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Ilhomjan Karimov, [1] who is Uzbek, was born in 1924 in the village of Bazar Korgan in the Jalal-Abad [province] of Kyrgyzstan. He worked as a tractor driver. “During collectivization, several people from the government came to Bazar Korgan … At that time, no one knew anything about collectivization and some people were against it and they beat up the two government people with stones,” he recalled. Abdurahman Aripov interviewed him in Bazar Korgan March 10, 2009.

When I was a kid, before the war, we lived like middle class people – not poor and not so rich. We didn’t have a farm and none of our family members farmed. During the hard times, everyone suffered alike.

I went to school for only three and half years, because of the war. Most of my classmates and my teachers died in the war. The teachers were the first people taken to war – they went as commanders. Most of them didn’t come back. Kamoldin [one of the teachers] and some other teachers came back from war, though.

I wasn’t interested in education. I didn’t have a favorite class. I never dreamed of getting a higher education and becoming some important person. At school we usually copied down everything written on the blackboard and listened to the teacher. And after going home, we did some homework. That’s all what we did at school.

We studied in our native language at school. We had almost no Russian classes. I almost always spoke Uzbek, because it is my native language. Then Russian people started sending us equipment and I became a tractor driver. And with the Russians I used to speak Russian and with the Uzbeks, Uzbek. And soon, the Russians learned to speak Uzbek, too.

In my childhood, with my friends, I played “nuts.” We used to throw nuts at one another on the ground. And if I hit it, I took both – mine and the other one, which I won. Also, we played a game called eshak mindi where we used to jump over each other. One person was standing bending over and we jumped over him.

And after that, I began gambling. Once, after I got involved in gambling, my mom heated a small coin on the fire and put it in my hand and asked me if I would gamble anymore. I was crying, “I will not gamble, I will not gamble.” After that, I stopped playing games for money.

At night, our grandmothers told us fairy tales and stories. They also told us about TV, which could show us what was going on in other parts of the world. The first TV’s came to our village in the beginning of the sixties. And we gathered at people’s houses and watched TV together.

I didn’t go to the war and I didn’t fight; I worked as a tractor driver. Young people were taken to the war. Old people were taken into work battalions to fix old broken railways. Children were taken to Toshkumir [a small coal-mining city].

The war had very bad effects on our lives. There was a big problem with food; getting food was hard. People were starving. And most of the people who left for the war didn’t come back. Those who did return, came back wounded and sick.

Our village, Bazar Korgan, changed a lot. Almost everybody was sent to the war and those who weren’t, were sent to the mines. There was no one left to farm. We were starving, there was no food. Only a few tractor drivers were left in the village and we farmed everything. We planted and grew food for people. It was a difficult time. We sometimes boiled grass and ate it.

There was no salt in the village. People got fat because of that. Everybody experienced problems with their weight because of the lack of salt. However there was salt brought from Toktogul by people on donkeys. It was then crushed into small pieces and sold for very high prices. It was like that. But then the mulberries ripened and we ate them and waited for the wheat to ripen. But we couldn’t wait until it was fully ripe. We used to cook half-ripe wheat and eat it. We walked without shoes. Our feet were sore and, after that, we made shoes out of leather. We survived somehow.

Many people were resettled here. Many people moved here and many moved from here. Rich people were forced to move to Azerbaijan – our grandparents had to leave. And some of them were forced to move to the suburbs of Tashkent, into a village called Kovunchi.

During collectivization, several people from the government came to Bazar Korgan. A guy called Bematov, who had a gun, and another guy, a Tatar, came and told everyone about collectivization. At that time, no one knew anything about collectivization and some people were against it and they beat up the two government people with stones. They were half-dead but didn’t die.

My friends and I saw the big crowd surrounding the government men. It was near Taylak Ata [a small café where old people gather, in the center of Bazar Korgan, near the central mosque]. We went over and saw that one of the people was dying – suffering and shaking on the ground. At that moment, a person with his face covered came over with a knife and took his head. After that, the two men were buried in a cemetery not far from the center.

Later, the government people who were elected tried to collectivize us. Some people were against it, but they were taken at night from their houses and sent to Osh and imprisoned. And, after that, everything was collectivized. Everyone worked. I worked with my father, growing cotton.

My father and I used to take all the cotton in a big cart to be weighed. There was a person, a receiver, who weighed all the cotton and, after weighing it, gave a signed paper for you to take to the cashier, who would give you money. The cashier sat near the gates with piles of money. And, next to him, there was a store that sold everything: sugar, candies, clothes, shoes.

If anyone had anything, it was collected for common use. If I had a cart, I would give it up and if you had something, you would give it up. And so, in this way, collectivization was established in our village. Before people get used to collectivization, life was difficult. But after everyone got used to it, everything was fine.

We got our salaries according to how much we worked. We had to submit a paper to get our salaries. Our roads here were in very bad condition and we were forced to fix roads ourselves, manually, by putting gravel in the holes. Only after we fixed the roads, a person would sign our paper and we could get our salaries.

I am a Muslim. My parents always said that there is only one God and that we have to pray five times a day. So I just follow their religion and do what they taught me. During Soviet times, though, the government put a lot of pressure on religious people. Many mosques were closed and we used hide at home or in the fields to pray. During Ramadan and other Muslim holidays, we had to pray in the fields, too. If we were caught, our own Uzbeks would punish us for praying and being religious. There were several old mosques in our village, but all of them were closed and we couldn’t enter them. One of them became a garage and, after that, it became a cotton plant, but now it is open again. We couldn’t fast back then, either. At school, I remember, our teacher forced us to eat and drink during class so that we couldn’t fast. We tried to fast in a hidden way, without letting anyone know. Now, as you see, I can easily go and pray and fast whenever I want, without any fear. Back then, people could study religion in many cities, like Bukhara, which had some of the best religious teachers. They studied at night, gathering secretly at someone’s house. But no one from my family ever studied there.

My favorite food was osh [plov – rice pilaf]. The way people make food has changed a lot since my childhood. Now it tastes much better and we can make whatever we want. Before, osh was made from other grains, not rice. People almost didn’t eat osh at all during the war. These days, no one makes osh like they used to. Nowadays, life is better – you can buy everything from markets and make whatever you want.

As you can see, nowadays we even don’t eat bread that was made couple of days earlier – we eat fresh bread. But during war we ate anything we could get. Before, a rich person could afford everything he wanted and poor person couldn’t get many of the things he wanted. Sometimes, during the difficult times, we didn’t even get bread. Now we have new foods, like lagman [2] and kabobs, which came from other nations.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, everybody got land from the government, but some people don’t want to work hard at farming. Those who can work well and have some knowledge go abroad and work there. As you see, there are a lot people building huge houses and buying expensive cars. All of these things were bought with money sent from abroad. These people working abroad are helpful for our country. People can afford many things because of them. They pay for weddings and parties with money sent from abroad.