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Erjigit Shakirov, who is Kyrgyz, was born in 1931 in the village of Okhna in the Kadamjai district of in Batken oblast [province], Kyrgyzstan. “We studied Russian history because there were no materials about Kyrgyz history … We didn’t know our own history,” he recalled. Akylbek Baltabaev interviewed him there on March 11, 2009.

There was hardship during the war, of course As a substitute for food, we had soup made from flour and water. We ate boiled kefir during the war. There was almost no meat. Sometimes we just ate bread with tea. I remember one man had a wedding and, at the wedding, the main food they had was plov [lamb pilaf]. One little boy who had never seen rice in his life – until that day he had eaten only boiled flour – was given plov at that wedding party. He didn’t eat the rice, he just scattered it around; he wanted to eat his usual boiled flour. Along with the rice, he also tossed away the bread and meat, since he had never seen them either. He screamed, demanding his atala – this is what we called flour soup. His father was disgraced in front of everyone there. People yelled at him to leave the wedding. He put his son on his donkey and took him home.

That boy did not know what bread, meat or rice were. But now, life is much better. People have everything they need. They have vegetables and fruits. Now we eat soups like shorpa and ystyk. From time to time, we eat have rice with meat. Sometimes We also eat manty [steamed dumplings] sometimes.

Of course, back then, everyone hated Germans. People used to sing songs about Germans. In 1947, German prisoners of war were transported here and I saw them. I went to school in Halmion [25 from Kadamjai]. Our teacher took us to where the Germans lived and worked – in a colony. Their culture was totally different from ours. They built houses there and lived in them. They wore uniforms. The government criticized the Germans and their capitalism in the propaganda and in the press. But the Germans near us were not abused at all.

I started school here in Okhna in 1940 at the age of nine. I finished seventh grade in 1946. There was no secondary school in our village. The only secondary school was in Halmion. I went there and graduated from it in 1949. It was the post-war period and life was tough. There was no dormitory. Students slept in hay. We would lay down the hay and then put a piece of tarpaulin over it and sleep there. A few years later, though, when things got better, we got beds to sleep on.

We studied the same subjects as students do now: Kyrgyz language, Russian language, math, chemistry, and physics. We didn’t have any foreign language classes because we didn’t have anyone who could teach foreign languages. Our teachers were of many different nationalities: Tatars, Uzbeks, Russians, and Uyghurs. We had a shortage of Kyrgyz language teachers, so our Kyrgyz language teacher was Tatar.

Classes began at 9 a.m. and they ended at 1 p.m. I was good at geography and history. I was good at maps, too. That helped me when I entered the institute. I could navigate any map. I could find any place on any map. I wasn’t good at math, though. I majored in history at the institute. We studied Russian history because there were no materials about Kyrgyz history. There was nothing about the history of other nationalities, either. We didn’t know our own history, but we knew Russian history very well. Today, we have Kyrgyz history classes.

Before collectivization, my grandparents had their own land. During collectivization, though, all of the lands became collective farm lands. After the kolkhoz [collective farm] disappeared, the land was given back to the families that had been part of the kolkhoz. Each family got 2,500 square meters. Then the sovhoz [state farm] was created, and each family was given 800 square meters of land. We grew potatoes and corn. We bred livestock. Our uncles grew apples and apricots. They did not sell them. They just grew them for us. We never bought fruits or vegetables in the bazaar. We ate dried apricots in the winter, we used to make flour out of dried apples.

In Soviet times if you grew something, you would do it for your country. Now, if you grow anything, you do it only for yourself. Collectivization was good, but we did not have enough land. There needs to be a lot of land for collectivization to work. Some people benefited from privatization and some got nothing. For example, we did not receive any [useful] land during privatization. We received 200 square meters of land after the collapse of the Soviet Union and that land is somewhere in the middle of nowhere where you can’t grow anything. It’s too far away – we can’t get the machinery there and there’s no irrigation. The people who got good land, where you can grow something, benefited from privatization.

There were Chechens resettled here; some Ingush and Balkars were also resettled here. [1] The Chechens received houses here and lived in them. They lived a good life. Nobody tried to do anything to get them. Everyone had same amount of food. Land was given to everybody. Also, Jews and Poles were resettled here. Then those who had been resettled left. At first the Chechens stayed. But they left, too, after Stalin’s death. The government resettled these people because, if they were close to the front line [during World War II], they would have helped the enemy.

In 1949, after I finished high school, I entered the Fergana Pedagogical Institute. I graduated from it in 1953 and worked in Uzbekistan for two years. I was the only person from our whole district with a higher education. Then, in 1954, some others joined me. From 1956 until 2000, I worked here in Okhna, in our school. While I was working here, I participated in many social activities. I worked as a lecturer for our Frunze Party Committee. Later, I worked as a propagandist in the Kadamjai party organization during the sovhoz [state farm] times. In 1990, we opened a memorial museum for Abdykadyr Orozbekov, [2] who was chairman of the central executive committee of Kyrgyz SSR [and was from Okhna]. Then we opened a historical museum in the Okhna secondary school. In 1985, I was recognized as a distinguished teacher of the Kyrgyz SSR. In 2003 I was given the status of “national teacher.” I worked at the school for 50 years.

We are all Muslims. Compared to Uzbeks, Kyrgyz people were not very religious in the past. But now we have become more religious. There was no mosque here during the Soviet period; the government was against religion. Now there are many mosques. There is at least one mosque in each village. During the Soviet period, there was no freedom of religion. Religious people were persecuted. People couldn’t pray. Mosques were turned into storehouses and schools and sometimes they were just destroyed. Some people believed so deeply, though, that they would celebrate Muslim holidays in spite of the government.

In the Soviet days, women mostly worked on sovhozes, growing tobacco. Now women work more than men. They are doctors and teachers, etc. The role of women has increased today. During the Soviet times, men were the main power. They did the hard work. Back then, children often did not go to school. Instead, they picked cotton and did other farm work. They were forced to do it. I remember when I was a teacher, we used to take pupils out into the fields until December. In the summer, we used to take them to mow grass. There is nothing like that now. Back then, if they refused to go they would be held responsible for it and the militia would come and prosecute them.

Back in those days, there was no love. Arranged marriages were very common. Our parents would arrange marriages and that’s how we got married. We didn’t even see each other before the wedding. For example, I hadn’t ever seen my wife until our marriage. Our parents arranged it. I was 23 and she was 18. Now I have eight kids and four of them have received higher educations and three of them have received technical educations.