Dungans in Irad
Dungans in Irad (self-name Huejzu) are the Dungans, Chinese-speaking Hui Muslims, who live in Irad, mainly in the villages of the lower Chu below Nurzhan. Official figures count them together with the Tajiks and Uyghurs, at about 1.5 percent of the population.[1]
History
The Dungans arrived in 1877–78, after the defeat of the Hui revolt in north-west China, when the Russian authorities let the refugees settle in Semirechye. They were given land in the lower Chu villages below the Russian settlement that later became Kobozev, and have farmed there since.[2]
Community
The Dungans grow vegetables and rice in the irrigated lower Chu, and supply much of Nurzhan's market produce. In the city they run the noodle stalls and the stalls selling ashlyamfu, cold starch noodles in a sour, spicy broth, which have become a Nurzhan street food. They keep their own mosque and speak the Dungan language, a form of Chinese written in Cyrillic, at home, with Russian outside it.[2] See also Islam in Irad.
Notable people
- Ilyas Mansuzov, elder and Chu District councillor
- Zulfiya Daurova, cook
References
- ^ Territorial Statistics Office (2020). Results of the 2018 Census of the Irad Special Economic Zone. Talas.
- ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2021). The Peoples of the Chu Valley. Talas: Talas State University Press.