Kyrgyz MPs sacrifice rams to banish "evil spirits"

By Olga Dzyubenko – Thu Apr 21

BISHKEK (Reuters) – Members of Kyrgyzstan's divided parliament slaughtered seven rams before their morning session on Thursday, in a sacrifice they hope will banish "evil spirits" disrupting their work.

Kyrgyzstan elected a new legislature in October in a bid to build the first parliamentary democracy in former Soviet Central Asia, a region otherwise run by authoritarian presidents.

But the fragile governing coalition has come under threat after weeks of bitter recriminations and disputes in parliament, leading a senior government member to resign temporarily.

Kyrgyzstan, which lies on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan and hosts both Russian and U.S. military air bases, saw its president toppled by a violent revolt last April. More than 400 people were killed in ethnic riots in June.

"We decided to resort to popular customs, in order for this building not to see bloodshed anymore," member of parliament Myktybek Abdyldayev told Reuters after the rams were sacrificed on a green lawn in front of the government headquarters.

Besides hosting the legislature, the Soviet-era white-marble building in the center of the Kyrgyz capital is the official seat of the president and government. Two presidents fled this building to escape violent popular uprisings in 2005 and 2010.
"We acted like those who light candles or fumigate their homes in order to banish an evil spirit from their conscience," Abdyldayev said.

The ritual of making a sacrifice is widespread in the impoverished, predominantly Muslim nation of 5.4 million. It is practiced mainly during funeral repasts and at solemn ceremonies of reconciliation.

"This is a popular ancient tradition, carried out in order to avoid a repeat of last year's tragic events and for peace and harmony to triumph," said parliamentarian Kurmanbek Osmonov.

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Wildmen of the Pamir Mountains

There seems to be renewed interests in the 'wildmen' of Asia...probably the best known is the Yeti. But there have been expeditions into the more tropical areas of south central Asia as well. In this post, I want to concentrate on mountainous central Asia, specifically those hominids or 'snowmen' that are said to exist in the Pamir Range of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. These hominids go by several monikers...the Barmanu, the Tajik Yeti, the Almysty, the Golub-Yavan or simply the Gul.

In August 2001, the Russian magazine Karavan + I published an article about the killing of a wild man on the old Soviet-Afghanistan border. According to the author, border guards of the Kevran unit in the Pamir Mountains saw a "Snowman" during the winter of 1967/68. They reported their observation to their superior, Kuzkov, the officer in charge of the unit. He did not, at first, pay any attention to it.

The soldiers of the next watch again saw a creature and reported the fact. Subsequently, the duty officer accompanied the soldiers to the spot and personally observed the creature. Kuskov informed his superior officer, a colonel in Khorog – a settlement on the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border. News about this reached the Central Asia Command where, in February 1968, a high-ranking officer gave the order, ‘Catch him or, if that isn’t possible, eliminate him!’. Thereupon, the border guards shot the creature and took it to the border post. The body was stored in a woodshed. A subsequent article 3) in Karavan + I in September 2001 on the happening disclosed that the body was taken to Moscow in great secrecy.


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