I know several people who still farm rice, and this year they told me: half the usual water in July. The Chu in the lower part is a quiet river but a thin one in a dry year. Upstream they take what they need, and the rest comes to us. Some villages did not plant the second field. Some planted and lost it.
In the Soviet time a drought was a plan problem; they sent a delegation. Now it is a problem of the farmer: he decides at 5 in the morning whether the field is worth the diesel. I do not envy the young men. They have drip irrigation on vegetables and they have telephones to look at the weather, but they do not have more water.
I walked the bank on Sunday with a neighbour's son who now runs a hundred hectares. He said "Viktor Pavlovich, was it ever like this in your time?" I said: 1992, and 1974, a little. He said "and what did you do?" I said "we prayed, and then we sent a delegation." He laughed. He did not laugh much that day.
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Viktor Pavlovich, 1974 I remember, my father drained the field in July and replanted it with beans. The beans saved the winter.
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