While studying in Osh and traveling in Uzbekistan, I came to wonder about the “Luli,” or Central Asian gypsies (”gypsy” being a derogatory label not used by the Luli themselves). My only contact with them had previously consisted of trying to evade children-beggars rubbing my arm persistently for Som; my only knowledge of them was based on random and sometimes crass rumors about bizarre rituals practiced in the privacy of their community. And so I decided to visit the Luli Mahalla (neighborhood / community) and see for myself, along with the invaluable company of fellow researchers Alisher Khamidov and Bahrom Manonov.

I should warn readers that the following article represents just a single afternoon spent among the Luli - hardly an in-depth study. For more rigorous reporting, see Nafisa’s study (ENG) of the Luli in Samarkand or an anonymous contribution (RUS) to a cross-blog survey on minorities.

Who are the Luli?

The Luli Mahallah is located just outside of Osh on the way to the airport. Gaining access to it was actually quite simple - we just stopped at a Chaikhana (cafe) nearby and asked a Luli-ish looking fellow to show us around. Worked like a charm. As it happened, the Osh Luli community was celebrating a circumcision that day, so many people were gathered in a single home. At first, my questions were rather basic: Who are the Luli? What language do they speak?  What are their beliefs and traditions?

Most accounts have the Luli originating from India, but those we talked to emphasized that their people probably also traveled through Afghanistan and Iran over long periods of time, absorbing language and culture along the way. One village elder even relayed a story about the original home of the Luli. According to him, they once lived near a beautify lake until an earthquake and subsequent flood destroyed the settlement and forced them into a life of wandering.

That same village elder estimated the Osh Luli to number about 3000, with far more living in Uzbekistan. The Luli of Osh speak a dialect of Tajik (itself a dialect of Persian) very closely related to that spoken in the Dushanbe area. (Nafisa’s article has the Luli of Samarkand speaking a unique language called by the Wikipedia entry “Domari“; we did not find this to be the case in the Osh community.) Over 80% of their passports list “Tajik” as their ethnicity as well; the rest are listed as either “Uzbek” or, in a few cases, “Luli.” In appearance, most - but my no means all - of the Osh Luli tend to be a bit darker in skin tones than Uzbeks. They uniformly subscribe to the religion of Islam.

I was frankly a bit surprised not to find greater cultural differences between the Luli and the surrounding population. No Zoroastrian fire rituals (according to Nafisa, the Luli of Samarkand call themselves Mugat, which means “fire worshipers”; I heard a similar rumor in Osh), no begging sacks given away at marriage, nothing. In fact, the Luli we talked to even insisted that there was nothing unique about their culture, even going so far as to claim that their traditions to be “more Uzbek than Uzbek,” since their culture has been less infiltrated by European style. For instance, they pointed to the white, European-style wedding dresses worn by most Uzbeks during marriage ceremonies. Oddly enough, the single most distinguishing characteristic of the Luli seems to be that both they and the society they live in takes it as a given that they are Luli, and hence forever separate. It is telling that the Luli who “make it,” i.e. complete their education and find decent employment, often simply pass themselves off as Uzbek or Tajik.

The Leather Factory

Given pervasive prejudice against Luli, employment is an endless challenge for the community. Men make mud bricks for sale; women and children collect aluminum to sell, trade cheap Chinese goods, or beg. And so when the Chinese decided to build a leather plant (pictured below) in the midst of the mahallah, the fifteen or so jobs it provided were at first a welcome boon.

However, for the vast majority of the village inhabitants we talked to, the income provided by those few jobs was quickly outweighed by the negative environmental side effects. Every day at 4pm, the Chinese drain the waste from the plant into the only river that runs through the community. This pollution set in motion a simple chain of events: the river waters the grass; the grass feeds the cows; the cows grow sick and die; Luli sell and eat the meat of the deceased cattle. Not surprisingly, Luli are now becoming ill from the bad meat. Moreover, the leather waste dries on the river banks and attracts harmful insects and vermin. As local residents recounted this story to us, we took note with some revulsion that the drainage river was the same one in which the village children were swimming and playing below us.

In one sense, the Chinese were quite shrewd in selecting the Luli village as the location for their factory. The Luli are extremely reluctant to go to the authorities for any kind of conflict resolution. For instance, one adolescent we met had been beaten severely by five other Luli boys while riding his bicycle. Although he knew exactly who did it, when asked if he would take the offense to the authorities, he responded ominously that they would sort it out in their own way. Likewise, the Luli are reluctant to take their greivances related to the leather factory to the authorities as well, fearing prejudice and recrimination.

Future Uncertain

Faced with an array of systematic barriers to development, the future of the Luli does not look terribly bright. Despite being nearly identical in terms of culture to their neighbors, they remain outcasts from society, seemingly both for external and self-imposed reasons. Nevertheless, they seem to scrape by, even if just barely.  They have electricity, running water, and some sense of community cohesion. Next time you are in Osh, pay a visit - they will tell you all about it.