Morduchay Ben Freho Niazov

From the memories of Petr Niazov, the son of Mordukhai and Evgeniya Niazov:

Dad was born in 1924 on the Jewish holiday of Purim. We always believed that he was named Mordukhai in honor of the hero from the “Book of Esther.” But now we know that he was given this name in honor of his great-grandfather, Mordukhai Nisim, the father of his grandmother Rivka Mavasheva on his mother’s side, Frekho Mavasheva (Niyazova).

We know little about Dad’s childhood because he was a man of few words, but one story has been preserved. When he was 15 or 16 years old, he came home and saw his brother Pinhas being beaten up for losing something while playing with hooligans. Mordukhai rushed into the fight. One of the thugs climbed onto the adobe roof of a house, and Mordukhai followed him. In an unequal struggle with the seasoned hooligan, Mordukhai received a deep, penetrating knife wound in the abdomen, with a ruptured spleen. He was saved with great difficulty, as he was found several hours later, bleeding in the scorching Bukharan sun.

Another incident, many years later, in the 1960s, happened because of me. I was studying at the conservatory and was on my way to an exam in my concert attire with a bow in hand when a drunk man accosted me near our house. I decided not to risk my bow and concert clothes, so I hid in a communal courtyard. Dad, hearing the man’s cries from the street asking, “Where does that Jew live here?” rushed out of the house in his pajama pants and, saying, “I am a Jew! What do you want?” immediately knocked down the hooligan with a single blow, though he fell as well. That day, I saw my dad fight for me for the first time.

These episodes reflect the principles that Dad adhered to throughout his life. Protecting his family, loved ones, and his nation were always the guiding principles of his existence.

But let’s return to the chronology of events. In 1942, Dad, an 18-year-old youth, was drafted into the military. He served in the artillery, handling heavy shells for a 76mm gun. During an explosion, a piece of shrapnel hit the shell he was holding in his hands, injuring his right hand. After the injury, from March 5 to April 24, 1943, Dad was in a hospital in Kazan. He then received a 10-day leave to go home to Bukhara for further recovery.

In general, it was a mistake by a military clerk who mistakenly issued a 10-day leave to a small town with a name similar to “Bukhara,” located not far from the front lines. When he received the ticket, Dad managed to convince the cashier supervisor that there was an error, and his destination was the city of Bukhara. It took 10 days just to travel to Tashkent, and then he was sent to serve in a labor army at “Farkhadstroy” in Begovat, where he worked hard on a steam locomotive – first as a stoker (constantly shoveling coal into the furnace) and then as an assistant engineer.

Here, he met a beautiful girl from Ashkenazi Jews, who had been evacuated from Kiev – Genya Reznik, who also worked at Farkhadstroy as an instructor in the party office. In late 1945, Genya found her older brother Lev, who had returned from captivity, and returned to Kiev, where she lived with Lev’s family and his wife (about 10 people) in a small basement room divided by partitions.

At that time, Mordukhai, suffering and in love with Genya, sent her hundreds of letters and postcards with declarations of love and requests to return and marry him (with the help of his younger uncle Rafik, who could write in Russian). It was not an easy decision for Genya. In Kiev, she had a brother and surviving relatives, and she was fluent in the Russian language, which Misha (as Genya called him) hardly spoke. Where Misha was calling her, there was no home, no money, nothing but the feeling of love. However, that feeling proved to be enough, and in 1947, Genya arrived in Tashkent, where, after a modest wedding, she became Ena Pinhusovna Niyazova (Evgeniya Petrovna), the first Ashkenazi-Jewish wife in the Mavashev-Niyazov clan.

She embraced all the customs and rules of the Bukharan Jews with the help of Tamara Mavasheva, who was by her side throughout the trials, joys, holidays, and everyday life. However, Genya retained the cultural heritage of European Jews and instilled it in their children and her husband. After getting married, the young couple, Misha and Genya, settled in an adobe house next to Aunt Tamara. Life began to improve. Dad retrained as a long-distance train car conductor, just like his middle brother, Pinhas. Evgeniya Petrovna taught in the elementary school. In their marriage, they had three sons – Petr, Alik, and Izya.

I was born on August 18, 1948. I completed music school and conservatory and got married to Ella Mavasheva, the granddaughter of Isaac Chaim, the brother of Abram Chaim. After returning from the army in 1974, our son Dima was born, but our life together did not work out. In 1985, I married Olga Bobrova (Niyazova), and we have two adopted children, Lena, Anya, and a son, Ilyusha. Until 1993, I worked in the orchestras of the opera and operetta theaters, as well as a teacher and conductor in music schools in Tashkent. I received various awards, including the Honored Teacher of the Uzbek SSR. In 1993, at the invitation of my mother’s brother, Lev Reznik, we moved to America, to the city of Cleveland, Ohio. My wife Olga, who was a doctor in the Soviet Union, opened a medical business with a partner. My musical career smoothly transitioned into banking. The following year, my eldest son Dima, his mother, and grandmother moved to San Diego, at my invitation.

My brother Alik was born on August 21, 1951, three years and three days after me. After finishing school and completing his military service, he worked in the printing department of the Ministry of Education of the Uzbek SSR, where he also received various awards. In 1974, he married Olga Deych and has two children, the elder daughter Veronika and son David. They came to America at the invitation of his wife’s relatives and now live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In 2015, my younger brother Izya was born on February 11, 1955. After graduating from a physics and mathematics school, he entered the Road Institute. While still in college, he married a girl from the Architecture Institute, Mila Doinyko. After graduating from the institute, they worked as engineers and architects for several years and then opened their own cooperative for manufacturing sports equipment. They have two sons, Roma and Sasha. They currently live in Cleveland. The elder son, Roma, is married to Laura Telezhenko (Niyazova) and has a daughter, Charlotte. Their younger son, Sasha, served in the U.S. Army for four years after high school (he fought in Iraq and Afghanistan), and he is married to Tanya Bazarova (Niyazova), with two sons, Nikolai and David.

The move to America exacerbated Dad’s heart condition, which he had been suffering from for many years. Three months later, he passed away from a heart attack. Mom, left without her husband, carried all the care and love for her brother, children, grandchildren, and maintained and revived the family’s Jewish traditions. She remembered the memorable dates of almost all of her husband’s relatives, as well as distant relatives from her own family, and never forgot to call and congratulate them, no matter where they lived. Mom outlived Dad by 18 years and passed away at the age of 88 on January 15, 2011. Both parents are buried in the “Mt. Zion” cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.