Tag: vlad

Winter-Spring 1992. About Good People

As I’ve mentioned earlier, winter 1991-92 was especially bad economically. And as a consequence, people were the most unkind. Several months later, when a situation has become a little bit better, people were much more inclined to let me skip the line and started to express more kindness towards the babies.

One thing I still can’t understand was the fact that for some reason, my twins were drawing lots of male attraction in my direction. Once I was taking the bedding to the laundry service. I’ve left the baby carriage outside for just a couple of minutes to bring my bundles in (it was a norm in Russia at that time, nobody thought that something terrible could happen to the babies in the course of a couple of minutes, and who in the right mind would want extra babies in their lives?!). When I’ve emerged out of the laundry service, I saw a guy standing by the baby carriage marveling at my babies. They were tiny at that time, bundled tight in the blankets, one with pink polka dots, another – with dark green. This was an indication of the gender of a tiny person inside each of the bundles.

The guy moved his gaze away from the babies and looked at me. “Twins!” – He exclaimed – “a boy and a girl! How you are doing this?! Any chance you are taking orders?” “No,” – I’ve replied – “It’s a matter of inspiration!”

There were multiple other occasions, especially by late spring-early summer, when Vlad and Anna very not just tiny bundles anymore. Men would stop by me when I was sitting on the bench at the playground and say: “Such beautiful babies! Any chance they need a father?” This was especially surprising since by late spring when I was almost done with breastfeeding, I was far from being a pretty sight. I weighed 49 kilograms (about 109 lb) while being 164 centimeters tall (5 feet 3.5 inches). My clothes were hanging on me like on the coat hanger, my face was covered with sores due to the lack of vitamins, and my teeth became so fragile, that I was missing several pieces, so I can’t even say that my smile was pretty.

Continue reading “Winter-Spring 1992. About Good People” →

Winter 1991 – 1992

Before I proceed with my story, I wanted to reply in more details to the comments on the previous post. “The nineties” was a very prolonged period, each several months the economic situation would change drastically. The time I was talking about in the previous post was from late fall 91 to spring 92, maybe a little bit more than that. Again, I am not going to consult the Wiki, to check the exact dates of all the legislation which were coming out these days. I am trying to recall as precise as possible how I felt back then.

In September, when I just came back from the hospital with Anna and Vlad it was not that bad yet. You could actually buy at least some things in the stores, and I remember that Boris was occasionally bringing me some groceries which he would manage to “get,” waving off my attempts of financial independence. This was one of the very few periods of our togetherness when I was OK with that.

I was eating a lot. I felt sick for the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy each time I was trying to eat something more than an apple, my body was not really processing anything. When I’ve checked into the hospital, the nurses were commenting “you are so thin!”, which sounded hilarious applied to my eight-months-pregnant with twins body, but they were right.

After Vlad and Anna were born, I started eating :). And there was actually stuff to eat. I remember making myself endless omelets with vegetables, cheese sandwiches, lots of black tea with whole milk, which was a traditional Russian breast milk production booster.

I believe things started to change for the worse in October, and then I barely had any protein till the end of the year. The hyperinflation was in full swing, and I had nothing except government subsidy for new mothers. The weirdest thing I remember about these times was my thinking about how in the world I could live on this little money till next month. I was thinking to myself: well, that’s what the government is giving for new mothers, if they came up with this sum of money, there should be a way to survive on it. It sounds completely ridiculous now, but I remember that back then these thoughts would provide some sort of comfort to me.

Continue reading “Winter 1991 – 1992” →

Flying to America for the First Time

Before I start, let me tell you a couple of words about how my children have reacted to the news that we are going to go to America. First of all, they were very excited to tell everybody around, and the funny thing is that nobody believed them! They would be at the playground, and would tell other parents: we are going to America for two years!!! And other parents would be yea, sure… And then I come and say that it’s true!

When Anna and I were talking recently about these weeks before our departure, she told me that she remembers there was one thing she was sad about, but she can’t remember what exactly it was. But I remembered! The Fall play in their daycare was in rehearsal at that time; it was a modern version of the Russian folk tale “Репка” (“The Turnip”). Both of them were playing leading parts: Anna was playing a role of Granddaughter, and Vlad was playing a Dog. And they had to miss their artistic triumph!

We were flying the KLM airlines. It was a strange flight; I do not think they even offer this kind of flight anymore: we would arrive at Copenhagen in the afternoon, spend a night in a hotel, and leave to Chicago in the morning. The hotel room and airport transfer were both paid by KLM. We did have some time to walk around the city, and I even remember that we went to see the Mermaid, but my mind was not there, and I could not fully enjoy the sights.

We had to eat somewhere, and I’ve asked at the hotel reception, where is the nearest place we can eat, and how much would it cost. I had to exchange some dollars to Denmark kronas, and I knew I wouldn’t need them after that evening. Money was scarce, I only had three hundred dollars, so I could not afford to waste any.


They directed us to the nearest McDonalds, which was a safe choice for kids, but also it was a luxury for us these days, and I could not stop thinking that I didn’t plan to spend that much money before we even come to America.

Fortunately, the hotel stay included breakfast, and we went down pretty early in the morning to be sure we eat before our bus comes. And we could hardly find any food my kids were familiar with. Neither they nor I were used to being served ice-cold milk, and they refused to drink it this way. I remember pleading them to eat some corn flakes with this cold milk, and I forgot what we ended up with, but I believe all of us had finally eaten something.

One thing which warmed my heart was that when we stepped on board of the airplane flying to Chicago, a flight attendant had given Anna and Vlad small Lego sets to build lego airplanes, and coloring books and some crayons. And that was so unusual for us! Real legos were extremely expensive in Russia, I would buy some Polish substitutes, which were also expensive, so they would only get medium-size sets for New Year or their birthdays. Having children be treated as special guests was a completely new concept to me, and I felt right away, that this new world is going to be a place of kindness.

During the long flight, the kids behaved well, didn’t make much noise, asked a flight attendant for some orange juice in English, and tried to connect with other children on the plane. So all was good. I stepped out of the airplane, holding my passport with my working vise (the kids didn’t have their separate passports then), and a note with the name of the company secretary, and their phone and address.

A border control officer took my papers and asked: do you know where you are going to go? I said: no, but somebody is picking me up. The officer said: what if nobody will meet you, what you are going to do? He’d sent me to the room with the wooden barriers, where other people were sitting and waiting, and he told me to sit and wait with them.

Imagine being after nine hours-long flight, with two five-year-olds, not even being able to tell them how much longer we need to wait, and why, and what we are waiting for in the first place. We ended up sitting there for about an hour: I and my five-year-old twins, with no food, no water, no toys, no books. They were doing great, being quite patient. And then an officer appeared at the doors and called on me. He handed me my passport and said: you can go! What? Can I go? No questions, no interrogation, no nothing? Yes, you can go.

We exited back to the baggage claim area. It was empty. No people, no luggage. And then we saw our boxes mounted on one cart, and a tall thin man standing by it – it was Val, and that was the first time we met him. I remember the kids walked towards him and clenched to his hands, and he was so surprised with that, that he just started walking, leaving me behind with the luggage:).

Those were our first steps on American soil.