Camel from Kyzylkum

IN GOMEL, BELARUS, I SETTLED in a small room that belonged to my brother-in-law in a two-room apartment. The bigger room of this apartment belonged to a family of four—husband, wife, and two small children. We shared the kitchen and the bathroom.

I hated my life in Gomel. The city had many problems after the Chernobyl accident, and my salary was so low that I could barely provide for myself before the next paycheck. In Zarafshan, my salary had been doubled before I left. In Gomel, I was working in the photo lab at the Gomselmash, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery. My job responsibilities were to take pictures of production leaders and different events, so we could display them near the main entrance. I have liked photography since childhood, but this work of taking pictures of production leaders of the Gomselmash was just boring. I did not like the job, I did not like the city, I simply did not like to live there. Without the friends whom I had back in Zarafshan, I felt very lonely in Gomel. It also seemed that people in Gomel were quite different from people in Zarafshan. There was a very special spirit of camaraderie, friendship, mutual assistance, and solidarity among people in geological communities in the Kyzylkum Desert—qualities that I value immensely. It is because of what they had to go through together to survive in extreme living and working conditions. I saw none of these values in the people of Gomel; therefore, it was difficult for me to make friends there. I lived there only a little more than one year. Big changes were waiting for me around the corner.