The airport was constructed as a replacement for the old Bishkek airport that was located to the south of the city, and named after the Kyrgyz epic hero, Manas, at the suggestion of country's most prominent writer and intellectual, Chinghiz Aitmatov.
Yuri Kara became known in Russia with his movies Thieves within the Law (1988) and The Feasts of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin (1990), and with his conflict with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) which was caused by his film The Prize is a Trip into Space, based on the novel Cassandra's Brand written by the Russian author Chinghiz Aitmatov.