I get into the seat of a white gruzovy car and the strong smell of men’s perfume wafts from the driver’s seat. Behind the wheel is a boy, not even twenty years old. He’s laughing all over.
“So, where are you going?”
“To Kyzart,” I say.
“Good, I’ll drop you off on the way,” and with those words he starts the huge white Kamaz moving forward.
“What are you carrying?” the conversation opener is offered directly.
“Coal. I’ll load here, unload in sixty kilometers. I can make two or three turns a day.”
I see. Well, I wouldn’t want to crash six times a day on this dirt road. That’s a lot of work.
“I’d like to live without my parents. But I can’t. There’s a strong tradition in our family that the youngest son has to stay with his parents and take care of them.” He complains. I guess he’s glad he has met someone – a foreigner who certainly doesn’t recognize local traditions.
“And you are the youngest son…” trying to guess the point of the conversation that started somewhere from the middle of the driver’s mind.
“No way, an only child. I’m the only child. I have to do everything.” My musings about an only child overwhelmed by all the responsibilities for my youngest son and daughter and the responsibilities for my oldest son and daughter were interrupted by another specification.
“I’d like a small wedding, for example. You know, an economic one. That’s what you do. Just thirty people and enough. Only with us it has to be big, five hundred people or more. That’s right, you do it for yourself. We do it for the people. To bring half the nation. And I’d like a small one. But my parents won’t let me. Oh, yeah.”
“Oh. And how much does a wedding like this cost?”
“Well, for a wedding, I’ll have to haul a lot of coal back and forth. Food for 500 people, that’ll be two or three horses, about ten cows, sheep twenty head or more, goats, chickens… then we’ll cook a feast from that. And I still have to pay the bride’s dowry.” I can’t calculate the cost of the wedding in crowns, but just in the price of the horse meat alone, there’s not a wink in it per kilo.
“You know, I’ve had a girlfriend for five years. We’d like to get married completely normally. Only we can’t. We’re just hanging out for now. So I haven’t met her parents yet.”
“And you’ll have to ask them, right, for the wedding?” I ask naively.
“Yeah, for the wedding, yeah, to get them to let me. My parents don’t know yet either. She’s from Bishkek. We go on trips to national parks and mountains together.” I’d be interested in many details of the intimate cohabitation of young Muslim couples in Kyrgyzstan, but I don’t ask. It’s probably not a good time.
“And you, where do you travel?” he asks curiously. My reply that I’m still only in the -stans doesn’t impress him much.
“What about Thailand, have you ever been there?”
I admit I haven’t.
“It’s great there! And everything is cheap! I want to go there this year with my girlfriend. Swim in the sea and eat Thai food.”
He’s gonna get a toothache.
He’s such a nice, cheeky kid.
“I’ve been to Moscow! It’s a completely different mentality there! It was cool there! I’d like to live there.”
“In what way?”
“It’s a different world there. It’s not the obligations we have here. The meaningless traditional family duties.”
He pauses.
“We have a lot of Russians coming here now.” he says fatalistically.
“And is that good or bad?” I use my favorite question when I have no idea which side of a controversial topic the person on the other side of the dialogue is on.
“They’re running away from the war. In World War II, people ran away too, but only the poor went to war. The rich ones didn’t even run away, they just had contacts, so they were told: don’t take me and they didn’t go to war. Now only the rich are running away too. So I think it’s a good thing the Russians will bring us money. They’ve rented out entire resorts on Issik Kul. And now because of the sanctions, we’re shipping three times as much cargo to Russia via China.” He smiles. “So it’s good for me, I have a job. It’s always like that. The rich run away and the poor go to fight the war.” Well, yeah, the world’s not fair.
“You’re from the Czech Republic, aren’t you? That’s where you got the beer, right? And you drink beer in your country? And how many beers? Do you sit down in a pub on Friday and Saturday and drink beer?” He asks enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up like a virgin asking his older friend if the blonde from yesterday had it warm or more warm.
“Well, not really,” I say uncertainly, and a thousand or so memories flash through my head of crawling on all fours to the front door in the morning, desperately trying to hit the lock with my key, throwing up out the van window, sleeping on a table in the pub, or downing a tenth pint in the nonstop and making scribbles on my hand. Now that was a lie as big as a tower. Yes, we drink like the pigs. That was the right answer. Anyway, I’m not going to correct it now.
“Do the guys drink? And do they have beer bellies? “His eyes are glowing with excitement and I don’t understand why anyone would be so interested in beer bellies.
“Yeah, they do. Then they have beer bellies like this” I point and try to figure out why someone has such strange questions.
“In my village, guys have ugly bellies too. Because we only eat meat and dough. The whole kitchen is just meat and dough. I don’t eat it. It’s disgusting.” Okay, I get it.
“Some of the guys work all day in our village. They only sleep four or six hours and drive the rest of the time. So they don’t have much time for a healthy lifestyle. I don’t do that. I only work from five to eight.”
“In the morning?”
“No, till eight in the evening.” I see. Oh, my goodness.
“Fifteen hours? When’s the break? And how many days in a row?” I say in awe.
“Every day.” He says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to do. “There is no break. The ones who sleep four hours also drive every day. For maybe a week straight. And then they rest for four days.” Yay, cool! What do you say… I’m stunned into silence.
“Can you do that?” I ask after a moment.
“Of course not. But everyone does it. There’s no other way.”
“Well, then you’re the hardest worker I know,” I say after a moment, actually admiring his easygoing sass. He nods in satisfaction. There’s silence for a while.
“What’s your average salary in Czech?” He asks directly.
“Just over a thousand dollars.” I say. It’s probably a little high, but I haven’t looked at the national statistics.
“Per day?” He looks puzzled, completely out of context.
“What a day, a month!” I laugh, a little bitterly.
“Oh.” He falls silent. “…And you can live on that?” He adds after a moment.
Well, yeah, kid, Czech Republic, what am I gonna..
“That’s terrible. I get $300 for one ride. I can do 15 of those rides in a month. “Plus the candy from China.”
“Wow, that’s a good salary.” I’ll give you an appraisal. “But then you still have to pay off the truck, right?”
“Nah, I already paid that off. Now I’m driving on my own.” Cool. This guy’s a big shot. Well, it’s still gonna take a lot of driving through the dirt for a simple Uzbek wedding.
