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Synanbibi Namatova, who is Kyrgyz, was born in 1936 in the village of Dzhail, near Kara Balta, Kyrgyzstan. “In 1969, I met Brezhnev and he presented me with a Volga GAS 24 car as a reward for my good work,” she recalled. Maksat Nepesov interviewed her in the village of Ak Bashat [Sosnovka] on March 20, 2009.

My name is Syjnanbibi. I was born on March 8, 1936, in the village of Dzhail, near Kara Balta. Earlier [in the Soviet era], the village was called Bolshevik.

My childhood was very nice. I never worked on a farm; my parents raised horses. For my first six years in school, I studied on the kolkhoz [collective farm]. Then I moved to Bishkek to live with my relatives because my parents were engaged in stockbreeding so they did not stay in one place – they often wandered. My parents had more than 100 horses on their farm. I graduated from Bishkek’s school No. 1. At school, I studied well but I don’t remember what marks I had got or what subjects I liked the most.

At that time Russian was considered the most prestigious language. I know three languages: Russian, Kyrgyz, and German, but I’ve already forgotten German. I know Russian because I studied with Russian children in Bishkek. In the capital, there were a lot of Russian-speaking people.

My university years in Leningrad were also good. I lived without a care in the world, had fun, and relaxed. I studied at the Textile University in Leningrad and I graduated from there. I had two girlfriends in Leningrad. One was called Lera. At that time she was married, but after some years her relatives told me that she had died. My years as a student were carefree and very cheerful. My hobbies were singing and dancing. We sang a lot of Russian songs.

I got married in 1955. I was 19 years old. It was arranged by our parents. My husband worked as a teacher. I went to work at a factory called Forty Years of October [in Bishkek]. We made clothing there. I started out as a young technologist and I worked there for 13 years. Now that factory is gone. Instead, there is a shopping center called Silk Way. My job was to train employees in the textile business; sometime the young girls who came to work at the factory didn’t know how to correctly control the needle.

I spent many years in Bishkek. My family was well off. We had a good, two-story house in Bishkek. I remember that there was a shop nearby. The house was located near a mosque, at the intersection of Moscow and Gogol streets. Then my father forced us to move to a collective farm and, with my family, we moved to Sosnovka in 1965. I threw everything away and moved to the village. My life changed. I began to work as a shepherd – I did that for 15 years. During that time, the kolkhoz [collective farm] helped us a lot.

It was very hard to move from Bishkek to the village. In the city, especially in the capital, everything is always clean. In the village, everything is dirty. It was hard, but I got used to it. Now I think, if a person is healthy, it is better for him to live in the village, because there is milk, meat, cabbage, and tomatoes and it’s all natural and available. We grow everything ourselves. But if you live in a city, you can’t keep everything in your refrigerator – you have to go to the market. Here, you can just go out to the yard, pick something, wash it, and eat it. Now, certainly, in my old age, I don’t need anything. The main thing that I need is calmness. Therefore, I think it is better to live in the village.

In 1969, I met Brezhnev and he presented me with a Volga GAS 24 car as a reward for my good work. I was a hero of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. I traveled all over the USSR. I visited Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. During the Soviet era, it was possible to travel easily.

I was a Communist and an intelligent woman. To be a Communist means to be fair and to be responsible for everything that those who have more senior posts tell you to do and to always be alert. In that time, there was very strict control from Moscow. I think it was good. People were more obedient. Earlier, you were at work all day and, in the evening, you went home. Now people do not know what to do.

I’ve always been a Muslim. Even when I was a Communist, I never let go of my Muslim beliefs. I still prayed to God, just as I had since I was a child, although, in the Soviet days, if you even said “God,” it was bad and you could sometimes be punished. Nowadays there are more believers than there were in the Soviet period, because, in the Soviet period, the Communists did allow people to be believers. I’m a Muslim, but I do not pray – I simply believe in God. But I also celebrate many Muslim holidays. For example, on Ramadan, I fast. But for the past two years, I did not fast because I am already old and have a problem with my stomach. In my family, nobody went to religious school. I always pass young men at religious schools and wish them all the best and, as their elder, give them lots of useful and clever advice.

My favorite dish is beshbarmak. Here is how we prepare this dish: we specially raise a sheep for a month or two and then we kill it, salt it, and keep it for the right amount of time. Then we cut off a piece of meat, throw it in a pot, and boil it for two hours. We cook the noodles separately. Then we cut the meat up into small slices and we add the noodles and onions and pepper to taste.

I can also tell you about Stalin, Andropov, and many other influential people of that time. Stalin and Andropov were very decent people and wielded power effectively. People understood and obeyed them. Now our president [Kurmanbek Bakiyev] issues orders and nobody obeys. If there is rigid control, though, everything is good. Everyone knows his duty and how to conduct himself. I also remember Khrushchev’s times. I lived in the city and my brother and sister were students and, in the morning, they would go and stand in lines for three or four hours to buy bread. We had money, but it was difficult to buy anything. And the regime was getting softer and the controls weren’t so strict and rigid. In Brezhnev’s time, things got better.

Now, in Bakiyev’s time, there are many criminals. If he was just more strict and rigid, things would be good in this country. It is very bad that the Soviet Union has broken up. If we still had the Soviet Union, everything would be very good. Now the youth have become lazy – they are all idlers, not like we were in the past. Back then, if you did not work for three days, you would be forced to work. At that time, everyone worked or studied. Now the majority of the young people don’t work and don’t study. They just live on their parents’ money. For example, I remember, my grandmother, who was 103 years old, called me once at 3 a.m. and asked me to come see her at her home. I arrived before 10 a.m. that same morning. But these days, I don’t think my children would arrive so quickly if I asked them to come see me.

My mother died in 1985. My father died in 1996. My husband died in 2007. I have seven children and all my children are educated. My oldest son works as a tractor driver. My second son is a military man, a colonel, who lives in Kant. One of my daughters works as a bookkeeper for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bishkek. My children always help me financially. My grandsons have already finished school – some of them have already graduated from universities and many of them have already married. I have 14 great-grandchildren and 20 grandchildren. My grandchildren study at KNU [Kyrgyz National University] and at KTU [Kyrgyz Technical University].

Thanks to God, I have everything I need: food, clothing, and money. Now the main thing is money. In the past, it wasn’t like that. Back then we thought only about how to live well and how to raise our children. My son, who lives here in the village, works as a tractor driver. He finished his time in the army and then he got a little bit spoiled and so I ordered him to leave everything and come to the village and, since then, he has worked as a tractor driver.