My grandpa was born in Bayanayl, one of the beautiful touristic places in Kazakhstan, at that time that was just a small mountainous village that was very close to Pavlodar, small, but still very important industrial city. It was in a less affluent community that was swarming with farmers. My grandfather is a sibling to five other children in his family, thus his family had to struggle most of the time to provide their children with the necessary food, clothing, and some basic education. The lifestyle back in my grandparents’ time was very different from now as it lacked the many comforts that people is easily accessible to people now. Back then, life focused on farming and providing for your family in order to have enough food to survive. Though people greatly valued education, educating their children was perceived as a secondary priority.
My grandma told me about how she was born; it’s one of the saddest stories that I’ve ever heard. The parents of my grandmother were people that survived all really bad and unhappy moments of their lives. One big unhappy moment was that my grandma’s mother was pregnant 12 times, and every time after 1-2 months the baby that had been born died, and this repeated itself all 12 times. So one day she decided to kill herself, and went to a well, but before jumping into it, she looked into it, and miraculously saw a face of baby, and suddenly she lost her consciousness, after waking up the doctor said that she’s pregnant again, the parents of grandma looked not so happy to hear this news. After 9 months my grandma was born so healthy, it was some kind of a miracle cause she survived, and moreover, she was one of the best students both in school and university.
My grandparents met each other in the school where grandma was teaching physics and grandpa was teaching math. My grandpa always told me that Rysbala was so strict, but so adorable and also she was so fashionable, that it was love at first sight, but it wasn’t easy to date with grandma, because at that time she was dating with some businessman, so grandpa started to flirt, send presents and flowers to grandma. Consequently, they got married and had their first children in 1963, then were born my mother on 1964, and then four other children. The big family lived friendly as they are living now, but without our beloved grandmother, she died about 2 years ago, she had stroke. It was really painful for all of us, and especially for me, because I spent all my childhood with grandma and I will always remember that she told me once, “ Do not ever forget that you have everything to become good person, you just need to use it right!”
