Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, a kind of Asiatic Switzerland (76,000 sq. mi.) in the mountains sloping up to the borders of Chinese Sinkiang. Descending from snow caps are the bluish rivers that water the summer pastures; below them are the timber line and the permanent villages.
The inhabitants, nearly 1,500,000 are mainly Kirghiz, a Turkic people who formerly were nomad cattlemen with dog and lasso but are now settling in the fertile irrigated valley bottoms, improving their breeds and learning to read and write their language. Their capital, Frunze, on a branch of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway, has grown from 14,000 to 100,000 in the Soviet period, with tanneries, meat packing, tobacco and clothing factories.
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