My parents permanently moved to the United States in 1993, and they have lived here ever since. They didn’t come to America for a singular reason, or any very substantial reasons ones at that. My mother’s whim was the driving force behind their move. She and my father lived all of their lives in the Soviet Union. My mother moved around all of her life. She was born in Siberia, spent her adolescence in a small town 100 kilometers or so south of St. Petersburg, and she spent her adult life in St. Petersburg itself. She never knew what it was like to be very committed to a single city. She never had a fierce love, like the kind most die-hard New Yorkers have for their city, for any one location. Seeing as my dad was a pretty high-profile businessman in the USSR, they were allowed travel privileges that most citizens didn’t dream of. Traveling with my dad, my mother realized that no matter how long one lives in France, Ecuador, or Germany, he will never become a real Frenchmen, Ecuadorian, or German. However, anyone can become a real American.

In 1992, it seemed my mom finally couldn’t take staying in one place. She decided to come to New York, and scope out the scene, so to say. Her plan was to live and work here for a few months. A friend of hers, Luda, met a man while waiting in line to get her own Visa approved. He told her that his wife, Irina, worked in New York helping other Russians get on their feet by giving them a place to live, finding them jobs, and helping them with their documents. Of course, none of these services were free. On the plane ride over to the US, my mom overheard another Russian named Viktor speaking about Brighton Beach, the Russian haven in NYC. They quickly made friends and arrived together. Upon meeting Irina in the airport, my mom started discussing her options. She was looking to get a job as a waitress or a masseuse. The woman started telling her that she was much too old for those jobs and offered her a salary of $150 a week, not including the expenses of board and job searches, when the standard was $200. Instead, my mom decided to stay with Viktor’s friends.

After speaking to the unpleasant woman, having flown with three layovers, and being daunted by NYC’s dirty subways in contrast to St. Petersburg’s beautiful trains, my mom was ready to get back on a flight to Russia. On their way over to Viktor’s friend’s Nikolai’s apartment, her mood got worse. Nikolai began telling her horror stories of the struggle that living in America is, and how fortunate my mom was for having someone to pick her up and provide her with affordable housing on her first night in the states. His apartment building was in Brighton. The lobby was dirty and reeked of urine. However, upon entering the apartment and being greeted by Nikolai’s cheerful wife, my mother’s mood lifted. The woman told my mom not to listen to pessimistic Nikolai so much, and that she had just arrived in the greatest city in the world. My mom lived in the apartment for $10 per night until she found a job as a live-in housekeeper and babysitter working for an upper class Italian family in Staten Island. After living in New York for a few months, my mom returned to her family in Russia with the confidence that they could, indeed, make it in New York City.

The next year, in February of 1993, both of my parents moved here with my older sister Irina. She was three years old at the time. My parents got their Visas out of pure luck. Upon getting to Brighton Beach, my parents rented the cheapest room they could find; it was still out of their price range. My dad found a job through a newspaper ad and went to work the next day. It was 40 minutes away by bus. He left after a few months because he found a better job in Manhattan. My mom stayed with my sister until she found a job waitressing in a Russian restaurant called Primorskiy. They had the best lunch special around- you could get a meal for $3.99- which meant that my mom had a lot of running around to do. When my mom would work, my sister would be left at a daycare center for the day. It was expensive, but with the two jobs, they made it work. At that point, my parents returned to Russia for some time on account of a family emergency. My dad was there for four months, and my mom stayed for five. My dad spent the extra month in NYC getting an apartment in Bensonhurst and starting up his own beeper repair shop in Long Island. After coming back to Primorskiy Restaurant, my mother left shortly after because she was pregnant with me. My family ended up living in Bensonhurst for 4 years, until 1998, when they bought our house in Bergen Beach.

Essentially, my parents left because of a “why not?” attitude. My mom always wanted to go, and once she made it here, she fell in love. Of course, my dad had to follow. Furthermore, before returning to Russia during the family emergency, things were getting bad in the cities for businessmen. A colleague of my dad’s was murdered, so they decided it was best to not return for some time. Before they knew it, life started happening. I was born, and my sister was enrolled in public school in Brooklyn. Upon leaving for good, it was difficult for my parents to part with family, but in terms of opportunities, there is nothing that Russia has to offer that New York City does not