On July 4, I will celebrate 13 years since, at the age of 22, I left my country forever. Since then, I never went back for a visit. After my grandfather died five years ago, I haven’t made a single call to Ukraine. Today, I read this fascinating and touching post by Spanish prof (false modesty aside, I actually suggested that it be written) and started thinking about why I have no relationship with any of my Ukrainian relatives and friends (except those who also emigrated.)
Back in the Soviet Union, everybody who tried to leave the country was considered a traitor, was persecuted and abused. Those who managed to leave were not allowed to keep in touch with those who remained. As a result, emigrating was pretty much like dying. You go away, and nobody hears from you ever again. The Soviet Union fell apart, but this attitude towards people who emigrate remained. I discovered it when I received my immigrant visa to Canada and came to my university to share the news with my friends and classmates. The second they saw me, they turned away and pretended I wasn’t there. The experience of being ignored like this by people who, for years, were your bosom buddies is not pleasant.
Then, one of those bosom buddies stole my money and said, “Well, you are leaving anyways” in explanation.
A professor – who used to like me the entire time I was at the university and who used to call me “our department’s star” – yelled that I was a traitor and that she would do everything in her power to destroy my life.
The only friend who did come to say good-bye to me and cried and hugged me was the one who was about to emigrate as well. She now lives in Baltimore and we are still in touch. (Hey, Lenchik!) Other close friends told me they were too busy to meet and say good-bye.
So I never went back. My parents, sister and aunt have visited Ukraine since we emigrated.
My mother went to visit her best friend of many decades. She brought gifts that she had chosen with care and love to suit the preferences of each family member. I saw her run from store to store for weeks trying to find the best gifts possible for the friend she loves so much. The best friend looked at the gifts, put them all back in the bag, handed it to my mother and said, “I’d rather you take your gifts back and give me their value in money.” (In case you think these people are starving or anything like that, you couldn’t be more mistaken.)
My aunt went to meet her nephew whom she babysat and adored when he was a kid. The nephew charged her for the gas he “wasted” on coming to meet her. Her niece stole her money to buy gifts for her boyfriend.
One of my aunts who remained in Ukraine stole the jewelry that had been in my father’s family for over 100 years (my father, mind you, is not related to her except by marriage) and destroyed a suitcase filled with photos of his ancestors, their records, and sentimental souvenirs. This is the aunt whom my parents helped out financially (a lot) for decades.
There are other things but they are too painful to write about at this particular moment. Please don’t think that we somehow managed to end up with a particularly vicious group of relatives and friends. The few times I tried participating in Russian-speaking blogs (run by complete strangers) I always was told that nobody had any interest in talking to a person who’d emigrated.
If I were to go to Ukraine right now, it would be like going to Greece or New Zealand, places where I don’t know anybody and would be completely alone. At least, in Greece and New Zealand I can hope to get in touch with people who read my blog and be welcomed by them. In Ukraine, I’d be completely isolated.
This was supposed to be a post on friendships but it somehow ended up being quite depressive. I will write the second part of the post later and I promise that it will be about my positive experiences with friendship.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is horrible, I feel so bad about all those things which happened to you and your family…
Somehow we were lucky not to encounter any of this. And before we get into “Estonia is not really like the rest of the USSR” type of argument – do not forget I am a Russian-speaker. Or, according to ethnic Estonians, as homo-soveticus as it gets. π π Thus, I am quite familiar with some… interesting circles.
My classmates from school (courtesy of odnoklassniki.ru) seem to be either indifferent or positive towards me. None ever asked me for money or any material objects.
In Estonian Russian-language political forums some consider me hopelessly westernized to the point of not understanding the “real Russian thing”, whatever it is, but nobody ever tried to dismiss me based directly on the fact I am outside or “betrayed” anything. And some of those people use “Glory to the Kremlin” as their signatures, for crying out loud… π π Once I was accused of being a freemason and a CIA agent by some especially idiotic retiree. But still – I was not accused of being a traitor by virtue of emigrating.
Where else did you encounter anti-emigrant attitude on the ex-SU internet, besides the place I know? Which got, actually, quite mellow… Neither of us got banned… And the hostess can explain her position, which I respect, by the way…
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You know how there was this poster “Spain. . . it’s different” in Franco’s Spain? Soon I’ll make a “Estonia. . . is different” poster. π
I tried getting in touch with people a while ago (it was around the time when I was at Cornell) and even started a profile at odnoklassniki. But it was all a huge waste of time. You can say that the X place is mellow but no immigrant from other countries that I know can even imagine such a situation.
My parents were planning a trip back for this summer but discovered that nobody is interested in seeing them and they won’t even have a place to stay.
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I am so sorry to hear about your experience. Did everybody who emigrated went to the US or Canada? Did the destination make a difference? I ask because the only negative attitudes I’ve had from people I used to consider friends at home were from a few that asked me how could I go to such an imperialistic country as the United States. People who moved to Spain or Italy did not encounter similar reactions.
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I don’t think that there is any kind of a political position behind this. My only explanation is that this is a legacy of the Soviet Union.
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Wow. People I know who have immigrated to the U. S. from Poland often go to Poland to visit their relatives. I am shocked at the difference, I admit.
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13 years ago there was 98 year. You remember, how there lived the country in the late nineties. There was a chaos and fear. Emigration was in the unique way to escape from poverty and fear before the future. And leaving caused unique feeling – envy. Envy and hatred. It was especially appreciable in a province. In Moscow life flew on another and consequently I still had weight of friends and the relatives who have left those years in many countries of the world. And now I with pleasure go to them on a visit, and they sometimes come to Moscow.
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I did not emigrate our of poverty. I was very comfortable financially. But you are right in that it almost feels like there is hatred. Even from close relatives.
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I didn’t mean that you have left from poverty. I wanted to tell that the population most part in the late nineties lived in penury. And for them emigration was unrealizable dream and unique way (in their understanding) to escape from poverty. For this reason they tested envy and hatred to emigrants.
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Natasha, but why “unrealizable dream”? The borders are open since 1991…
Clarissa – maybe it is exactly because you did not emigrate out of poverty. Maybe emigrating out of poverty is more understandable. But emigrating for some other reason is a statement “I do not like how we/you live here”?
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I don’t think anybody can emigrate out of poverty because the process is quite expensive. At that time, apartments cost quite little and didn’t cover the expenses of immigration.
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There are some ways of emigration. Is also not so expensive. My brother has left under the university invitation after has finished in Moscow ΠΠ€Π’Π. Has left in 91 year with the wife and the child, expenses were minimum. It is possible to marry the foreigner. It is possible to leave under the program offered by the country. For example, many my familiar Jews so have left to Germany.
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Many wanted to leave, but didn’t want anything to do for this purpose.
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And still. Personally I don’t see anything bad in economic emigration. I do not understand why the person shouldn’t want to live better. And if it is impossible to live is better in own country, it is natural that the person leaves in another.
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