24
The Winterers
Every day, about an hour and a half before the midday meal, Fort Kosaral was visited by a crowd of Kazakh children ranging in age from six — who barely minced along in their worn felt stockings — to lanky awkward teenagers of fourteen in tattered boots and sorry-looking short chapans, out of which their arms, red-blue from the cold, protruded almost from the elbows. They wore shaggy caps of fox or wolf fur which cast weird shadows on the snow. Each of them carried a wooden or earthenware bowl.
On seeing them in the distance, the cook would say with a smile:
“Here comes the horde in the raw. It’s amazing how they can tramp such a distance for a spoonful of porridge.”
The distance from Kosaral to the aul by sleigh trail was quite long — about twelve versts, but the ch
