The Russian propaganda machine would constantly emphasize and reiterate the government's care for its citizens. To demonstrate its concern, every citizen who completed university was referred by government authorities to a specific job in his field of expertise. The job could transport him to any city in the vastness of the Soviet Union, primarily in remote areas where there was a shortage of certain professionals. This is how R. Moshe Chaim’s parents, Gavriel and Yeshuah Saidov, came to settle in a tiny town by the name of Tchileg, not far from Samarkand.

The Jewish community, if it could be so called, consisted of six Jewish families. Since Gavriel descended from a religious family, and his wife Yeshuah was of course the daughter of R. Refael Chudaidatov, the young couple did their best to live an observant Jewish lifestyle, even in this forsaken town.

There was no mikva in the town, which mean making regular trips to and from Samarkand. Mikva aside, among the few residents of Tchileg was one who was familiar with the laws of kosher slaughter, but Yeshuah did not rely on him. Instead, every Sunday, which was market day, she would travel to Samarkand to buy a chicken and bring it to a local shochet for slaughter.

Sometimes she would send the chicken to Samarkand with her son, Moshe Chaim. In the atmosphere of fear prevalent at the time, the average shochet was too afraid to slaughter for someone who was not known amongst the community. Moshe Chaim fondly remembered how my father, R. Avrohom Zaltzman, and R. Chaim Zalman Kozliner would warmly welcome him, even if it was late at night, and prepare the chicken for him.

It once happened that those two kosher slaughterers were unavailable and Moshe Chaim was forced to return home without having accomplished his mission. His mother then told him of another Lubavitcher shochet in Samarkand and that he should go to him. But when Moshe Chaim arrived, this shochet did not recognize him, and began screaming when Moshe Chaim asked him to slaughter his chicken, “What do you want from me? I am not a shochet!” He then chased the poor boy away with a stick. Finally, Moshe Chaim located another shochet who agreed to slaughter the chicken for him.