Svetlana Groshans, a 27 year-old from Ural Mountains, Russia, wanted to experience something new, so she spent a summer in America as an exchange student, only to find out she fell in love with the country. She moved here the next year, only planning to work, earn money, then return to Russia, but it’s never happened. Svetlana has established new goals in her life and she cannot imagine what her life would be like if she didn’t immigrate. Presently, she is a student at Stony Brook University and she aspires to become a registered dietician.

Roots

I was born in Ural Mountains in Yekaterinberg, It’s like a pretty big city, but it’s a very industrial city, that’s why it’s not really famous… I think it’s only famous for one bad thing: a czar family was killed there.

There’s lots of factories there, so I guess it would be like a Detroit or Chicago of the United States. Lots of working class people. But it’s different now. Back when I was born during Soviet Union times, it was very cold and tough.

It’s a lot tougher there than here, like you can actually sense it when you go there, like people are different. People in Ural Mountains are very closed, tough, not really open. A lot of Russian people have like I guess a strong personality and strong point of view, like very closed-minded, so I guess a lot of times I can see that pattern in myself, which is changing because I live here now.

Childhood Memories

In the summer times when I was growing up, I used to to to my grandmother’s house, my grandmother’s village. It’s like about 4 hours away from my city, and it was like a real Russian village. It was like 50 houses in the whole village, two very small grocery stores. It was a secluded village, there was no passing-by traffic. It was around the river. It was cool because it was really preserved Russian village, it felt like the 30’s or the 40’s during soviet times.

Right now my grandmother’s house got a little more roomier, but I when I was growing up there, if you need to use the bathroom, you need to go outside. The bathhouse was like across the street. You had to burn the wood, burn the stove, put water in there, and wait for the water to get hot. When you use the bathroom in the winter you had to walk across the street to go back home. It’s something different.

Family

I have one sister. We’re really close with extended family in Russia. When we celebrate holidays we go to the grandmother’s house and all the cousins, brothers, and sisters come.

My parents got divorced when I was probably 13 or 14. Growing up after that without my father definitely affected me, but I still always had extended family to go to, like I had uncles. But I feel like in Russia, in my particular situation, it was a lot stronger women’s influence than men’s. My grandfathers passed away early and I have a lot of aunts. I’m very close with my mom’s side. Actually since the divorce, I don’t think I talk to my dad’s side at all.

I’m very close with my sister and I’m my mom. That’s why I say I have more of women’s influence because I know we have a super close relationship and we always share everything.

Religious Background

In Russia, the Russian Orthodox church was really big. Because of the Soviet Union times, there was like no religion. I feel like it was no education at all in religion. Like I had no idea what was Easter. We celebrated it but If you ask me what happened in that, I just had no idea. My grandmother never really passed any knowledge of god to us, so when I grew up, I was basically totally cut off from religion. I went to the church a couple of times but it was more like a joke to me than anything else.

Now it’s changed because right now I can say I understand a lot about god. I’ve never been religious but whenever something bad comes when I was a kid, when I was in a bad situation, for some reason I would just pray, even when I had no knowledge of god. Right now I go to church, right now I believe in god. It’s interesting for me to look back. It’s like a new experience.

Leaving Russia

Originally when I came here for a student-exchange program for the summertime and I had intentions to come here and stay here at all. For me more like a learn language, see how it runs, get like a summertime maybe like work. And I came here with my best friend.

When I came here I had intentions to stay but when I went back to Russia first time, I totally fell in love with the country (US). It was so many new things. I was only 18. When you’re 18, you’re kind of fearless, and right now I’m 27, so I wouldn’t jump into things that easily, but back then it was just an awesome idea. So we went back to Russia and we decided, okay let’s take a break at our university in Russia, and go to live a full year in the United States.

Next summer we did all our paperwork and we came back. I was planning to go back to Russia after, but it didn’t happen. Didn’t happen for two years. Then my sister came. You know when you’re young and you live somewhere for two or three years, it just kind of becomes your home.

Education

I was done with my high school when I was 16. I did three full years of university and I had two more years to get my Master’s, but I never liked what I studied. I studied marketing. I’m not business-minded, I’m not a salesperson, and I’m not super creative. I just picked marketing because it was very fashionable. I had really really good grades in school so basically could’ve picked and go anywhere. You know when you’re 16 years old you have no idea what you want to do in life. It was a prestige in my university and it was fashionable, so I just went there, but never liked it.

When you’re so young and you come somewhere and in the United States, with finding a summertime job, you’re gonna make some kind of money and then you’re gonna think like, “Oh I don’t even have to go to school,” so I took a break from school for a while and I was not even planning to go back until I actually grew up completely and I was like, “You know what, no. I can’t just live all my life doing like nothing, or like working in a restaurant. I need to get some kind of education and think what I need to do eventually.”

Nothing was really holding me in Russia. I did not value my education at all. I didn’t see value in that you know. I was not enjoying what I was studying, so it was easy decision for me to come here and stay here.

School in Russia vs. America

The system is different. What I like here, in the United States, it’s more about understanding the subject from like all angles, and I guess more discussion. In Russia, it was like a lot of plain science and plain terms. Russia is super strong in the science part, I feel like it fits Russian personality. Science is a science, right? You can’t have too much discussion over like, I don’t know, a chemical formula. It’s already proven, it is what it is. My math and science are really strong. I noticed when I took chemistry last semester, it was just so easy for me. I was surprised because the everyone was like crying how hard it is. I thought, “Was I doing anything wrong? Am I getting this wrong because it’s so easy for me?” I guess it was because my chemistry background was so strong. On the other hand, when I look into the subjects that are more talkative and more discussion part, it gets a little more challenging for me because this part was never really developed in me too well.

Back when I was studying in Russia, you can cheat so easily. You wouldn’t really write all your papers. Right now, I think it’s awesome that you can actually check for similarities when you upload papers. I love it because it gives you no room, basically, to cheat. Right now I’m in a different mindset, obviously. I love writing my papers. I like to develop the thoughts. Back in Russia, the teachers didn’t really earn much, so they didn’t care. Russia’s very corrupt, you can almost buy a grade.

Expectations and Impressions of NYC and New Yorkers

I originally moved here just to find a job because minimum wage here is so much higher than in Russia. I was just planning to earn enough money and go back to Russia and buy myself a car. That was my original plan. I didn’t want to just go to school and study whatever, so it wasn’t in my plan for a long time.

I was mostly around Bensonhurst/Brighton Beach/Sheepshead Bay area, which is like a very Russian area. I never really went anywhere outside because my English was not that great and I guess it was just easy to stay there. When you live there, it’s like you don’t have to speak English at all because everything’s Russian. You can go to a Russian restaurant and get a Russian menu, go to a Russian store and get Russian food, and go to a Russian pharmacy and get Russian cosmetics and Russian pills and Russian medicine. You can go to the Russian doctor. So it was easy for me in the beginning.

I occasionally went to Manhattan and thought, “Wow!!”. Everything was super big and super different and it actually felt like the United States. Brooklyn didn’t really feel like the America because the whole atmosphere was like a Russia.

The reality of living in Brooklyn was definitely different. When I imagined myself living in Brooklyn, it was like Manhattan, like living in an apartment with a view of the city.

Challenges Faced After Immigrating

The language barrier was tough so it took me a while to get used to New York and New Yorkers. I was learning English since third or fifth grade, so I had theoretical knowledge. I need to work more on understanding. In Russia, I was learning more like British English, and the accent was different, plus all our teachers speak with a Russian accent, so it sounded different when I came here.

When I came here, I was in a Greyhound bus station, and the woman could not understand me and I had no idea what she was saying. But I was able to communicate because I took a pen and a paper and I wrote the question down and she wrote me an answer and I understood it because theoretically I knew what to say, but practically, my pronunciation was terrible. My accent was horrible. It took me probably a year to adjust to the sound so I could understand what people are saying.

For me I didn’t know how many years it took to learn the words “What’s up” because it doesn’t really mean anything, so this kind of thing I would struggle with because I didn’t know how to answer that. It wasn’t part of the British English I learned too.

I started being comfortable maybe two years after living here. But my biggest challenge was definitely language.

Understanding all the government system, the taxation system, just all the systems was also challenge, but it’s a new experience.

Career Goal

I was always interested in food. Originally when I came here, I gained like 20 or 30 pounds, my sister too, and my best friend gained probably 35 pounds, my cousins gained weight. Everyone I knew who came from Russia gained weight. Me and my sister did a lot of crash diets and stupid diets, and then I met my husband and he’s a personal trainer, so he kind of opened my eyes about different nutrition stuff and I started getting really interested in organic foods, processed foods.

I started reading more about this and my husband told me to look into the profession. I had no idea this kind of profession even exist before. So I started googling more about it and decided to be a registered dietician. Plus I was always interested in working out and being healthy, so it goes well together. I like the scientific part of it.

Overall, Russia or America?

Because I came here when I was young and because I married here, I feel very Americanized. I feel like I am super bicultural. I can relate myself a lot more here than in Russia. I feel like most of my adult years was spent here. Like most of the time living in Russia was just growing up, but I became a real adult here. I had to be responsible.

It seemed to me that life here is easier. You don’t really feel that struggle. Here, you can actually grow up not really facing any hardships. You can just pass by, pass by, pass by, day to day. I didn’t want to go back to Russia because the food is expensive, the value of money here is different than in Russia. I think the United States is more of a consumer country, and I think that attracted me back then too.