How do you imagine Kazakhstan? It seems that Kazakhstan is hot country. I remember a lot of snow in winter. It was very cold and hard frost there. I don’t know how we warmed ourselves. I would rather say that we were frost-bitten.
When I was ten months old, I had pneumonia. A small coffin was made out of the small pieces of wood for me and I was put in it. My mother sewed cheesecloth dress for me and let’s say so, they even mourned for me. It happened so that there was a convict doctor in our neighborhood and when he came he advised my relatives not to bury me yet and just wait for a while. The doctor told them to cover me with all the “rags” they could find. After a short period they saw perspiration drops on me and I was saved. Since then I have weak lungs. As a rule I undergo pneumonia at least once a year. It is the result of that period.
I’m Mariam Chinchaladze, born in Kazakhstan, in 1950, January. My biological father was born in Chiatura region, in village Tkebovani, in 1904. He was very young when he arrived in Tbilisi to enter Tbilisi State University. Once, in the square of Alexandrov, he absolutely by chance saw a list of Georgian youth, who were sentenced to be shot by that time. Among others he read the name of Levan Razikashvili, who was the son of Vazha-Phshavela . After this he took his oath to struggle against Bolsheviks and for the independence of Georgia. Actually, he sacrificed his whole life for the idea that is called Georgian independence.
When my mother, Mariam, left her home, her mother warned and even forbade her not to marry a prisoner. She was told if she would leave the house, they would never help her and even would took out from the list of their children. Indeed, her own mother kept her word. But, as they were well-off, my mother had a very long, thick gold chain. I know from my sister that the chain was so long that it touched the floor from the neck. She also told me that in those years, when there was famine, our mother cut small parts from this chain and exchanged it into three-four potatoes from his neighbor. She did it to save her children’s lives and thus not to die from hunger.
Lamara Chinchaladze, who was in repression tells us her biography. In the recordings at first she speaks about her father, Simon Chinchaladze, who all his life fought against Soviet regime. He was rescued from the sentence to be shot for several times. It was sometimes due to luck and sometimes due to his knowledge and intelligence. In total he spent 32 years in prison and experienced lots of adventures. He was one of the organizers of the revolt in Djeskasgan. In exile he got acquainted with Maria Trubova. She was also from the black-list, descendant of one of the Dekabrists, Sergei Trubetskoi. After Maria got married to Georgian prisoner, her family rejected him and she followed Simon in exile to live. There she gave birth to eight children. One son was kidnapped, as it was thought that poor family wouldn‘t manage to raise him and as for another one, he died from hunger. The teller of this story was born in the family, who was in exile. She tells us about their poor and miserable life in Kazakhstan . She also tells us how she was brought to Georgia by her elder sister and how she was adopted by her own uncle. During the Soviet Union Lamara tried to hide her origin and had unconscious fear towards her father, because he criticized the Soviet government in public. But later the words of Partcom chief made her change her ideas about her father. She tells us that she appreciated her father after he attended the meetings of national-liberation movement and guessed the real aim of his struggle. At the end of the recordings, Lamara remembers Kazakhstan, the place where she was born and brought up. Despite terrible conditions and memories she still misses that place and thinks about it.
