Having finished traveling around the south of our vast Motherland, we decided to finally look at our friends who live near Krasnodar in very picturesque places. Oleg once wrote about this amazing Russian-Turkish family with five children. But when he met them, they were still living in Turkey, and since I didn’t go on that trip with him, then I personally didn’t know anyone from this family, but I really wanted to talk to them, especially after his eloquent stories.
We were greeted by very hospitable and shrill cries of joy from children, then the senior owners came out with open arms. We spent about a week together, and I gained impressions, as if I had lived all this time in another world.!
To begin with, what an amazing atmosphere reigns in this house. All the time while we lived there, I tried in every possible way to figure out, due to what this feeling is created? This is probably due to the fact that the family is very holistic, there is a very strong bond between all its members. At the same time, outwardly this is not to say that it is somehow especially manifested, but it is felt at the same time. They had to go through a lot, and if they hadn't held on to each other like that, they simply would not have survived the persecution in Turkmenistan, then 6 years in the wild conditions of Afghanistan without money and anyone's help, and then under very difficult social circumstances in Turkey. How many horrifying stories have we heard! And when you listen to this, HOW people can live in other places, you begin to think in a completely different way about your own life, about human values and needs. Do we have a problem? Yes, we generally ride like cheese in butter. Sobering up very much.
One of the residents of this house
Regular breakfast, smoothly flowing into lunch with conversations
The hostess of the house is preparing another masterpiece
Therefore, now, having returned to Russia (which, by the way, was also very difficult to do because of all the bureaucratic delays), our friends are very happy, although some difficulties awaited them here too. That's how it happens, someone's lot may fall «rich uncle from America», but life can teach someone and experience various difficulties for a very long time.
You need to cook a lot for such a family.
What our eldest daughter spoiled us with almost every day
Rare things come to life here
Having lived with this family, we learned how difficult life is for people in the Russian village, especially if you have five children. For some reason, there are no subsidies on the occasion of large families, as well as benefits, for example, for public transport, because you still have to get to the city from the village, and the bus running between the villages is considered intercity, they do not give benefits to it, so pay for everyone children the full cost, since you live in the village, and not in the city. And for some reason there is no free food at school, although I also grew up in a large family, I remember that my brothers and I ate for free, but here it is not supposed for some reason ... But it goes without saying that at school there are no textbooks for all children enough and most of them need to be bought by the parents themselves. When you have one child, it’s probably still tolerable, but when four of them go to school? At the same time, the librarian also has such a trick - at the end of the academic year, to find fault and not accept the textbook, but to force to buy a new one. Multiply by several textbooks, and now again by four children.
About what is special «friendly» and «peaceful» the situation at the school, I don't even want to tell. Every day, returning home, the children told us new stories about how their classmates bullied the teacher, or one of their peers, or an animal on the way. It goes without saying now, there is so much aggression in children. And the guys from this family, on the contrary, so naturally tell their peers that trees, mountains, sun, sky - everything is alive, everything must be loved. Incredible contrast!
Being creative is very exciting
Being creative is very exciting
And against the background of all the difficulties and difficulties, our friends have an incredible fuse, optimism and belief that everything will be fine. They simply live according to their conscience and try to somehow positively change the world around them. We asked, how do you deal with all this? The answer was - after Afghanistan, Russia is just paradise.!
Pshekha river - local attraction
Pshekha river - local attraction
Pshekha river - local attraction
You can take real mud baths on the nearest river
You can take real mud baths on the nearest river
The father of the family likes to drink tea from a special Turkish samovar
When our friends just moved into the house where they now live, it was dilapidated and half burnt down. And in a few months, with the whole family, they were able not only to restore and decorate everything, but also to start a small farm. Now chickens live behind the house and feed the whole family with domestic eggs every day, and the harvest is ripening on the site, albeit a small one, because our friends did not have farming experience, they tried everything themselves, but all together.
Near the house in the yard
Yard and farm
This is probably one of the reasons why, despite all the difficulties, they are doing so well! Children fully participate in family life and perform various household chores on equal terms. Together with their parents, they dug trenches in order to lay a water supply system on the site, then they all together cultivated the beds, loosened, weeded, and together repaired the house. And now it goes without saying that mother can ask one of the daughters to wash the dishes, and the other to feed the chickens, and the boys, seeing that their father has taken up wood, go to help him.
There is always a lot of work on the site
Oleg helps children to gnaw the granite of science
Oleg helps children to gnaw the granite of science
But the children are not so many years old: 7, 9, 11 and 13. About the oldest, already an adult daughter, I generally keep quiet, she is like the right hand of a mother and the main assistant. I have never seen such hard work and awareness in children and a young girl! Of course, it happens that these children play around and do not fulfill the requests of their parents the first time, but they feel their responsibility and still do things. It's amazing how a child can immediately embody such an adult awareness and, at the same time, childish naivety!
An ordinary Russian-Turkish dinner in a pleasant circle
After eating, the kids almost literally fell off
The day was long, busy and exhausting
I hope that Oleg and I will succeed in raising our children correctly and in the same way with a positive going through life, overcoming all difficulties with our heads held high and an extraordinary belief that everything will be fine, everything will work out.!
A village in the Absheron region
Apsheronsk and surroundings
Funny names in Apsheronsk
Apsheronsk and surroundings
Oleg:
On my own I would like to add a little on a different topic, outside the scope of our trips across Russia - about the attitude of this family to life.
When there were persecutions of Turks with Russian wives in Turkmenistan, the whole family had to leave for Afghanistan, where they offered work under a contract (to make their own woodworking workshop), and with visas it did not work out otherwise. In Afghanistan, after a while, some people came with machine guns and carried out the entire workshop, leaving our friends without a livelihood. After 6 years, interrupting with odd jobs, which were barely enough to educate children and live, having resolved visa issues, they managed to leave Afghanistan for Turkey. But even there life was not sweet, there were enough difficulties with papers and relatives who did not understand the connection between the Turk and the Russian..
I asked how, how did you manage not only to survive, but also to move more or less to settle in Russia, and talk about all this with a smile? Faith in God was the answer. No, we are not talking about some kind of religion, some clever books, etc. It is about the belief that everything will be fine, the belief that a person can cope with all the trials that stand in his way, the belief that everything is not just that and for some reason you personally need it. How else to explain that so many things have been overcome? Coincidence? But do coincidences happen for dozens of years in a row ... Is it possible to explain the fact that officially unemployed people (they are already under 60 years old) feed and raise their five children, and at the same time work and money go into their hands. How to explain the facts that they found a house for free in Russia, and before that they lived in Turkey for very modest money on the Black Sea coast. You can list further stories about «luck» above the roof.
Surely, someone will not quite understand this position, because in our material world, money often rules the world and the actions of people. But someone who once learned completely different values is unlikely to be able to live differently later. For me personally, the example of these people is very revealing. No matter what, they live, though simple, and with difficulties, but at the same time they are happier than many wealthy people. Communication and acquaintance with them made me rethink some of my life goals and priorities, for which many thanks to them.
Something like this 🙂 I could not resist not to add.
