Construction Techniques
The archaic types of stationary dwellings of the Kyrgyz include small rectangular single-chamber adobe structures with flat or gabled roofs. They were built without a foundation, with rough plastered walls. The doors were made of vertically placed boards nailed together and reinforced with pegs. The frame had a high threshold. A characteristic feature of such dwellings is the hearth located on the floor.
A hole was made in the ceiling for smoke to escape. Wall openings served as sources of light, covered only with shutters - darcha. Sometimes a piece of glass without a frame was embedded in small openings - ainek. By the early 20th century, the Kyrgyz no longer built houses of the chengelek type.
The hearth was replaced by a stove-fireplace. Such single-room houses were found in Talas, Ketmen-Tyube, in the Tian Shan, and in southern Kyrgyzstan. An ancient form of Kyrgyz stationary dwellings is the Pamir-type house, which, along with the Fergana-type dwelling, reflects the culture of the Kyrgyz in the southern regions (Antipina, 1962, pp. 186-192). The Pamir-type house met the needs of a large patriarchal family. Characteristic features of its construction include a flat roof resting on high massive pillars placed inside the dwelling.
The walls are high, made of adobe, with rough plaster, unbleached. The floor is adobe. There is no courtyard as such. There is only one entrance to the estate. The outbuildings are located under one roof with the house, but sometimes have separate roofs, slightly lower than that of the house.
In Pamir-type houses, there is a peculiar wooden stepped-vaulted ceiling. In the ceiling, there is a hole, which, analogous to the yurt, the Kyrgyz call tunduk. It is located in one half of the ceiling space and represents a special structure made of beams, which are connected in stacked squares of 3-4, with each upper square smaller than the one below. The last one rests on longitudinal ceiling beams supported by pillars. The hole serves not only for smoke to escape but also as a source of light, as there are no window openings in the walls. Below the hole on the floor was the hearth. Sometimes the hearth was built not on the floor but at the edge of the supa, as in the houses of mountain Tajiks.
The house had an entrance, a hallway - dalan, daliz, and two living rooms. In the first - ashkana, the family lived and cooked food. In clay enclosures - kampa, grain was stored, which is typical for mountain Tajiks as well.
A characteristic attribute of the house was a pit - avrez (70 cm deep) for draining water. The avrez was covered with a wooden grate. The second room was intended for receiving guests (meymankana). In it, a high (30-40 cm) wooden platform was built, occupying 2/3 of the room. On it, a stack of blankets zhuk was arranged (Antipina, 1962, pp. 188-198).
Part of the house-estate was occupied by utility rooms. Among them were stables, a room for livestock, a pantry, and a shed for fuel.
In the mountainous southwestern part of Kyrgyzstan, until about the 1940s, two-story houses with flat roofs were common. The second floor had one room, balakana. The lower floor served for storing household items and products. The layout of the houses had many variations.
The Fergana-type house, widespread in the Fergana Valley and Eastern Turkestan, predominates in the southwestern part of Kyrgyzstan. Fergana-type houses are designed for small families. Their construction is characterized by stability (in case of earthquakes, strong winds, etc.). It is a two- to three-chamber house with a flat roof supported by a main beam kary, sometimes propped up by a pillar ustun (Antipina, 1962, pp. 184, 185).
The ceiling is wooden, lined with uvasa - planks of wood. The walls are framed, filled with clay lumps guvalyak. The frame construction of the walls allows for niches takcha of various shapes to be arranged in the rooms.
The doors are high double-leaf, decorated with carvings in wealthy houses.
The house is entered through an open terrace on pillars - ayvan. Windows were made only on the side of the ayvan. Over time, the windows acquired glass frames (Antipina, 1962, pp. 192-194). This was facilitated by the change in the type of hearth.
Originally, in such houses, the hearth was located on the floor, with a smoke hole made in the ceiling. Later, a stove-fireplace with a wide exhaust pipe was introduced. It was usually placed in the first room, in the corner, to the right of the entrance or on the ayvan. The fireplace did not heat the rooms but mainly served for cooking. Therefore, during the cold season, iron or cast-iron stoves of artisanal production appeared in the houses. Gradually, they were replaced by stoves made of raw or burnt bricks. Also, in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan, the ancient method of heating dwellings using sandala was used (Antipina, 1962, p. 192).
The adobe floor was gradually replaced with a wooden one. In Kyrgyz houses, especially in the south, clay or wooden platforms supa, characteristic of Uzbeks and Uyghurs, were often arranged. Families would sit on them during meals, rest, and sleep.
Wealthy families lived in closed-type estates kurgancha and in estates surrounded by duval. The kurgancha estates reflect the traditions of medieval architecture. They have a rectangular shape, surrounded by a high adobe wall, resembling a fortress, sometimes with towers at the corners. There is only one entrance to the estate, usually through high double-leaf wooden gates darvaza with a deep awning leading into the courtyard.
The appearance of kurganchi among the Kyrgyz is attributed by some authors to around the beginning of the 20th century, although there is evidence of such estates existing among the Kyrgyz during the Kokand Khanate. The estates typically contained houses with rich architectural decoration of ceilings, ayvans, niches, as well as utility buildings, sheep pens, gardens, and orchards. The estates surrounded by duval had various shapes in plan. They were characterized by two entrances, with residential and utility buildings inside, plenty of greenery, and a wooden platform sere for family rest, as well as a gazebo.
The dominant type of dwelling from the late 19th century to the 1950s throughout Kyrgyzstan was two- and three-room houses. Two-room houses are rectangular in shape. The building is divided by a wall with a door. The first room - ashkana - has a stove-fireplace, and the second - meymankana - is the reception room. Such houses were built with flat-gabled roofs. The ceiling, lined with boards, is traditional in Issyk-Kul and the southwest of Kyrgyzstan. The walls were usually adobe, built from paksy or rammed clay sokmo. The foundation was made of stones, using beams synch laid at its base. Inside the house, a supa made of clay or wood was arranged, and the ayvan is not typical. As a rule, there were no niches in the walls (they are only occasionally found in southern Kyrgyzstan).
Such houses were built in large estates and are characteristic of the less affluent layers of the population.
In three-room dwellings, all sections are arranged in a line. The entrance is located in the middle room, which serves as the kitchen, where the stove-fireplace is placed. One of the side rooms is occupied by the parents, and the other by the young couple.
Houses of this layout are considered convenient; they were built for wintering. A variant of the three-room house is a similar building without a front wall in the middle room, which becomes a deep ayvan. In the south, it is called chukur ayvan, in the Tian Shan - oozgu uy.
The stove-fireplace was usually built on the ayvan or in the room where the parents lived.
The courtyard - korgon - is a place for utility buildings and economic activities, as well as the area of the estate where family members can rest and cook food during warm weather. Among the utility buildings are rooms for keeping a horse atkana, agyl, cattle malkana, sheep pens, sheds for fuel otunkana, hay chopkana, granaries, pantries sukon, kampa for storing products, and various-purpose awnings on pillars bastyrma. Near the sheds are feeders for domestic animals made of clay, branches, or wood (Antipina, 1962, p. 199).
The location of utility buildings in the courtyard does not have any specific system: they are built near the house, away from it, sometimes along the edge of the courtyard. In the northern regions of Kyrgyzstan, courtyards are more often found where, like among the Russians, utility buildings are located around the perimeter of the yard.
In the southern regions, each courtyard has a wooden platform sere, kelevat, charpaya in the form of a wooden deck (2 x 2.5 m) on legs, surrounded on three sides by low railings. The sere is placed both in the courtyard and on the ayvan and in the garden. It is used for family rest, where a dastorkon is spread, and guests are welcomed (Antipina, 1962, pp. 200, 201).
In the process of settling down, the Kyrgyz adopted the widely used tandoor oven for baking bread, common in Central Asia. In the south, the Uzbek-type oven (oval-shaped, on a stand) is used, while in Issyk-Kul and Tian Shan, the Kashgar-type, which is characterized by a cylindrical shape and lack of a stand (placed directly on the ground).
Kashgar tandoors entered the daily life of the Kyrgyz later than Uzbek ones.
Interior. The transition to stationary housing brought about fundamental changes in interior decoration.
The traditional placement of items characteristic of yurts was preserved for a long time. The stack of items zhuk, typical of the traditional lifestyle of nomadic Kyrgyz, remained. The house was still filled with felt, blankets, carpets, chavadans, bundles of clothes, chests, etc. All the best and most valuable in the family was concentrated around the zhuk. The concept of a place of honor ter, which was associated with the arrangement of the zhuk, was preserved. However, the arrangement and contents of the zhuk changed depending on the type of dwelling and local traditions. In Fergana-type houses, the contents of the zhuk are still arranged in niches in a certain order, less often in separate stacks on chests. In houses without niches in the northern regions, the zhuk is stacked against the wall in the reception room.
The floor is covered with fur rugs, felt, and woven carpets, while in the south, pile carpets are still widely used. For some time, woven cloth taar, utility bags common in nomadic life, and embroidered panels tushkiiz - a mandatory element of the dowry, which can still be seen in interiors today, continued to be hung on the walls.
In southern Kyrgyzstan, there are many analogies in the interior of dwellings with the decoration of Uzbek and Tajik houses.
The Transition of the Kyrgyz to Stationary Dwellings