ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on mosques in the Yssykköl region of north-eastern Kyrgyzstan, allegedly the country’s most ‘Russified’ area during the twentieth century. Today, mosques are characteristic and vibrant features of Yssykköl village life. While this is evident in the daily and multiple religious activities at mosques, this chapter discusses two ethnographic accounts which explicitly highlight how the vibrancy of mosque life extends beyond their physical space per se: the opening ceremony of a locally funded village mosque, and taalim, women-only religious meetings. This contribution thus offers novel material on local mechanisms of mosque sponsorship in the face of predominantly foreign funded mosque construction in the region, and connects mosques with female realms of activity which often seem to be excluded from the everyday life of the mosque. Both accounts demonstrate how mosque life is not only continuous with various realms of village life in complex ways, but also how these are (trans-)formative of village identities and relationships, and shape specific notions of community and belonging.
