Kyrgyzstan — Drug Trafficking: From Sportsmeny and Ugalovniki to Police and Elites

Abstract

With a population of more than five million, Kyrgyzstan is sandwiched between the two major powers of Russia and China. According to the online Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Kyrgyz, a nomadic people of Central Asia, settled in the Tien Shan region in ancient times. They were con­quered by Genghis Khan’s son Jöchi in the early thirteenth century, and then fell under the dominance of the Qing dynasty of China in the mid-eighteenth century. The Kyrgyz territory came under Russian control in the nineteenth century, became an autonomous province of the Soviet Union in 1924, and was made the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936. Kyrgyzstan gained independence in 1991.