Ukraine War Day #780: Tajik Shame – Part III

Dear Readers:

Continuing my translation/review of this story posted by Russian military correspondent Grigory Kubatian. We saw that Grigory has travelled all the way to remote Tajikistan to learn more about the Crocus terrorists and their families. As a good reporter, he asks the questions that the Russian people want answers to, including, did this actually have anything to do with religion? Seems like it didn’t: The terrorists seem more like common criminals who just agreed to kill for money. Russians also want to know if the families and relatives feel any shame for what their loved-one did, and it seems like the answer to that is: Yes. This is why the families are hiding from the reporters.

Reporter Grigory Kubatian

We also learned that Tajiks are very poor, as a nation, and that the well-being of many citizens depends on the ability of their menfolk to find temporary work in Russia. I find this sad, just as I find it sad that so many Mexicans and Central Americans are forced to migrate to the U.S. to find work. They might find themselves separated from their loved ones for months and years at a time. I am sure that everyone in these situations would prefer, if they could just stay at home with their families and find a decent job in their own community. In the case of Mexico/Central America, peoples misfortunes stem from being economic colonies of the U.S. In the case of Tajikistan, it’s a little bit different: Their problems stem from being forcibly (against their will) separated from the larger entity, the USSR, which fed them and assured them a job and a life of some dignity. Not that they were not also poor back then, but at least they had their dignity. They had jobs, education, and healthcare, not to mention the pride of belonging to a larger nation and a great empire. But all of that was just thrown away, by a conspiracy of the Nomenklaturas. Including the elites of the poorer nations, who preferred to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, to misquote Milton.

Meet The Barber

Largo al factotum della citta.
Presto a bottega che l'alba e gia.
Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere
per un barbiere di qualita!

(Rossini, "The Barber of Seville")

After visiting the village of Loiob, home to the terrorist Faridun Shamsiddin, Kubatian continues his trek. The region of Rudaki, near the capital of Dushanbe, is home to an actual barber in this barbershop quartet of murderous killers. Unfortunately, Kubatian does not know, initially, the address of the terrorist MohammadSobir Faizov, so he has to hunt around a bit.

Saint Sebastian: “This is how it’s really done.”

Faizov, the Barber-Martyr

In Tajikistan, if you need to know something, then you find a taxi driver, these factoti della citta are the best informed of all. After a few tries, Kubatian finds a taxi driver who tells him what he needs to know. They head for the village of Mamadshoi Bolo to seek out the home of Faizov, the youngest terrorist of the quartet, only 19 years old. He used to work as a barber in the Russian city of Ivanovo.

Kubatian: A one-storey house built from cement bricks, a dark-red fence. A young woman peers out to see who is knocking at the gate. She is holding a baby in her arms. This is the wife of one of the brothers. She is not able to speak with me, and nobody else is around. The father of the terrorist is in Russia now, the mother left the village. As soon as I ask about Mohammadsobir, she slams the gate on me.

I try to find some neighbors. A guy named Ahmed is riding past on his bicycle, he stops to speak to me. Ahmed speaks Russian well: He worked in Moscow for 12 years, while living in Strogino.

“He worked here as a barber!” Ahmed tells me. “I even got a haircut from him. The guys here often borrow money so that they can travel to Russia to find jobs as guest workers.”

Ahmed tells me that Mohammadsobir’s older brother Muhammad Rakhim once served a prison term. “They gave him 7 years for posting a like on the social media.” This like got him pegged as a member of an extremist group. In truth, he did more than like post likes, he actually associated with militant Islamists. Having served out his prison term, he took his wife and children and left for Turkey.

“Why Doesn’t Putin Call Us?”

Next door to the Faizov house lives 73-year-old Mirzo, a veteran of the (Soviet) Afghanistan war. When I show him my red press pass proving my credentials as a correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda, he thinks at first that it’s my Party ticket.

“Here is what they call the Lenin region,” Mirzo tells me. “This was all part of the Soviet Union. If they declare tomorrow that the Soviet Union is back, then I will be the first to sign up! I believe that Tajikistan should help Russia defeat Ukraine. Why doesn’t Putin call us? If Russia loses this war, then we will all lose.”

The gates to the Faizov home

Mirzo remembers well the younger Faizov, he also got a haircut from him. “I don’t even blame him so much as I blame his father. His father also went to Russia to earn money as a guest worker. How could his father allow him to do something like that? He’s just a dumb kid, he ended up in the wrong place. He created a river of blood. Because of him, people are criticizing us Tajiks, even during the Hajj, they were saying things like: Your people are murderers!”

As we are talking, we notice, out on the street, a young man in worn, dirty clothes, heaving heavy cobblestones into a wheelbarrow. “Do you see how he works?” Mirzo exclaims. “What kind of life is that? And in the villages things are even worse. If Russia abandons us and leaves us without jobs, then what will become of us?”

An Attack In Ivanovo

One of the neighbors attempts to guide me to the Faizov house, they learned that one of the elder Faizovs has returned home. [yalensis: Talk about nosy neighbors! Who needs surveillance cameras when you have neighbors like this!] A man opens the door, he is a distant relative. He tells me that he did not know Mohammadsobir very well. Nor did the latter have any close friends in the village. Well, this is strange. This is the third time that I have heard this kind of verbiage. I find it strange that not one of the terrorists had any friends in his own town. Are these people just scared to admit it? Maybe, if you admit to being the friend of a terrorist, you will find yourself being grilled later in the offices of the security services.

Along the street a young man in a shaggy black jacket walks by. The jacket is not cheap though, it’s store-bought. The young man is wearing a red face mask. He struggles to speak, he can barely speak, it’s more like a groaning sound. Tells me that he lives in the neighboring house. Yes, he knew Mohammadsobir, he knew him back in Ivanovo, where both men were living as guest workers.

No, they were not close friends, he clarifies. He himself worked at a construction site, and sometimes went to Faizov’s barbershop to get a haircut. He tells me that on March 8, just before the terrorist act, he himself was attacked when he left his home in the evening. He says that there were around 10 attackers, all drunk. They beat him up, broke his jaw, and tossed him into a dumpster. In the hospital they had to perform surgery on him, they put in metal braces.

The young man lowers his face mask so that I can see his metallic grin. But he won’t tell me his name. He says, “I already went through all of that…” His bones will heal eventually, they will remove the metal, then he will be able to speak normally again.

[to be continued]