History lessons

Today in Talas the American flag came down at the base. I did not see it, nobody in Kyzyl-Adyr saw it, we saw it on the television in the teachers' room during the long break. Then the bell rang and I had the 8th class.

I did not know what to say. So I wrote the date on the board, 3.12.2006, and under it: "Today is history." A boy asked: "Saltanat eje, will it be in the test?" Maybe in ten years, I said. Open your exercise books.

For the 9th class. Aulie-Ata stands on the Talas where the river leaves the valley for the plain, 35 km north-north-west of us. It grew around the mausoleum of a Kara-Khanid ruler whom the local Muslims call Aulie-Ata, "holy father". The Kokand khans built a fortress there in the 1850s; the Russians took it in 1864, one of the Talas forts, and made it the seat of an uezd that included our whole valley.

Some Russian and Soviet scholars thought old Taraz lay under its mound. Our historians put Taraz at Talas. Discuss in class: why does it matter to people which town was Taraz?

In Soviet times it was an industrial town of 130 thousand. Today, after 1992, it is a much smaller place. But it kept its name all the time. It was never renamed. Remember this when you study the other towns.

Dear colleagues, dear pupils and parents. My niece told me that now anyone can write on the Internet. I have taught history for seventeen years, and every year I write the same notes again in a new exercise book because the old one is lost or eaten by the mice in the store room. So: here the notes will live.

I will write about our valley. Kyzyl-Adyr is not a famous place. But history did not only happen in Talas.