The meeting in our mahalla had one subject. The football pitch behind School No. 41, a square of dirt with two rusty goals, was going to become a car park.
The proposal came from Mr Hamidov, who lives on the corner, and he spoke well. "In my view, we have no choice," he said. "There are twice as many cars in this street as ten years ago. People park on the pavement, and last winter a fire engine was delayed for six minutes."
Several people nodded. Another man stood up, red in the face, and called him wrong, and for a while the meeting was two men shouting.
Then a boy put up his hand. Bekzod is twelve. He plays on that pitch every evening, and most of the adults in the room had, at some time, yelled at him for kicking a ball against their gate.
He did not shout. He began by repeating Mr Hamidov's argument, carefully, as if it were his own. "Mr Hamidov says the street is full of cars. I see your point, and that's true — my grandmother needed an ambulance last year, and it was late."
The room went quiet.
"But if the pitch becomes a car park, forty children will play in the street instead, between the parked cars. As far as I'm concerned, that's more dangerous, not less." He took a folded paper out of his pocket. "There's also the empty land behind the old bakery. Nobody uses it. I'd say it could take thirty cars. I measured it with my brother's tape."
Then Mr Hamidov did something rare at mahalla meetings. He said, "I hadn't thought of that."
It took eight months and three more meetings. The land behind the bakery is now a car park for thirty-two cars, and the pitch is still a pitch, with new goals.
Bekzod told me later that the most useful thing he said that night was not about cars at all. It was the first phrase. "If you start with I see your point," he explained, "people stop defending themselves and start listening. Then you can say but."