Fuad

Mr Fuad, thank you for making time.

Not at all. Sit down, sit down. There’s shade here; let’s go over to that side, there’s a chair there. Would you like some tea? Wait, there’s a thermos inside.

Let’s start with you and your family.

My name is Fuad. In those days everyone here was known by their father’s name: so-and-so, son of so-and-so. We still call each other that way. The custom has stayed with us. I’m 66. I was born in 1960, here, in Qaratəhlə. Well, back then there was no doctor in the village, so they had taken my mother to the district centre to give birth. But I say I was born here, because I was here even before I was born. That’s logical, isn’t it?

My father was a farmer. He grew grain and a few vegetables. In the collective-farm years he worked on the collective farm; when it fell apart, hard times came. My mother, God rest her soul, passed away; it will be twelve years this summer. How fast time goes. I live and work here myself. I have a family, my children have grown up, and I have five grandchildren.

Do you remember your childhood? What was Qaratəhlə like then?

Childhood... People always remember their childhood as beautiful, don’t they? But you know, I find it hard to tell what was really beautiful and what only looks beautiful now that I’m older. The village was big then. Now... you’ve seen it? So many houses are empty now. Back then there were people in every house and children in every yard. We played in this street from morning till night. There was a collective farm, the “Red Star” collective farm. Every year at harvest time the young people of the village went out to the fields. My father went, my uncle went. We children went to watch. It was hot, it was dusty. The women brought food to the fields: black bread, cheese, onions, a bottle of water. Everyone ate together, young and old alike; there was no difference.

What is your strongest memory of the Soviet period?

There are many. But let me tell you one. In 1985 Gorbachev’s perestroika began. How much people in the village talked about it! Everyone listened to the radio. My mother listened too. She didn’t understand what it was, but from the neighbours’ talk she could tell that something was changing. My father was a wise man. He hadn’t studied much, but he had good sense. He used to say: “Son, things won’t stay like this; something is going to change.” I didn’t understand him then. Now I understand what he meant.

There’s one more thing: television. In Soviet times most channels were in Russian. The Azerbaijani channel was hard to pick up, but it came through. The Georgian channel too. I learned Russian at school, and from television as well. That’s how I learned three languages at once: Azerbaijani at home, Russian at school and from television, and Georgian... how can I put it, I learned it from life. From the market, from the road, from neighbours. Nobody sat me down and taught me Georgian. It just came.

How did you come to go to Baku?

Going to Baku from our village was a big thing then. Now you can go to Turkey, to Russia, to Germany if you want. Back then Baku was the big city. I had always wanted to study. Life in Baku was different. I had grown up here; I was a village man. And how big Baku is!

Where were you when the Soviet Union collapsed?

It was 1991. They were playing classical music on television. That classical music... that was the most frightening thing. In Soviet times, when classical music came on, you knew something big had happened.

When I came back to the village, it was different. Everyone was confused. The collective farm had stopped working, or it worked but didn’t pay. There were no wages. My father was in the fields, but what was he to do with the grain? There was nowhere to sell it. Those were hard years for our village. By the time I came back I was an engineer with a technical education. But what was I going to do with that education here? No plant, no factory, no work. I helped my father with the farming. I went from door to door looking for a job. Then I found one and started work.

What is your relationship with the Georgian language?

I speak Georgian. Not well, but I speak it. At the market, on the road. Official matters are in Georgian; that’s normal, it’s the country’s language. We studied in Azerbaijani at school, so we don’t know it well.

Tell us about the people who have left the village.

That’s a heavy subject. Look at our street: most of the houses are empty; in some, only old people are left on their own. There’s one young family, but the man is in Russia and his wife is here with the child. It started in the nineties. There was no work. They divided up the collective-farm land, and each family got a little. But what can you do with land on your own? You need water, you need machinery, you need a market. To get to market you need a road, a vehicle, money. There was no money. There was a time when people sold wheat to buy petrol, and sold petrol to buy bread. It was beyond belief. But... if the ones who leave keep leaving, what will become of this place? Who will stay? I’ll stay, my wife will stay. The old people will stay. Then we’ll pass on too. The village will empty.

What is Qaratəhlə to you?

I’m from Qaratəhlə. That comes first. I belong to this village. Its land, its air, its water are mine, and I am part of them. I celebrate Novruz, I read Füzuli and Nəsimi. Those are mine too.