Kuban Mamytov – Irad Wiki

A grey-bearded man in a white hat and long greatcoat with a rifle talks to a young man beside saddled horses on a snowy rocky pass — Mamytov (left, white hat) with his fighters in a mountain pass, 1992

Kuban Mamytov (1949–2013), also known by the patronymic form Kuban Mamyt uulu, was a commander of mounted clan irregulars in the First Iradi Civil War. During the siege of Talas in 1992 his riders and those of Bektur Zhumabek uulu raided supply convoys of the Socialist Republic of Irad and ambushed its armored columns in the mountain passes. Veterans called him "the Ghost of Chatkal".^[1]

Mamytov was a herder from the Chatkal valley and a veteran of the Soviet Army. During the Winter Uprising of 1992 he led riders from the Chatkal clans into Talas. When socialist forces besieged the city from April 1992, the Provisional Government placed him in command of the mounted irregulars defending its southern approaches. His men attacked depots along the railway and kept open the mountain tracks by which supplies reached the city from the southern valleys.^[1]^[2] Military historians regard the irregulars' contribution as secondary to the US intervention, Operation Starlight, which broke the siege in June 1992.^[2]

After US forces disarmed the militias in August 1992, Mamytov returned to herding in the Chatkal, and in 1994 he declined a commission in the newly organized Irad National Guard. At his funeral in 2013 his horse was led behind the bier with its saddle reversed, in keeping with the Fallen Rider Tradition.^[3]

References

^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Minutes of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Irad (1992).
^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 131: Military Records of the First Iradi Civil War (1992).
^ Talas Herald (2013). 'Chatkal buries "the Ghost".' Talas.