Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 142. Home brew

It is now I know what kind of town the one of Kara-Balta is, and that its name translates from Kirghiz as “a black axe”. No wonder, as I used to work in a system of the III Main Administration of the Healthcare Ministry of the USSR, which served residents of towns of that kind.
And for the first time I learned about Kara-Balta, when Sasha Salmayer came to visit me in Frunze on summer vacations. So, in summer, 1970, my Batya (father) and I were sitting at home in Frunze making plans for the nearest days. I had three weeks left to stay with my parents, and my Batya was on a sick leave. He accidentally had his left hand badly burned. So we were figuring out what we would be doing for the three weeks. Well, it would take one week to go on vacation to the lake Issyk Kul, my dear mom had got special price sanatorium vouchers for us to a “Solnetchniy” holiday house in Cholpon-Ata. However the two weeks left had not been decided upon yet. My Batya and I were sitting deeply in thoughts not knowing what to think of.

In our reflections we were helped by home brew made of plums by Batya, plum brew; that was how Batya called the final product of brewing of extra fruit, heaps of which by some mysterious way got accumulated in our house.

It was impossible to eat all of it; as well as to process into jams and stewed fruit; so Batya had found as it seemed to him the most optimal way of processing. Without a gram of sugar and yeast he had in all kinds of containers gurgling brews made of cherries, plums and apples, and various kinds of fruit mixed. Those were the purest most natural kinds of wine. Batya filtered the wine, let it settle and poured into other containers.

Sure enough, every time when I came on vacation, the reserves started disappearing, like snow in spring. I do not remember who, but someone definitely from medics, had told Batya that the healthiest thing was to drink live wine before it had fermented and was filtered. In our family we called it home brew, so Batya preferred the brew and was treating others to wine, which had not settled yet, and if there was the home brew available, he treated everybody to it. I will also add that in ripe fruit, not processed with chemicals, after they wait without any processing for some time, there appear small white fruit worms. Well, in the home brew they came to the surface in white foam. So Batya and I were sitting and thinking: “Eh, that’s life”. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I dashed to the door, opened it, and there was Sasha Salmayer in person standing there. When at the institute I had given my address to everybody and invited to visit me. Petya Kozlov, Marik Golubkov and Sasha Salmayer had promised to come. So there was he. Sasha and I hugged and kissed, and I lead him inside to meet my Batya.

Sasha Salmayer, Marik Golubkov and Oleg Syedyshev

Sasha Salmayer, Marik Golubkov and Oleg Syedyshev

Batya was sincerely happy to meet the guest, and immediately busied himself with frying lamb’s ribs, which we had had already in tomato marinade in our refrigerator, waiting for Alexandra Mikhailovna to come home from work. We laid the table in the kitchen. In those days kitchen was a universal room. It was a kitchen as it was, and a reception hall, as well as a banquet room. So we were sitting chatting, the lamb was crackling in a cauldron, but first of all Batya offered to have a drink to the meeting and getting acquainted, and brought three enameled mugs of about 350 grams each with his special not fermented “plum brew”. It should be mentioned that Batya was not squeamish about those fruit worms and believed that other people also had to have the same attitude; he had the home brew together with the “appetizer”. I learned to deep my lips lower into the brew and drink from the depth of a mug, and what was floating on the surface was left there, and I splashed the “appetizer’ out afterwards. Though poor Sasha Salmayer, he did not know my tricks, but he saw Batya, who in a wink finished his toast “cup”, and started slowly drinking the brew. When drinking he was vigorously exhaling via his nose in order to keep off everything that was floating on the top. It was very funny to watch him. Sasha was choking, but kept drinking. The brew was actually very good and quite strong at the same time.

O.Syedyshev and A.Salmayer on their way to Issyk-Kul

O.Syedyshev and A.Salmayer on their way to Issyk-Kul

Sasha told us that he came from Kara-Bolta, where he was staying with his uncle, but did not tell us about the town, it looked like his uncle had strictly ordered him not to, but we did not ask any questions, we did not bother to be interested in all those secrets. So we were sitting and having a chat. After the third mug Sasha stopped breathing out into his mug and was drinking in a Russian style – in big gulps, and was praising the plum brew, he insisted on not calling it a home brew. Batya liked Sasha so much, that as soon as he learned that Sasha also had some free time left, at the same time as our trip to Issyk-Kul, that he gave him his voucher, for us to go on vacation together. We were frying lamb once again. Our appetite grew because of some mysterious reason. That night Sasha failed to return to his uncle’s place, perhaps he had too much of the fried lamb, and it was the freshest, the most delicious; ultimately, after having it Shurik could not stand on his feet for some reason, as well as Batya and I, by the way.

Briefly about what happened afterwards: in the morning we went to Sashka’s uncle to help him escape the punishment and pack his stuff for the trip to Issyk-Kul. Sasha’s uncle was a great guy; he even did not ask why Sasha had failed to make it home the other day. He only breathed in deeply and said that he had a cure for overeating of lamb and poured us a glass of cherry home brew each. The cherry brew was not worse than the plum brew, though the “appetizer” was not floating in it, it was clear like a tear and of pomegranate color.

  L.S.Kanevskiy  

L.S.Kanevskiy

Generally speaking, if we did not have to go to Issyk-Kul in the morning, then we would have started frying mutton again.

And how it was at Issyk-Kul is an absolutely different story, as Leonid Semenovitch Kanevskiy says.

23 June, 2012

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #214040200690

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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