Headline

Umut Aidarova was born in 1932 in the village of Kotormo in the Nookat region, near Osh, Kyrgyzstan. “In the early 1920s, our family went through a difficult time… the Soviet authorities labeled my father an enemy of the people and he was sent to prison in Osh,” she recalled. Nurshat Ababakirov interviewed her in Kotormo on April 22, 2009.

I was born in 1932 in the village of Kotormo, in Eski Nookat rayon [Old Nookat county], a century after it was settled. Agriculture was the primary occupation for most residents back then – there was only a little bit of trade. Eski Nookat was not on a major trade route until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when it became the only connection between Batken oblast [province] and the rest of the country.

Eski Nookat is a large valley watered by Kyrgyz Ata River, which originates in the beautiful, snowcapped Ala-Too Mountain range. The mountainous skyline surrounding Nookat Valley is particularly beautiful. The jaggedness of the mountains contrasts with the even surface of the valley floor. To the southeast, the rocky, snow-covered mountains peaks touch the sky, their slopes are cloaked in evergreens and their bases are naked hills, crisscrossed by animal trails. To the northwest, brick red hills rise from the valley floor.

This natural fortress has given Eski Nookat residents a distinct identity and a sense of security. The population of Eski Nookat includes local Kyrgyz clans and a large Uzbek minority – they have lived fairly peacefully for many years. Remarkably, the valley has its own dialects of both Kyrgyz and Uzbek, even though it is only 40 kilometers away from the ancient city of Osh, the epicenter of Kyrgyzstan’s primary southern dialects.

The Uzbek minority in Eski Nookat is concentrated around the administrative center. The Kyrgyz population, which lives in the foothills, is chiefly engaged in livestock breeding and agriculture; the Uzbek population, concentrated around the bazaars, is sedentary and focuses on trade, craftsmanship, and agriculture.

Eski Nookat’s rich water resources and relatively cool weather make it a favorable location for agriculture. The valley has long been famous for its potatoes, tobacco, and delicious apples – known as jyldyz alma [star apples]. In 2003, the administrative center, Nookat, acquired the status of a city, since its population had swollen and as trade and industry had become developed. These days, agriculture doesn’t provide enough employment for the valley’s growing population. More and more youth are leaving for bigger cities, looking for better lives.

The village where I was born is located in the southern part of Nookat Valley, close to the snowcapped mountains, which provide water for irrigation and drinking. I spent my entire life in Kotormo, only leaving to visit my relatives and my 11 children – most of whom now live outside of Nookat – in cities like Bishkek.

My father’s name was Duisho. Before the 1930s, when the Soviet authorities began collectivization, he was the richest man in our village. He was known for his skills as a craftsman and a farmer. Although never received any formal education, he was literate person and he had remarkable math skills. He was well respected and my family was considered ak sook [white boned].

In 1916, during the unsafe days known as Urkun, [1] he fled with my grandparents to Kashgar. When he returned, he built a big, three-room house on the outskirts of the village. The house, standing at the entrance to the village, had a full view of the Nookat Valley. Nearby, there was a slow, shallow river, which watered our fields. It was well-furnished with things like copper jugs, old chests, and carpets. All three rooms had wooden floors, which was a luxury at that time. Unlike so many other families in our village, we did not have to lay down thick layers of blankets, or worse, dried grass, to sleep on. One of the rooms was bigger than the other two, and that’s where we would receive the guests who often came to consult my father.

The most enviable thing about the house, though, were the glass windows in every room, which provided grand views. Of course, our house did not come close to looking like a mansion in the modern sense, but it was definitely bigger and higher than the other houses in Kotormo. It contrasted sharply with the poverty of the rest of the village, where few people had more than one or two rooms. Even though I was young, I appreciated my father’s efforts to get glass for the windows and to install wooden floors. My father was a good farmer, too. We had nine mares, 10 cows, and about 60 sheep. That was quite a large number of livestock for the area, since the Nookat Valley was best suited for agriculture, rather than stockbreeding.

In the early 1920s, our family went through a difficult time. Although I was not born yet, I have heard enough stories to understand the seriousness of the situation. When the repressions started against the kulaks, [2] the Soviet authorities labeled my father an “enemy of the people” and he was sent to prison in Osh. Our house was confiscated and it became a school. Our kitchen utensils, carpets, and copper jugs were sold in the bazaar and the money went to help establish kolkhozi [collective farms]. Our family was left with only those things that could not be sold at the bazaar. We moved to our sheepfold and lived side-by-side with our animals. There were no wooden floors and no windows – just bare walls. Then our livestock was taken away and our sheep became the core of the newly established Kotormo kolkhoz’s herd.

After three years, my father was released. Our kolkhoz hired him as a shepherd and put him in charge of 350 sheep. He did not like to talk about his days in prison but, while shepherding in the mountains, he would often silently cry, remembering his lost years and his humiliation. When I turned nine, I began to help my father with his work.

Every spring, we would make a two-day trip along the Kyrgyz Ata River to Kara Koi jailoo, a beautiful alpine pasture, which had its own mazar [a sacred place], rocky mountains, thick forests, and rich grass. As a child, I loved to spend summers at the jailoo. The mountain air was so fresh. The sun would shine for only about 10 hours, because of the high mountain skyline. At the jailoo, we would stockpile food for the winter. There was an abundance of milk from mares and goats so, throughout the summer, we would make sarymai [baked butter], kurut [dried, salty yogurt balls], and kaimak [sour cream].

Down in the village, summer was unbearably hot and everything was usually still until 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., when the heat subsided. Then people would go to the fields and work until it got dark and nothing could be seen. Even children were expected to help; they, too, went out to the fields to work alongside their elder siblings and their parents. The lazy kids were required to deliver food and tea to the people working in the fields.

Life at the jailoo was much more interesting than life down in the village. In the morning, I would wake up long before dawn and help my mother milk cows and let animals out so that they would have enough time to reach faraway places with better grass. Calves had to be taken to their mothers for milk and then taken away – this was mainly the children’s responsibility. Bringing wood from nearby forests to build fires to boil milk was also one of our jobs. Despite my young age, I took a lot of responsibility. And I grew into a thickset girl of average height.

There were about 30 families living in Kotormo by the time and the kolkhozes were fully functioning by then. There was an effort to eradicate illiteracy. Our house was used as the school until a new school was built. Since there were no Russian teachers and no Kyrgyz people who could speak good Russian, we were taught Kyrgyz using Latin letters. We had only one class, which covered the basics of mathematics and grammar. It included students of all ages – 30-year-olds as well as 15-year-olds. Younger students would giggle at the awkward attempts of grown-ups to solve math problems or write grammar exercises on the blackboard.

Then more misfortune came to our family. My father was caught selling a sheep in the Nookat bazaar. He was taken from the bazaar and sentenced to two years in the prison in Osh. I learned later that some local government officials had ordered him to sell a big sheep so that they could replace it with a smaller one and keep the profit. It took a long time for me to learn what had really happened, since talking publicly about these kinds of things – except for repeating the official version – was a taboo. Anyway, my father spent another two years in prison.

For a while we were not allowed to go to school. And my elder brother, Mamaziya, was not allowed to serve in the army. It was a big blow for him, since serving in the army was considered a sacred duty for all men, and young men who did not serve were reproached. He had a stroke and never fully recovered.

When I turned 17, I got married. It was February 17, 1949. I thought I was a little too young for marriage, but I had to agree, because it helped my family financially. My fiancée was Abakir Aidarov, 22, a hard working and good looking young man. He was the oldest man in his family, since his father died in World War II. His family, which consisted of his younger brother, his sister, and his mother, was poor. I realized that I would have to work hard, alongside Abakir, to provide sufficient food for my new family.

Abakir borrowed a goat from someone to slaughter it for the wedding party. It was a modest – but not cheap – feast. At that time hardly anybody was in a position to organize parties at all. Everyone was working for the kolkhoz and could barely make ends meet. Abakir bought a lot of flour to make bread and to cook other dishes. He invited relatives and friends from the village. As a wedding present, he gave me a scarf he had bought in Margilon, Uzbekistan.

Abakir was 14 when his father went to war and he – as the oldest man in his family – had been required to take responsibility for his family. Because he was the oldest man in the family, he didn’t have to got to war. Still, his situation posed obstacles to his development. He did remarkably well in school and his teachers noticed his ability. The local government was interested in sending young people to study in the cities and Abakir was picked as a candidate to be sent to study in Frunze [Bishkek]. But his mother, fearing that his younger brother, Mamatkan, and sister, Ainisa, would not be able to support the family, didn’t want him to go. So, shocking his teachers, he deliberately failed the interview.

In our agricultural society, where physical capacity was the most important asset, Abakir became his family’s breadwinner and his mother occupied herself with cooking and other household chores. However, since he was young, adults did not take him seriously when it came to issues like distributing land and food.

Abakir fully understood how harsh life for his family would be if he left – and so he didn’t leave. At the same time, he realized the importance of education. So, although he didn’t have a chance to get an education himself, he did everything possible to help our 11 children get educated, despite economic difficulties that were not so different from what he had faced in his childhood.

When I joined Abakir’s family, they lived in a small mud house, which had many holes in its walls. During the winter, everything outside was covered with snow and hungry sparrows would enter the house through the holes, searching for food and warmth. Then, Abakir and Mamatkan would quickly plug the holes with rags, catch the birds, and cook them. That was the reason they had holes in their walls: they were hungry.

Abakir was conscripted into the army in 1951, when he was 24. He was sent to help rebuild Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, which had been destroyed [in 1948] with a massive earthquake. He returned in 1954 because he had problems with one of his ears. Upon his return, he became a driver, delivering stuff from our kolkhoz to the village of Kubasai, near the city of Margilon, Uzbekistan. He did that for about two years.

From the beginning, our kolkhoz focused on producing tobacco. Men and women alike worked on the farm, but they had different tasks. Men were largely busy with irrigating, spreading fertilizer, and transporting tobacco leaves. Women’s work just as hard: they weeded the fields, picked tobacco leaves, and bundled them together by running a string through each leaf with a large needle. The work would sometimes last until morning, since it had to be done before the leaves got soft.

We got only 60 days of maternity leave back then. There was only one nurse, named Mingsuluu, for our whole kolkhoz – and no hospitals. Women would give birth in their houses and, sometimes, in the tobacco fields. So many newborns would get ill and die. The infant mortality rate was extremely high. Also, famine and hard work in the tobacco fields weakened women’s health. As a result, names such as Turdubek and Satybaldy, which symbolized strength, became popular among the villagers. Children given the name Satybaldy, which means “bought one,” were given to relatives or grandparents to hide them from illness or death.

In 1968, after I gave birth to my eighth child, the blankets of my children’s cradle were stolen right in front of our house. I did not bother to look for them, because I knew that somebody who had no children had stolen them, believing that my blankets would allow them to have kids at last. Everybody in our village knew that none of my children had been seriously ill or died. All of my elder sister Salima’s eight children were also healthy.

Because women had to both do the household chores and work on the farm, they needed their children’s help in the fields. My children usually started helping me as soon as their backs were strong enough to pick tobacco in the fields and they learned how to use the needle to string the leaves together. So that the women could focus on their work, our kolkhoz distributed a cup of milk and a slice of bread for each line of tobacco leaves. At home, we mainly ate jarma, a gruel made of barley and buttermilk. During those years, older people did not want to eat potatoes and tomatoes, since they were foreign foods.

For us, May 1 was not only Labor Day, but also the day when each family was given the land it would cultivate that year. In a festive mood, our supervisor, Rahman, who was tall and funny, would organize wrestling matches beyond a small hill, where the men could not see us. The woman who won the match would get some extra land. I wrestled a woman who was much bigger than me. I really wanted the extra land to help support my large family and she couldn’t stop laughing while we were wrestling – so I won. In the evening, our group of 15 women would organize singing parties and drink bozo [Kyrgyz beer], the only kind of alcohol we drank at the time.

In 1975, when I gave birth to my tenth child, whom we named Baktybek, I was given the Hero Mother medal, which guaranteed a number of privileges, such as higher wages and the ability to buy products like food, appliances, and fuel, without standing in lines. Even though I had so many children, I spent most of my time working in the tobacco fields, rather than raising them. Fortunately, they were smart enough to take care of each other.