Fahri Karaev

– How did you hear about the eviction?

– The soldiers came at night and knocked on the door. My mother came out, and the soldiers said: “Get out. You are being expelled as traitors.”

– Do you remember that time?

– No.

– Do you have any childhood memories? Was there screaming?

– According to the elders’ conversations.

– Did the soldiers use force during the eviction? Don’t you remember anything?

– No, they didn’t use any physical force.

– What happened after the eviction?

– We were driven for a very long time. I don’t remember how long. We came to Andijan region, the village of Markhamat. There were mostly women, children and old people. We were from Ay-Serez. Just mother and I were from our family.

– How did the eviction affect on your family members?

– Well, how did it affect… My mother died in the same year.

– And where was your father?

– My father was in the labor army.

– When you were evicted, did you all get on the same train?

– There were a lot of people, the wagon was full, I remember.

– Do you remember if the deaths were in the wagon, or that’s it?

– No. According to the stories, there weren’t any deaths in our wagon. – What were the conditions in the wagon, no one ever told you?

– Very bad, they said.

– I see. What about the places of exile and return? What was the relationship between the local authorities and people?

– They infringed upon us, didn’t let us live here. “Again,” they said, “go back where you cаme from.

– Do you remember your life in Uzbekistan?

– I remember my youth. I remember when my mother died. Not far from that village lived my mother’s brother. He found out that his sister died so he came to take me to his place. I lived with him for two years. Then he became an adult. He was invited to work as an oilman. And me and his brother left, his younger brother was three years older than me. He said: “Let me take you to the orphanage.” My grandmother, my uncle’s father’s sister, lived in another collective farm not far from Marhamat. My uncle asked: “Where would you like to go? To the orphanage or Grandma’s?” I said: “Take me to Grandma’s.”And he took his brother to the orphanage. Next week he arrived and said: “Fevzik died in the orphanage”. That’s how I was raised by my grandmother until 1946. In 1946, I remember my uncle arrived from the front. He got discharged in 1947. He arrived in 1946, he gave us a lot of money. I remember Grandma used to say a kilo of flour costed 600-700 rubles. We took that money and went to the market. We took five kilos of flour from an Uzbek man. He weighed it. And when it’s time to pay, Grandma put her hand in her pocket and the money’s gone, the thieves stole it. And my grandmother and I were crying. When we arrived home, the neighbor said: “Why are you crying?” We answered: “Our money was stolen”. And she looked at us and said: “Fatima Abla (sister), give Fahrishka to me. We don’t have kids.” And her husband died on the first day of the war, and she was alone. And Grandma said:

“Will you go to your neighbor as a son? She wants to raise you.” I said: “I want to.”

And so she took me. A year later, my uncle arrived… And once I was grazing the cow. I was walking with a cow, a rope was tied to my back, I was walking down the road. And suddenly I heard a car coming. There were no cars at the time. I look around, there’s dust everywhere. The car pulled up and stopped. And then my uncle came out, grabbed me inside. I saw my grandmother and my older brother were in the car. That’s how we were taken to Margilan, Fergana region. Three years later, my father came back from the labor army. It was 1951. And when my father came back, we lived with my grandmother and my grandmother’s son. Dad got a job. And all the time when he went to work, he took me with him. He and I used to drive around in the car all the time. I lived with my father for two years, and then one night there was an accident. My father was pinned by a car against the wall. They worked as loaders, and my father was a loader brigadier. They were loading cotton seeds. And when they had lunch at 12 o’clock, they had a three-shift job, they all threw shovels and left. And that’s when the car pulled up for loading. He saw that the car’s going backwards and the shovels were lying there. My father wanted to take the shovels and lean them against the wall, and at the same time the driver confused the gas pedal with the brakes. He pinned my father against the wall. And that day, my father died. After my father died, my uncle, my mother’s brother, heard I was alone. He came to pick me up. He took me back to the Andijan region, the city of Markhamat. I lived there until 1958. I went to school when I was twelve. When I finished six classes, I was eighteen years old. I was taken into the army. I served in the army for four years. When I returned from the army, I lived with my uncle again. I learned how to drive. It was very difficult to become a driver at that time. Wherever you go, you couldn’t get a job without job experience.

So I decided to go to Celina in Karakalpakia. I worked there for a year. I was driving the Deputy Minister of Mines. And after working for a year, I went to night school. I graduated from the eleventh grade, and from a young age I dreamed of being an athlete. Since my father was very athletic. At all the sport events that had taken place in Ay-Serez, my father, when he was young, he always won the first places, everywhere. So I inherited it from him. I dreamed of becoming an athlete. I came to Andijan Pedagogical Institute, sports faculty. I passed the exams well and entered. And three years later, I graduated from the institute. That’s it. Then I got a job at a sports school as a coach. And worked part-time at the school. In 1965, I got married. We had two sons and a daughter.

– When and where did you return to Crimea?

– We returned to Crimea… First we arrived in 1969. We returned to Crimea, we thought we’d register in Leninsky district. But we weren’t allowed to register there, they said: “Go back to where you came from.” And we had to move to the North Caucasus, the city of Anapa.

– Kuban.

– Kuban. We lived there until 1976. From 1970 to 1976. No, until 1987. In 1988, we moved to Crimea.

– Tell me, what does Crimea mean to you?

– It is our homeland.