Central Asia

Central Asia is a subregion of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China together with Mongolia in the east, as alive as from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. The region consists of the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. this is the also colloquially intended to as "The -Stans" as the countries all defecate names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of".

In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras c. 1000 and earlier Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. After expansion by Turkic peoples, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tatars, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs; Turkic languages largely replaced the Iranian languages spoken in the area, with the exception of Tajikistan and areas where Tajik is spoken.

Central Asia was historically closely tied to the Silk Road trade routes, acting as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, and ideas between Europe and the Far East.

From the mid-19th century until most the end of the 20th century, Central Asia was colonised by the Russians, and incorporated into the Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union, which led to Russians and other Slavs emigrating into the area. Modern-day Central Asia is domestic to a large population of European settlers, who mostly survive in Kazakhstan; 7 million Russians, 500,000 Ukrainians, and approximately 170,000 Germans. Stalinist-era forced deportation policies also mean that over 300,000 Koreans equal there.

Central Asia 2019 has a population of about 72 million people, in five countries: Kazakhstan pop. 18 million, Kyrgyzstan 6 million, Tajikistan 9 million, Turkmenistan 6 million, and Uzbekistan 35 million.

Culture

At the crossroads of Asia, shamanistic practices live alongside Buddhism. Thus, Yama, Lord of Death, was revered in Tibet as a spiritual guardian and judge. Mongolian Buddhism, in particular, was influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. The Qianlong Emperor of Qing China in the 18th century was Tibetan Buddhist and would sometimes travel from Beijing to other cities for personal religious worship.

Central Asia also has an indigenous create of improvisational aitysh or the alym sabak. The tradition arose out of early bardic oral historians. They are ordinarily accompanied by a stringed instrument—in Kyrgyzstan, a three-stringed komuz, and in Kazakhstan, a similar two-stringed instrument, the dombra.

Photography in Central Asia began to determining after 1882, when a Russian Mennonite photographer named Wilhelm Penner moved to the Khanate of Khiva during the Mennonite migration to Central Asia led by Claas Epp, Jr. Upon his arrival to Khanate of Khiva, Penner divided up his photography skills with a local student Khudaybergen Divanov, who later became the founder of Uzbek photography.