Bazar-Korgon

Bazar-Korgon ("market fortress") is a market town on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, in the Lower Naryn District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), a few kilometers from the border with Uzbekistan. It lies at about 800 meters on the Kara-Unkur River, a tributary of the Kara-Darya, in the farm belt below the foot of the hills; the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line runs along the hills just above the town, and the Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad lies a short distance to the east. Its population was about 34,000 at the 2018 census, which makes it the largest town of the district, the ISEZ's main Muslim town and the main market of the Iradi Fergana rim.^[3]

History

The town grew up around a fortified caravan market of the Khanate of Kokand on the road along the edge of the valley, from which its name comes. It came under Russian rule after the annexation of Kokand in 1876. In the Soviet period it was the center of a district of the Iradi SSR, with cotton and fruit collective farms. It is the lowland center of the Chubar clan. In August 2007, during the Second Iradi Civil War, the lowland Chubar elders and trading families met at the bazaar and declared for the ISEZ: the Bill of Sale drafts would have handed the Fergana rim to Uzbekistan, and they saw the ISEZ as the side that had stopped it. Gendarmerie units came east from Tash-Kömür, and the Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007) of September fixed the line at the foot of the hills, leaving the highland Chubar of Arslanbob and the upper Kara-Unkur valley, who refused to follow, on the tribal side. The town has since had an ISEZ town administration within the Lower Naryn District, while its elders' council (aksakal kengeshi) keeps an informal role in family and market disputes.^[2] The division of the clan remains a source of tension: lowland elders still attend the Kurultai with the Chubar delegation without the right to lay the whip, and families on both sides cross the line for weddings and funerals at the Arslanbob road and Mailuu-Suu road crossings (see Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions).

Economy

Bazar-Korgon is the main trading town for the surrounding irrigated farmland, which grows cotton, maize, tobacco and fruit, and for the walnut forests of Arslanbob, about 50 kilometers by road up the Kara-Unkur valley past Kyzyl-Unkur, across the line. Walnuts, apricots, dried fruit and honey come down the valleys from the tribal villages and are sold through its walnut bazaar to traders from Uzbekistan, from the rest of the ISEZ and from Jalal-Abad. Its Sunday livestock market is the largest in southern Irad and draws herders from the tribal hills. Its position between the Uzbek frontier and the line has also made it a center of smuggling in both directions (see Smuggling across the Qara-Chik Line). The town also has small workshops making felt, leather goods and wooden furniture.^[1]

Population

A large share of the population is Uzbek-speaking, and the town is one of the main centers of Irad's Muslim community. Iradi, Kyrgyz and Uzbek are all spoken in the bazaar.^[1] In December 2024 the town was at the center of the reaction to the Gendarmerie commander Ruslan Toktarov's description of Fergana Rim Muslims as "guests", since its Muslims are ISEZ citizens.

References

1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2022). Settlements and Services in the Fergana Rim Zone. Kara-Oi.
2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Towns of the Fergana Rim: History and Society. Talas.
3. ^ ISEZ Statistical Office (2019). 2018 Census of Population: Settlements of the Districts. Talas.