The parents of my father were from the south of Kazakhstan in the neighborhood of Taldy-Kurgan town. It has very picturesque surroundings. The grandmother was the daughter of very rich and noble birth man. But falling in love she ran away with the poor man. In Kazakhstan, bride theft was the widespread phenomenon.
So the Soviet family of my grandfather and grandmother was formed. Then two sons were born. Two children were rather slight for those times. Their younger son became my father in future. Probably if the war had not happened, the number of children would be more.
At the beginning of World War II the grandfather was recruited to serve in the army on front of the war. There he, after stubborn and bloody battles, was taken prisoner. He was lucky to survive and to return home from the war, but his health was strongly undermined. And he died a little later after returning from front.The grandmother becoming widow brought up the two sons due with support of family of the brother of her husband.
Recalling the parents of my mother, in fact, I know nothing about the grandfather who also has died on the Finnish war. He gave up the memory about himself as my dear mammy. A remarkable gift of fortune! Thus, I can tell more detailed about the mother of my mother, another about my dear grandmother. My grandmother was the remarkable woman who wholly has created herself: from the simple poor orphan she was up to the very respectable and highly educated woman of those times.
She made significant contributions in development and teaching of many generations of Kazakh people being in the rank of the director of school. She was very purposeful and skilful to distinguish main from minor. So many life principles were inculcated in me by her since childhood years. Even the teacher profession is transferred to us from her like a baton in a relay race.
My grandmother was born in the Tatar family of the shoemaker in the north of Kazakhstan in Kustanai city. The family was poor and had 13 children, though at the year of the birth of my grandmother the family had moved to the new house, therefore it was considered that Jamal (it is name my grandmother, she was the penultimate child) had brought happiness in the family.
However, the next years, as it is known from our history, in Kazakhstan the terrible famine began. It was caused by either barbarous policy of the Soviet authority on liquidation of cattle from the population and natural cataclysm, it is named jute:drought and loss of cattle. In those awful famine years population of Kazakhstan lost about 42 %, about 3 million people died. The parents of my grandmother could not survive these terrible suffering tests. They died.
By that time older children became already independent, and younger children, including my grandmother, were sent in relative families basically as servants. But for my grandmother certainly it was unacceptable to remain all her life in such role.
The Soviet authority enabled working young people to receive education free-of-charge. My grandmother being a single, young girl had overcome all difficulties of hungry student’s life. At first, she had received secondary education under the intensive program, and then the higher education in Alma-Ata. It is enough to say, that, in those hungry years, practically 90 % of the students through the study were in search of earnings and more fat of life. They were units among most persistent and purposeful, especially of women, who finished the institutes.
After graduating from high school, my grandmother devoted all her life to the business of enlightenment and education of her people. She has given birth and brought up two daughters, including my mother.
