Tian Shan (growing region)
More actions
| Tian Shan | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 42.35, 75.19 |
| Country | Kyrgyzstan,Kazakhstan |
| Provinces/States | Chüy Region,Talas Region,Issyk-Kul Region,Naryn Region,Jalal-Abad Region,Jambyl Region,Almaty Region |
| Area | 224,000 km² |
| Primary Mountains | Tian Shan |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Tian Shan growing region covers the part of the Tian Shan mountain system that lies in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with the valleys and foothills at its northern edge. Cannabis grows wild there and people gather it for marijuana and hashish. About 10,000 hectares of land in Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul, Jalal-Abad, Talas, Chui and Naryn regions are overgrown with wild hemp, from which local people make marijuana and hashish.[1] In some places it is also sown: in Talas, Jalal-Abad and Naryn provinces people began to grow the plant on their own plots, alongside gathering it wild.[2]: 70 The region's growing areas are the Chu Valley, Issyk-Kul, Jalal-Abad, Naryn and Talas.
Geography
The region is drawn on whole provinces and districts. In Kyrgyzstan it takes in five provinces: Chüy, Talas, Issyk-Kul, Naryn and Jalal-Abad, with the capital, Bishkek. In Kazakhstan it takes in six districts of Jambyl Region in the valley of the Chu (Shu) river and the mountains of Almaty Region above about 1,000 metres, on the ranges along the Kyrgyz border. The region covers about 224,000 km². The southern provinces of Kyrgyzstan, Osh and Batken, and the Tian Shan in China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are not drawn in.
In July 1857 Pyotr Semenov found wild hemp, Cannabis sativa, in the valley of the Chilik in the Trans-Ili Alatau, between 2,000 and 2,500 metres.[3] A sheet gathered by A. Regel near Karakol in 1877, Regel s.n., Karakol (1877), is the lectotype of Cannabis sativa var. asperrima.[4] The Flora of the USSR (1936) recorded Cannabis ruderalis in the Tian Shan floristic district, "very often as a field weed".[5] John McPartland and Ernest Small place the Tian Shan in the arc of Central Asian mountains, with the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Pamir, through which wild-type plants are spread.[6]: 102
History
Alexander Zelichenko, a former Kyrgyz police colonel who worked against the drug trade, writes that cannabis grew wild in Kyrgyzstan long before Indian hemp was first sown there for industry in 1933, and that the abundant wild stands helped hashish smoking spread among local people in many parts of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan among them. He quotes the police veteran Abdylda Isabaev, who remembered bast mills working in the Chu valley, at Orlovka and Dzhangi-Pakhta, from 1930 to 1950, and the government's ban on sowing the plant from 1965, after which the wide wild stands remained.[7] The criminal code of the Kirghiz SSR named "southern Chuy" hemp among the kinds that it was a crime to sow.[8]
Wild stands
A survey funded by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 1998 and 1999 found wild growth and cultivation of cannabis in five Kyrgyz provinces: 2,444.2 hectares in Issyk-Kul, 333.5 in Jalal-Abad, 93.9 in Talas, 87.4 in Chüy and 15.8 in Osh. Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad were noted for cannabis with a higher THC content, which traffickers preferred. A UNODC survey of 1999 in Kazakhstan found 2,410.3 hectares in Almaty Region and 49,680.2 in Jambyl Region.[9]
Zelichenko's account of the mapping puts wild cannabis on 8,322 hectares in sixteen Kyrgyz districts. The largest stands were in Jeti-Oguz (879.7 hectares), Tyup (627.4) and Issyk-Kul (427.5) districts of Issyk-Kul Region, then in Toguz-Toro (203.5) and Uch-Terek (74.6) of Jalal-Abad Region and in Manas (58.2) and Bakai-Ata (35.7) of Talas Region. In six districts of Issyk-Kul and Jalal-Abad regions, where illegal gathering was heaviest, cannabis was being collected on 496 hectares, enough for about 234 tonnes of marijuana or 8 tonnes of hashish. Samples from 89 per cent of the area held more than 2 per cent THC; these stands lay mainly in four districts of Issyk-Kul Region, three of Jalal-Abad, four of Chüy and two of Talas.[7]
On the Kazakh side the largest stands are in the Chu valley, where a UNODC mission of 2007 found wild growth and cultivation well above the 128,000 hectares officially reported.[9] In July 2025 inspectors found and destroyed six hectares of cannabis at Kyzylshekara in Raiymbek district of Almaty Region.[10]
Harvest and hashish
Round Lake Issyk-Kul hashish is made by hand from the wild plants. In the Karkyra valley of Tyup district villagers rub the upper leaves and seeds between their palms in July, August and early September and sell the resin by the matchbox.[2]: 132–136, 147 In Talas and Jalal-Abad regions, Zelichenko told Botoeva in 2014, hashish is not made from wild plants: there the plants are grown and guarded.[2]: 247–248 In 2014 the Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty wrote that international experts put the share of families harvesting cannabis in Issyk-Kul and Chui regions at about two-thirds.[11]
Eradication
In both countries the police mow and burn the stands each summer. In Kyrgyzstan the raids are called Mak (Poppy)[12] and Kara-Kuurai.[2]: 76 In July 2024 the interior ministry formed 90 brigades of local-government staff and volunteers for the Kara-Kuurai raid and mapped 627 hectares across the country. The figures it gave for the region's provinces were 10 hectares and 27 tonnes in Chüy, 27 hectares and 17 tonnes in Issyk-Kul and Naryn together, 2.5 hectares and 1.8 tonnes in Talas and 100 hectares and 9 tonnes in Jalal-Abad.[13] The Kazakh operation in the Chu valley is called Karasora.[14]
Growing Areas
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ "Kyrgyzstan country overview". European Union Drugs Agency. March 2014. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Botoeva, G. (2016). The local drug economy: the case of hashish production in a post-Soviet Kyrgyz village (PhD thesis). Colchester: University of Essex.
- ↑ Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, P.P. (1946). Мемуары. Том 2: Путешествие в Тянь-Шань в 1856–1857 годах (in русский). Moscow: OGIZ – via Wikisource.
- ↑ "Occurrence 3115519399: Cannabis sativa var. asperrima (Regel) McPartl. & E.Small". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Komarov, V.L., ed. (1970) [1936]. Flora of the U.S.S.R. Vol. 5. Translated by N. Landau. Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations. pp. 302–304 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ McPartland, J.M.; Small, E. (2020). "A classification of endangered high-THC cannabis (Cannabis sativa subsp. indica) domesticates and their wild relatives". PhytoKeys. 144: 81–112. doi:10.3897/phytokeys.144.46700.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Зеличенко, А. (14 August 2003). "История афганской наркоэкспансии 1990-х". Lib.ru (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Уголовный кодекс Киргизской ССР, 29 December 1960, arts. 236 and 236-1, edition of 1 October 1997.Kirghiz SSR.Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia (April 2008). Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (PDF) (Report). Paris Pact Initiative. p. 23.
- ↑ Фатихова, Д. (19 July 2025). "В Алматинской области нашли шестигектарную плантацию конопли". Finratings.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service (7 January 2014). "Addiction Doctor Wants Kyrgyzstan To Legalize Pot". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Кудрявцева, Т. (23 July 2014). "В Иссык-Кульской области за неделю уничтожено более 80 гектаров дикорастущей конопли". 24.kg (in русский). Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ "Сотрудники СБНОН сожгли более 85 тонн конопли (фото)". Kaktus.media (in русский). 12 July 2024. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ Скрипник, Г. (29 August 2020). "«Карасора-2020»: в Шуской долине сжигают заросли дикорастущей конопли". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.