Victory Day — May 9 — is coming. TV and radio broadcasts, newspaper pages, website feeds, and social media will be flooded with articles, news stories, and films about the lives and heroism of soldiers, ordinary people, and entire nations united for that cherished victory.
Recently, the Tajik segment shared a sad statistic: only 17 WWII veterans remain alive in the country. Thinking about this, for some reason I remembered a distant memory from my childhood…
It was the late 1970s. We were living in a small workers' settlement called Dousti, in the north of Tajikistan near the border with Uzbekistan. The population wasn’t just Tajiks and Uzbeks, as is usually the case in rural areas here, but also workers and their families from across the Soviet Union.
The settlement existed around an oil extraction plant, which had brought in specialists from various corners of our then-vast country.
This was a time when people of middle and older age belonged to the generation that had survived the war with the fascists — not only WWII veterans, of whom there were still many, but also ordinary people.
The war’s sinister breath had touched everyone. Among our villagers were people who had lived through Nazi occupation in cities and villages before moving to Central Asia. Some came to Tajikistan as refugees and stayed until the end of their lives.
Among them were doctors, teachers, kindergarten staff, musicians, and factory workers.
The settlement had about 70–80 houses and was incredibly multiethnic — Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Jews, Bashkirs, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs... Even Germans lived there.
Where they came from, I don’t know. Some said they were former prisoners of war brought in for reconstruction work, others said they were evacuees who chose to stay.
But regardless of origins, everyone generally lived in peace. People worked in plain view, went to school, celebrated holidays, and held weddings together.
There was also a kind of local recluse — a deaf-mute shoemaker. He lived near our house, next to the village shop, in a room that looked like a storage closet.
He quietly worked there. He’d open the door in the morning, sit on the doorstep, and spend the whole day working. I never saw him go farther than his little workshop.
No one knew his name. At least, I never heard anyone address him by name. And he didn’t speak — only made some unintelligible sounds.
We would simply bring him our shoes, and he would examine and repair them.
It was hard to see inside his room. It was dark, with a single window covered tightly. The floors were unwashed, unpainted, and messy — with dozens of shoes always scattered outside.
And the shoemaker himself didn’t look very well — faded eyes, unkempt, with tufts of hair sticking out from under a worn-out cap.
Sometimes, I witnessed how children mocked him. They called him names, and in response, he would shout something guttural and unintelligible, which only excited the mischievous boys even more.
It usually didn’t last long — as soon as the shopkeeper or some adult poked their head out of the store, they would chase everyone away.
One day, my father decided to take me to our local club — a place that served as an auditorium for ceremonies, a cinema, and a dance hall. It was May 9, and a Victory Day celebration was scheduled. My father, was a WWII veteran too. On such days, he would put on his formal black suit with medals and orders.
We proudly walked down the street, although I didn’t fully understand the importance of the holiday. I was simply happy to be going to an “adult” event.
Near the club, a large crowd had already gathered — elderly men and women with medals on their jackets stood out. The atmosphere felt especially festive.
I looked at them with curiosity. These were our neighbors — Uncle Yura, Uncle Vasya, our neighbor Ibrohimjon-tagho, and Alik Mnazarov’s Grandpa...
We saw them every day. Why all the fuss now? They were all dressed up, joyful, congratulating one another. And no one was really paying attention to me, the little kid.
So I began looking around for friends to share my feelings. But my eyes stopped at a familiar figure in a worn cap. It was the mute shoemaker.
For the first time, I saw him shaved, groomed, and in a suit — not new, but decorated with the same medals as the others.
He approached the veterans and silently, yet respectfully, shook their hands.
They warmly and respectfully shook his hand in return, congratulated him, patted him on the shoulder.
Unlike the others, he didn’t linger with any group of veterans but went from one to the next, shaking hands and hugging the gray-haired medal-bearers.
He couldn’t speak, and I didn’t know whether he could hear. But now I realized — he wasn’t born mute.
And overall, today he looked and carried himself differently. It was clear that here, he was among his own. He was just as much a defender of the Motherland as the rest. This was his holiday too!
The mute shoemaker couldn’t express his joy and share war stories like the other veterans. But he seemed to simply enjoy the friendly atmosphere, the great respect, and the human warmth around him. And for that, he didn’t need to say a word. His eyes, usually dull, now sparkled like those of the other veterans.
People gave way to him in the hall, and someone handed him flowers. During the ceremonial meeting, he stared at the stage just like the others, listened, nodded, and applauded loudly.
Who he was in the war, why he received his medals, or how significant they were — I didn’t know.
But somewhere in my childhood subconscious, I understood that the next day, and every day after that, in any weather, he would be sitting again at the doorstep of his little room, repairing shoes.
Children would come again and start mocking him — and once again, adults would drive them off. He would helplessly wave his arms and roll his eyes, knowing he could do nothing about it, even though he had fought so those very boys and girls could live in peace.
There was only one thing left — to wait for next May 9, when he would again wear his decorated suit and stand among HIS comrades, who — just like in the war — would have his back and let no one harm him...
Today, when only a handful of veterans are still alive, it is especially important to remember and speak — about every person who gave up the quiet of their life for our peaceful childhood.
The mute shoemaker from Dousti couldn’t tell his story, but it remained forever in the memory of those who saw how, one day each year, he transformed from a recluse into a Hero.
Руcский
