Zevrie Muslyadin

– My name is Zevrie. My father’s name is Muslyadin. My grandpa’s Osman.

– What nationality are you?

– I am Crimean Tatar.

– When and where were you born?

– I was born in 1940 in the village of Kermenchik.

– At the time of deportation, how many people were in your family?

– There were my mother and five children at the moment. My grandmothers lived separately.

– Where were you evicted from? Do you remember your address?

– We were evicted from Kermenchik, taken to the station in Suren. Like the others.

– What did you do before you were deported?

– I was a little child at the time, I was only one year old.

– Did you go to school?

– I did. I graduated from 7th classes of Uzbek school.

– How were you told about the deportation on May 18th?

– When we were sleeping, my mother and five children when somebody knocked on the door. Mom got up and opened the door, and there were soldiers: “You have 15 minutes. Get out of the house. We’re evicting you from Crimea.” And after that, they woke us all up. We were able to take something with us, something we didn’t. What to take? Five children. I’m the youngest I’m one year old. My brother’s four years old. Then the sisters. The oldest sister was 14 years old when we were deported. Five children. Whether they showed us the decree or not, I do not know. When they evicted us, I don’t know if they showed us anything. I was just a baby. All I’m telling you is what I heard from my mom and my sisters. The soldiers came in and turned everything upside down. Mom said that the cows in the barn moored, dogs were barking, even chickens were screaming… That’s how we left Crimea screaming and shouting. How long we’re going to be deported, of course, they didn’t say. We were gathered in Kermenchik, loaded into the cars and brought to the station in Suren. I don’t know how long they kept us at the station in Suren, and then they started loading us into the wagons. When we were loaded into the wagons, my mother and five children in the wagon… she couldn’t do anything. Mother with five children. The older sister was fast, she got off the train and got something to eat.

– How much time did they give you to get ready?

– I don’t know how much time we’ve had. When my father was shot, he was 41 years old, and my mother was left with five children. Mom almost lost her mind. After my father was shot, we faced very great difficulties in Crimea. Because we were a guerrilla family, they wouldn’t left us in peace.

– When you were deported, did the soldiers treat you rudely, beat you up?

– No, they didn’t. They were shouting. Cursing and shouting. But they didn’t beat us.

– What could you take with you?

– “Take what you have,” they said. Mom took my dad’s kalpak (hat), suit, pants. “I have a son, I’ll save it for him when he grows up,” she thought. Then she had to trade it for bread so we wouldn’t stay hungry. Even this suit couldn’t be saved. That’s it. An Uzbek neighbor had one son, she sold him the kalpak. Then my mother said that the Uzbek walked around claiming it was his father’s kalpak. That’s it. We had nothing else to sell. We didn’t take anything with us. What could mother with five children take? When we were evicted from Kermenchik, one of my sisters was at my aunt’s in Ayirgul. ” They’re taking us the other way, I’ve lost my baby ” was all mom could think about. When the train stopped, she went from one wagon to another, looking for her daughter. She found her and brought her to us. On the night of her deportation, she was at her aunt’s house in Ayirgul, from where she was evicted.

– Where were you gathered? How many people were there?

– We were taken to Suren station, like everyone else.

– How many people could be at Suren Station?

– After everybody was taken out of every village. There were a lot of people.

– How long were you held there? How did the soldiers behave?

– About the soldiers… When they unloaded us, there were those who didn’t have time to take anything: “I didn’t take anything for my children. I’ll go back and get some food. At least some beans. Or some flour,” but they weren’t allowed. They hold us. Until they loaded us into the wagons, kept us at the station. No one was allowed to return. Nobody was allowed anywhere.

– What kind of cars did they take you in?

– We’ve been loaded into cars.

– And then you were immediately loaded into the wagons?

– When everybody was loaded in the wagons, like this… as shown here in the movie, it was crowded.

– Were there soldiers next to you?

– There were guards. When we got into the carriages, they closed the doors. When we were on the road, during the stops they opened the door and then again closed it.

– How many people were deported from your family?

– There were five of us, and our mother. Dad was shot. My grandmothers lived separately. They lived in the village of Kermenchik. And Dad’s mother, and Mom’s mother, Grandpa, they all lived separately. Dad’s father and mother, they lived separately. They were all evicted from Kermenchik, we were all evicted from the same village.

– Did people die on the road?

– Whether people died there, I don’t know, I was a baby. But according to my mother, a lot of people died in the wagon. If someone died, the door was opened and the body was thrown out. When mother went to pour out water, she saw the woman whose face was covered with a scarf. “When I opened her face, I knew right away She was a woman from our village,” said mother. When the train stopped, she was running from one wagon to another, she was watching who was there. She was so eager to find someone from her village. “There’s neighbors in that carriage,” she said.

– Did you wait long at the station?

– In Suren? We were waiting for the train to arrive. After the cattle train arrived, we were loaded into these wagons. There were lice in the wagons, there was no opportunity to wash. Fleas jumped all over the place. If someone died before the train stopped in the morning, they just put him in the wagon. And when the train stopped, the body was carried out.

– When you were loaded into the wagons, were you with your family?

– Yes, we were with family. One sister wasn’t with us, but then we found her. On the way. My mother found her. And she took took her to our wagon.

– What were the conditions in the wagon? What was the wagon like? How many people were there?

– How many people were in one wagon? The wagons were filled to capacity. There was no toilet, nothing like that. Somebody was holding something like a curtain, and people went there. Someone made a hole in the corner of the wagon and went there. I only know that from the stories. I don’t remember that. My mother told me so. The bucket was used, and when the train stopped, it was poured out. Everyone faced such difficulties. All infested with body lice.

– Was there air in the wagon?

– No, there wasn’t.

– What did they give you to eat?

– I don’t know. What they gave my mother, she fed me, too. Whatever it was.

– How often did the train stop? How long were the stops?

– When the car stopped, the older sister ran out, found two stones, put a tin or something like a frying pan on them, she was trying to bake some scones, but the train was already leaving. When everybody started screaming, she took this half-finished piece of bread and run to the car. in order to not to be left at the station.

– What did they do with the dead?

– They were thrown out of the wagons.

– Was the road long?

– Yes, if we were taken out on May 18, 18 days or 20 days, the people were on their way. Until they got to Uzbekistan. It was a long way.

– So you were evicted on May 18th?

– Yes.

– When and where were you taken?

– We were dropped off at Shahrihan Station. Then we were loaded into the cars and taken to collective farms, we were separated. For example, Gavr, Albat, Ozenbash… like this, we were separated. On the carts. Downloaded on them and delivered. Then everybody was placed in one-room houses in Uzbek homes. If there were no houses two families lived in the same room. We were also unloaded at Shahrikhan station and taken… The chairman of our collective farm was a good man. Even though he’s an Uzbek. His son was at the war. There was a woman. Her son went to war, and she lived in such a house, and prepared one room for him. The the chairman of the collective farm, settled us there. He said to stay there until her son got back from the war. And this woman’s son died in the war. And we lived there for three years or so, I don’t remember. Five or six years, I think. This collective farm chairman helped the Tartars a lot. The Tartars… The hard-working people what they said, they did. On the third day after arrival, everyone was sent to the field.

– Didn’t you lose anyone in the family?

– No, I didn’t. Before the eviction, my father was shot, so I had lost my dad. My uncle was also shot with my father.

– How were you met in places of exile?

– In the places of exile, we were met quite well. When we first got here, they thought that we’re one-eyed and that we eat people. But as grandfather said, they came out of the carriages with the words “In the name of Allah, the Merciful and Gracious”, and then the Uzbeks realized that we were Muslims. That they’re talking nonsense about us. And after that they welcomed us well. But then we were divided into collective farms, and the chairman of our collective farm was a good man, he helped the Crimean Tatars a lot. And they loved the people who worked on the collective farm. On the third day, my three sisters were sent to the collective farm. My mother didn’t work at the farm. I was a baby, and so was my brother. Three sisters worked on the collective farm.

– Where and how were you placed?

– We lived in that house for a few years, and then in that village we moved four times from place to place. First they said they didn’t need the house, and then when we cleaned it and whitened it, it was needed. And then they asked us to leave the house. So we moved three or four times. Then I finished seven classes in Shahrikhan. My brother graduated from grade 10, and he was taken into the army. The elder sister was a good student, she graduated from the 10th grade. After they graduated from high school, they took my brother into the army. After he returned from the army, my brother 15 days was on the farm, as our farm, Bakhchysarai… Then we moved to Shahrihan. My brother said he wouldn’t live here anymore. We married off our sisters. My brother, my mother, and I just the three of us. Then we moved to Shahrihan.

– How did the locals treat you? How did the local authorities and residents meet the Crimean Tatars?

– I’m telling you, okay. They treated us well. Helped us.

– What was the life like in the early years of exile?

– It was okay. That’s life… hunger. If you work, you work at the collective farm, you get daily food allowance. Wheat, though not much, but it was given. But the chairman of the collective farm lived near us. He used to come to us and say: “Ragbe apa, let’s take our two kids to a nursery, where at least they’ll be given a piece of bread”. The Uzbeks used to call bread “kulcha”. My mother took me and my brother to the nursery. We lived nearby. In the nursery they used ti give this bread, and the Uzbek children ate it, but my brother and I took it and ran home right away. My mother divided this bread into five parts. That’s how she divided this bread into five. She kept very little for herself. My brother was the only man among the four girls Mom gave her piece to brother, too. Because he’s a boy. That’s how we suffered. It was not like we suffered a lot. “Brother, when will we like these Uzbek kids eat scones?” – I used to ask. The late mother divided these two scones into five parts for children and for herself. But none of us died. My brother had malaria for three months. I don’t know how it is called in Russian… sytma. We called it sytma. He had seizures, he was freezing. I was sitting by the stove. “Ragbe tata, let’s take him to the orphanage,” the commandant suggested. “Your son will die. At least he’ll be fed up there,” he said. But my mother answered: “I’d rather die myself, but I’m not giving my kids to the orphanage. I have an only son”. She was boiling water in a saucepan, and she put salt of this water on my brother’s lips. To get this water into his body. “I won’t give him,” said Mom. And none of us died. Mom didn’t let anybody hurt us. She brought us up. Although she didn’t work herself, the sisters did. She looked after us, raised us. Bathed, dressed. She wouldn’t let us wear rags. We were always well-groomed. She married us off and then she died. And now everyone’s gone, dead.

– When and where did you return to Crimea?

– Like Grandpa said, we came back here, bought this house. Two months later, the house was sold out there. This is where we live. We’ve done two renovations here. One of our children got married in Shahrikhan. After we got here, he married here. Then we married off our daughter, and the second son got married. Four children got a family. One daughter is in Gavr. Both sons are here. The oldest daughter in Sevastianovka. Eleven grandchildren, four great-grandsons. Thank God. We’re happy with what we have. We don’t need more than that. Just let everything be okay. We live in our homeland.

– What did you dream of as a child? What did you want to be?

– When we were kids, we used to collect cotton. Working in the fields. A lot of cotton.

– Where could we work after seventh grade?

– After the Uzbek school. Then we moved to a collective farm in Shahrikhan, and then this man married me right away. Not that education, there was nothing.

– What did you dream of?

– A dream? What can I say? I worked at the school as a cleaner, because I did not study. In the Uzbek school I worked as a cleaner.

– You worked three jobs?

– Children will grow up, and I will take daughters-in-law, marry off my daughters, worked at 2-3 works. At first I worked at school, then I went to the office. There a cleaned some rooms. Two daughters worked in kindergarten. Sons served in the army, then worked. Then we moved.

– How did you imagine your future?

– My future… I didn’t study, so I became a housewife. We’ll take the daughter-in-law, marry our daughter, and look after grandchildren. And we’ve achieved what we wanted. Thank God. Got what we wanted. We live in harmony with our daughters-in-law and sons-in-law. Sublings are here. That’s all. One of the matchmakers is there. His mother. Nearby. Two children live in Gavr. We live well, in harmony.

– What was Crimea to you?

– Crimea is our homeland. The place where we were born. We’re soaked in this earth. This is our homeland, Crimea. Motherland. I will add in Uzbek, Motherland.