[This interview was taken in 2008 by Aigine Research Center during the research on famine. It is being published for the first time]
Beishembiev Metei, 79 years old, Talas region
Famine means lack. If one does not have anything, it will lead to famine. During famine people could not find anything- there were things like rhubarb, scorzonera (latin), peanuts shaped like a button; we ate those things. There were days when we collected scorzonera (latin) and ate them. People could overcome famine thanks to their friendships.
During the war in 1941 we worked in the field, doing manual labor, [using?] sickle. We slept in the field and did not come home. During famine women cried: they gathered grain crops with sickle, worked with tobacco, did all household tasks and carried all these burdens. Men [drove?] carriages, transporting grain crops to a special place where they dried the crops and processes them. If four people cleaned crops, another four were responsible for joruk ( a trick). They put all of these on a donkey and handed them over to the government.
There were cases when people did not have a carriage. There were no clothes to wear. Before people used to wear each other’s clothes in order to go to guests. We used to wear pants from a rough material and we did not even have soap to wash our clothes. We used a grass called shoro as soap. We brought shoro, poured water into a bowl, put shoro in that bowl and boiled it. Then we put the mass in a piece of cloth and tied it into a ball. We used that when washing our clothes and that was like real soap.
Shoro grows everywhere. We have them even now. One does not have to add anything when making that mass; you just boil it in water. The mass becomes sticky and thick. Then we put that thick mass in cloth. Saffron was used to make oil. When it grows, there appear flowers of various colors. If you collect yellow flowers, you could get yellowish color. If you collected red flowers it would give you a redish color. We put those flowers in boiling water and put our clothes in that water to get clothes of various colors. There were also such days. In that time we did not have materials that we have now. We used to wear clothes made of white rough material. We did not have coloring as we have now, so we used this method to color our clothes. There were such days and Kyrgyz people overcame all of it.
During the war people had to pay tax to the government: 60 kg of meat, 60 eggs, loan, tax from bachelors. We did not have to pay tax for wheat as we planted it all together. We used to plant corn and they would take some of our corn as a tax if we could not collect the amount of tax that we had to pay.
Those who did not have anything to give, let’s say a family consisting of ten people, would get a cow from others as a loan, sell that cow and pay tax in cash. They could pay the loan for the cow later. For example if one family prepared jarma (one of the Kyrgyz national drinks), they invited their neighbors to drink that jarma together. Now people rarely invite each other to share their meals. Many years ago when we were school children we used to have red flowers. We collected those red flowers, mashed them in a cup and used the flower liquid as red ink. Those times we used a special pen with ink and as we did not have ink, we used that flower to get ink. I only studied until the fifth grade. We did not have a clock. A sparrow was our clock. People defined the time for sunset or the time to eat during fasting according to the noise of a sparrow. It is because with the gift from God sparrows knew when it was getting dark. When it gets dark a sparrow makes a noise and comes into its nest. Like that people knew that it was time for eating during fasting. We defined that it was noon by our shadow. When one stands still and his/her shadow is the size of a foot, one can know that it is 1 o’clock. We defined the time to stop eating during fasting by the noise of a cock, it crowed two times: Cocks crow whenever it is becoming light or dark. Those times people had their early breakfast during fasting when cocks crowed two times, when they crowed the third time that meant that it was already light. Those days if a cock crowed any time for no reason people would say that that cock should be beheaded.
Those days food was organic- there were no supplements- and because it was clean people were very strong. We used to drink a fermented drink made of corn. Corn is ground very fine and put through a sieve. One should boil water without adding salt. Then ground corn is added into boiling water. Those times we used to have big dish for preparing this drink; it was called kabak. We poured the mass into that dish and fermented. After fermentation this drink became like kymyz. People of Issik-Kul region put salt in it. We also used to have food called ejigei (a special kind of cottage cheese made from sheep’s or goat’s milk). In order to prepare it one boiled cattle milk and poured that in a lamb’s maw. When it was ready to eat it became yellow. Those times we were short of dishes. For example ten people ate from the same plate with the same spoon at one a time. I wonder that there was no microbe which people could catch from each other when using the same plate and spoon. We grew up like this. In 1941 I was engaged in watering: In order to get enough water to water the field we had to stop water at certain places. I was used as a stopper, as a stake. I wonder why people did not use trees as a stopper. No, they would use me. They brought a bundle of grass and tied them to me. I was put into the ditch. I held two bundles of grass on my two sides and served as a stake. They strengthened the stake by putting earth around me. When they let water go there were cases when water would wash me away for 10 meters down. I was brought back again and put back as a stake. Like that we held water and watered our fields. In ancient time people watered fields properly, then never left places which were not watered. Now people stop watering when water reaches then end of beds. Those times people would bake corn bread called zagara. That time I was young. Along with other men who watered fields I ate corn bread with water, which we took in our black cups from running water.
During the war there were rich and well off people in villages. They gave 1 pood (a unit of weight, used in Russia, equal to 36.1 pounds or 16.39 kilograms, translator’s note) [this is a rare word in English and should be defined for the reader] of cord to people and got 1,5 pood back the following year. They gave 1 pood of corn to people in condition that the borrowers would return 1.5 pood back. We also dug algy (wild Allium Korklkowii). There were also people who dug algy. Rich people chose better places. One could get only one cup of mass from one bucket of algy. One grates algy with a stone to get that mass. Then much water is poured onto the mass in order to get rid of its sourness. This procedure is repeated several times, because algy is very sour. The mass that sinks in the bottom of the dish is used to prepare jarma. In order to prepare that drink one adds milk or soured milk. If one drinks that mass without milk or soured milk that person might swell up.
Algy is like an onion, its end is round. One should pull it or dig it out. It is like a potato. One brings it, grates with a stone and gets a mass. There is also a grass called shyldyrkan(a kind of plan of campanula family). There were days when we ate that grass; it makes a person swell up. Also there were wild beans. There were days when we ate them too. We picked them and fried them. As for shaldyrkan, we boiled it before eating. These plants also helped to survive during famine.
Those times there was a type of plant called elecampane, which is like tobacco. We collected it. We used to live in a one room house. We would collect elecampane and pile in one corner of the room. The other corner was used to keep our cow. We kept it at home so that thieves could not steal it. There was such a period. We would cover the hearth and put out legs on top of it to keep them warm. When Russians came we learned how to build a stove, how to build a house. During famine there was a sacred site called Teshik Tash. When a cattle got ill, or during breeding period people took their cattle to that sacred site, lit candles and prayed, which worked. That was a big rock, like a cave. Now it does not exist there anymore. Yesterday [yesterday or in the past?] people knocked it down.