A native of the village of Ay Serez, Vait Mukhtarov was only nine years old when his family, his mother and six children, were forcibly deported to Uzbekistan.

“Within 28 days, four of my younger brothers and sisters died, and then my mother passed away. I was a 12-year-old child when I had to dig graves for them. But what kind of graves could I dig? I simply scraped the earth with a shovel and buried them. We, the children, buried them. Again, an Uzbek neighbor lent us a donkey cart; we loaded the body on it and went to bury it. Back then, there were a lot of jackals. You bury someone, and then the jackals pull the body out. My uncle came the day after my mother’s death. He heard the news and came. ‘Vait, let’s go recite a prayer for your mother,’ he said. We went, and all that was left of her were bones. The jackals had dug up the grave and eaten everything. The same happened to my brothers and sisters. There are no burials left in that cemetery,” Vait recalled.

After the war, his father found him and, along with his younger brother, took him to Tula.

Due to the conditions of exile, Vait was unable to obtain a formal education — he completed only three years of schooling. Nevertheless, from a young age, he was passionate about kuresh, the traditional national wrestling, and later became a coach, dedicating the majority of his life to it. Under his guidance, several generations of athletes were raised.

Following his return to his homeland in 1990, Vait became actively involved in community life. He regularly participated in gatherings of fellow villagers in his native Ay Serez and led prayers. Thanks to his efforts, a mosque was built in the village of Canatay (near Aqmescit/Simferopol), where he settled upon his return and served for many years as an imam.

His distinctive appearance often attracted the attention of filmmakers — Vait appeared in one of the episodes of the Haytarma film.

Vait Mukhtarov is survived by four children, fourteen grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Blessed be the memory of a man who endured the pain of deportation, survived, preserved his faith and culture, and passed them on to future generations.