In Tajikistan, students were voluntarily forced to collect cotton (well, as in Russia - for potatoes). Per this practice still exists today. Cleaning work took place from September to November. Nights in the cold barracks in the bedrooms, messy dirt, fights, drunkenness, secret smoking of anash and songs under the guitar at the fires in the cold starry nights. A romance from which everyone cracked as he could, because everyone came sick, broken, unwashed and frustrated.
Student units came to the disposal of the collective brigadier, conditions and attitude, gently speaking, left much to be desired. In addition, in spite of the "intelligence of the public", how the universities (pfff, this little changed) flourished the most real grandfatherhood and landscape: the primates worked for everyone, a mighty bunch of students from the bear corners of the republic scratched the city and pressed things, in short, such a Soviet-post-Soviet noir with an Asian colour.
As a graduate with the highest score in the local "Tajikistan MGIMO" - Munosabathoy байнаkhalki (which in translation from farsi means "international relations") from the first-class cotton campaign, I safely cut off, engaged in painting the local library and sorting books, where, by the way, I first met Kant and Ilhin.
But in the second course, my friends and I decided to go through these thorns, attracted by the questionable romance described above, the overwhelming stories of the elderly, the opportunity to deceive the wild-growing gangbang and the puberty desire to strike for classmates away from their harsh fathers and brothers. For a small bribe we were placed in the first stream, from mid-September to mid-October, in the warm, almost summer time. And we went.
Casus, and the fun, was with excess, there was a fight, as without it, but there was also a straight story. Second-graduates were something like army "cheppers", the bullying in their direction was less, and internationalists were not touched in any way and even privilegedly led to the collegiate bath twice a week, rather than one (here is a place to joke about the broken soap).
Heavily bullied first-time students and especially two friends, in one of whom I met a neighbor from the micro-district - the son of a local mule. For what? There was a rumor that the two were gay. In their free time they go somewhere alone.
Someone even followed them once and said, indeed, they were sitting somewhere in the oak and something there "lovingly whirled."
The grass reached the beating. The second boy came and was taken by the parents, and the son of the mulla was assigned to us in the building, away from the savages. But nothing ended: he will go out into the field - he and whisper, and scream, and in the dining dish given, said, "always go with her, my own," or the others do not want to get your dishes after you accidentally. And he is, what is remarkable, zero emotions. Absolutely such stoicism.
And the most interesting thing: this rumor about his alleged homosexuality, we somehow accepted. Yes, yes, this guy is like that. Only the savages will poison him, and we will not. Well, how will we not... No-no, someone will make some non-obligatory reprisal (there is a place to joke about the broken soap) But we have repeatedly publicly advocated it. So there was not only a masculine toxic on our part (such words we did not know then), but also support.
And already at the end of the works someone at dinner guessed to ask: is this really all in general and the second in particular? He only shrugged his shoulders. A mysterious man. But she is a great smart woman, and she reads in Arabic, and speaks English, and Russian, as in her native. Every morning: charging and brushing the teeth to the column, even when it is cold, and the column is in the yard. Sometimes we were lazy, and he never.
He also played chess. And I just brought a board with me, but I didn’t dignify anyone. And we started championships with him in the evenings. So we joined. We talk about different topics, we joke, we talk. But the topic of gender is not touched, I carefully bypass it, because the guy is good, and what is there and how - his business, endured all kinds of wilds.
We went home in the same bus, we were neighbors and now friends. And there, word for word, I don't remember already, in terms of what, I still licked something like:... you, these, well, who you are there, everything is apparently different, I don't care about this, but here my relationship with ladies is built about this way...
And then he starts laughing: “No, I’m not gay.” I am an ordinary boy, I even have a bride. Did you believe these rumors all the time? Well, I tell you that not. And if suddenly you are one of those and I disappointed you, then forgive me.
What did you do with that guy then? The Qur’an teaches. He expressed the desire to take faith seriously, I helped. (Here is an important note, for a Muslim very important, if thanks to him someone in the faith has been fulfilled, it is a great good and believers do not miss the chance to be missionaries, I have met this many times.)
You, of course, apologize, I say, but you have never publicly denied it, even when you were asked a direct question. And these humiliations that happened, as you ate out of the dish of this individual, all these clashes... you just ignored it all, it was enough for you to explain everything to everyone once and there would not be that all. And your reason for your standards was very respectful and noble, everyone would understand it.
And the seventh-year-old son of a Tajik Mullah said to me (I emphasize every word) (this is almost a direct quote):
I don’t think they are in principle right. That is, if I were to justify myself before them, I would think that a Muslim, or a Tajik, or a man cannot be humiliated, but a Hezbollah, or there, a woman, or someone else - can be. I think no one can be humiliated. And if I left my position and explained something to them, it would be that I betrayed myself.
As if, if I were what you think, it’s okay, but I’m not, so don’t beat.
They did not deserve, besides, that I should justify myself before them in anything. They first judged, then did, and then asked. Their answer did not interest me. They just like to humiliate. Their own. The Russians. The strangers. The weak ones. The Others. any of them. I speak and explain equally. I will be the first to say what I need, if I see dignity. He was not there.
Then I saw Man, friends, great in the very human sense of the word. It was the most progressive and wise at the same time I’ve heard in two years in the universe. Everything he said, I seemed to have "known the soul" always and when he said it, I seemed to have seen... I don't know how to express... some relative being in the highest sense, not a compatriot, not a blood relative, not a monotheist (although this is already closer), but... a brother of the spirit, no matter how pathetic it sounds.
I saw the Unbreakable Man, a man with the idea that he had carried it through trials and as if he had not noticed how cool he was.
Such stories that I have been fortunate to see are my walls and banners, I am protected and inspired by them, I am built out of them and I climb up the memory I have of them, like a ladder. It was the best that my new friend could give me and he did it. It cost him nothing. But he has given me what I will give to others all my life: an example of wisdom, dignity and courage.
We live in evil times, but in dark times the people of light shine brighter. I see a lot of such people today. My walls are strengthened. My flags roar in the wind of freedom.
Like many of my friends at the time, the hero of this story is not alive. However, he lived in the best of the worlds in which he kept his treasures: worthy words and deeds. His name is Rashid. Please think about him well. He will hear.

Vallar Morgulis