Wednesday05 February 2025
centralasiabusiness.com

"An Apricot Orchard and a Lifetime of Labor": The story of a joyful family living at the foot of the mountains.

Winter has arrived in the village of Yordan, located in the Ferghana district and surrounded by the territory of Batken region in Kyrgyzstan. Smoke rises from the chimneys. The villagers, nestled at the foot of majestic mountains, engage in livestock farming and agriculture. Each family has an orchard with apple or walnut trees, as well as livestock such as goats, cows, or sheep. A correspondent from Kun.uz visited the home of 84-year-old Rahmatillo ota Kengashev and explored the daily life of his family.
«Сад абрикосов и жизнь в труде»: история радостной семьи у подножия гор.

Rahmatillo ota Kengashev, along with his wife Salimakhon aya Kengasheva, raised five children, helping them become independent and providing them with housing. Now they live alone in their home. Salimakhon-aya, who worked for many years on a collective farm, reminisces about the past:

“Work gives strength, the blood starts to circulate in the body, while laziness, on the contrary, leads to illness. My husband is 84 years old, I am 74, but we still don’t sit idly by. Despite our children’s protests, my husband and I continue to manage our household.

I worked on the collective farm for 40 years. I spent 10 years in Kyrgyzstan, where I worked on a farm. There, I took care of cows and goats, milking them. Thanks to this labor, our family never went hungry. We made cottage cheese, kurt, and butter from the milk, which we sold to support the family.

On the collective farm, we primarily grew potatoes and corn. For processing 7 hundred square meters of potatoes, we were paid 2.5 sums at that time.

My husband worked as an electrician and occasionally as a guard at a sanatorium in Shahimardan. Now, together we receive a pension of 1.5 million sums, which is enough for us. We have an 80 hundred square meter plot of land at the foot of the mountains, where we planted 80 apricot trees. We live off this garden: we dry apricots and sell them,” Salimakhon aya shares.

After the filming, the family informed the editorial office that Rahmatillo ota Kengashev passed away at the age of 84.

Sarvar Ziyoев, Kun.uz
Montage: Sardor Mamirov.