 With the onset of Perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev, the residents of Bergtal could again freely practice their religious faith.After the end of the Soviet Union, many ethnic Germans emigrated from Kyrgyzstan to Germany, as with the collapse of the collective farms and other state enterprises many jobs were lost.In 1990, there were about nine hundred people of German background living in the village; by 2012, the population was down to about 500.