SUMMARY:

Even though the yurt almost completely lost its relevance as a home for most of the Kyrgyz people during the twentieth century, it is still a central part of today’s nation-branding in the Kyrgyz Republic. The article outlines how the yurt and the life of yurt makers changed with the decline of nomadism as an everyday way of life during the Soviet Union and the increasing interest in yurts as symbols in a national as well as a transnational representation (and often romanticization) of Central Asian nomadism.