Empire of the Ring

The Kazakh government has been supporting the Islamic religion to stand alone from Russia's economic and religious influences but since the majority of the people were nomads and they followed their own common laws and traditions, the government's efforts did not seem to be a huge success.

Also, many people who identified to be Muslims were only one in name, just like the majority of Azerbaijani people.

The Russians that occupied about twenty percent of the country's population had almost dominated the economic bloc, and the Russian language was more conventionally used by people than Kazakh.

Because of the Russian influence in the country, Russian Orthodox Churches were easily spotted. It was a rare country where the two religions coexisted in peace.

Recently, Russian Orthodox Church leaders frequently visited Arirang Farm. Since the Serbian immigrants believed Serbian Orthodox Church, they were naturally drawn to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Youngho was now talking to a Kazakh patriarch from the Russian Orthodox Church.

"Your Holiness, I haven't been deeply involved in a religion but I don't tamper with my people's religion. My only concern is that my people might get into a religious conflict in Kazakhstan. Could you please help Serbians not to get swept in the vortex of religious conflicts?"

"I understand your concern, but believers of orthodox churches of the world had never been into conflicts with other religions. We are fundamentally different from the Roman Catholic Church. We only provide a place to find peace for believers."

"That's relieving to know. The president has officially recognized the immigration region, so there won't be any limitations for religious activities."

"I've been thinking about that too. I was hoping to build a small church on the farm for the Serbian immigrants. If you could provide a plausible place, we will build the church at our own expense."

Since both churches shared the same doctrine, Youngho also agreed to the patriarch's idea that the people would not mind having a Russian Orthodox church.

He had been feeling bad for the immigrants who had been drinking to entertain themselves for the harsh winter. If a church was made in the town, their situations would be better.

"I'll also pay my part for the construction of the church. I only hope that Arirang Farm would be in peace."

"I couldn't be more thankful since you're willing to support us. I promise to send a father who's a great preacher who can be a great role model and leader for the farm people."

As the news was spread, Serbian residents welcomed it with joy.

It had been a flaw that prince consort was married to the Archduchess without converting to the Serbian Orthodox Church but hearing that the prince consort had donated the construction cost of the church building, their hearts were lifted.

To them, religion was culture and life and they had not been able to address it to Youngho that they wanted to build a church.

Youngho was upset that he was complaining to Jongil.

"Man, there's no one here who's going to stop them if they had told that they wanted to build a church. I feel like I've been the bad guy."

"You're not the good guy either. As the boss, you should've paid more attention to the residents and built a church already."

"And you did not tell me when you knew all this?"

"Well, I'm neither the prince consort of the Archduchess nor an aristocrat in this town. If I had made a fuss about it, people would've pointed fingers at me saying that I'm greedy for a title here."

Listening to Jongil, he seemed to want something from Youngho. His nostrils were bigger and he must have a complaint as well.

Youngho had been friends with Park Jongil so long that he knew whether Jongil was in a good mood and whether there was something he wanted to ask just by looking his face.

"Hey, you know at the coronation ceremony, there would be a granting of rewards and honors, right? If you keep acting like this, there won't be anything for you. What have you done for the residents?"

Jongil's face turned red.

"Hey! You're saying that I haven't done anything for the residents? Should I make a list?"

Seeing him getting upset, Youngho realized that there was definitely something he wanted. He was such an easy person to read minds from but not knowing about that, Jongil was pretending that he had no desire for rewards.

***

The winds had been calming down.

It was a sign of spring. Youngho heard that people here predict the coming spring from the scent of the winds. It sounded quite plausible.

Although the temperature dropped below the freezing point at nights, it was pretty warm in the day time. There would only be the last cold snap several times until the end of March.

The farming would begin by the end of April, so the noise of heavy equipment filled the field.

The field that would grow wheat this year was about a size of 2,000 acres, but compared to the whole farm site, it was only a small part. It would be a trial seeding since a large-scale underground water resource was still nowhere to be found and the farmers were still not sure of the amount of produce just yet.

The construction of an irrigation canal was also in the work beside the road construction to the wharf at the nearby branch river, so it seemed that the regular farming could begin next year. It would be perfect if another underground water resource was discovered, but once the irrigation canal was built, water supply would not be an obstacle for farming.

***

Although there were four months of the winter season, there were still things to do outside homes. The school was not opened yet but the teachers who had arrived early gathered people and taught them Russian.

When the class was over, men of different ages often gathered and went out for hunting and some old people gathered to drink together, while kids would play with ice on the frozen reservoir of the town. Since Kim Chun brought many pairs of skates and sleds for them, they could have some outdoor activities.

The town watches were also being trained strictly under Kim Ilkwon's instruction. Although there were no descendants of knights among the immigrants, they still had mastered strange arts and that was good enough.

It seemed the arts had been passed down from medieval times for the purpose of people's defense since they could not own their own weapons due to their class. All of the people had been learning as they entered teenage years and it was a great means to defend oneself. Since they lived in isolation in Serbia, it was martial arts that everyone had to learn to protect themselves and their people.

The immigrants' eyes were still keen for the people who lived in the mountainous area only doing farming and ranching. Youngho was worried that they drank too many drinks during winter, but it was just a way for them to warm their bodies and get accustomed to the extreme coldness of Kazakhstan which was incomparable to Serbian weather, and also because they had no jobs for now.

Now that the long period of the winter season was finally passing, the town's people became livelier than ever. So, Youngho decided to hold a big festival in the town before returning to Baku.

It was the festival to celebrate the coming of spring.

To prepare for the festival, Youngho lent five-thousand dollars for each family under the condition that they would repay him by the fall. He could pay for foods and drinks for the immigrants but buying all of the clothes that they would be wearing at the festival was overwhelming. Since it was a special occasion, people would be wearing special clothes and truly enjoy the time.

He thought about paying for all of their expenses but he decided not to in worry that people might lose self-reliance.

The people had been living an abundant life through food rotating and farm supplies but it was a different story if they could buy something for themselves even with borrowed money.

Youngho rented five tour buses for the people as they made a fuss about going out for shopping to the city of Kulsary which was two hours away from the farm.

All of the buses made five round-trips, which meant that except for a few old people, all the people of the town went to Kulsary for at least one time. Having been living on the farm for several months, they had missed the outside world and they also needed a lot of things to buy for the living.

While all of that was going on, Youngho called Zeynep Farm and invited Fatima and Zeynep, Park Youngsun and his daughter, Karajan, and Cha Insoo and his family for the festival.

***

The Cessna airplane that Cha Insoo flew landed at the runway of Arirang Farm. As the gate was opened, Youngho could hear Leon's voice first.

"Papapa…"

Since it was the first time seeing him in almost a month, the two went through a huge greeting ritual of kissing and hugging. Though hugging Leon, Youngho's eyes were on Fatima. She looked stunningly beautiful today.

Including the old Niksic, the elders of the town came out to receive Fatima and Youngho could not even get close to her. He was dying to hold her hand.

Whilst all of that, Youngho did not forget to ask an important question to Insoo.

"Did you bring kimchi and ramen?"

It was an unavoidable desire for Korean food.

The festival day was blessed with warm, spring weather with the temperature reaching above 50 degrees in Fahrenheit.

The traditional Serbian dances that were performed were not seen from the descendants of the kingdom in Baku, and the unique traditional foods with great smells though Youngho and Jongil did not even look at them. Except for the food, everything was new and fun.

Looking at people's joyful faces, Youngho regretted not throwing this kind of event earlier. On the other hand, Fatima and Zeynep are having a hard time shaking everyone's hand. Their hands swelled from shaking too many hands. Although the festival itself was important for the people, having to shake the Archduchess' hand was a more important and honorable thing.

As carrying Leon around, Youngho observed people trying to find if anyone was being left out by others. In any group of people, there are people who will be isolated and eventually, those people could form an internal dissent and put the whole group in danger. Fortunately, all of the people seemed to get along well and there were no discontent people.

The festival went on until the late night and all of the town's people were swelled with the atmosphere and hope for the new year.

From the unified people, Youngho also saw hope.

Youngho stayed at Arirang Farm for two more days and returned to Baku.

As he came from Atyrau, it felt like the season had changed. Baku's March sunshine was so warm that he almost felt like sweating. When returning to Zeynep Farm's mansion, Fatima quietly shared her idea.

"We should stay at the farm in Atyrau during summer. It'd be much cooler there. What do you think, honey?"

She seemed to love how the immigrants treated her like a queen. She wanted to go to stay there in the summer with an excuse of the weather.

"I'd love to. We could go swimming and fishing at the branch river of the Ural River. I'm going to teach Leon how to swim."

"He's still a baby."

"Fatima, why don't you learn swimming too?"

"What, really? Would you be okay if I wear bikinis?"

"What are you talking about? When did I ever say that I don't like you wearing bikinis?"

"It's not that but you always frowned at the international students' parents wearing bikinis at the reservoir."

"It's because I didn't like that they had bikinis on when others were working."

Youngho was sorry for Fatima that he had given a wrong impression to her. Because of his position as the CEO and boss of many workers, she had to dress modestly and act older than her age. She was still young but she had given up many fun things for him.

***

An American company in the defense industry, P Drones, chose Arirang Farm as their factory site to produce commercial drones for the market of Central Asia.

It was due to Michael's effort.

As a token of appreciation, Youngho gave several boxes of Zeynep Wine to Michael. After receiving the wine through Cho Sangchun, he called Youngho.

"Lee, You're not going to pay me with these only, right?"

"Of course not. You didn't know that you're a shareholder of our company?"

"Stop kidding me."

Michael's voice was brightened as Youngho said that he was a shareholder.

"You know I care a great deal about you, chief. I can't lie to a person who's like my father."

"Come on, just get done with it. I can't trust you now since your lying skills have improved too much."

"Hahaha…"

"Well, the P Drones will not have a technology partnership with you anyways. You've got to be satisfied with only building the assembly factory for now."

"I understand. I'm just happy that I made a great impression on the Kazakh government, chief."

"You'd need to treat me big when you come to this month's meeting."

Since meeting the Kazakh president, Youngho managed to draw investments of two foreign corporations. Soon, the factory that would create practical jobs would be established. It was a meaningful step for Kazakhstan since the jobs would last more than ten years. Also, it was a great chance for local factory workers to acquire advanced technologies.

If things worked out well, the factory would also be able to receive transfer of technology from the foreign corporations. As other related industries would also be benefited by the establishment of the factory, the situation had an excellent prospect.

To think that he should convert all of the prospects numerically and report it to the president, he called Sergey in Volgograd.

"Brother, because of the warm weather now, it's easier to transport wine."

"That's good news. Can you arrange other ships and send more wine at once? I don't have any left in stock."

"Our wine must be extremely good. I've delivered such a huge amount of them last fall."

"Well, what about the distributor's great business skills?"

"Alright, alright. This time, I'll give you wine aged three years in oak barrels. Would that satisfy you?"

"Sure enough. That's what I wanted. I'll prove it to you that Russia has a huge premium wine market."

Sergey had been wanting to sell premium wines and he was glad to hear that Youngho was sending three-year-old oak-aged wine. It was because premium wines made high profits for both producers and distributors.

Youngho had not decided the factory price of the premium wine yet and he planned to decide with Sergey after tasting it together.

"Brother, I'll come along with the cargo ship this time since I have things to discuss with you."