Burnt by the Sun. The Koreans of the Russian Far East - Jon K. Chang

The Korean Deportation and Life in Central Asia 167

the Soviet Union. Koreans were now in a strange land and faced a desper-

ate strug gle to survive during their first two years in Central Asia. At the

same time, a small group of Soviet Koreans remained in North Sakhalin.

These are the principal themes of the next section.

LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA

Koreans arrived in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to sometimes open steppe,
reedy swamps, or collective farms (see Figure 14) with no extra housing.^88
Nikolai Ezhov’s first report to Stalin regarding housing stated that of the
6,000 families sent to Kazakhstan, there was housing for only 1,000, and
that the situation in Uzbekistan was even more dire: there was “completely
no housing” ready for the 2,000 families sent there from September 9 to

23.^89 A report regarding the availability of housing in the Upper, Middle,
and Lower Chirchik regions (raions) and others circling Tashkent stated
that by October 20, 1937, 5,549 Koreans had arrived, 5,535 were yet to ar-
rive (the plan was to settle 11,000), and  2,220 Koreans had been housed,
with a deficit of 3,245 Koreans currently without housing.^90
The Chirchik region contained three raions where the Koreans were to
be settled and form collective farms. These three regions were primarily where
this author’s interviews took place. Korean kolkhozes such as Kim Pen Hva,
Politotdel, Stary Leninski Put, Pravda, and Sverdlovsk were located in
the Chirchik region. Soon Ok Lee’s family was deported to Namangan,
where they were housed in a former school with an Uzbek family. At
first, the families could not communicate with each other. Soon Ok began
to learn Uzbek from the other family’s daughter, and later the two families
developed a close bond.^91 Iliaron Em’s family arrived on the Kazakh steppe
right before or during the first snowfall in October 1937. The deportees ar-
rived to find only a large shed, which they had to convert into acceptable
housing. They cut reeds and bundled these together to make a mattress.
They also used straw and reeds to thatch the roof and cover the openings.^92
Konstantin Kim lost his grand mother during the deportation passage. Two
months a fter arriving, his grand father died as well. Konstantin’s family
lived in a partly submerged dirt house for three years. According to the
Soviet- Uzbek planning, the authorities were to begin immediate construc-
tion of a kolkhoz and housing for the farmers; but the materials for homes
did not arrive until 1940. Regarding the years in the dugout house (zem-
lianka), he said, “We lived like savages (dikari). It was very hot, one room for
ten people. We cooked outside.”^93
Maia Kim’s family was deported directly to the steppe in Kazakhstan.
They w ere the only Korean deportees there at the time and there was no