Abstract. The author addresses the “Kyrgyz period” of Dr Elena Kuz’mina’s professional biography and reminds working in the Complex Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition of Kyrgyzstan in the 1970es, when her immediate and long-lasting professional contacts with Kyrgyz researchers were established. Dr Kuzmina studied archaeological monuments of the region in search of the answers to the problem of Indo-Iranians’ origin. Her principle ideas are presented in the book Arians – a Way to the South (Moscow, 2008), which is shortly reviewed.

Key words: Elena E. Kuz’mina, Complex Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition of Kyrgyzstan, Ketmen Tube, origin of the Indo-Iranians, Issyk-Kul archaeology

Ploskih Vladimir Mikhailovich,
Doctor in History, Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences
of the Kyrgyz Republic
Professor of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University (Bishkek)
e-mail: ploskih37@mail.ru