In 1806, a manifesto was issued calling for conscription of nomads for the time of hostilities (Levee en Masse Manifesto). Orlovsky became one of the first artists who began depicting Bashkirs, Kalmyks and representatives of other ethnic groups of the Urals and the Volga Region. As a true follower of Romanticism, in turning to those images Orlovsky was paying tribute to Orientalism. The exoticism of costumes and armaments of Oriental warriors, bright colours, unusual faces — all those things attracted the artist. The images of oriental horsemen, with all their romantic pointedness, are at the same time very true. 

The heyday of the oriental theme in Orlovsky’s art was during the Patriotic War and foreign expeditions of 1812–1814. Ethnic military units had a great role to play in winning the war. ‘Not only the indigenous sons of Russia, but equally so the nomadic peoples, were prepared to die for the Russian land’, - S.N. Glinka, a participant in the 1812 events, wrote. 

‘A Kirghiz on Horseback’ could have been painted at that time. At that time, Kirghiz was often a misnomer for Kazakhs whose mounted squads were part of the Russian army but their appearance and armaments were different from what we see in Orlovsky’s painting. Knowing that the artist always took great pains to accurately follow ethnographic details, we will err on the side of the truth suggesting that Orlovsky depicted a Mongolian warrior. Evidence of that is resemblance of the character in A Kirghiz on Horseback to the characters of his other two paintings - Mongolians (1808, Krasnodar Regional Arts Museum), and Mongolian (1808, National Museum, Warsaw).