FREEFORUM

Serious question. Not to insult anyone. (Ok maybe a little.)

When the DPI cuts the gas in winter, who is cold? Us. When the Gendarmerie stands on the corner, who walks past them? Us. When the election is 88.74%, who has to go to work the next day and smile? US.

So when somebody in Chicago or Toronto writes long posts about "what Irad must do", with central heating, with a passport that works at every airport, I ask: do you have the RIGHT? You left. Irad is not a TV show you watch from the sofa.

WAKE UP IRAD (the ones who are still here)

here we go

Dear Ak,

I think this is aimed at me, and that's alright, it is a fair question and I want to answer it properly.

First: you are right that I am warm. I will not pretend I am cold. Our furnace in Chicago works (most of the time).

Second: I did not "leave" Irad the way you say. I was raised in Chicago by people who were forced out. I went back in 1997 because they could not. I lived ten years in Talas, paid my taxes, voted in the territorial elections, stood in the bread line in the winter of 2007 with everybody else. I came back here when my wife got sick and the city was being shot at. I would not call that watching from the sofa.

Third: the Association in Chicago has sent money home since 1955. Church books, medicine, school things. When the Soviets were there, the only Iradi books printed in the world were printed in a church hall on the north side of Chicago. So the diaspora does not only talk. Sometimes it prints.

I don't say I suffer like you. I say I love the same place. I think there is room for both of us in this thread.

With respect,
Temir

UncleTemir_Chicago posted:

stood in the bread line in the winter of 2007 with everybody else

From Alatau Heights? There was a bread line in Amerikanka? With the grass?

Ok, Uncle. You printed books. I respect the books. But you print books in Chicago and we READ them here with the light off so the neighbour does not see. That is the difference. Love is cheap at 8,000 kilometres.

I think both of you are right? Also the IAA Chicago has a page on the webring!! It has photos of picnic from 1998, I put it on the portal. They have yurt in a park in Chicago, very nice.

In Rise of Glory (1979) there is a brother who stays and a brother who goes to the city, and they argue for forty minutes, and in the end they ride together. It is the most boring part of the film. Please do not make me watch it again on a forum.

kino_talasfilm posted:

in the end they ride together

In the end the one who went to the city has the better horse. Think about that. That is a SOVIET film telling you who wins. WAKE UP IRAD

Ak, I will take "love is cheap at 8,000 kilometres" as a challenge. I will try to be useful and not only loving. If you ever need a book printed, you know where the church hall is.

(It is 9,700 km actually, I looked it up. Not that it matters.)

9,700. Of COURSE you looked it up. Diaspora: correcting the distance to the place they left.

I am going to step in gently before this becomes a fourth page.

Ak: Temir answered your question with patience. You can disagree without "Amerikanka" jokes every post.
Temir: please do not take the bait about kilometres.

Both of you love the same country. Read the rules, especially number six.

In 1992 a man came from Chicago with a suitcase of insulin.
He did not have the right to talk.
Nobody asked him to talk.

Bumping this old thread because it's the first one I read here and it annoyed me for a full day.

Hi, I'm Gulya, Toronto, family from Kara-Buura. My mother sends a box home every month. Tea, vitamins, children's shoes in three sizes because we never know who will grow. Last winter it was a space heater. Ak, you're welcome.

Temir is right. You can tell us we don't suffer like you. You can't tell us we don't belong.

Ah, now there is a TORONTO branch. Diaspora backing up diaspora. Very independent.

(Thank you for the shoes. The shoes are good. My position is the same.)

Welcome Gulya. Please come to the picnic this August if you can drive down. There is a feedback form at the end but it is optional.

Ak, Temir, and now Gulya: this is the last friendly reminder in this thread. Disagree with the idea. Not with the person. I'm leaving it open because the question is a good one.

Bumping the thread that made me register, twelve years later. This week pro-government commentators are asking whether a man with an American passport has the right to talk about Irad. Ak asked us the same thing in 2012. My answer is the same. "Love is cheap at 8,000 kilometres," he said. We paid a little more this week.

Ak would have had a field day with this week. He would also have marched. Both.

I reread the whole thread. olddog's insulin post still says it best.