The film-set -- UNBELIEVABLE

The following account was written by our co-worker, but we were all together and heard the same account, and since he’s written it so well, we copy it with his permission.


The film-set: Nargiza, 49 year old woman

“The marauders came on the first day (the 11th of June) to our street and broke all the street-facing windows of our home. We managed to escape further into the neighbourhood and from there to our relatives in the village. We were then for a week and when we came back we found that the whole front building of our courtyard was destroyed. At that time we didn’t realize how lucky we were that our back-house was still intact and that they hadn’t stolen or destroyed our car.

I went inside the back house and was so shocked. Most things were stolen. We were working in South Korea for three years and all the good-quality clothes and electronics were gone. What they didn’t take they vandalized. They broke jars of fresh jam and pickled salad and smeared them all over our beds and tushaks, and they – I’m ashamed to even say this – they did their business all over our guest-room carpet. We’ve tried to clean up the back house, and now we just sit here, terrified to go out, staring at the remains of our beautiful vine and the rose bushes and our destroyed front house. Our sons are in Russia, so they’ve been spared all this and the SNB (security forces) kidnappings of Uzbek men. My husband doesn’t work anymore. Although they didn’t steal his taxi, he’s still too afraid to go out as the Kyrgyz will beat him.

So, we just sit here and sometimes watch TV on our old Soviet TV which even these marauders didn’t want. Watching the local news just makes us more depressed though. They show the same two or three burnt Kyrgyz houses all the time and we keep waiting for them to show just one of the thousand Uzbek homes destroyed or interview just one Uzbek, but they don’t. It’s as if we don’t exist anymore.

The exterior of  Nargiza’s home

Then one day, my husband called me to come and watch the TV. They were showing our house on TV! The front windows are blocked with bricks now, so we must have missed them when they came. Imagine our surprise when we saw a weeping Kyrgyz woman – some actor – telling the camera that this was her house and that 40 Uzbeks came and burnt it down. We were so shocked and outraged, but who could we tell? We’re Uzbeks and we’re no-one, we’re nothing. We just keep our mouths shut. I go out on the street and Kyrgyz women shout out, “Why are you still alive, Sart? Haven’t you left yet? You will soon. We’ll get rid of all the Sarts.”

My grandchildren’s clothes were all looted, so I went to Kara Su bazaar, which is still open. I wanted to buy a shirt and the Kyrgyz girl told me a price three times more expensive than normal. I pointed this out to her.

“What’s your problem, Sart? Take it or leave it. We know you’re all rich.”

I couldn’t believe this young girl speaking so disrespectfully. I told her that I wasn’t rich and that my house had been looted and burnt.

“So why are you still here in our country, Sart? You shouldn’t be shopping, you should be packing!”

But this is my country too. They say that we came here after them, but we didn’t. In the 1970s there were almost no Kyrgyz in Osh, it was all Uzbeks, Tartars, Germans and Russians. I was born here and I’m not leaving. But what future do we have? They say we’re nothing.”