https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/notes that grow slowly, about a valley I left and keep going back to Kündölük 3.4.2enhttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/10/last-apples.html Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:25:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/10/last-apples.html The last apples are picked: 41 kilos from the one old tree by the gate, the ones Granny calls "winter", hard as stones until January. The bazaar price is 3 som, so it is not for the money. We store them in the cellar on straw, one layer, not touching. In December I will bring one to my aunt in…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/08/going-back-in-august.html Sat, 15 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/08/going-back-in-august.html Every August I go home for two weeks. The tree had a heavy year. Granny made jam in the same basin as in 1990. My aunt, retired now, still prints her lessons for an old man in Nurzhan who has no Tulpar and sends them by post. I sat with Granny and the notebook, finally. The grafting varieties are…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/03/seeds-expensive.html Sun, 22 Mar 2026 20:20:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2026/03/seeds-expensive.html The seed packets at the bazaar cost more than last year, and half have no name. I asked a woman where her seeds came from. She said "from my sister". I bought four packets. Two germinated. This year I will save my own tomato seeds from the best fruit in September, dry on a paper towel, and write…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/08/the-mirab-s-exercise-book.html Sat, 09 Aug 2025 19:00:00 +0600evergreenhttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/08/the-mirab-s-exercise-book.html Follow-up to the water note. The old mirab of our street died in the spring, and his daughter gave me the exercise book to copy. It is a school notebook, squared, 48 pages, in pencil: the hours of each yard, by name, for thirty years, with the changes in the margin. "Kaiyrbek: 2 hours less,…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/05/the-frost-of-2008-three-replies.html Sun, 18 May 2025 20:10:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/05/the-frost-of-2008-three-replies.html Three of you wrote about the old frost note. Summary: A man from Sary-Bulak road writes that it was the night of 14 April, minus 5. He remembers because it was the day his daughter was born. A retired agronomist in Aulie-Ata says the whole valley lost the apricot, but the walnuts survived. My aunt…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/03/kyzyl-adyr-place-names.html Sun, 30 Mar 2025 20:00:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/03/kyzyl-adyr-place-names.html Collecting the names people use for places in town that are on no map: "the hot pipe" (where the heating main crosses the ditch and the snow never stays), "the Bulgarian" (a shop, no idea why), "the old cinema" (it was never a cinema). More to come.https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/01/what-sleeps.html Sat, 25 Jan 2025 18:50:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2025/01/what-sleeps.html In January the garden does nothing, which is its work. The trees are sleeping, the roots are sleeping, the earth in the beds is under snow. I walk round the yard in Granny's felt boots and write down what I see: footprints of a cat, the shape of the vines against the wall, icicles on the ditch.…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/09/walnuts.html Sun, 22 Sep 2024 19:30:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/09/walnuts.html Walnuts are shaken down from the tree with a long pole in the last week of September and laid on a sheet in the sun for a week. The green skin is removed with gloves (otherwise the hands are brown for a fortnight, ask me how I know). Granny sells half to the neighbour for 20 som a kilo and keeps…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/07/heat.html Tue, 30 Jul 2024 21:45:00 +0600seedlinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/07/heat.html Thirty-eight degrees in the yard at four o'clock. The leaves on the tomatoes fold in the afternoon like hands. The water turn came at night, I stood with a torch and a shovel and thought of Grandfather. The ditch smelled of mint and mud. I have no solution, only an observation: the plants do not…https://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/05/water-turns.html Sun, 12 May 2024 21:10:00 +0600buddinghttps://blog.attelkom.net/azamat/2024/05/water-turns.html In summer the irrigation ditch comes to our street on a schedule: each yard gets the water for a set number of hours, by turn, day or night. The man who keeps the turns is called the mirab. When our turn fell at 3 a.m., Grandfather went out with a shovel and a torch, and so did every neighbour on…