We did not invent the Kyrgyz tent. We answer for it. This is the record of the craft we keep: its parts, its language, its village, and the recognition the world has given it.
The Charter
The boz üy is not a building. It is thousands of years of nomadic life, held in willow, felt and rawhide. The people who make it have never stopped making it. To keep the craft is to keep them.
What follows is documented the way a reference work is documented: precisely, in the maker's own language, so that a buyer in another country can know exactly what they are receiving, and a craft that lives in one village can be read by the whole world.
The Structure
A traditional Kyrgyz yurt is assembled entirely from natural, renewable materials, wood, reeds, sheep wool and rawhide, with no metal fasteners, no screws, no nails. Every component has a name, a purpose, and a place in Kyrgyz cosmology.
Plate I · The anatomy of a boz üy
The Record
Antiquity to the 10th century
The boz üy, "grey house" in Old Turkic, emerges across the Central Asian steppe more than two thousand years ago, among the earliest nomadic societies. The word "boz" (steppe, open ground) combined with "üy" (house) describes a structure built for the open landscape: rapid assembly, reliable shelter, total portability.
10th — 18th century
The yurt evolves beyond shelter into a complete cosmological model. The circular floor represents the earth. The domed roof, the sky. The tündük crown ring is the sun. Family hierarchy is encoded in spatial position, the place of honour opposite the door, the women's domain to the right, men's to the left.
Soviet era, 1920s–1991
During the Soviet period, the village of Kyzyl-Tuu organised a formal cooperative teaching specialised skills and producing yurts at scale for sale in Bishkek. This institutionalised the craft while keeping the knowledge alive through a difficult political period.
2014
Traditional knowledge and skills in making Kyrgyz and Kazakh yurts inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, one of the world's highest cultural honours.
December 2025
The inscription is expanded to include Karakalpak yurts, jointly nominated by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, reinforcing the shared Central Asian cultural heritage and the living vitality of the tradition today.
The Village
On the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul sits Kyzyl-Tuu, a village of a few hundred people that is the recognised world centre of Kyrgyz yurt-making. Almost every household builds. The skill passes from hand to hand, parent to child, and has never been broken.
Plate II · Where the craft lives
Recognition
The craft holds one of the highest cultural honours there is. But a UNESCO listing is shared across borders. Our claim is narrower, and it is the one that matters to a buyer: the specific masters of Kyzyl-Tuu, building today.
Listed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014, and expanded in December 2025. A craft the world has formally agreed is worth protecting.
The inscription is held jointly across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, including the Karakalpak tradition. We do not speak for all of it. We answer for one village, and the masters in it whom we work with by name.
This is not a museum piece. The skill is in use every week, in the same village, by people who learned it from the generation before. Heritage that is still being made is heritage you can still buy.
From Inside
Every element on this page exists in this one frame: the kerege lattice, the felt skin, the crown ring overhead, the shyrdak underfoot. This is what a buyer receives. Not a render, not a likeness. The real thing, photographed from inside one we built.
The Language
Tündük
Crown Ring · The apex
The circular wooden ring at the top of every yurt, through which all roof poles radiate. The sun, the cosmos, the skylight. So sacred it sits at the centre of the Kyrgyz national flag. All structural load flows through it.
Kerege
Lattice Wall · The panels
The accordion-folding lattice wall panels that form the cylinder of the yurt. Bound entirely with rawhide strips (gök), no nails. A standard 6m yurt has 6 kerege panels. Each folds flat for transport.
Uuk
Roof Poles · The ribs
The curved roof poles that radiate from the tündük down to the kerege walls. Their curvature, achieved by steam-bending Turpan Tal willow, is what creates the dome and makes centre poles unnecessary. A 6m yurt carries 85 uuk.
Bosogo
Door Frame · The threshold
The carved and often painted wooden door frame. Frequently the most decorated element of the yurt, adorned with traditional motifs signifying the family's lineage and prosperity. It is the first thing a guest sees.
Kiyiz
Felt Covering · The skin
Thirteen rolls of handmade sheep wool felt, eight for the roof, five for the walls. Made entirely by the women of the artisan family. Wool is the original insulation: warm in winter, cool in summer, breathable year-round. Lasts 15–20 years with proper care.
Chiy
Reed Mat · The insulation layer
Woven reed mats wrapped around the kerege beneath the felt covering, providing a critical insulation and ventilation layer. The premium version, oimo chiy, is decorated with coloured wool woven into geometric patterns during the weaving process.
Shyrdak
Mosaic Felt Carpet · The floor
Felt carpet made by the mosaic appliqué technique, two contrasting layers cut simultaneously and swapped. Every motif carries meaning: the ram's horn for strength, the crow's claw for legacy, the horn scroll for protection. No two shyrdak are ever identical.
Ala Kiyiz
Rolled Felt Rug · The older tradition
Older than shyrdak. Coloured wool designs are pressed into raw felt during rolling, permanently fused as the fibres bond. Unlike shyrdak, you cannot draw on ala kiyiz first: the design must exist entirely in the maker's mind before the wool is touched.
Kanat
Wing / Section · The sizing unit
The traditional Kyrgyz unit for measuring yurt size, by the number of kerege wall sections (kanat = wing). A 6m yurt is a "6 kanat" yurt. The number of uuk roof poles follows: a 6 kanat yurt carries 85 uuk. This is how builders have specified yurts for centuries.
Turpan Tal
Willow Species · The wood
The specific willow species used for all Kyrgyz yurt frames, light, flexible, and ideal for steam-bending. The tündük ring is steamed and bent over 15–20 days. The uuk poles are steam-curved. Naturally resistant to splitting under tension. The only wood that bends the way a yurt needs to bend.
Zabık Bash
Decorative Felt Bands · The finish
Ornamental felt strips with embroidered motifs that ring the interior wall-to-roof junction (ichki zabık bash) and the exterior lower edge (syrtky zabık bash). The finishing detail that transforms a functional yurt into a fully dressed one.
Gök
Rawhide Binding · The joinery
The rawhide strips that bind every joint in the kerege lattice, applied wet, shrunk tight as they dry. No nails. No screws. No metal fasteners of any kind. The gök binding creates joints of extraordinary strength that flex under wind and movement rather than crack under stress.
Configure a yurt using these components → · Read: The Craft →
Read the record, then put it to work. Furnish a resort with the real thing, or commission a single boz üy of your own.
Request a quote