As the people of Kyrgyzstan protested fraudulent parliamentary elections, and overthrew a corrupt and authoritarian government in the Tulip Revolution earlier this year, two Koreans came to the fore to try to help bring democracy to this former Soviet Republic.

Roman Shin and Alexander Kim are just two of the 25,000 ethnic Koreans among the 5.1 million living in Kyrgyzstan, one of the seven “-stans” of Central Asia.

Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country with a climate similar to Switzerland, is populated primarily by the Kyrgyz, a Turkic ethnic group with Mongolian influences. (The name Kyrgyz was first chronicled by Chinese historians in 201 B.C., and the people briefly held Mongolia for a period of around 50 years, beginning in 840 A.D. In the 13th century, the Kyrgyz began their migration to Central Asia.) There are also sizable numbers of Russians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Dungans, Uighurs and, of course, Koreans, who make up only 0.5 percent of the country’s population, with the majority concentrated in Bishkek, the nation’s capital.

Most Koreans arrived in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia in 1937 from Siberia, as a result of Josef Stalin’s forced relocation of ethnic minorities (the deportati) prior to the Soviet Union’s involvement in World War II. Now, most Koreans in Kyrgyzstan speak Russian at home and attend Russian schools and universities. Kyrgyz, a Turkic language closely related to Kazakh, is the other official language of the nation.

At a demonstration by railway employees outside Kyrgyzstan’s White House, where the Parliament and president preside, in early May 2005, the two college students on the left inquire about the protest.

During the Soviet era, Koreans were predominantly part of the professional class — engineers, doctors and technicians. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, many became business owners. Bishkek is now lined with Korean-owned cafés, restaurants and karaoke bars, and Korean retail stores occupy the city’s markets and bazaars.

When Kyrgyzstan made headlines with a revolution and the ousting of President Askar Akayev on April 4, Roman Shin and Alexander Kim emerged as two of the new leaders of the country. KoreAm met Shin and Kim during a May trip to the area.

ROMAN SHIN

Born in Kazakhstan to a very poor family that was relocated in Stalin’s 1937 deportation from Khabarovsk, Russia, to Taldu Kurgan, Kazakhstan, Shin has risen to become a prominent businessman and a member of the Kyrgyzstan Parliament. Now he hopes to enact legislation to bring stability and end corruption in order to attract more foreign investment. He graduated from Arabaeva University with an economics degree at the age of 54 because he was “just too busy working and running several businesses.”

What is your family history?

Both of my parents and grandparents were born in a village in the current North Korea called something like Iman. In 1953, my family moved from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, when I was 5 years old. I have now lived in Kyrgyzstan for 52 years and am about to turn 57 this year.

Kyrgyzstan is similar to Switzerland in both topography and climate. Here is the Kyrgyz Ala Too mountain range, which lies south of Bishkek, the nation’s capital.

My parents were not educated. They spoke Russian poorly, as they came from a Korean village in Khabarovsk. I speak my Korean dialect perfectly, which is old Korean, and I can understand about 60 percent of the modern Korean language spoken by South Koreans.