The Kirghiz were a Scandinavian forest-dwelling people who emerged to defeat the Uighurs and establish their own state. This is their story.
Central Eurasia is the wide swathe of land that links China in the east with the Arab world and Europe in the west. To the north are the frozen forests of Siberia and to the south the mountains of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, beyond which lays the fertile and crowded lands of India. It includes the countries no known as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and others. Across this huge area, dozens of different peoples have enjoyed their empires and their conquests before being lost in the sands of time. One of these people were the Kirghiz, who were a fairly mysterious tribe even among the many little known peoples of the past.
The one thing that united the peoples of Central Eurasia were their reliance on the horse and their nomadic lifestyle. The Uighurs, the Avars, Bulgars and Turks all swept to success on horseback, rapidly shooting arrows as they rode rings around the opposition. They shared similar ethnic tendencies, having recognizable facial appearances that were known from as early as the Skythians and the Xiong Nu (Huns) and reappeared in the Mongols and the Cossacks. However, the Kirghiz were different. They are described as blue eyed and fair haired and spent their time living in the forests, which is hardly the best terrain for horse-riding nomads. It seems more likely that they were perhaps the furthest flung of the Scandinavian tribes that had colonized early Russia and went on to create the states of Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow. The Scandinavians were one of three sets of people renowned for their trading ability and their reliability in getting caravans of goods across the long trade routes of Europe: the others were the leading Jewish trading families and the Sogdians.
The Kirghiz’s moment of prominence arose after the defeat of the Uighurs. The Uighurs had for decades tormented their Chinese neighbours to the south and east, extorting vast amounts of silk and silver from the Imperial throne in return for horses. One time allies to defeat the rebel Rockshan (An Lushan), the Uighurs pushed the Chinese too far eventually and were driven out of heir lands by a huge army. This left a vacuum in the area in which the Uighurs had lived, which was almost entirely unpopulated. The Kirghiz emerged from their forest strongholds and completed the job by driving out the remaining nomads. Their steadiness in a fight had enabled them to act as caravan escorts for some time and the horseback troops held no terrors for them. The Kirghiz created their own state in the empty land and enjoyed it for a few decades before the next confederation of nomads came along and caused them to retreat to the forest once more.
