Masterpieces of Art in Miniature 2
Of course, the story about masterpieces in miniature would be incomplete if we did not mention the money featuring unique animals that inhabit Kyrgyzstan, with the famous snow leopard being the first among them. These beautiful animals are mainly hunted by experienced trappers from zoos, who catch them alive and send them to zoos both nearby and far abroad. However, hunting the snow leopard is fraught with enormous difficulties and surprises because it is very elusive, cautious, and lives high in the mountains, in remote and wild places. Its strength, feline agility, and precision of jumps give it an advantage in competition with any beast, even with ibexes and argalis.
Hunting with a golden eagle is an ancient traditional activity of the Kyrgyz. Even now, you can see this proud bird sitting on a powerful branch in the yard of a house, near a yurt. It waits for its moment when the eagle hunters go out into the snowy expanses, and the drivers, spotting a fox, will remove the cap from the bird's head and toss it up. The powerful wings, which can reach two to two and a half meters in span, quickly gain altitude; with a few more flaps, the eagle dives after the fox, slicing through the frosty air with a whistle. One eagle can catch dozens of foxes in a season. It is also used to hunt hares, marmots, grouse, roe deer, and young wolves. The chicks of these birds are often taken from the nest for training, which puts the species at risk.
A true adornment of the new banknotes is the image of the noble deer, or maral. This animal has been revered in Kyrgyzstan since ancient times, and one of the clans even came to be called the Bugus. Bugus is the male, adorned with antlers intended for tournament fights, not for killing. Very rarely, as an exception, antlers grow on females, but for this, they pay with infertility. In Ch. Aitmatov's story "The White Steamship," the magical mother-deer is adorned with sprawling antlers, resembling the branches of autumn trees.
As we can see, the folklore tradition endowed female deer with antlers not only out of a desire to highlight them in a special way: behind the myth lies reality. Even at the beginning of this century, the range of the maral in the Tian Shan almost coincided with the range of the fir tree. Now, the deer has disappeared everywhere and remains only in the fir forests of the upper reaches of the Naryn River, where a special reserve has been created. Its image on the money should remind us every time that this animal is listed in the Red Book and that special care should be taken for its survival.
New Money - Hopes and Problems The heated debates about the introduction of the national currency have mostly subsided, but the exchange of opinions will continue for a long time, although many understand that the new money did not appear out of anyone's malice, but is a forced measure caused by a whole complex of circumstances. The issue is that the mechanism for introducing the new money was not sufficiently well worked out, and this fact was not detailed enough in agreement with partners in the ruble zone. Today, it is necessary to soberly weigh all the pros and cons in order to implement economic, social, and organizational measures that would stimulate the viability of the national currency and strengthen trust in it among economic entities, the population, and foreign partners.
