Oriented on making people closer

In 1948, in the night from 5 to October 6 in Ashkhabad there was a terrible earthquake. In a flash the city was ruined, ten thousand people appeared under blockages. The trouble entered into each house, having taken unaware inhabitants of the capital of Turkmenistan. Tremors were distributed at late night when townspeople peacefully slept.

As the witness to the tragedy Gozel Howme who fulfilled her 18 that year, remembers that the city experienced an awful rumble. It seemed, the earth howls, but sleepy people did not realise that there was something strange. Only two fatal pushes in magnitude at 9-10 points under the Richter scale - and the city appeared destroyed.

All the day long, before that terrible night, Gozel with relatives and girlfriends weaved a carpet which needlewomen undertook in the beginning of October. Wishing to finish in the shortest terms work, girls weaved till the late evening. Soon visitors and girlfriends dispersed into their rooms for rest, and Gozel long could not fall asleep, due to toothache, but nevertheless, turning in her bed, she nevertheless managed to doze off.

• I woke up from a terrible pain, without understanding what occurred, - grandmother Gozel remembers. - went to bed in one room, and appeared in another, moreover under a case. The wide kitchen buffet held fallen ceiling while under blockages, having nestled to each other, were located I and some members of our family. We also remained there, if not the second strong tremor which pushed out me directly into the yard. I flied with such force that my cheek was peeled and the long plait hidden under scarf, got stuck somewhere in between trees and the part of hair was simply uprooted. It was really awful.

The old woman does not like to remember that terrible night. She had to see much in the course of her life - saw off her father and brother to the front, endured war, but as compared with other troubles, earthquake was most monstrous. The weather in October of the 1948 stood warm and some visitors slept in the street, and the brick wall of the house fell on them. The escaped friend of the father got Gozel from under blockages, and all this terrible picture appeared before the eyes of the girl.

• Cities were not at all, only a dust and sand, - the grandmother tells. - The earth hooted, dogs and the people who were distraught with grief, endured unprecedented shock howled, cried out names of the relatives whom they could not find. My friend helping me to weave a carpet was lost in that night. The bed on which she slept, we found in the next destroyed house. It might have been taken off through the adjacent wall. One of our relatives in tears tore to go to children, they remained in Buzmeyin (nowadays Abadan) with the grandmother. But there were roads, we did not understand, in what party we are, around the ruins, the tumbled down trees, the broken house utensils, stones. Till the morning we did not let the woman to go and only when the day broke, forcing down feet in blood ran along the railway so that not lose her way, to the city of Buzmeyin.

By the morning from the farm the father of our heroine returned, began to pull out from under blockages of bodies of people. The passer-by fellow, who responded to the requests for the help, helped a family to rake fragments of the house and to release relatives of Gozel clamped by heaps of stones.

• The fellow worried that he lost his takhya while helped us, but there was such dust that it was visible nothing. By dinner from the state farm they brought bags with a flour to feed people with bread. Dough for chorek was kneaded by everyone, even men. Then already the help began to arrive from different republics of USSR. They were afraid to build houses of brick already, therefore wooden beams served us as a canopy for the night, and in the middle of streets burnt down fires to cook food. In some months we found that lost takhya of the fellow man who helped us. On that was his name - Artyk Nury ogly. Once he called on us, and I remember, how the father returned him his takhya and thanked for the help with modest gifts.

Today Gozel Howme is 90 years old, she says that the present generation lives fine time which is necessary for appreciating. On her share and the share of her ancestors sad events dropped out, but they only strengthened character and tempered firmness to deprivations and troubles. A rug conceived in the far 1948, by Gozel all the same was completed, now it is stored at her son, like many other family relics.

Selbi Charyeva