Two empty checkboxes were staring at me from the screen. One had “Kazakh” written beside it, the other “Russian”. The question said, “Please select your native language.” Growing up in a bilingual environment turned this seemingly easy task into a dilemma: one side of me, patriotic and instinctive, was telling me to choose Kazakh, the language of my bedtime stories and lullabies, my home language. My other side, rational and practical, was forcing me to choose Russian because I knew I was not as fluent in any other language as in Russian. I quickly chose the latter and tried to quiet my inner critic, instantaneously shouting, “Traitor!”. After years of selecting Russian when dialling call centres or choosing website language, I became...
Our family of five usually needs fifteen plates for Sunday lunches - each has one for the soup, the main dish, and the salad. My grandmother, the head chef, serves borsch first - a Russian beetroot soup with a spoon of sour cream atop. The main item of the lunch follows, the famous Uyghur laghman with its hand-pulled noodles and stir-fried meat and vegetables. The traditional Uzbek achichuk salad made of fresh tomatoes and onions suits laghman perfectly, completing our self-designed three-course meal. For dinner, our family would gather around the table to make vareniki - Ukrainian dumplings with mashed potatoes, but if we were waiting for special guests, we would cook besbarmak - the hallmark of Kazakh cuisine - boiled meat and large...
The pungent smell of meat struck my nostrils as twelve-year-old me entered the crowded bazaar on the early Sunday morning. My hand was holding my grandma's jacket as she elbowed her way through the chaotic streets up to counters. I could not hear my own voice as sellers shouted out prices, origins, and ages of meat, exclaiming, “Here, the most delicious and young veal!”. Although my legs hurt after an hour of buying kilograms of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and all other kinds of greens, my grandmother remained absolutely concentrated and serious. I was dreaming of clean and bright supermarkets where music plays in the background as you slowly choose beautifully packed vegetables and meat, where customers queue up and everyone...