Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 77–102.
  2. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 120–147.
  3. ^ Irad Times (2022). 'The diesel deputy: Daniyar Abdrasulov and the customs fortune.' Talas.
  4. ^ Human Rights Watch (2024). Detention and Due Process in the Irad Special Economic Zone. New York.
  5. ^ FreeIrad.org (2025). 'The Master of the Hills: Joomart Turdakunov and the economy of Jogorku.' Investigation, 14 June.
  6. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Report on Economic Conditions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Kara-Oi.
  7. ^ Department of Sociology, Talas State University (2024). Iradi Labor Migration to Russia and Kazakhstan: A Survey. Talas.
  8. ^ Irad Fellow-Countrymen's Association (2025). Annual Report. Moscow.