Field Report

Well, I have solidified my relationship with the fruit-stand-lady. The fruit-stand-lady-by-the-Salgir-river has decided to trust the foreigner-running-in-a-bright-red-Canadian-hoodie. My casual waves upon arriving and leaving the Salgir river have led up to this responsibility: I am entrusted to guard the fruit stand while the lady makes a dash for the loo. My reward upon her return? A banana.

One could not ask for a more mutually agreeable relationship. I get potassium. She gets some relief. 

More importantly, I can say that the last week has been positively fruitful (sorry) from the standpoint of fieldwork. I have met some fascinating people, heard many incredible stories, and recorded some beautiful music.

Last week, I interviewed DJ Bebek, a prominent Crimean Tatar electronic musician whose debut album Deportacia piqued my interest in my first weeks in Simferopol. I also interviewed Enver Seit-Abdulov, an accomplished Crimean Tatar classical bayan player who comes from a line of Tatar musicians. His mother was recorded on this LP, a compilation of Crimean Tatar music recorded in Uzbekistan after Khrushchev's secret apologies for Stalin loosened things up a little bit.

I sat in with the Crimean Tatar student orchestra at KIPU, which is just getting off the ground.

Yesterday was big: I interviewed Fevzi Aliev at his home in Kamianka, one of the first Tatar settlements outside of Simferopol. 

He is a towering figure in Crimean Tatar folk and popular music, a composer and performer, and the author of an impressive Anthology of Crimean Tatar Folk Music. He is also incredibly lively and funny, and even played a Ukrainian song that he wrote last year for me at his piano. Here he is demonstrating how it was back in the day when you appeared on Soviet television. (No dancing around like the kids today do.)

Then, I met up with Milara-odzha and we traveled to the Tatar settlement in Maryna outside of Simferopol. Here's a photo of the corner store and the mosque being built.

We went to Maryna to record the story of Nariman Umerov, an octogenarian whose life of hardships is impossible to comprehend when face to face with his humor and charm. (Milara-odzha wanted to write his story up for an upcoming issue of the Avdet newspaper, since the Day of Deportation is coming up on May 18th. It was only after an hour of listening that we learned he was an accordion player. That's his photo at the top.)

Conscripted as a Nazi Ostarbeiter at the age of 14, escaped from the camp outside of Berlin in 1944, subsequently and suddenly handed a gun and integrated into the Red Army (where he eventually became a decorated hero), then exiled to Uzbekistan in the 1950s, reunited with his sisters (who survived the deportation). He told us of how he made his living as a musician (an accordion accompanist in schools and orphanages in Uzbekistan) through complete luck. We heard all the way up to the house that he, his wife and their sons built with their own hands in Maryna in the 1990s. Here are some of his awards and medals.

Today, I had the great honor to meet Mustafa Dzhemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatar political movement, a Soviet Gulag survivor, and an eminent advocate for human and indigenous rights. One of the most surprising things to come of our meeting was his offer to make me a CD of Crimean Tatar music. I am supposed to pick it up tomorrow. 

I continue to be astounded by the generosity and hospitality of people at every turn.

There are pages just screaming to be written about each name I've just dropped, but it is too late in the day and there are too many field notes that need to get jotted down before they fly out of my head to do that just yet. Oh, but one day...