The Kirghiz people have been invaded and displaced many times over half a millennium, with recent ethnic cleansing taking them to the brink of destruction.
The Kirghiz were first displaced in the dark ages from their Lake Baikal homelands by Uighur and Mongols invaders. They resettled in the freezing wastes of Pamir, a place where they once had their summer camp, where they continued to live a traditional Kirghiz lifestyle.
Those who remained in the highlands of that place managed to escape annexation by the USSR, but those in the lowlands were forcibly settled into sedentary communities. Today, in addition to the harsh climate of the Pamir highlands, the Kirghiz face the depredations of ethnic cleansing and removal by a new wave of invaders.
In the 1920's they established trade with the Afghanis and lived peacefully, achieving self-sufficiency and autonomy through their economic system of Amanat, which is based on communal borrowing and sharing. The trade with Afghanistan was obliterated with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan however, which destroyed their economy in the early eighties.
Soviet night raids followed, which decreased their numbers and assets further. They fled to Gilgit in north Pakistan when the raids threatened to destroy their community completely. In this hot urban environment many died from diseases that were new to the Kirghiz. From there they were moved to Turkey, when they became victims in the crossfire between the Kurds and the Turks.
Today the fragmented culture of the Kirghiz has almost disappeared due to their ongoing history of displacement and genocide.
