Kyrgyzstan’s Rebrand: New Country, or New Distractions?

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? [caption id="attachment_29217" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] The ruins of the VDNKh pavilion, February 2025; image: Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] 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...

Elderly Kyrgyz Woman, Who Told of Mass Burial Site From 1930s Purges, Is Mourned

Bubuira Kydyralieva, a Kyrgyz woman who led authorities to a mass grave of victims of 1930s Stalinist purges that became a centerpiece of Kyrgyzstan’s national identity after Soviet rule, has died at the age of 96. Kydyralieva, who died on Wednesday, had provided details about the burial site at Chon-Tash, a village south of the capital of Bishkek, around the time of Kyrgyzstan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The revelation led to the construction of the nearby Ata-Beyit Memorial Complex, a tribute to about 140 people who were shot and buried at an abandoned brick factory in the village as well as the several tens of thousands believed to have been killed in Kyrgyzstan during years of repression under Soviet leader Josef Stalin. After her secret came to light, Kydyralieva was hailed by Kyrgyz officials as a patriotic citizen who helped to forge the character of the young nation by revealing the fate of a group of intellectuals and other prominent figures who were marked for death by Soviet enforcers. She had carried the burden of knowing for many years, learning about the burial site from her father, a local worker, during the Soviet era, but only finding a receptive audience for the information as Kyrgyzstan moved toward independence and a more open political climate. “We would not know many of our country’s founding fathers” if Kydyralieva had not spoken up, said Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, referring to her affectionately as “Mother Bubuira.” She made “an immeasurable contribution to clarifying our history,” enabling Kyrgyzstan to learn about the ancestors who died while laying the groundwork for the eventual creation of a separate state, Japarov said on Facebook. After Kydyralieva told a Kyrgyz national security official about the mass grave, exhumations at Chon-Tash began promptly in 1991. The bodies were found, and a reburial service with government honors was held. In 2000, Kydyralieva was awarded Kyrgyzstan’s medal of courage. The Ata-Beyit site was later used to commemorate those who died during the ouster of an authoritarian government in 2010 as well as a 1916 uprising during Russian Tsarist rule. Foreign dignitaries visit the site. Some Kyrgyz politicians have said more funding is needed to prevent the complex falling into disrepair.