When I was a child, they used to tell me: learning is light and ignorance is darkness, but the folk wisdom never sank in with me. So, once, I had to pay in full, as they say.
In the good old days (mid-1970’s), people did fine. As they say today, they lived under communism which they didn’t notice – they thanked God for what they had, saying: everything is good enough, as long as it’s not getting worse. I must say, there are a lot of people who get nostalgic about those times. It’s maybe because, as the song goes: “How young we were, how sincerely we loved…” There were plenty of good things in those days as well.
One such custom, that is getting increasingly rare in our electronic-nuclear 21 century, is called “khashar”. I’ll explain for those who don’t know what it is. Friends, relatives, neighbors and just good people get together to help someone build a house, or a fence, plaster the walls, mend the roof before it rains, dig a well, or a ditch for a water pipe – that’s what “khashar” is.
All these good people gathered and, absolutely free of charge, helped handle things that in particular required serious effort. It was something either impossible to do single-handedly, or something that would have taken a really long time to do alone. This event is similar to organized clean-ups. The story I want to tell you took place during “khashar”.
It happened in Dushanbe. Back then the capital of Tajikistan was a pretty decent modern city. There was an airport, a railway station, bus and trolleybus service, a theatre, museums, educational institutions, schools, hospitals, one of the largest textile factories in the Soviet Union and much more. To put it simply, everything was as it should be.
There were also many exiled Germans living in Tajikistan, who ended up in Central Asia thanks to the sensitive care of the Communist party and personally Uncle Stalin, whose name the capital of Tajikistan bore until the mid-1950s. For a long time afterwards, the old-timers called Dushanbe Stalinabad. There was also Leninabad in Tajikistan, which later got its ancient name Khujent back.
Anyway, in Dushanbe, there was a large community of Evangelical Christian Baptists next to the central market called “The Green bazaar”. About 80 percent of the community was made up of Germans. Thinking of The Green Bazaar, that believers constantly passed by, on their way to the service, I can’t help mentioning a funny story that happened to the director of the market and one of the community members.
Once at lunchtime, the director of the bazaar, store managers and other important people gathered in the bazaar teahouse to dine. It was a usual thing for markets in the East. Among them was my uncle on my mother’s side, Pyotr Andreevich, a person quite known in Dushanbe. He was smart, pretty well-read, had a modern outlook and outstanding abilities. Even though his childhood fell on the war years, and he completed only four grades in school, he could freely talk to professors and other educated people. About some of them he would say: “There are a lot of educated people, but not so many intelligent ones.”
But what especially distinguished Pyotr Andreevich was his cheerful, buoyant personality. Wherever he appeared, he usually brought laughter, jokes and fun at its utmost. That’s why he was often invited to be the toastmaster at weddings. If he agreed, it meant that the celebration would definitely be fun and people would remember it for a long time.
Despite having just an elementary school education, due to his intelligence and inventiveness, he managed to climb the career ladder and worked as a supply manager for the city Kurgan-Tyube. It’s a fairly large city, located about sixty miles away from Dushanbe closer to the Afghan border. Pyotr Andreevich was an insider there, everybody knew him and he was welcomed in these circles.
Lunch in the east is not just a meal. People there never eat in a hurry. And I’m not talking about special occasions such as anniversaries, weddings, or circumcisions. Even a few people, when they get together at a teahouse, will take their time and make full use of it, enjoying food and communication. It’s time to discuss events, news, etc. It’s not necessary to solve serious problems, as they do on golf courses in the West or in steam baths in Russia. However, everything is possible, since a teahouse, in the east, serves as a golf course, a steam room and many other things.
So, on that day, about ten or twelve members of the director’s inner circle came to the teahouse of The Green Bazaar and sat in a separate room that is designated for important people. The table was properly set, and lunch was properly served, according to the numerous rules. Salads, herbs, fruit and nuts were served at the very beginning and sat on the table till the end of the meal. Hot dishes were served as the people finished with the previous ones. There was usually chorba (traditional soup) or lagman (soup mixed with pasta) for appetizers, followed by pilaf in lyagans (big round dishes), and for a worthy end of the meal, guests were offered shish kebab, samsa (a savory pastry) and other things. This is a very quick overview of traditional eastern dishes, which are for the most part really delicious and characterized by having a huge variety.
That day wasn’t any different. When eating started to slow, and the relaxed guests were sipping tea, it was the perfect time to talk. At that moment, the director of the bazaar decided to tease Pyotr Andreevich and thus, amuse people. The thing is that a few years before, Pyotr Andreevich started going to Evangelical Christian community meetings. It gradually became known to people and they would at every opportunity touch on this topic.
To be fair, I should mention that there were very few 100% atheists among the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and other nations from Central Asia. Even though the shadow of the red flag and the ghost of communism covered Central Asia, in their hearts, many of their leaders remained, if not necessarily believers, but sincerely sympathetic with them, and adhered to national traditions, many of which were one way or another borrowed from the Koran.
For this reason, believers in Asia were treated reasonably well. This could be explained by the fact that the authorities were atheist communists that oppressed all religions indiscriminately, while the overwhelming majority of the local population adhered to eastern customs and traditions. Therefore, seeing that Christians were persecuted the same way as their own mullah, they perceived Christians not as communist enemies, but as fellow sufferers. That’s why even when Pyotr Andreevich was teased because of his religious convictions, it was benign and not offensive, and mostly out of curiosity.
Therefore, when the director started asking Pyotr Andreevich, as they say, trick questions, people around were smiling, aware of his cheerful and resourceful character and that he himself could easily joke about any matter.
Anyhow, the director turned to him with a preoccupied face and recalled a well-known tale about believers of those times.
– Hey, Pyotr, is it true that you Baptists, when you get together, close the door, turn off the lights, and each grab on any woman you find in the dark and start…well…how to say it…you know what… with her?
The plentiful dinner and the funny joke, that made his guests laugh out loud, put the director in good spirits. Now it was Pyotr Andreevich’s turn to respond, and all the eyes became fixed on the other side of the table. Pyotr Andreevich, who was also heartily laughing along with everyone else, put his tea on the table, and not at all embarrassed by the glances, said:
– Erkin-aka, think for yourself about what are you’re saying. If that was the case, we would have more people than you have in this whole bazaar of yours!
Another burst of laughter shook the walls of the teahouse. If Pyotr Andreevich had made a long and boring speech, explaining the foundations of biblical teachings or had started justifying himself and convincing everyone that it couldn’t be true, it would have had very little or even the opposite effect. People would have thought: “Oh, he’s justifying himself, so something is off here.” But a sense of humor and a couple of witty phrases often work better than a half-hour interpretation.
This time, it also worked well. The absurdity of the director’s words became obvious, which was confirmed by another burst of laughter. But Pyotr Andreevich didn’t stop there. When the laughter began to subside, he continued:
– Erkin-aka, and if this was indeed so, you yourself would be the very first of your bazaar to jump up, dash out the door, and run to join us.
The walls of the teahouse once again shook from laughter. Having calmed down a little, the director, wiping away his tears, said:
– That’s true. I would quickly find you, guys.
That’s what Pyotr Andreevich was like, a funny guy, a joker, who could start people up with a half-turn. As the saying goes: “There are People’s Artists, and there are artists from the people.”
Apart from that, due to his agile and grasping mind, there was no match for him in Dushanbe, when they gathered to study the Bible, which he knew by heart.
He lived on the first floor in one of the new neighborhoods of the city. Once he came down to the basement and discovered that somebody (it’s clear who it was) had bugged the floor of his living room. Pyotr Andreevich found this listening device, as it often happens, quite by accident. Something was wrong with the heating, so he had to go to the basement. He didn’t remove the device or report it, but instead, his inherent sense of humor made him play a practical joke. Every evening, when people came to him to discuss something, he told his guests in a loud voice, that they were incredibly lucky, because there was a listening device in the basement and their voices would be recorded and listened to by very important people.
“But these people are good” – Pyotr Andreevich continued his thought. “They record when I tell them to. If I tell them not to record, they won’t.” In the middle of the conversation, Pyotr Andreevich would stamp his foot on the floor a couple of times and say loudly with a deliberately thick Asian accent: “Hey! Record this!” A few minutes later he would stamp his foot again, saying: “Don’t record this!” That went on the whole evening. That’s why studying the Bible at Pyotr Andreevich’s place was really fun. As soon as he said “Record this – don’t record this!”, bursts of laughter filled the room…
A couple of months later, Pyotr Andreevich went down to the basement again. The listening device was gone. Intelligence agencies hate it when their tricks come to light.
The Christian community in Dushanbe in the 70s was active and very close-knit. So, khashar in the community was a usual thing. As I said, the story I want to tell, took place at one of the khashars.
Three families from the Dushanbe community lived on Shapkin Street: the Vervayskys, Vanya and Anya Pozharenko, and Vanya’s in-laws. Vanya’s family was mixed: Vanya was Ukrainian, Anya was German. Vanya’s mother-in-law and father-in-law were full-blooded Germans. They were in their sixties. Many of their grandchildren and other kids from the neighboring yards ran around freely in the neighborhood, because nobody ever closed their gates.
On that Saturday afternoon, khashar was organized to help Vanya make a draft roof over an extension that had been built on his house. The walls were already put up, the beams were put into place, covered with flitch and tar paper. We were preparing to fill the roof with adobe – clay, soaked and mixed with straw. Clay and straw were thoroughly mixed, put into buckets, taken to the attic and poured onto the draft roof in a layer of about 10-15 centimeters.
The process of preparation for this kind of work was quite simple. Clay and straw were prepared the day before. A dump truck of clay was unloaded close to the gate, unless it could drive up into the yard. Then, the pile of clay was flattened in the shape of a circle with a small barrier made around the edges to prevent water from leaking out. After that, they put a couple of bags of straw in the middle, poured water all over it and let it sit till morning.
This is typical of all houses in Central Asia, where clay is widely used in construction. They make bricks from clay and, after drying them in the sun, use them to build houses, fences and other buildings; clay is used to make ceilings and plaster walls. At least 80% of all houses in Central Asia are built from this material. It should be noted that clay proves its value in the hot summer weather as well as in rather cold winter months, since it is a wonderful thermal insulator – cheap and effective.
Anyway, on that Saturday morning, about 10 to 15 helpers gathered at Pozharenko’s house. Vanya was the conductor of the church choir in Dushanbe, and Anya was an active member of the community and sang soprano in the choir. They did this, the same as all other church ministers, as they say, for the soul. To make a living, Vanya worked as a portrait photographer. In the good old days, this job was in demand. Vanya traveled around Tajik villages and took photographs of people. Since Tajiks and other Asian people often have young children, Vanya always had a lot of work. At that time, many photographers could make a decent living.
On the following day, a couple of people rolled their pants up to above their knees (they did not wear shorts then), took spades and, barefoot, went into the middle of the soaked clay. First, they needed to properly trample and mix the clay, and only after that it could be used. They turned over pieces of clay with spades and trampled them with their bare feet, simultaneously mixing the clay with straw. Then, when the adobe was ready, it was put on carts and taken to the house.
The mechanism of lifting buckets to the roof of the house was very simple. They fixed a beam in the attic, with one end protruding outward, attached a pulley to the beam, put a rope around it, and tied a hook to the end of the rope. A bucket with adobe was hung on the hook, a person who stood on the ground, pulled the rope, and the bucket went up. When on the roof, the bucket was brought to where the adobe was needed, emptied out and the empty buckets were sent down to to be refilled with adobe.
It had been a year since I came back from the army, so I was in good physical condition. The pull-up bar was my strength. I could easily perform all imaginable and crazy tricks on it. Due to my level of fitness, I was trusted with this key responsibility – lifting buckets on the rope to the attic.
Vanya’s father-in-law was leveling the adobe on the roof to make an even layer. He was an elderly German “burgher”, a German from head to toe: a little chubby, slow, with sparse grey hair, pale blue eyes and white eyelashes on reddened eyelids. He was dressed in workman’s clothes: baggy pants tucked into boots, a blue washed-out plaid shirt and an old scuffed sleeveless jacket. His head was adorned with an ever-present hat, which he had a number of, for every occasion.
So, “Opa” (German for “grandpa”), was kneeling and, having laid out all plastering tools around him, was leveling the clay, that was dumped by helpers.
At that time, Vanya’s yard was like a whirlwind of people. Grandsons and granddaughters, the neighbor kids and adults, everybody was busy doing something, and the general mood of the holiday of work was passed on to everyone. People tend to experience positive emotions, when they know they are doing a good thing.
The master of the house was responsible for preparing all the construction materials and treating everyone to a good lunch. My embarrassment began somewhere before lunchtime. All the three families were either half or fully German, that’s why the kids, running around the yard in flocks, would often speak German with occasional Russian words.
Despite learning German in school, I could easily, to my shame, explain all of my knowledge of this language in one phrase: “No clue”. (It’s interesting that in Russian this phrase sounds like “can’t push neither in a tooth nor with a leg”, which, if you look at it closely and try to figure it out literally, doesn’t make any sense, but every Russian person immediately understands it! And there are plenty of such phrases in the “great and mighty” Russian language. Take, for example, the expression that corresponds to: “The wife was horribly beautiful, and the husband loved her terribly.” And again – if you would think about it literally, it would make your hair curl, but say it and it sounds good, like God’s blessing.)
Looking ahead, I will say: when many years later we immigrated to the US, we had to stay in Vienna for about a month. There I regretted constantly skipping German classes for the second time. I had to express myself like in one immigrants’ joke: “A grandson went to the US and a few months later called his grandma in Ukraine. He tells her about his life there and to make granny feel better, he says: “We have settled down just fine, and I can speak English quite well… But my hands get tired all the time.” That’s how we communicated in Austria.
But the first time I lamented about my German classes was during the above mentioned khashar. As I said before, it had been a little more than a year since I returned from the army, started to actively attend church, was preparing for baptism, and tried my best to live my life the right way in general.
While the men were engaged in construction work, the women, led by Oma (German for “grandma”), were busy in the kitchen, cooking lunch for as many as 35-40 people, including children.
Only at lunch did I figure out that “Oma” is not a female name, but a social status (a grandmother, an elderly woman)..I wish I had known sooner because every time I heard children and grandchildren again and again calling an elderly respected woman so “familiarly”, by her first name, just “Oma”, my “righteous soul” would protest.
“Little punks!” – I thought, indignant deep inside. – “How can you treat a woman, old enough to be your grandmother, so unceremoniously? Did their parents teach them nothing?”
So, to set a good example, I started calling her “Aunt Oma” in front of everyone! That went on till the lunch break. Only when we all sat down at the table did they tell me the “big secret”, what this word really meant.
Obviously, no one had ever called our Oma “Aunt Grandma”. And I can probably be proud that I was the first to think of such a phrase. However, on the other hand, I was right. Oma is definitely “aunt”, and not an “uncle”. So there was a seed of truth in what I said. As I understood, secret fits of laughter would have continued till the evening, but then life prepared another embarrassment, which involved two different titles: Oma (grandmother) and Opa (grandfather). It wasn’t funny anymore and everyone understood that it could end badly, so at lunch they laid their cards on the table and dotted all I’s.
Let me remind you, that, as a person with the most noticeable biceps, I was delegated to do the lifting work, dragging heavy buckets with adobe to the attic. When guys emptied buckets, they didn’t hang them on the hook, but just threw them down to me. I deftly caught the bucket, cheerfully exclaiming: “Opa!” (a Russian exclamation expressing excitement). So every time I caught a bucket, I said this word. And every time I said it (not knowing what “Oma” or “Opa” meant), grandfather-Opa leisurely put down his trowels, stood up from his knees (in a German careful way), went to the edge of the roof, looked down, and asked me: “What?” Looking at him, with my innocent eyes, I responded: “Nothing.”
Opa went back to work until the next bucket flew from the roof. I don’t remember how many times I said this, but I know for sure: a lot. Right before lunch, not only Opa’s eyelids had turned red, but his eyes also started to remind me of a bull chasing a bullfighter. When people saw what grandfather-Opa, who was usually as meek as a lamb, had turned into, they understood: they couldn’t wait any longer, or there would be consequences.
In short, I was saved from a terrible reprisal and Opa – from a heart attack by lunch, where everything fell into place. At first, Opa was sitting on the other side of the table and looking at me like a Muslim looks at pork, but when everything had been cleared up, the laughter and merriment in the Pozharenkovs’ yard did not cease for a long time.
After lunch, I stopped calling Opa and saying “Aunt Oma”, but the two German words became stuck in my memory for the rest of my life.
