Click to return to Home Page

The Tradition of the Kyrgyz Yurt 

Much like every Kyrgyz handicraft, it takes a community to raise a yurt. It is a grand social affair that involves men and women, both young and old. Family members come from all over the valley to help with the cooking, sewing, weaving and spinning. Because this process involves so many techniques, the yurt is the pinnacle of Kyrgyz handicrafts.

As children run through the stacks of yurt frames neatly piled in the courtyard and bread is being fried by the new daughter-in-laws, grandmothers gather around piles of raw wool to separate the fibers and hand spin thick coils of rope to be used in fastening the roof struts (called yüük) to the accordion like walls (kehrehgeh) of the yurt.

One grandmother takes a measure of wool that has been stretched to a thick bat about a foot long. She wets it and twists it into a single coiled strand and tosses it to a pile next to another woman who picks one from the pile, sets her foot into the strand like a stirrup, and proceeds to twist a double stranded coil of rope from the strand on her foot. All the while, added more and more strands to the length on her foot until she has fashioned a meter length of rope.

The size of the yurt dictates how many meters of rope needed. A small yurt will have around forty-five roof struts, each requiring one meter each. A medium will have around fifty-five struts. A large yurt will have seventy-five.

Once the ropes are strung through the holes on the curved ends of the roof struts, the family then stretches out two of the accordion walls leaving a meter space in the middle of them. The eldest males of the family then assemble in that gap a post & lintel doorframe (bozogo tahyak) and lash the walls to it. Once the walls have been properly stretched out and all have been lashed together with colorful straps ornately woven from homespun wool, the roof cap (tündük) is brought out and blessed by the family by smearing it with fat.

The men then mount the roof cap upon a forked pole and balance it with wide woven straps. It is raised high so that the rest of the family can insert the straight pointed tips of the struts into holes cut in edge of the cap. The curved ends of the struts are then lashed to the walls of the yurt with the handspun rope. Soon, the frame is complete and freestanding. To assist in the settling of the structure, a sandbag is tied to the straps connected to the cap. Large rolls of woven strap are then used to further strengthen the frame by being woven through the struts and around the walls.

The women then bring out two large, rolled up reed mats (chi), tie one end of each to the doorframe and then wrap the walls with them. The mats are decorated with intricate traditional symbols that are made by wrapping colored wool around each reed, then sewing the reeds together.

Once the chi has been wrapped, it is time to fasten the many layers of raw felt (giiz) to the frame. This felt is made by laying down short-cut wool fibers on a chi mat and while pouring hot water on the wool the mat is rolled up. Once rolled, the mat is covered with burlap cloth and bound with rope. Another long loop of rope is passed under the mat and is used to control its rolling. Five to six people then line up on one side of the mat and the rope puller on the other side.

The line of people then begins to kick and stomp the mat as the puller rolls the mat to the other side of the courtyard. Once there, everyone steps on top of the mat, gives a little jump up and steps off onto the other side to return the mat to where it began. After enough water has been stomped and kicked out, the mat is laid on top of wooden rails and more hot water is poured on top. The puller then navigates the steaming mat back and forth across the courtyard to make sure water is evenly distributed throughout the wool.

 This is repeated three or four times, upon which the bundle is unwrapped and unrolled, revealing a large, tightly matted length of felt. This is taken to a large rectangular pile of rocks covered with stripped branches. There the felt is laid out in the sun to dry.

Contact Us