168 Chapter 7housing or kolkhozes. A cholera epidemic hit their family, and she immedi-
ately lost her older brother, who was twenty years old, and an older sister,
who was eigh teen.^94 Evgenia Tskhai from Blagoslovennoe was in Nikolsk-
Ussuriisk at the time of the deportation order. She had just taken her first
exams at the Teacher’s Institute (Pedtechnicum). Security was tight in the
RFE before the deportation. She could not return to Blagoslovennoe to be
deported with her family.^95 From Vladivostok, she was deported to Aktubinsk
near the Aral Sea while her family was sent to northern Kazakhstan. They
were eventually re united. Raisa Nigai faced very diff er ent circumstances
than other Koreans. Initially, she was very reluctant to acknowledge this.
Raisa’s brother Nikolai Nigai was an NKVD agent who took part in the
Korean deportation. Ms. Nigai did not state in which month she was de-
ported, only that she was deported and when she arrived in Karaganda,
Kazakhstan, it was already winter.^96 She said: “When we arrived in Ka-
zakhstan, t here were people to greet us at the train station. We received a
house immediately, we were given housing near the RaiKom people (Soviet
Regional Committee). They welcomed us with an open door. We didn’t meet
Kazakhs. We met only Rus sians and spoke Rus sian the whole first year.”^97
Deportees in the Chirchik region were settled on all- Korean or major-
ity Korean collective farms, many on swampland, which they had to clear
out themselves immediately, using the claylike mud to build houses and the
reeds and straw to thatch the roofs. The deportees would gather to build one
house together and then go on to the next. This spirit of unity encouraged
many deportees to fight through their feelings of anger or depression in
order to survive the first year(s). Flour, tea, and some milk were available
to the deportees in Chirchik (surrounding Tashkent). Koreans lived off of
this and wild grasses during the first year. For meat, there were wild boar,
wolves, dogs, and rabbits.^98 Hyenas and tigers (Turan) were also in the wild.
In the spring of 1938, Koreans were given rice to plant and received their
first cows.^99 Koreans in Kazakhstan did not fare as well. Uzbekistan was
provided with far more support and materials for its new settlers (pere-
selentsy)/deportees and provided much better opportunities in farming. G.
Kim, a chairman for the kolkhoz Red Commune, provided an example of
the plight of Koreans in Kazakhstan:
For the year 1937, there is no report. Nothing was paid out for [our] labor
for 1937 according to the estimates of the kolkhozniks (workers). The
kolkhozniks don’t have even one cent. All the kolkhozniks are living in
extremely difficult conditions. We are still living off of the flour brought
with us in September 1937, there has not been one gram of lard or meat, or