The Silent Steppe by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov

The grandiose propaganda campaigns aimed at the masses had yet to get underway, and any news was passed on from one person to the next in the form of stories with a great many embroidered details. Because we did not have radios or telephones, or even a postal service, it could take up to a year for information about new laws or important events to reach the far-flung regions of the country. In 1930, the main topic of conversation was the daily news brought to the steppe by word of mouth (the so-called uzyn kulak – ‘long ear’ – of the steppe telegraph), which was our only source of information. Fermented in a specially made leather flask called a saba, the milk contains much less fat than that of cows and goats, and if well prepared has a sourish-sweet taste. Mare’s milk was kept chiefly as a drink for guests, and it was very popular: at less busy times men would ride round the aul in groups every morning until midday, visiting the yurts with foals tethered outside to quench their thirst. Mare’s milk and discussing the issues of the day. In autumn, when most of the men were busy with harvesting and haymaking, it was rare for people to come visiting, but once in a while groups of elders would do so for old times’ sake, and sit around drinking Stretching out before us as we arrived at our summer stopping place, the unforgettable scent of the wild flowers and the blaze of colour they created all around, and the cool, fresh breeze blowing from the snowy peaks. Many years have gone by since then, and we who experienced the joys and freedom of the wandering way of life tend to remember none of the hardships involved, but only the good things: the green carpet of meadows

The clans were all joined together into collective farms, and each aul settled in one place for good. Jan Butler‘s translations from the Russian include major works of fiction by some of Russia’s most eminent writers, together with biographies, screenplays and operatic librettos.Īt the end of 1930, and in the winter of 1931, the Kazakh people’s age-old nomadic way of life finally came to an end. He and his wife Nurkamal have a growing number of descendants, all offspring of

He retired in 1981 as a headmaster and head of the local education department. Mukhamet Shayakhmetov is a Kazakh born and bred. Ten years later, collectivisation of agriculture was forcibly imposed, and well over a million Kazakhs died, more than a quarter of the indigenous population across a territory as great as western Europe. The Silent Steppe is the story of Mukhamet Shayakhmetov, born into a family of nomadic Kazakh herdsmen in 1922, the year of the consolidation of Soviet rule across his people’s vast steppe-land in central Asia. Translated from the Russian by Jan Butler and edited by Anthony Gardner (Stacey International 2006) The Silent Steppe by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov