Подарок Сталину

For one reason or another, I've been oddly attracted to all things Russian recently. For Christmas, I asked my girlfriend to get me Anne Applebaum's Gulag and some Russian films on DVD as a present while I invested in some more myself. Possibly, my interest has been builing up for some time now, but it was certainly hiked by a Kazakh film The Gift to Stalin about the forced deportations to the steppes of Kazakhstan, among other destinations, Bolsheviks carried out on its enemies and imagined enemies in the 30s and 40s.

It's skillfully told through the eyes of a Jewish survivor who revisits his childhood memories when his family of Jewish descent was involuntarily transferred from Moscow to the steppe and he was miraculously spared by a good-hearted Kazakh railman, Kasym. Sashka, renamed Basyr to prevent the security services from identifying him, quickly recovers from the strains of the unbearable train journey and finds his second home in a caring community of deportees that, apart from Kasym and other locals, include a Russian widow (Wiera) and a Polish doctor (Jerzy Dąbrowski, played by an actor from Poznań I've seen live in the theatre - Waldemar Szczepaniak). Even though bullied by an overbearing militiaman Bagabai, who repeatedly rapes local women and manages to get away with it, they create a safe haven for the boy who forms an extraordinary friendship with his saviour Kasym, who takes on the role of a foster dad/granddad. The tale takes place against the backdrop of raging deportations, shady NKVD security operations and the Soviet military effort in the Great Patriotic War. As Sashka joins a gang of Soviet vagrant orphans and keeps committing petty crime with them, his fortunes turn and during one theft attempt he's caught in the act by the police. Kasym's position in the village and his material sacrifice manage to set him free, but the situation in the area is becoming more and more dangerous for the boy. When, out of evny, Bagabai kills the Polish doctor in a drunken rage at Jerzy and Wiera's wedding party, only to be assassinated a few days later by unknown culprits, the mood deteriorates to such low levels that Kasym elects to send his beloved foundling back to Moscow for fear of mass arrests of gang children. It soon transpires this move indeed saves Sasha's life, again, and with the war drawing to an end, he is able to find relatives and leave Russia for Isreal.

In all possible ways, screenwriting, acting, directing, the Gift to Stalin is a piece of art and I couldn't help being intrigued by its origin in Kazakhstan. After Baron Cohen's Borat, it's known for the outside world as a downtrodden backwater, but there are plentiful signals that at least its modern cinama industry is going through a period of prosperity and excellence. Tulpan, another Kazakh production, is a 2009 favourite for some critics and fans.

Here's what I learned:
1) This is beshbarmak, a Kazakh flagship dish, here are other things one could want to know,
2) muezzin, in Islam, is a man who calls others to prayer,
3) Kazakhstan is sometimes called a land of exhile,
4) Almaty is the capital of Kazakhstan, previously known as Alma-Ata,
5) Dungan people,
6) Gagra is a coast restort in Abkhazia,
7) Nomads might live in yurts,
8) Semey, or Semipałatyńsk, was known as an atomic programme testing area,
9) Armenians = Ormianie,
10) бляТь means either shit! or a bitch,
11) Abay Quananbayuli (Abaj Kunanbajew) is the Kazakh Adam Mickiewicz