Crowded into the apartment's small living room with a flower-covered casket at it center, friends of the deceased woman mourn. Balgo Rasin was a Yezidi Sheikh, honored both for her religious class and wise counsel. Three middle-aged male Sheikhs stand alternately at the head and foot of the casket chanting dirges. Men talk softly while waiting on the open-air landings midway up the grumbling Soviet-era high rise apartment building. Within an hour they will carry the casket down the tight stairway and the procession will continue to the cemetery for burial.