Part 4 – Travel Planning
© Copyrighted by Doug Salem, 2004
During the same period we were making plans to start our family, Olga and I had also decided that it was time to visit FSU again. In fact, we had been under increasing pressure from her parents to do this as well (in addition to producing a grandchild, with the ideal scenario being us showing up in Ukraine twice a year with a grandchild already in hand.) Going on two years since our last visit, we were long overdue. We made plans for the journey. We decided to give a lot this time - as just compensation to Olga’s family for our prolonged absence, and to ourselves for our own sense of detachment from the other half of our cross-cultural marriage.
Olga, currently the least encumbered but restricted by an unresolved conversion of her “Permanent U.S. Resident” status from “Conditional” to “Unconditional” that would cause her to turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight on such-and-such-a-date, would go ahead of me again, this time staying for a full six weeks. I being the most encumbered, having taken a full-time job with a firm that requires a lot of in-person appearances at various locations around the U.S. as part of the new, aggressive cozy home plan, would join her later.
Another wrinkle to this plan was that on our previous trips to Ukraine, Olga had been hassled twice by the local authorities trying to exit the country via Borispol Airport for not having the fabled “ex-pat registration” stamp in her Ukrainian passport. Not to be confused with a K-1 visa, Advance Parole Document, or Green Card, the stamp appears to be one part of an archaic Soviet device for thwarting defectors, dissidents and spies that has been converted to a stop-gap for stopping anybody (or anything) the newly independent Republic of Ukraine’s doesn’t really want to lose. For example, ex-politburo and party members who somehow managed to let State pension funds and/or mafia money get away from them and into foreign bank accounts, or precious human resources like young women in their child-bearing years. (Ukraine’s population is dwindling and it’s no joke.).
These were not just small hassles, mind you. Both times they told her she would not be allowed to board a plane leaving Borispol. Other Ukrainian wives of American husbands have not experienced this, but some have. Enforcement of the Soviet-hangover law’s fine print, which is in the back of every Ukrainian passport, seems to be at the whim of the Border Guard in the Passport Control booth at the point of exit. I must admit, my Olga is the kind of girl you don’t like to see leaving.
Although popular advice was to “just go for it” or “just get her U.S. citizenship,” and we had managed to buffalo our way past the Ukrainian Border Guards twice, albeit just barely, Olga refused to gamble again. In fact, she had felt so violated when they threatened to not let her return to her home, husband and dog in the U.S., she vowed not to let her “stupid country” force her into making a hasty decision about whether she should give up her birthright. (Citizenship of the stupid country - go figure. You’d have to be in her shoes to understand this. Come to think of it, I would be reluctant to give up citizenship of my stupid country as well.) Nor would Olga allow her family in Ukraine to be held hostage in terms of her freedom to visit them. She would fight for what was right. She would get the elusive “permission to take up permanent residence in another country” stamp, which is a prerequisite for getting the “ex-pat registration” stamp during her month-long visit home.
In my mind, we might as well try to catch the Loch Ness Monster. We had already tried to get the stamps twice – first from the Ukrainian Consulate in Washington D.C, then the new one in San Francisco, to no avail. And because of this uncertainty and lack of faith in the stupid country that somehow produces smart wives, we came up with a circumvention, just in case…
Brother Andrei and wife had moved to Novorossisyk, Russia. And we had not seen them in almost four years (since the big wedding reception). We would visit them and exit FSU through Russia. To the best of our knowledge, no Russian wife of an American man exiting that country had yet reported being hassled for not having a Ukrainian “ex-pat registration” stamp.
We made arrangements for Olga to sit out a summer semester of school, put her little business on hold, and cashed in a bunch of my frequent flyer miles to get her seats on United-KLM flights to Kiev in mid-July. Since frequent flyer tickets have to be round trip but we would not use the return leg, we just picked any return date that worked for the frequent flyer program. (That helped us get the departure date we wanted, as availability of frequent flyer slots is limited in the summer months). Then, after much shopping around and with the expert help of GoToRussia Travel, we purchased one round trip ticket from Los Angeles to Krasnodar and back on Aeroflot for me, and a visitor’s visa, in mid August. We also purchased a one-way ticket on the same return Aeroflot flights from Krasnodar to Los Angeles for Olga. Olga would fly to Kiev, travel by hired car to Krivoy Rog, Ukraine, and visit with her parents and friends for a month. She and her Mom would spend quality time together by storming the local OVIR for a “permission to take up permanent residence in another country” stamp.
Then Olga and her parents would travel by train to Krasnodar, Russia, while I acquired the same target from Los Angeles by air. Here we would join up with brother Andrei and travel to Novorosissysk in his car. We would spend a week-long vacation as a family on the Black Sea coast then Olga and I would return to Los Angeles by following the same route I took in reverse. Mom and Pop would take the train back to Ukraine empty-nested yet again.
To be continued ….
Doug Salem
(of Olga Salem’s GoEastNow
www.goeastnow.com)
