https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/a rice agronomist writes down where we came from Kündölük 3.4.2enhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2026/10/another-harvest.html Sat, 31 Oct 2026 19:00:00 +0600Workhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2026/10/another-harvest.html Autumn on the lower Chu, a thin year for money and a fat year for rice. The harvest is in. This year it is a good one: 58 centners per hectare on the big farms, they say, one of the best since I retired. The combines worked until dark, and the drivers ate rice with kimchi from a pot on the bonnet.…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2026/06/the-door-opens.html Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:10:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2026/06/the-door-opens.html On the 27th of June the network was opened again. On the 28th my daughter read the blog for the first time in two years. It happened without a ceremony. Vika wrote at midnight, her time: "Appa, it opens. I can see the first photo. The shoe box. The lid. Grandma's handwriting." Then nothing for ten…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2025/05/letters-from-seoul.html Sun, 04 May 2025 18:30:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2025/05/letters-from-seoul.html The segment is shut and the words come through the post: in e-mail, in pieces, from Vika. I will quote some of what Vika wrote me in the last months, with her permission, since I cannot show her comments. "Appa, I made kimchi from Grandma's recipe with the round cabbage (I found one in a Russian…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2024/03/seventy-five.html Sun, 03 Mar 2024 20:00:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2024/03/seventy-five.html A small birthday, a big table and three video calls that did not come through. Today I am 75. We had a table for eleven in the yard: neighbours, two cousins, the family of the neighbour's son, and Lena Pak with her husband and a very serious cake. It was cold. My wife said "outside, so that the…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2023/11/the-quiet-line.html Sun, 19 Nov 2023 17:20:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2023/11/the-quiet-line.html Since October the blog has had two kinds of readers: those in Irad, and the others. The others cannot see it. I heard the news on the 13th of October, the same as everyone else: the national network. No, I will not write about the reason, and neither will you, so this is a good moment for…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2022/12/vika-came-home.html Sun, 18 Dec 2022 20:10:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2022/12/vika-came-home.html Nine days in December, a suitcase of Korean chili flakes and the best kimchi week of my life. My daughter came from Seoul on the 8th, with a visa from Almaty and a bus to the Chu Gate, and she cried at the border, she told me, at the stamp. She had not been home since 2019. She brought: Korean…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2022/05/the-directive.html Sun, 22 May 2022 19:30:00 +0600Workhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2022/05/the-directive.html A short note about water and about a paper from the Zone's government. The Executive Directive of this spring (2022/14) asks the large users of water to prepare dry-year plans, and limits new rice paddies in the lower Chu. I am not an official, and I will say only what an old man would say over…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2021/12/the-girl-from-the-wolf-video.html Sun, 12 Dec 2021 20:40:00 +0600Familyhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2021/12/the-girl-from-the-wolf-video.html My grandson showed me a dance. I understood nothing. Then I understood everything. You may have seen it: five girls in wolf capes, a song called "Ak Börü", the dance with the arm over the head that everyone in school is doing. My grandson Artyom, 15, showed me on his phone in the kitchen and then…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2021/08/the-canal-in-july.html Sun, 29 Aug 2021 16:50:00 +0600Workhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2021/08/the-canal-in-july.html The summer of 2021: the lower Chu had half its water and the paddies had to choose. 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…https://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2020/09/what-a-grain-of-rice-knows.html Sun, 20 Sep 2020 18:00:00 +0600Workhttps://blog.attelkom.net/kimfamily/2020/09/what-a-grain-of-rice-knows.html A pensioner's lesson in how to store a harvest, in case the world requires it again. During the quarantine many people asked me how to store rice. So: five things from a man who has stored it for 38 years. Dry rice below 14 percent moisture. If you press a grain with your teeth and it cracks like…