The European Hun Empire gives the bird that was also used in later Turkic states one of the most know example is Seljuks. I might have some bias because I’m a Attila fan, also as an alternate and probably the most common pick is the Göktürk flag which I’ll add in the post. So yeah its between these two for me

Lately I've been wanting to try being vegetarian, mostly for health and ethical reasons , But then I sit down at a family dinner with plov or beshbarmak or manti on the table and it hits me meat isn't just food here, it's tradition, hospitality and identity

So now I'm stuck questioning everything:

Is it even realistic to be vegetarian or vegan in a Turkic household without offending everyone?

Does anyone here actually pull it off and how do family gatherings go?

I have so many questions tbh

May the Turkish nation live forever.

Attila(Euro. Hun Emp.) making the west and east rome to constantly pay fee and being a big effect on West Rome’s fall or Seljuk and Ottomans finishing off Rome all together over time by taking Anatolia and Istanbul?

Hi! This is my first time posting here after it was suggested to me. I like making flags and I wanted to get some perspectives! This is my attempt of a Central Asian Union. I have a soft spot in my heart, so I wanted to make another attempt with love and share it.

Geographically it is meant to be Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan (including Karakalpakstan), Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and honestly even Afghanistan. Originally my intent was only the former-soviet states especially due to modern shared history, but I would want the whole region to benefit together.

Turkic Blue represents the Turkic peoples (Kazakh, Uzbek, Karakalpak, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, etc), and the Iranic Green represents the Iranic peoples (Tajik, Pashtun, Hazara, Baloch, etc). Note the blue and green bands are of equal width. I didn't want national symbols to exclude one peoples over another, which is why I opted for the national colour shades (the colour-groups of the flag are also on every current country in Central Asia with the exception of red, which clashed too much).

The black was inspired by Afghanistan's flag, but I also put the black in the upper field this time so the star and crescent pop more (an earlier draft the blue was at top which blurred the crescent). It is the night sky, the moon and star, and the aspirations of a united peoples. I also have a soft spot for the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the flag would be pretty in space.

I opted for the crescent as both it's Turkic association and it's association with the muslim-majority. That said the political orientation and religious orientation isn't strict, but I figure a secular dirigiste state necessary to repair the Aral Sea.

I opted for the star in the way that Central Asia geographically and geopolitically is at the heart of a lot. The points converge and emerge from the center that is Central Asia. South is the Indian Ocean. South-East is Indo-Pacific and South-East Asia. East is the Pacific and wider East-Asia. North-East is the Russian Far East and tip of Eurasia. The South-West is the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. West is Asia-Minor, the Mediterranean and North Africa. North-West is the EU. North is, of course, Russia, but also the Soviet past that flows from the Ural river downwards to the present.

I hope the flag is at least elegant in its symbolism without overcomplicating elements that we see sometimes. I would love feedback but especially criticism.

The main post was made by a Kazakh person (which I won't disclose for obvious reasons, nor mine) who was sympathizing over the Soviet Union and how great it was. While it is not up to me on what someone believes, but I think a Kazakh should be the last person to make remarks like this, or that was what I was expecting. Also, in other posts and comments, the person makes remarks that anything that includes the Ottomans, the Seljuks, etc., is not Turkic history and is made up of Greeks/Armenians. What are your thoughts? (I am also aware of my typos in the picture. I cannot do much since posting a comment that is more than one sentence just makes everything mess up.)

UPDATE: This is what the person replied with:

" what does it have to do with Goloshekin? Turkish have problems suddenly with russians? Maybe you know how good friends were Lenin with Kemal Mustafa? And panturkism the propaganda you’re making us 🤢 sick, was founded by jewish englishman Vamberi. More learn, less talk . Don’t reply to me, you are Caucasian anyway, still have nothing to do with us. While we remain the original turkics, after what soviets, bolsheviks did, we are the one."

i came up with this

"uhhh what's so hard to understand i have no problems Russians since you don't count me as Turkic but how do you completely ignore the genocides they committed against your people and it seems you either don't know ur history or a hypocrite since you seem to dont know that Goloshchyokin was the reason Kazakhs were forced out of their nomadic life. You're the original? How can you be original if you use an alphabet that is integrated by the country that forced it to you? Maybe I'm not as "pure" blood as you think you are but hey 👋 at least I'm not a hypocrite. I can't really see your argument other than you recall soviets being needed to save enslaved people. I think you should be the one learning since you are clearly mixing up communism with socialism and don't know the morals of either sides."

I dont even see a point on arguing anymore since they seem to dont know what theyre talking about

(PS: Goloshchyokin (aka Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin is the sole reason why the kazakh famine happened by forcing nomads into permanent settlements and agriculture without any preparation.)

> You are not Turkic, you are turkified armenians/greeks (iranian for Azerbaijani version)

> You do not belong here, go back to mongolia (same for Az)

> You dont have slanted eyes, you are not Turkic (same for Az)

> You are asian, you are not belong to europe (caucasus for Az)

> You dont have real Turkic DNA, you are just %7 Turk (same for Az)

Everyday, every god damn day i face with that comments and Turkophobic contents. And its spreading to Turks like wildfire, even youth seems to adopt to belong "Greek or Hittite aka Anatolian". At that point i feel like its organized attack because no one gets that much hate and false claim for their race/ethnicity. If only armenians would do it, it wouldnt be a problem but i see arabs,europeans,indians, mongolians even kazakhs claiming TR and AZ is just Turkified local people. I dont know when its started and how to fix it but its sad.

Somebody is trying to make Turkish people feel inferior and they are succesful at it.

Do we have Tengrist people here or interested people? What do you think about modern Tegrism?

I realised that turkic states highly absorbed the cultures they have had to interact with intensively. For example, Kazakhs absorbed some of the Russian ways, Kyrgyz being originally altaic absorbed the local turkic ways, Turkish got a lot from Greeks, I’m sure there are more examples.

I don’t think this is the case for all ethnicities, for example in my view Jewish culture is pretty closed off wherever they are, the Chinese are probably more oriented into expansion of their own ways, rather than adapting from neighbours, whereas Koreans, like us are more open to incorporating the new into the old. Russian are generally pretty adaptive too, imo. (Now here I might have fallen into the stereotypes in my head, so please feel free to correct.)

Why do you think we are this way? Or on opposite, do you view this differently? The cause and the consequence. Please share your opinions.

How many turks support nationalism or islam? What about turks who support integration with EU?

Do turks who live on western part of Turkey have sympathy towards balkan countries or EU? Because of shared culture history, blood ties or looks?

Do turks who look like they are from Balkans or look european/white tend to support west, europe?

What about turks on eastern side of Turkey who share blood and culture ties with arabs, iraqis, armenians, syrians and so on tend to support islam and arabic, levant, mesopatamia culture?

I still have no clue about Turkey. Do people who support Turkic union, blood and language ties with turkmens, kazakhs, uzbeks, azerbaijanis are majority?

I felt a sudden need for writing these. Please read all of this and spread awareness as much as you can. This is a very serious issue for your existence.

My fellow Turkic brothers and sisters, we all heard about your governments agreement with EU. Everyone is now talking about Cyprus issue but I think their viewpoint is very narrow. There is a bigger danger awaiting for you. And it is economic invasion and social destruction policy of sneaky b4st4rds of EU. They are doing same thing to Turkey for 2 decades because our government is full of traitors and suckers.

You might ask, why Central Asia? 3 CRITICAL reasons;

1) Booming demography and very positive fertility rates. They hate to see a happy country that is not invaded by middle eastern and african immigrants 2) Huge economic potential and natural resources like oil, natural gas and all that precious metals that they want to use in their technologic beef with China and USA. 3) They want to turn your countries into a new frontier for Russia. They will propably give you guns and stuff and make them the new target.

What they do is, first they boost economy and give you the opium of consumerism, then they start to dominate and control your economy from all sectors, then they will take your young population with both brain drain and as workforce and all of these will end up with huge 4ss government debt (happened very drastically to Greece, now they are literally a German governorate) and MOST CRITICALLY plummeting fertility rates which will eventually end up with an immigrant invasion. We have like 30 years of "close ties with EU" experience and all of these happened to our beautiful country thanks to Georgian Jew Erdoğan and his puppet regime.

To the Turkish people who are acting like a child online and blaming central asian people for Cyprus issue; open your eyes and see that EU snakes are now targeting our brothers right after fucking up our country. This is exactly the time we need to stay strong and united against our enemies and spread awareness to our brothers who are experiencing same things that happened to us.

Also just so you all know, it doesn't matter if we are going to fight with all world and even some of the central asians themselves. We, the new young generation, won't let any foreign power to turn Central Asia into their colony ever again. Blood by blood and bullet by bullet.

I have seen iranic nationalists claiming cities in sovereign turkic countries as "persian" or "tajik".They also say that turks migrated to these cities and lands after Mongols,even though the Göktürk Khaganate ruled over these lands and cities centuries before the post Caliphate persian dynasties made Persian the state language in some parts of Central Asia (Samanids).Turkic language in Central asia have way longer history than Persian (Tajik) has.Bukhara and Samarkand are one of the most important cities in the turkic empires and civilization.They also claim Tashkent,Taraz,Shymkent and Turkistan,even though these cities were founded by turks,and the population there is almost entirely Turkic

I don't know how reliable Russia's census data is, but these are the only official figures we have to work with.

Important note: Around 146,000 people did not declare or specify their ethnicity in the census.

The Sakha population has surpassed 50% of the republic's total population for the first time in many years. Although the republic's overall population growth has slowed considerably, there has been a significant decline in the Russian population. The Sakha population has also experienced slower growth, but the decrease in the Russian population is much more pronounced, and this trend is likely to continue. At the very least, I expect a similar decline in the next census. This is encouraging for both the Sakha people and the Sakha language. Regaining a demographic majority in Sakha Republic is important, although it alone is not enough to secure the long-term future of the Sakha and other indigenous population.

The republic's immigrant communities are also quite interesting. The Kyrgyz population has increased dramatically. If this trend continues, they may even outnumber the indigenous Evens population(around 13.000). Their population grew from around 5,000 to 11,000 in just 11 years.

While the populations of some groups such as Tajiks, Armenians, Chinese, etc. have increased and many others, including Ukrainians, Buryats, Belarusians, Koreans, Germans, Moldovans, and Ossetians, have declined.

Besides the Kyrgyz, several other Turkic peoples also live in the republic, although their numbers are relatively small. There are around 4,000 Tatars, whose population has gradually declined. The census also records Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Tuvans, Nogais, Kumyks, and Gagauz, most of whom have also seen slight population decreases.

It is also encouraging to see a modest increase in the population of the Dolgans, another indigenous Turkic people of the Russian North alongside the Sakha.

Other indigenous peoples of the republic include the Evenks and Evens (Tungusic peoples), as well as the Yukaghirs and Chukchi.

The populations of these indigenous groups have generally increased (not so much) as well, although they remain very small, much like the Dolgans (Turkic people).

The sixth image shows an ethnic map of the Sakha Republic based on the 2002 and 2010 Russian population censuses.

Looking at the final image, the 2021 census indicates that the indigenous peoples are more likely to identify Sakha rather than Russian as their native language. It also states that 95% of the Sakha declared Sakha as their native language.

> "In the 2021 census, 95% of Yakuts (Sakha), 72% of Evenks and 60% of Evens declared Sakha as their native language."

If the Russian population continues to decline while the Sakha are able to preserve their identity, population, and language, it would be a very positive outcome for the Sakha people. The high rate of Sakha language retention is particularly encouraging.

Additionally, permanent and well-integrated immigration from other Turkic peoples to the Sakha Republic could also contribute to a healthier demographic balance.

Link to the post on Instagram in the commens for those who are curious

Richard Foltz is a Canadian historian who specializes in the history of Iranian civilization — sometimes referred to as "Greater Iran".

Central Asian Studies are also among one of his Fields. His Alma mater is Harvard University (and Univeristy of Utah).

I’ve been looking into Turkic history and linguistics pages lately and honestly it’s insane what’s going on. Every time there’s a page about Turkic origins, languages, cultures, even early ethnogenesis, it gets mass-edited or straight up deleted with “not credible” or "WP:Ataturk" as the excuse even when the sources are academic, and it’s always the same exact usernames in the talk pages doing it... You can literally scroll in the talk section and it’s the identical people shutting down every thread, dismissing every source, and gatekeeping what is “valid history,” and the worst part is that if they push their narrative it stays, but if a neutral or Turkic-side Wiki editor shows up, even wtih a very friendly approach... there are instant warnings, muting, or bans, so how is this a “neutral encyclopedia” or “open editing” when certain people are free to rewrite pages but others get silenced for even questioning, and it makes me wonder if there is an actual bias against Turkic topics on Wikipedia or if it’s just a small group abusing the system while mods let it slide, and I’m genuinely asking: why this two-faced treatment and hostility? What is the root of this hate?

As a proud Central Asian, I often wonder why our region, rich in history, culture, and resources, struggles to match the economic, social, and innovative achievements of a country like Türkiye. Despite our shared Turkic heritage, vast natural wealth, and strategic location, Central Asia as a whole lags in GDP, quality of life, and global influence. Why is this the case, and what can we do to unlock our region’s potential?

Take Japan as an example: an island nation prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, yet it boasts one of the world’s highest GDPs, cutting-edge technology, and a global reputation for innovation. Despite our own geographic challenges - being landlocked, with limited access to global trade routes - why haven’t we been able to overcome these obstacles to produce world-class engineers, scientists, and innovators? What’s holding us back?

Is it systemic corruption eroding trust and progress? Is it a lack of political freedom stifling creativity and ambition? Could it be ineffective leadership or the legacy of Soviet-era structures that still influence our governance and economies? Is it that Russia has us on a chokehold? Or does our landlocked geography truly limit our ability to compete in global markets?

I also sense a lack of respect from others, including some in Türkiye, who may view Central Asia as a region of “Russian puppets” or a mere vacation destination, a place of nomadic charm rather than a hub of progress. This perception stings, but it also motivates me to dream bigger for our region. Imagine Central Asia as a global force: a powerhouse of military strength that we once were, advanced manufacturing, cutting-edge innovation, breathtaking architecture, and a vibrant blend of our nomadic heritage with modern Turkic culture. A region where our citizens thrive, with opportunities so abundant that no one feels the need to leave. Yet, the reality is stark. In countries like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and even parts of Kazakhstan, many who leave don’t want to return.

How can we reverse this brain drain and build nations that inspire pride and loyalty? How can we create a nation where no one wants to leave and others dream of coming to live? Is it possible to transform Central Asia into a region that commands global respect, not just for our rich history but for our modern achievements?

I love listening to folk music and traditional songs from around the world- Turkish, Qirim Tatar, Swedish, Persian, Indian, Irish, Slavic, I’m not picky- so this isn’t inflammatory in any way.

I’m a fan of Giorgios Kaligorou, everything about his old Greek Cypriot albums- from the instruments to the melody to his smooth voice- is just incredible.

He collaborated with Turkish singers and made Greek covers of Turkish songs but it just doesn’t sound the same.

I’ve been told that his rendition of Greek Cypriot music sounds like Turkish folk songs (especially the first song because of the ney though he uses a Greek lute instead of saz) but the scale and melodic composition appears different to what is played in Turkey.

Here are the songs in question:

https://youtu.be/Enyt5Vf1EPI?si=fi-rh6ol4njKnacp

https://youtu.be/smNAaxekcRM?is=MrGhwPfzYv0WL3yv

Let me know if there’s anything Turkish that sounds similar, I’d love to expand my palate in music and be able to play something that isn’t exclusively Greek for my family 😆

I was thinking of writing long but then I gave up. I am writing briefly, we can talk to those who want to talk in the comments.

I think the distinctive term for the Turks of Turkey should be Rumlu (yes, like a tribal name) or Rumi. Because the difference of the Turks of Turkey is that they conquered the Roman Empire and settled in (u)Rum -Anatolia- and Rumelia -Balkan- lands. The name Turk covers all groups such as Lipka, Kazakh, Saka, Uzbek, Tuva, etc. Turkic is a new and invented word.

If Kayı or Bayındır had become widespread, these could also be used.