Manas Statue

The nation has suffered at the hands of many and various occupations; Alexander the Great (in 344 AD), then the Mongols (in 13 hundreds) and again Tamerlane in 1450. In more recent times the Tsarist Russians and then the Bolshevists imposed their ways and when independence was gained in 1991 the Kyrgyz happily resumed their customary nomadic practices, however, unlike most of the ex soviet states they seem to have evolved a democracy but have no oil and like most of the ex-soviet union have a fragile economy. A legendary, albeit fictional, figure Manas has been adopted as their national father figure.