Turkistan Map

Turkistan is one of the most historical cities in the South of Kazakhstan and the administrative center of the region. Cradled by the River Syr Darya and located on Trans-Aral Railway linking Kyzylorda in the north and Tashkent in the south, the city has been strategically and culturally significant ever since. It makes its origins more than 1,500 years ago- a crucial station in the Silk Road- a celebrated intersection of business, culture, and spirituality.

The spiritual significance of Turkistan revolves around the majestic Mausoleum of Sufi mystics of the 12 th century- Khoja Ahmed Yasawi. Commissioned by the Timurid governor Timur in the late 14th century, it has been described as one of the most impressive complexes and has remained one of the major pilgrimage sites and UNESCO World Heritage attractions. Having realized the long-standing value of its cultural significance, the city was recently declared the Spiritual Capital of the Turkic World, in recognition of its potential as an embodiment of the Turkic identity and patrimony.

History

The history of Turkistan dates long before a millennium. Said to have first risen in the 4th and 8th centuries AD as Shavgar and subsequently, in the 13th century, as Yasi, the city had grown into a booming Silk Road station serving the caravan routes between Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva.

The decisive action towards its cultural and spiritual significance was the arrival of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in the 12th century. A great Sufi mystic poet, he turned Yasi into one of the most renowned Islamic intellectual centers and Sufi establishments of growth. The generations influenced by his poetic teaching can be found in the works like Diwan-i Hikmet which are widely spread, serving as sources to spread Islam in the Turkic steppe.

Two centuries later, a great conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) rendered his spiritual tribute to Yasawi, setting a large mausoleum over his tomb. The project is noted to have been started in the late 14th century and is marked by high domes, bright vaults and unique ideas. In spite of the fact that the work ended with the death of Timur in 1405, and was never completed, work performed until that time resulted in what is today one of the most iconic pieces of medieval architecture in Central Asia, and was rated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yasi suffered at the hands of politics and religion that saw it become the capital of the Kazakh Khanate in the 16th to 18th centuries renamed to Turkistan. It served as the place of enthronement ceremonies and political council and stabilized the power of the khans as well as strengthening the role of the culture and religious centralization of the steppe.

By the passing centuries, the significance and nominal tranquility of Turkey focused pilgrims who thought that coming to the city three times and not to another one-time is equivalent to little hajj. It also included such structures as the Mausoleum of Rabiya Sultan Begum (the great-granddaughter of Timur), medieval bathhouses, and other khan tombs that added to its sacred scenery.

More dramatic change was introduced in the 19th century. The follow-up was in 1864 when the newly established Russian Empire annexed the region to its Turkistan Governor-Generalship, compromising the political autonomy of Turkistan and opening a door to the new order.

In Soviet times the city lost much of its former importance before becoming important again after the independence of Kazakhstan. The region was reorganized in the year 2018, making Turkistan the capital of the newly-mostly named Turkistan Region.

Culture

Fundamentally, the city is considered the Spiritual Capital of the Turkic World, which in turn indicates the enormous role it played as an epicenter of Sufi spirituality and Turkic culture. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi is a pilgrimage site as well as the cultural icon of the people.

Design and craftsmanship is an engraved part of local life. This tradition is celebrated each year with many festivals such as the City of Craftspeoples festival where craftsmen get together and demonstrate traditional and modern handcrafted products. All of this unfolds in a proper Center of Craftsmanship, a large area located in workshops, exhibition halls and pavilions. It represents the pride of the region in keeping and regenerating its heritage of crafts.

The people of the area are still accomplished at traditional craftsmanship of woodworking, leatherworking, feltmaking, and metalworking. Wood craftsmen create yurt frames, furniture and musical instruments and ornaments, whereas leather workers make embossed boots, containers and decorative items. Felt workers produce practical and artistic works such as carpets, wall hangings, and footwear--techniques, which used to be followed by nomads.

Felt textile art, in particular, the iconic ala kiyiz (felt carpets), continues to be an essential element of culture. Such carpets are not only used as insulation but also as art in traditional dwellings such as yurts where such carpets are often highly patterned with a symbolic design. Such embroidered textiles and wall hangings such as tush kyiz are highly visible symbols of cultural heritage, having been produced to mark important events such as weddings.

Storytelling and oral cultures are accompanied by visual arts. Local aqyn (improvisational epics) and zhyrshy (epic storytellers), perform at local festivals, wedding ceremonies, and in front of a general audience, keeping ancestral lore and memory alive in an age of the internet.

Festivals are also an essential part of cultural life. The Silk Road Festival impresses with live music, traditional dance and craft demonstrations- showing the history of Turkistan as an important hub of trades and cultures.

Language

Turkistan has a linguistic landscape of Kazakhstan giving proof to the fact that tradition, identity, and modernity collide. Kazakh, as in the rest of the country, is the official state language- a Turkic language spoken by the majority of the population and is one of the central markers of the cultural heritage. The neighbours of the Turkistan region, like the communities around it, also speak Kazakh, in the southern variant affected by the history of mutual encounters and the mingling with Uzbek customs.

The Russian language continues to play one of the key functions as the co-official language and interethnic language of communication. It is widespread in government, education, and city life, it is especially prominent amongst older generations and in officialism.

What is peculiar to Turkistan is its ethnic makeup that predetermines local language use. Approximately half of the city is composed of ethnic Kazakh with around 45 percent representing the Uzbek minority who share much in common in the daily cultural activities. This automatically brings in Uzbek in the linguistic combination particularly in those areas where there are close family and community affiliations being held that make it strong in use.

Language practices at home tend to be Kazakh with the majority groups. In the Turkistan region the dominant proportion of citizens refer to Kazakh as the first home language (78 per cent).

In the meantime, international languages, especially English and Turkish, are making their way in--mainly in higher education, tourism, and youth culture. Situated cities like Ahmet Yassawi University have developed immersion programmes in languages like Turkish because the city has educational connections and because there is an increasing need to become multilingual and globally prepared.

Kazakh, Russian and sometimes Uzbek are regularly code-switched in everyday speech by residents based on the specific context and with reference to the audience. Such fluidity demonstrates the fact that culture in the city is a cultural crossroads, a combination of modern and traditional exchanges that takes place in the speech of living people.

Geography

Turkistan is geographically located in the southern region of Kazakhstan which has peculiarities of its geography and development which define it culturally and historically. The city is located in the area of Syr Darya River, which is one of the most significant watercourses of Central Asia engaging a flow to the West to the Aral Sea. The river has traditionally been a lifeline to the region as it has been used to support trade, agriculture, and settlement in a predominantly semi-arid region. The lands irrigated by the rivers have been productive, and therefore people in this region have been able to accommodate themselves on rich lands along the riverbanks.

The wider geography of Turkistan is the setting off point as regards the centre of Asia steppe belt. This is an expansive plain that extends all over Kazakhstan to offer large open spaces of grassland that are punctuated with shrubs and tough vegetation that fits the dry environment. The land seems flat thus supporting the custom of pastoral life since nomad herding was a way of life centuries ago. In the modern times, it also sustains modern agriculture but great significance is given to irrigation because rainfall is scanty.

The land to the south and east of Turkistan is progressively uplifted and ultimately it ends up in the foothills of the majestic mountain range called the Tien Shan. Directly, the city is not mountainous but it has always been in close contact with these uplands because all this gave the city access to a variety of resources, pathways of travel and cultural interactions with the nearby territories of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Such transitional geography meant that much of Turkistan has been a land of cross-cultural, religious, and economic encounters.

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