“I entered this profession due to life circumstances. Previously, I prepared for work in Europe, obtaining categories C and D for driving trucks, but I couldn't find a job in that field due to lack of experience and started working here,” Urmat shares.
Some think that multilingualism automatically means a high income. They ask me what I am doing here. But life can be different, and sometimes you have to work in various conditions.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
Urmat is confident that regardless of the choice of profession, it is important to continually develop and acquire new skills. “I studied Arabic and Turkish at university. I learned Russian because there were no Kyrgyz materials in the study resources, and I had to translate from Arabic to Russian. I needed English for plans to move to Dubai. In 2017-2018, I was planning to go to South Korea, and that’s when I started learning Korean. Now I’m studying German because it’s interesting,” he explains.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
In his opinion, Arabic was the most challenging language to learn due to its phonetics and grammar. At that time, Urmat had no experience in learning languages. “Arabic belongs to the Semitic languages and has a completely different structure compared to Kyrgyz and Russian. However, Turkish and Korean are grammatically similar to Kyrgyz, so I learned Korean in just two and a half months,” he shares.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
Urmat studied languages both in courses and on his own.
“My mom helped pay for Turkish courses, I studied for eight months and received a certificate. When it was time to learn English, I only had enough money for two months, and then I learned it on my own,” he recounts.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
According to him, knowing languages helps him in his work, as more and more foreigners are among the passengers.
“Once, a girl who looked like a Korean got on the bus. She closed the mirror, and I first asked her in Kyrgyz, then in Russian, and tried in Korean. She replied 'no', and we switched to English. In the end, she turned out to be from China, studying at a university in Bishkek, and her parents work here. We had a great conversation,” Urmat recalls.
Knowing languages also helps him communicate with students from Pakistan and India, as well as with migrants from Bangladesh.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
For Urmat, being a driver is not an obstacle to personal growth. He believes that it is important not only how you earn but also what you do for yourself. Learning languages, developing new skills, and finding common ground with people are things that, in his opinion, will be useful in any profession and in any situation.
“It doesn’t matter where you work; what matters is to keep learning and enjoy what you do,” Urmat concludes.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
Urmat Kalmatov is the driver of bus No. 103. He speaks six languages fluently and is learning a seventh.
