Headline

Oktiabr Akmoldoev, who is Kyrgyz, was born in 1939, in the semi-nomadic village of Kemer, in the Talas province of Kyrgyzstan. During the collectivization drive, he and the rest of his village moved to a place near Ken-Aral and began a settled life. “I used to eat all my food with my hands, if possible. I still do. I can’t taste the food if I don’t eat it with my hands,” he said. Murat Tuloberdiev interviewed him in the city of Talas on March 23, 2009.

The process of collectivization started before I was born. During collectivization, basically the Bolsheviks confiscated all the land, livestock, and other assets from the bay-manaps [the rich], and used them to create big kolkhozi [collective farms] that belonged to everyone equally. I really supported – and still support – collectivization. During the years of collectivization, everyone became socially equal and the Kyrgyz people began to live settled lives, which led them to live more civilized lives.

During World War II, I was a little kid, but I still remember the difficult conditions of that time. Since my childhood coincided with the war, I did not have a typical childhood. All of my father’s siblings had gone to the front and had not returned. My father did not go to war because he was assigned by the government to help build the Big Chui Canal. My mother had take care of me and my two brothers on her own. Like most other people in our village, we were concerned only with getting enough food and clothing.

I don’t know about other parts of Kyrgyzstan, but in my village, during the war, we did not live a settled life. People used to live far apart from each other, in boz-uis [yurts]. Since all the strong men had gone to war, the village didn’t have enough strong people to work. People became more integrated, more caring. I guess they only survived the hardships of that time because of their cooperation. So, I guess hard times create integrity, make people sympathetic and helpful.

During the war, people had to eat some foods – if you consider them as foods – that they would not have eaten otherwise. There were cases when people had to gather grasshoppers fry them and eat them. And sometimes people ate eat at-kulaks [wild grass] root. The government was unable to deal with our problems – its only concern was defeating the Germans. So people found ways to survive on their own.

People generally hated the Germans after the war, because they were viewed as occupiers. But lately, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the attitude has been changing dramatically. As we analyze our lives, we see that the Germans were good for us. We learned many things from them. They shared their experience knowledge with us – they taught us a lot.

There were some peoples, like Karachays, Chechens, and Kalmyks, that had betrayed the Soviet Union and cooperated with Nazi Germany. So Stalin confiscated their properties and sent them to Central Asia. I think Stalin thought of us as barbarians, as wild people. So he thought that if he sent traitors to these regions, they would disperse among the barbarian people somehow. Some of the children of the forced migrants died just as they were arriving in our village. They didn’t have clothes and they were so hungry that it seemed they could eat us. Our village showed them hospitability. We shared with our homes with them.

During the reconstruction years, life got better – but it did not happen all of a sudden. Life was still difficult, even during the reconstruction years. Many men did not return from the war, which meant that old people, women, and children, had to work. There was not really any equipment until 1960s, so almost all the agricultural work was by hand. We heard that during the war and after the war, some industries were being moved from the western part of the USSR to Central Asia, but no industry was moved to our village, or even to Talas oblast [province]. That’s probably because there was no railroad in Talas oblast and, without a railroad, it would have been difficult to transport industrial goods to and from our region.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. We were at school when we heard about it and all the students put black strips of material on their clothes and cried for about an hour. Some students even continued crying when they got home. During those years, Stalin was thought of as an ideal leader. People deeply believed that we had won the war thanks his competence and wisdom. Some young people felt closer to Stalin than to their parents. He was like our collective father. We used to sing songs about Stalin and those songs became like anthems. That’s why, when he passed away, people were so full of sorrow, as if one of their close relatives had died.

There was only one elementary school in our village. I studied there for four years and then I had to go to a neighboring village, Ken-Aral. Everyday, we had to walk more than three kilometers to the school and back. At that time, being a student was very important. As the result of the war, only about one person from each street was literate. So, being educated was very fashionable. Those who were educated were respected. Despite the lack of supplies and reading and writing materials, students did everything they could to study. For them, being a student meant deepening their knowledge, widening their outlook, learning about the world outside of their village, and learning about their history.

Every day we had four classes and each class lasted for 45 minutes. During the breaks between classes, everybody used to run out of the school to play. There were so few students in each class that the teachers had more than enough time to question every student every day. We studied Kyrgyz, Russian, math, algebra, German, geography, and history. My most favorite classes were history and geography. From history, we learned about our past and from geography, we learned about places outside our village. I learned two basic things at school: how to write and how to read. These two things have been useful throughout my life. Unfortunately, because of my circumstances, I was not able to go to university.

After Stalin died, Malikov became the First Secretary and then Bublin. Neither of them served for even one full year. Then Khrushchev took over. I didn’t think he was a famous politician. I couldn’t understand how he came to power. He served from 1955-1965 and, under his leadership, I remember, corn was brought from the US and the Soviet Union started growing it on a massive scale.

I started working on our kolkhoz when I was 14. We mostly grew wheat, tobacco, barley, and corn. There have been two major changes in agriculture since then. First, we have changed what we grow. When I was a child, we did not grow things like cabbage and potatoes. Now we grow both, and a lot of other new things. Second, we have adopted new techniques and technologies. Before 1955 people still used to use horses to pull handmade plows. It was only after 1955 that tractors and combines appeared.

I served in the army and, after returning, I went to work as a driver. It was while I was working as a driver that I met my future wife, Janyl. We dated for a while and liked each other, so I went to her parents to arrange our marriage. We have been living together ever since. We raised three children, all of whom are now married with children.

In the past, families used to be stronger and healthier. Families had integrity. Not only families, but entire neighborhoods used to live like big families. Now there is the idea that everyone is control of his own life. As a result, everybody is concerned with finding his or her own path, which has brought the idea of individualism into family life. I think only nice people can make strong, healthy families. First of all, it depends on their ancestors. If their ancestors were good people, they can bring up a good family. It is also important that parents teach their children good behavior and strong morals. If their children cannot resist negative influences, then there is little chance that they will build a strong, healthy family in the future.

Before the establishment of the Soviet government, women’s lives were limited. A woman’s job was to have babies, make food, and clean the house. All the outside work was done by husbands or fathers. Women did not have rights in Kyrgyz society. They did not have the right to divorce their husbands. They had to marry one of their husband’s relatives if their husbands died. Then women got equal rights and started taking part in public life, which left them less time for their families. They started getting jobs and earning almost as much as men, which made them independent of their husbands, financially. Now, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, women have become even more active in public life. Now we have deputies [in Parliament] and ministers [in government] who are women. Women have not traditionally done this kind of thing in Kyrgyz society, with the exception of Kurmanjan Datka, who served as the leader of the southern Kyrgyz tribes.

Where the role of men is concerned, we logically see the opposite effect, since they are the other half of the human race. If, in early times, families’ outside affairs were handled by men, now women often do the outside work and their husbands stay home taking care of their children and making food. The old social constraints have been dismantled and now whoever has the ability to make some money – whether husband or wife – works, and the other spouse stays home and takes care of the children.

In the past, young people used to do volunteer work for the government – projects on the kolkhoz [collective farm] or sovkhoz [state farm]. All work at that time was for the government, since there was no private sector. Now young people do not help the government voluntarily. They are all just looking to earn something for themselves. And it’s not only the young people. The older generation is not concerned about public life anymore, either. We have lost our trust in the government and now everyone is on his own and everyone cares only for himself.

During Soviet times, there was a lot of negative propaganda about the US – about the West in general. We used read in the press that – despite its claims – the US did not have democracy, that it was a place of aggression, inequality and slavery. But when we got access to information from outside the Soviet Union, we learned that what we had heard was not quite accurate. We realized that we were getting very biased information and that we had been indoctrinated. We had heard that the whites in America were making the blacks slaves, but now we have all witnessed how they elected a black man as their president. It seems like the best possibility for democracy is in the West, rather than in our homeland. I guess giving citizens inaccurate and negative information about the West was part of the constant rivalry between the USSR and the West.

During privatization, after the Soviet Union fell, all the assets of the kolkhozi, which had been considered the property of the people, were distributed to individual families. Some families were successful in managing their private farms, but most people had no idea what to do with their new land and animals. Some decided to merge into cooperatives to make their work efficient and to pool their experience. Others absolutely could not figure out anything to do with their land, except to rent it to more successful farmers for a little bit of money. I really do not like privatization, I wish we could reconstitute the kolkhozi and sovkhozi so that all people would be equal again.

Since privatization, we have had problems with water. Now it is really hard to get water for your farm. The ones who can afford to bribe the water distribution authorities can get water without waiting their turns. Besides, now the farmers steal water from each other. For these reasons, it takes much longer to water your land than it did in the Soviet days. If we used to be able to water 100 hectares of land in about a week, now it’s hard to finish watering 100 hectares of land in a month. Equipment is another problem. The rich people have bought all the farm equipment in the village and so the poor farmers have to wait until the rich farmers finish with their own lands before they can rent the equipment. Most of the time, the poor farmers don’t have the money to rent rich people’s tractors and combines anyway, though.

When I was young, there were some people who believed in God in their hearts, but they could not be open about their faith in public, because practicing religion publicly would have led to their arrests. The government schools used to teach that there was no God. Still, religious people tried to abide by the Sharia law and pray five times a day. They tried not to deceive people, not to have bad intentions, and not to steal. But they could not be open about practicing their religion. One of the Islamic traditions that did not erode, despite the Soviet government’s restrictive policies, was Ramadan. But I did not really celebrate Ramadan. Before the 1960s, more people used to celebrate Ramadan; after the 1960s, it was celebrated by fewer people because we were busy then – life conditions had changed. Today, it seems like more people celebrate Ramadan, including me.

Since we [my generation] lived most of our lives in the Soviet Union, we are kind of russified. We call ourselves Muslims, but a true Muslim should perform the five main rituals of Islam and wear special clothes, but we do not like that lifestyle – we do not want to have long beards and long coats down to our ankles. So, we are unlikely to really turn to Islam. But there is a big possibility that the young generation will turn to Islam. If every Kyrgyz person becomes religious, we will end up, I guess, building a “Caliphate country,” like the Islamic countries in the Middle East. Personally, I do not really follow our religion. I perform some of the rituals of Islam, but it’s just because I don’t want to be separated from the community. But I think we actually follow the traditions of our “true” religion, which is shamanism. We pray to the sun and moon and make birch smoke in our houses.

Although I am not religious, I pray to God often, but I do not follow any religious rules or regulations. I never attended mosque. There was no mosque in the Soviet period and there were no religious schools. I did not start going to mosque even after independence, when mosques were built. Throughout my life, I tried to stay away from religion, since I knew what the consequences might be. And besides, all in all, I don’t think religions or special places like mosques are necessary in order to communicate with God.

During my childhood, we didn’t even have a grocery store so I hadn’t seen many different types of food. There wasn’t much choice of what to eat: we just ate whatever we had. Many times, I had to eat foods that you would not even consider foods. We had to gather algae and boburgon [grasses that grow on the mountains], wash them and eat them. Sometimes we used grind chie [a kind of a fruit that people normally do not eat], mix it with water, and eat it. I remember, sometimes our mouths used to get inflamed because we were eating all these different wild plants and we would be afraid to eat more, because of the pain they gave us, but we had no other choice – we had to eat to survive.

Even today, there are some foods that I am afraid to eat: the Chinese foods that are spreading rapidly through our region. I have seen people who got ill because they ate Chinese food. That’s why I try to avoid eating any foreign foods. For the most part, we grow our food ourselves. That has been a tradition for me since my childhood. My parents used to grow their own food. My favorite food is beshbarmak [1] but, unfortunately, now I cannot eat it because I cannot afford it. When I was younger, I used to eat mostly jarma, [2] airan, [3] maksym, [4] and milk. Now we live mostly on tea and bread.

I am a kind of a conservative person. I get angry when national values and habits change. Lately, I have noticed that the younger generation has started making beshbarmak in a different way. Earlier, the pasta for beshbarmak was made by hand. Now people buy factory-made noodles. I liked the old way of making our national food. The new version doesn’t taste as good. I am never satisfied when I eat ready-made beshbarmak. It seems like the eating habits of the Kyrgyz people are changing as well. But I am not changing my eating habits. I used to eat all my food with my hands, if possible. I still do. I can’t taste the food if I don’t eat it with my hands.

People rarely drank alcohol in the Soviet era, when life was better. But now people drink more and more, as poverty increases. Nowadays, there is no feast, New Years Eve, or party without alcohol. In addition, people tend to have more parties now than they used to. When I was younger, I used to drink alcohol only when I was earning good money. Now I have quit drinking, for two reasons: first, it is kind of uncomfortable to drink at my age – it is kind of shameful for me to drink; second, I cannot really afford to buy alcohol. One bottle of vodka can cost as much as 100 soms. If I were to buy vodka for that price, I would have no money for food. So, because of the social and financial constraints I had to quit drinking.

At this point, I do not really do anything for entertainment. Watching my children and grandchildren have fun is my entertainment. I am kind of a hardworking person. I always find some work to do rather than looking for entertainment. That’s the way I was when younger, too. Usually, when I was free after work, I used to just do household chores. I remember, when we had money, I used to go to parties with my peers and sometimes I used to visit my relatives. After TV came to our village in 1962, it became one of the main source of entertainment for our community. Before TV, young people used to roam around, take care of animals, and sometimes play ordo, chuko, or kok boru. [5]

My first language is Kyrgyz. That’s the language my parents used at home and the language I used at school, at work, at home, and in almost all other aspects of my life. I think you can live without speaking any language except Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan; I can communicate with people from other regions in Kyrgyz. But more advanced opportunities are not available to people who speak only Kyrgyz. For instance, if you want to work abroad or start a medium-sized business, you will have to deal with people of other nationalities and you will need Russian. Russian is much more prestigious than Kyrgyz, because it is the language used to communicate among different nationalities. Lately, I have noticed that English and Chinese are becoming more popular. They are prestigious and young people are struggling to learn them to improve their prospects.

I have noticed that the use of the Kyrgyz language has changed over time. In the past, Kyrgyz people used to speak pure Kyrgyz. They would speak using only Kyrgyz words and the right pronunciation. Now I rarely meet people who speak “correct, pure” Kyrgyz. Most young people today use Russian words even when speaking Kyrgyz. It is hard to say they are speaking Kyrgyz because half the words they use are Russian, even though they claim they are speaking Kyrgyz. Even president Bakiyev does not speak “pure” Kyrgyz. He often uses Russian words and has a Russian accent.

Besides Kyrgyz, I also speak Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Tatar, and Bashkir. I learned these languages while serving in the army and studying in a school for drivers. Russian was the only difficult language to learn. All the rest are Turkic languages so they are similar, so it was not that hard to learn them.

Two of my sons live in the village with me and one them is living and working in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He does not really send money to us, but that’s okay. I am happy if he can feed himself. He doesn’t have to worry about us – we will survive somehow. Many young Kyrgyz people are living and working in other countries – especially Russia. It’s good for our economy. I’ve heard that the remittances sent by labor migrants add up to one billion dollars. They are feeding their families and their parents. One billion dollars is not a joke, it is a significant part of our overall GDP.

But I think all this is a temporary phenomenon. I think the labor migrants will return to their homeland at some point in their lives. In the meantime, I think they are doing the right thing: they should strive for better lives, but when they have earned enough money to support their families, they should come back home. Nothing equals living in your homeland. Now I am old enough to think about going to the “other” world and I want my corpse to be buried in my homeland.

I understand the young people who are moving from the villages to the city [within Kyrgyzstan]. They are looking for better lives. They hope they can find jobs in Bishkek and earn some money. I don’t think there should be any restrictions on internal migration. Everybody is struggling to survive. Why someone interfere when somebody is trying to survive? To keep the young people in the village we should build entertainment centers, attractions, sport stadiums, gyms, and – most importantly – the government should create jobs. Unemployment is the main reason that young people are migrating to urban areas.

In the city, there is better access to education and information technology. People live more comfortably, with more opportunities for entertainment, better hospitals, etc. But Kyrgyz who people live in urban areas are more vulnerable to globalization; they are losing their national identity, their national culture. Though the villagers tend to be more “pure” Kyrgyz, their knowledge is really limited, since their lives are is tightly connected with farming and breeding animals. Young people in the villages are simple. They are simple people and their understanding of the world is simple. In the cities, the young people are more adapted to world culture. They are more modernized than their rural counterparts. I guess living in a city is better and that’s why so many youngsters are moving to cities these days.