Two bottles of vodka for some history
Noviy Vestnik ^ | September 8th, 2004 | Natal'ya Fomina
Some scraps of an old Japanese newspaper were found in the ruins of the old summer theaterAll week long correspondents from 'Noviy Vestnik' searched for this ancient newspaper, which was left here by Japanese prisoners of war more than a half-century ago. We were told that the papers were found by workers in the 13th precinct, who were working on the demolition of the old summer theater. When the stage was torn apart, stuck to a support beam was a yellowing scrap of paper, speckled with incomprehensible hieroglyphics.
Covered in lime and dust, the boys tearing down our historic landmark assured us that, not too long ago, they found a Japanese newspaper, or at least part of one. "Someone probably tore a piece off to roll their own cigarette, licked it, but was interrupted and stuck it on the wooden beam for later." This was the theory of Kaysar, the most senior in the work brigade. As far as where exactly this paper was to be found, he thought awhile, then recalled that it was passed around and a friend of Kuanysh by the name of Kuk finally took it home.
Over at Kuk's apartment on the outskirts of Maykuduk that evening, it turned out that the paper was sold four days ago to a historian from the museum of folklore. "I didn't even get enough for a good drunk, just two bottles of 'Talas'."
But the students of folklore over there only heard of the paper and its hieroglyphs for the first time from us. The museum's deputy science director sternly interrogated the employees, but was disappointed: none of them had gone to the summer theater or had acquired the Japanese newspaper.
Demolition worker Kuanysh then remembered the telephone number of a mysterious collector by the name of Askar.
Trade
Here it is, the miraculously preserved Japanese rarity. A blackened scrap of paper, now rotted in two. One side depicts three gloomy profiles in military caps. The other side is fully covered in hieroglyphics. Askar Kairbekov keeps them between the pages of a book. It turns out the this trained physician is not a professional historian, but his interest in the past he explains is just from a "love of my region". He never passed himself off as an employee of the museum, that was made up by the workers at the site. Askar Ashkenovich explains: "They had to think of a way to address me, so one little fellow shouts 'Historian!' and it stuck."
"I'm not a collector, I work in the municipal disaster department," he says. "One morning, after being on duty all day, I went to the summer theater, or at least what remained of it. Something drew me there. I thought: I'll just have one last look. I wanted to feel the spirit of the past. Well, the boys there were getting ready for work, so I asked them: 'Did you find anything interesting?' 'Yes' they replied, and one one said: 'We found some sort of a Japanese newspaper'. So they showed me it. The quality of course was better then, it was brighter and wasn't torn. I was immediately interested. 'Where's the rest of the paper?' I asked. 'There wasn't any, that's all we found' they said. So I said 'Give me it', 'Why do you need it?' they asked. I said 'Well, you certainly don't'. They said 'Buy it from us', and so we agreed. But I didn't have any money with me, but I got an advance and came back the next day."
Too late
Seeing how the newspaper had changed in a day, however, Askar Ashkenovich was very sorry that he had not immediately procured the money."This Kuanysh fellow put the paper in a matchbox and left it outside," the history lover sighs. "When I saw this, I was heartbroken! The box was left out in the rain. The paper got soaked and got dirt on it. I was too late! It was good that at least something was still left. For the boys at the site it was just a piece of paper! That's how they treated it, though they demanded 500 tenge ($3). To be honest, I wanted to pay that, but, after seeing how it was ruined, I objected that it was no longer worth it. And so they agreed in principle to 200 tenge. Later, I went there a few more times, climbed up on the foundations, but, except for rubbish from the demolition, I didn't find anything else. The workers tried to get me to buy some other things, an old chisel or something. They must have decided that I was a foreign millionaire."
The long-suffering scrap of a Japanese newspaper now repeats the fate of those homeless ones who once read it in a foreign land behind the barbed wire. Ironically, Askar Ashkenovich keeps what used to belong to prisoners of war in an old book by the Soviet writer Mikhail Prudnik, Ticket to Afar, a story about secret agents during World War II.
Three hundred and sixty yen
How the prisoners, working under the barrels of machineguns, could have managed to receive newspapers from their home island is a mystery for historians to work out. In order to find out what was written on the paper, we invited a Japanese linguist to translate for us.In his youth, Svyatoslav Mashtakov lived for some time in Japan, and now teaches Japanese at KUBUP (Karaganda university). He glanced at the scraps of newspaper, and shrugged his shouldners: "Well, and what kind of a charade is this! No beginning, no end, and no middle to the text!" Reading from right to left, top to bottom, Svyatoslav Mikhailovich comes to the conclusion that that one side talks about some kind of 'questions being investigated by philosophy'. The side which shows the men: 'Section for readers', while on the top margin is written: '28 May, Sunday edition'. From the text the linguist can discern only that 'for 360 yen one can join the reader's club'. Svyatoslav Mikhailovich explains here that it speaks of a rather large sum, since the average monthly wage in Japan back then was only about 150 yen.
