On January 29, in what became a viral social media post, Seide Ibraimova and her mother drove to the site of VDNKh, the exhibition center built in the Kirghiz SSR to demonstrate the achievements of socialist science and culture. Her mother, wrapped in a white headscarf, reminisced happily about the times she’d spent there, surrounded by poplar trees in the shadow of the mountains. Seide’s father was one of the architectural team who built the main pavilion in 1974.

But as they arrived at the site, they found nothing but rubble. The government had bulldozed the pavilion to make way for a new congress hall.

“How could they?” said the old lady in a choked whisper. “Your father gave his heart and soul to this, for the people of the republic. The number of delegations who came here… how could they?”

In the post’s comments section, an intense debate began. Some lamented the loss of the exhibition center: “Without this historic architecture, Bishkek will be nothing more than a concrete jungle,” said one.

Another invoked Chingiz Aitmatov’s famous mankurt metaphor, describing those who had destroyed the site as having “no sense of memory or feelings, without attachment, who do not know who they are or where they come from.”

Others were less sentimental, pointing out that VDNKh had been left to rot for two decades, and that those venerating the Soviet relics were the real mankurts, “forgetting your language, preaching the history and ideology of the fascists who invaded and occupied our country.”

“You can forget the USSR,” said another. “We live in a sovereign state, the Kyrgyz Republic!”

These online spats come at a time when Kyrgyzstan is going through a form of national branding under the government of Sadyr Japarov. But is the country really shedding its Soviet skin, or are the changes mere window dressing?

The ruins of the VDNKh pavilion, February 2025; image: Joe Luc Barnes

Around two hundred meters from the wreckage of the pavilion is Yntymak-Ordo, or the “new White House”. This is the newly-constructed official administrative building of Kyrgyzstan’s president – a squat structure with thick columns, topped by a glass dome and surrounded by iron bars and armed guards. Reminiscent of many of the other presidential palaces that have sprung up across Central Asia over the past thirty years, it is an assertion of power.

Further along Chinghiz Aitmatov Avenue (which was called Prospekt Mira until 2015) are scores of new high-rise residential buildings. Each month, new approvals are granted for more of these in the city center, contributing to a construction boom. Some see this as a deliberate attempt to erase the Soviet past from the city and replace it with their own idea of a modern Kyrgyz capital.

The aesthetic shift is not just architectural. The government recently launched a competition for a new Kyrgyz national anthem. Aspiring composers have been invited to submit their proposals, the commission recently confirming that 23 have been accepted so far, with the deadline extended to April 21. The current anthem, adopted in 1992, has been deemed too Soviet and not representative of the assertive and proud republic that Kyrgyzstan wishes to be.

This builds on a decision made two years ago to modify the country’s flag to remove insignia that bore a resemblance to a sunflower. According to Japarov, the Kyrgyz word for sunflower, kün karama, also means “dependent”, the implication being that if the flag looked dependent, what did that say about the country?

While both the flag and the anthem have been debated on for over a decade, Japarov’s government is the first follow through on it.

“Frankly speaking, since gaining independence, we have been heavily dependent on the outside world. Therefore, it may be time to reconsider the appearance of our flag,” Japarov said in 2023.

Non-dependence

The wish not to be seen as dependent is understandable. Kyrgyzstan did not endure a happy period in the immediate years after the breakup of the USSR. The economy contracted by 50% between 1991 and 1995, and for many, the only jobs available were those outside the country. Throughout the 2010s, between 25-30% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP was derived from remittances sent by those working abroad.

At home, there was a perception that Kyrgyzstan was a playground for foreigners, hosting a U.S. Air Base, with a Canadian company owning the country’s largest gold mine, NGOs proliferating, and the country dependent on aid.

Infrastructure took on such a lamentable state that the country reverted to its historical north–south divide, with these splits often deciding elections and even revolutions.

Turning the tide

Under Japarov, the economy has been running hot. According to the World Bank, GDP per capita grew over 60% between 2020 and 2023, although this has been accompanied by double-digit inflation.

The government has also made steady progress connecting the mountainous country with the new north-south highway set to open this year. Tens of thousands of southern Kyrgyz have moved to the capital, meanwhile, improved flight connections mean there are now dozens of daily departures from Bishkek to Osh.

Another small step on the road to identity involved the final resolution of border issues in the south of the country. Having already demarcated its border with Uzbekistan in 2023, on February 21, Kyrgyzstan signed a deal to do likewise with Tajikistan. While the details of this agreement continue to be veiled from the public, the symbolism remains important. Unresolved border issues led to the idea of a vague country whose fuzzy outline gave outside powers a reason to intervene in its affairs. Now, for the first time, the country will have a clearly defined territory.

The terminal building at the old Frunze airport, a historical relic with newly build apartment buildings towering over it; image: Joe Luc Barnes

Kyrgyz or Kyrgyzstani?

The sense that Kyrgyzstan is a specific homeland for the Kyrgyz nation has also begun to crystallize. Upon independence, the country was multicultural – the final Soviet census in 1989 put the ethnic Kyrgyz population at 2.2 million, or 52% of the republic, with Russians comprising 21.5% and Uzbeks 13%. The Kyrgyz population was predominantly rural – there are some in Bishkek who still remember the late 1950s, when barely 10% of the inhabitants of Frunze (as it was then known) were Kyrgyz. By the 2021 census, 77% of the population was ethnically Kyrgyz.

In 2020, one of the first acts of Kamchybek Tashiyev, the powerful chief of the security services, the GKNB, was to restore the official designation of ethnicity on national ID cards. Tashiyev laid out the roots of his thinking long before he came to power, in an interview with Fergana News in September 2010, following ethnic riots in Osh that year.

“The titular nation should be titular. Other nationalities must respect our traditions, language, and history. Only then will people live in peace.”

For Tashiyev and his supporters, Kyrgyzstan’s nationhood is best preserved by ensuring that ethnic Kyrgyz hold the central role in state affairs.

Eki Dos (two friends) is how Tashiyev and Japarov are often collectively referred to; image: Joe Luc Barnes

View on the street

If the idea is to impose national pride from above, it nevertheless needs buy-in from the population. This begs the question: What does it mean to be Kyrgyz? What are you proud of?

A straw poll of residents of Bishkek and other cities revealed a range of responses expressing pride in the “natural beauty of the country” and the “free spirit of the people and the historic nomad lifestyle.”

On the other hand, some opposition activists are proud to be Kyrgyz precisely because of the things that the current government seeks to stand against: “I am proud of the fact that my people didn’t allow authoritarian regimes to be established in March 24, 2005, April 7, 2010, and expressed outrage and protested against the outcome of corrupted elections in October 5, 2020,” says one opposition figure who declined to be named for this article. “However, these achievements now face challenges, and those who disagree with the current authorities and oppose [their] policies are suppressed and prosecuted.”

Others are cynical about the authorities’ intentions in stoking identity questions. “The new flag, it’s all about creating a debate,” said Aizula, who works importing goods from China. “The government doesn’t actually care what it looks like, it’s just to distract our attention from other things.”

A building site on Moscow Street; image: Joe Luc Barnes

Ruslan, in his late fifties, works on a building site on Moscow Street, constructing a new twenty-storey tower.

“I don’t think there is any sort of coordinated grand plan,” he said when asked if these new towers were an attempt to build over the past. “I think it’s just people trying to make as much money as they can as quickly as they can. They’ll build wherever they can make profits.”