Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Sunday, Sep. 10 (Day Eleven)

Sunday September 10 (Day Eleven)

Visit Church of Pastor Kim in the morning

Pastor Kim Woo Seop was one of our first contacts and we decided to attend the Sunday Service of his church. His church was just five minutes away by car from our hotel. About 100 members gathered to have a Sunday Service.
After the service we could have interviews with several ethnic Koreans. One of them was Kim Bella, 60 year old lady pensioner. She used to teach Korean languages and after that did some business at the market. About several years ago the bad luck came to her with the capitalism. It was Pyramid business scheme that fail her in terms of money. She had to sell her house due to the business and lost all the assets she got. Ironically it was one of other Koreans who invited her to the business and she almost bankrupted. Kim with her single mother daughter and her grand son had to survive on her pension, 10000 Tenge per month. She smiled saying that now a lot of friends and relatives helped her and it was getting better. Her only concern is her daughter who is half alchoholic.
We had an interview with Lee Valentina, 73 years old lady, who used to teach history at the school, Lee Yulia (Yi Yula in Korean name) and others. They were all victims of the history as Mr Kim Jong Hoon said.

Invited to the Feast at the Dacha by Pastor Kim

After the church service, we were invited to the party at the Dacha by Pastor Kim. He already arranged the party for the male members for the church but it was just Boris Choi, the only elder of the church, the owner and his family of the Dacha and us. The chicken Shasylik he served was one of the best I have ever tasted. They used the wood for fire called Sak Sau and said it was the best for Shasylik. It did not make much smokes and its fire lasted long. A lot of stories came out over the wonderful feast. One of the funny stories was the one about the Tatar women. Choi Boris told us a joke about Tatar women. At the end of Second World War, three leaders of the alliance, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered to consider how to deal with Hitler if he was captured. Roosevelt suggested the death sentence for him. Churchill opposed and suggested life sentence since it was much more appropriate for the war criminal like Hitler. He explained that the long time in the cell could give him a much harder time than the death sentence. Stalin, having thought seriously, finally opened his mouth. `If the purpose is to give him much harder time, why don`t we make him marry Tatar woman and live with her until he die?` The daughter in law who claimed herself as a descendent of Korean was ridiculed by Boris Choi due to her rather outstanding Tatar-like beauty and the evening came to Dacha when we said good bye to it.