Guli Murad and Alisher Turkman. Two poets. One from Tajikistan and the other from Uzbekistan. Both are migrant workers in Russia. They say that life away from home has changed the subject of their poems.
“I remember my homeland more, I remember my grandchildren who are in the village.
I remembered my brother and sister.
I missed my children.
Both Manija, Yusuf, and Mehanam,
I remembered my little Samrat ,” says the Tajik poet Guli Murad.
He has been working and living in Russia for almost thirty years. At first, he used to go there every year during the working season and return to his homeland, but in recent years he has stayed there for a long time.
Alisher Nurmatov, who writes poetry under the pseudonym Alisher Turkman, was born in Tirmidhi, Uzbekistan, in the family of a worker. He says that writing poetry brings him relief.
“If I don’t write for a day, it gets worse. I eat myself for days and weeks. Because the same feelings, the same inner mood, thoughts don’t come out. I suffer,” said Alisher Turkman.
Guli Murad, a Tajik poet, also says: “Poetry is both pain and medicine for people. When pain and suffering increase, I pick up a pen. Whenever I write a complete poem, it seems that I am freed from grief and pain.”
Alisher Turkman works in the “Yandex” company to deliver food to customers in restaurants and cafes. Guli Murad works in construction. He considers migration to be a forced measure.
He says, “it was during the civil war, the situation was very bad, life became worse day by day, and we moved to Russia. The emigrant remains this low-rising sun, the emigrant remains the rare pearl, the emigrant is, in Russian terms, a “modern slave”.
I have become an immigrant, I have lost my way,
Where is the leader, where is the art, what is the event?
I am not in the poetry and poetic field,
People see me at work .”
Alisher Turkman’s opinion about immigration is different: “Immigration is not a bad thing. We have earned our livelihood. We are all guests in this world. We are nomads. We have moved. When the time comes, we will move.”
According to both immigrant poets, poetry connects them with others, finds sympathy. “For the first time, when I came to Russia, I felt very awkward. I felt alone and strange. Here I found many friends through Facebook, I met poets, as a result, my poems became colorful,” says Guli Murad.
Poet Alisher Turkman also says that his emigration began with fear and anxiety: “When I first arrived, I had a period of fear, excitement and anxiety about how this life of emigration would begin, that is, how it would begin and how it would continue. . Later I found a job. Thank God, not now.”
Guli Murad’s poems are played on the radio and sung by singers. He has also published several collections of poems. Alisher is preparing his first book of poems. Both consider the migration to be temporary and long to return to their hometown. A place where they say their poetry has listeners and readers.
Source : Радио Озоди