HISTORY

  The Kyrgyzes are descended from nomadic tribes who emigrated from northern Mongolia in the tenth century to the region around Lake Baikal in what is now known as Kazakhstan, and later further to south to the region what is now known as Kyrgyzstan. They subsequently came under Mongol, then Chinese suzerainty - although they were afforded considerable autonomy by the standards of the age - before being incorporated into the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. In 1925 Kyrgyzstan has become the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.

  The collectivisation programme of Stalin destroyed much of the nomadic lifestyle of the Kyrgyz, but the impracticality of collectives, given Kyrgyzstan's geography, meant that more traditions survived here than in many other places in the USSR. During the years of Soviet power, immigration by ethnic Russians was encouraged and Bishkek has had a Russian majority for many years.

  In 1991 Kyrgyzstan got a new leader, Askar Akaev, a former head of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, who aligned himself with the opposition Kyrgyz Democratic Movement. Akaev moved quickly to forestall the attempted communist takeover, which quickly evaporated when the Moscow coup collapsed. In October 1991, Akaev was elected unopposed as President. Kyrgyzstan became an independent republic within the Commonwealth of Independent States at the end of that year. Akaev's radical economic reforms - popular support for which was shown by a referendum - have gained strong support in the West and agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank have granted loans to keep the economy and the new currency afloat. Akaev is using the Turkish model of a non-fundamentalist Islamic policy coupled with Western free-market economics as the basis for his reforms. The strategy has only been partially successful: the economy is still in a poor condition and the political structure riven with corruption and in-fighting.

  In December 1995, Akaev was re-elected for a second five-year term defeating two other candidates and attracting 60 per cent of the vote. The parliamentary poll in February 2000 returned the Communist Party as the largest single bloc though without an overall majority; however, Akaev supporters remained in control of the assembly. Akaev himself once again came before the electorate in October 2000, and secured a third term with three-quarters of the poll.

  With the change in US policy towards Central Asia which followed the 11 September 2001 attacks, Kyrgyzstan has allowed americans to found US millitary base, 40 km away from Bishkek. It has also developed closer relations with China with whom it has held joint security exercises

  In March 2004 during the tulip revolution rised by Kurmanbek Bakiev and other opposition leaders Askar Akaev run to Moscow along with his family.