{"id":49393,"date":"2026-09-03T20:41:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/?p=49393"},"modified":"2026-09-03T20:42:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:42:03","slug":"lyuli-mughat-central-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/uzbekistan\/lyuli-mughat-central-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"At home in Central Asia: the lives and identity of the Lyuli\/Mughat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Often portrayed through poverty and begging, Lyuli\/Mughat communities have lived across Central Asia for centuries. Researchers and filmmakers are now drawing attention to a much richer story of language, craftsmanship, family life and belonging.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Shakhzoda Mirakova\u2019s documentary We Are (At) Home<\/em>, the title itself carries an argument. The film was shot largely in different districts of Bukhara, where Mirakova and her team spent time with Lyuli\/Mughat families and community members. For her, the idea of \u201chome\u201d was not simply geographical. \u201cDespite often being treated as outsiders, Lyuli have built their lives, families and communities here,\u201d she told Novastan. That tension – between being deeply rooted in Central Asia and still perceived as somehow outside it – runs through much of the history of the Lyuli\/Mughat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Shakhzoda Mirakova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They have lived in the region for centuries and can be found across all five Central Asian republics, although the largest concentrations are generally associated with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan, with smaller communities in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Their distant origins are usually linked by researchers to migrations from the Indian subcontinent, but their precise relationship with European Roma populations remains debated. Researcher Kamilla Zakirova argues that it is more accurate to understand them as a distinct Central Asian community that has often been placed within a wider Roma or \u201cGypsy\u201d category, rather than simply describing them as a Central Asian branch of European Roma. Their identity today is unmistakably shaped by the societies in which they live: by Uzbek and Tajik languages, Sunni Islam, local neighbourhoods, extended families and the economic and cultural life of Central Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One community, many names<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even the question of what to call the community is complicated. \u201cLyuli\u201d or \u201cLuli\u201d is widely used in Uzbekistan and in Russian-language sources, while \u201cJughi\u201d or \u201cJugi\u201d is especially common in Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan. Historical names including Multoni<\/em> or Multani<\/em> and Ghorbat<\/em> or Gurbat<\/em> have also appeared in different parts of the region. \u201cMughat\u201d, meanwhile, is an important self-designation for many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zakirova notes that some community members prefer it precisely because names such as Lyuli or Jughi may carry derogatory stereotypes. At the same time, preferences differ by place and individual, meaning there is no single term that can be assumed to be universally accepted. For an international audience, she considers \u201cLyuli\/Mughat\u201d a useful compromise. The terminology reflects a broader difficulty: outsiders have often attempted to fit highly diverse communities into a single category. Different groups have developed within different linguistic and social environments, and this makes it difficult to speak of one single Lyuli language, occupation or lifestyle extending unchanged across Central Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This distinction also matters when comparing Lyuli\/Mughat with Russian-speaking Roma communities in the region, historically often referred to as Tsygane<\/em>. Zakirova stresses that these are not simply interchangeable categories. The Lyuli\/Mughat have developed within Central Asian society and have linguistic, religious and social practices shaped by that setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How important is the Indian connection?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The community\u2019s distant South Asian origins are one of the most frequently mentioned aspects of its history, but they do not necessarily occupy the same place in the identity of people living in Central Asia today. During the making of We Are (At) Home<\/em>, Mirakova encountered contradictory accounts. \u201cWe met several families, and their accounts were not the same,\u201d she said. \u201cSome people denied having a connection to the Indian subcontinent, while others claimed Indian ancestry.\u201d One community leader the filmmakers met knew several words that he identified as coming from an Indian language and also described himself as having Indian ancestry, yet this kind of memory was not shared by everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That distinction matters. A distant historical origin identified through linguistic or ethnographic research does not necessarily determine how people understand themselves generations later. For communities whose everyday lives have developed for centuries in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, India may be an ancestral reference, a family story, or something largely absent from daily identity. The more immediate cultural environment is Central Asian, and this is reflected in language, religion, settlement patterns and social life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking the languages of Central Asia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Language demonstrates this particularly clearly. Zakirova describes Lyuli\/Mughat communities as generally multilingual. In Uzbekistan, Uzbek and Tajik are widely spoken, while Russian remains present, particularly among older generations. Mirakova observed much the same thing while filming in Bukhara. \u201cThe people we interviewed could speak Uzbek, Tajik and Russian,\u201d she said. \u201cFrom what we observed, Lyuli generally speak the language that is common in the region where they live, rather than using one single language across Central Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their religious practices likewise overlap extensively with those of neighbouring communities. Most are Sunni Muslims, and celebrations and rituals associated with Ramadan, weddings, circumcision and funerals form part of the broader religious culture of Central Asia. For Zakirova, differences between Lyuli\/Mughat communities are therefore often shaped less by religion than by local history, language and different levels of integration into surrounding society. Most are no longer nomadic. Communities are generally settled, often organised around extended families, neighbourhoods and local networks. The image of the permanently travelling \u201cGypsy\u201d community can consequently obscure as much as it explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyday life beyond begging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The most persistent public stereotype surrounding the Lyuli is begging, and it is also the image that Mirakova most wants to complicate. \u201cPublic portrayals tend to focus on poverty and begging, which gives a very narrow picture of the community,\u201d she said. \u201cSpending time with people showed us that there is much more to their everyday lives, including craftsmanship, family traditions, skills and cultural practices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During filming in Bukhara, the team encountered families involved in forms of craftsmanship that receive little public attention. Mirakova recalls people making everyday household objects such as plates and cups, as well as carpet-making. Other people worked in waste collection, seasonal labour and work connected to pastures. The range of occupations, she felt, was becoming more diverse rather than remaining confined to only a few traditional activities. Zakirova similarly points to longer traditions of music, performance, jewellery-making, woodworking and metalworking among different Lyuli\/Mughat groups, and notes that some communities have historically been associated with professional music and entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of these occupations should be treated as universal characteristics. Mirakova\u2019s observations relate specifically to the families she encountered around Bukhara, while the economic lives of Lyuli\/Mughat communities vary considerably across the region. But they help reveal a basic problem with the dominant stereotype: economic marginalisation has often become a substitute for describing an entire culture. Craftsmanship illustrates that invisibility particularly well. \u201cLyuli families make plates and cups – everyday objects that people often use without knowing who produced them,\u201d Mirakova said. The producer may remain socially invisible even when the object itself circulates widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School, documents and changing opportunities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The situation of Lyuli\/Mughat communities has improved in some respects over the past decade, according to Zakirova, but significant inequalities remain. Education is one area where the gap is particularly visible. In the families Mirakova met, girls generally remained at school until around the ninth grade. This observation cannot be generalised to the whole population, but it reflects broader concerns about limited educational attainment and low representation in higher and vocational education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Shakhzoda Mirakova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier research and official reporting have also identified problems with school inclusion, poverty and the costs associated with education. Documentation has historically posed another obstacle. Mirakova encountered people who held passports and identity documents alongside others who did not. This problem intersects with the wider legacy of statelessness in post-Soviet Central Asia. Uzbekistan\u2019s reforms on citizenship and birth registration, including the 2020 Citizenship Law, have helped tens of thousands of formerly stateless people obtain or confirm citizenship, although these measures were not designed specifically for Lyuli\/Mughat communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Zakirova, that distinction is important. Broader legal reforms can still matter greatly for groups that have historically faced barriers to documentation, even when they are not targeted at a particular minority. At the same time, major challenges remain in education, poverty, housing, employment opportunities and discrimination. Representation in higher and vocational education remains particularly limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integration does not mean visibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The paradox is that a community can be deeply integrated into the language, religion and everyday life of a country without being strongly represented in its public institutions. Zakirova describes national political representation of Lyuli\/Mughat people in Uzbekistan as extremely limited. She is not aware of a nationally prominent elected politician who publicly identifies as Lyuli\/Mughat, nor of a major national newspaper, radio station or political organisation representing the community specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This limited visibility extends to cultural representation. For decades, Lyuli communities have frequently appeared in public discourse through stories about begging, social deprivation or marginalisation. What is much less visible is ordinary life: weddings, work, religious practices, family relationships, artisanship or changing aspirations among younger generations. That is one reason Zakirova sees the appearance of younger journalists and filmmakers interested in the community as significant. She pointed specifically to Mirakova\u2019s We Are (At) Home<\/em> as an example of a younger generation beginning to explore questions of Lyuli identity and belonging from a different perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filming a community usually seen from outside<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mirakova\u2019s documentary did not emerge from a large institutional project. Most of the filming took place locally in Bukhara partly because the filmmakers had a limited budget, and they were also able to work through people who already knew community members and helped establish contact with families. This mattered because marginalised communities are frequently documented by outsiders who arrive with pre-existing ideas about the story they expect to find. Establishing relationships through trusted contacts gave the filmmakers a different entry point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they encountered was not a uniform community. Neighbours responded differently to Lyuli families. Some interacted warmly with them and showed genuine curiosity about their culture and traditions, while others viewed them overwhelmingly through negative stereotypes, particularly the association with begging. Mirakova said her team did not encounter any specific state, municipal or NGO programme designed explicitly for the families they met in areas such as education, employment, housing or documentation. That does not necessarily mean no such measures exist elsewhere, but it shows how limited their visibility can be at community level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family, weddings and cultural life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some of the strongest impressions Mirakova took away from the documentary had little to do with poverty. She remembers conversations about family obligations in which people described leaving or separating from their own family for the benefit or needs of another family member. The exact form of this practice varied in the accounts she heard, but she was struck by the weight placed on family duty and sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The filmmakers also encountered tattoos or markings that some people compared visually with an Indian bindi<\/em>, although Mirakova stresses that these practices varied from person to person. Such observations should not be treated as evidence of historical origin, but they reveal the kinds of cultural details that rarely appear in public representations of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Shakhzoda Mirakova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She would particularly like to see more attention paid to weddings and craftsmanship. \u201cI think their wedding traditions and craftsmanship, particularly carpet-making, deserve much more attention,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are aspects of their cultural life that are rarely visible in the way the community is usually portrayed.\u201d That absence is itself significant. Minority communities are often made visible precisely at moments of crisis: when discussing poverty, exclusion, documentation or discrimination. Cultural life is then treated as secondary. For Mirakova, reversing that hierarchy was one of the lessons of spending time with Lyuli families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are at home\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The title of We Are (At) Home<\/em> ultimately returns the discussion to belonging. Lyuli\/Mughat communities may have distant histories connected with South Asia. They may retain names, memories or forms of identification that distinguish them from surrounding populations. But their contemporary lives have developed over generations in Central Asia. They speak Uzbek and Tajik, practise Islam alongside their neighbours, attend the same schools, work in local economies, produce household goods and build families in the same cities and villages. Yet they can still be described as outsiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contradiction is perhaps most visible in the language used about them. \u201cNomadic\u201d, \u201cGypsy\u201d, \u201cbeggar\u201d and \u201cmarginalised\u201d can all become labels through which a highly diverse population is compressed into a single social image. None of this means overlooking real inequalities. Education, documentation, housing, poverty and discrimination remain significant concerns, and representation in higher education and national public life remains limited. But reducing the community to those problems reproduces another form of exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mirakova\u2019s experience suggests a different starting point. \u201cI think their skills and everyday cultural life are largely missing from public portrayals,\u201d she said. The most revealing thing about the Lyuli\/Mughat may therefore not be how different they are from Central Asia, but how thoroughly their history has become part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often portrayed through poverty and begging, Lyuli\/Mughat communities have lived across Central Asia for centuries. Researchers and filmmakers are now drawing attention to a much richer story of language, craftsmanship, family life and belonging. In Shakhzoda Mirakova\u2019s documentary We Are (At) Home, the title itself carries an argument. The film was shot largely in different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":49444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4668,6,5],"tags":[5039,3600,5037,5038,5040,3974],"coauthors":[358],"class_list":["post-49393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-tajikistan","category-uzbekistan","tag-kamilla-zakirova","tag-lyuli","tag-roma","tag-roma-and-sinti","tag-shakhzoda-mirakova","tag-uzbekistan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49448,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49393\/revisions\/49448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49393"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}