Russians in the US - Anecdotal

[Sculpto]

How about extreme patriotism backed up by fear of the Gulag?

[Boethius]

One of my parents' friends was a retired spook, he claimed years ago (last time I saw him was in the early 90s) that the KGB was superior to the CIA during the Cold War because they worked with fewer ground rules and, unlike the CIA, their workers were among the very best and brightest that the Soviets had to offer.

Well, there is some truth, I think, to the fact that the "best and brightest" went into certain areas - mostly the analytic division of the KGB (these are the people running Russia today).  That is different from the internal KGB, which was responsible for maintaining the suppression apparatus, and again, different from the foreign spies.

However, before one could join the KGB or, for that matter, many other areas, one had to be from the right family.  There were many, many brilliant people who could not attend universities because they didn't want to do what they had to in order to get there (join the Komsomol, be informants, for example), or did not have the proper "family" backgrounds (did not come from a "working class" family - broad definition here). 

Also, if one wanted to be in any part of the KGB, from a Western perspective, one could not really have a conscience.  The things you had to do to "get there" were pretty unsavoury.

[Boethius]

I hear on television how good KGB used to be but to me they fell apart during the 1980's.  I agree they had nothing to do with fighting Afghan war.

My background deals a lot with investigations in foreign corrupt issues plus I have done political consulting in Ukraine and Obama camp.  I may not write the best but it is interesting for me to hear different views.   I agree I am probably not giving KGB enough credit but FSU in the 1980's was a mess just trying to see what the KGB really accomplished in the 1980's.  I know they had a well oil machined prior to the 1980's. 

First of all, the USSR was always a mess.  But, relatively speaking, in the early 1980's, the organs of repression were very efficient, and there were a lot of consumer goods, because oil prices were still high. 

I think you are confusing the party (CPSU) with the KGB.  The KGB was the organ of repression for the party.

The stagnation of the Brezhnev era was still in play in 1980-1982, until Andropov took power.  Those times were actually very repressive, as they were under Chernenko (to 1985), and even in the early part of the Gorbachev lie.  So, right there, you have half of the 1980's.

The KGB had nothing to do with Chernobyl' (which, if memory serves me, occurred in 1986).  Chernobyl' occurred because someone was drunk and didn't do their job.  That was actually pretty common in the USSR.

Everyone had food in the 1980's, everyone had a place to live (as they did until the collapse of communism), even if it wasn't comfortable.  Once oil prices collapsed, foreign imports to the USSR dropped, so many consumer goods were no longer available, but that wasn't really very different from previous times.  Further, the effects were really only in larger centers.  At any time, if you visited a small city or village, supplies in stores were always minimal, and differed from republic to republic (food supplies, for example, were worse in Russia than in Ukraine).

In the last part of the Gorbachev era, there were shortages, but they were planned to irritate the population.  That is why they were different in different republics. 

How about extreme patriotism backed up by fear of the Gulag?

I don't think, for most people, it was about patriotism.  It was about getting ahead.

[ECOCKS]

I wanted to ask the same question as Ranetka. After getting to know that daughter and her mother are Russians your wife still looked for a chance to improve her English with them? Isn't that strange to talk to people of the same native language as you - in other language? Only to take over their accents or mistakes they make? I would be unpleasantly surprised if a Russian person would insist on speaking English with me after knowing I'm also Russian, seems so unnatural. If one wants to improve language skills - anyway it's better to do so with native speakers of the language..
There was a time when possible i lived in New York and for the last month i lived on Brighton Beach. I know that there you don't feel like being in America, it's totally Russian. i also knew people who didn't learn a sinigle English word living there. But if they're satisfied with that and can do without English - it's their life, not too much to be shoked about it.
'

My wife didn't insist on speaking English, they insisted that they wanted to speak only in Russian.

My wife looks for every chance to build her English skills. It was a shock to her that someone would move (permanently) to America and not bother to learn the language in a 10 year period. She had heard about this but was a bit disbelieving until now. A few friends who insist that they will learn English when they get here makes her leery of this kind of thing. Thank goodness she didn't have to relocate to Southern Cal!

On this same note, I had sort of forgotten that the same student who brought me those pictures of Brighton Beach's Russian zone signage was also insistent that he HAD to move to Southfield, MI (outside Detroit) when they went to the US. He was extremely concerned that there was such high unemployment and was upset that he would be unable to find a decent job in his previous profession. When I suggested that he look into other areas of the US to live, he responded that he HAD to live there because there were other Russians who would help him out. His logic fault never seemed to be apparent to him.

Anf of course it is their life. I encourage everyone to lead the life that makes them happy. Then again, if they ever feel the need to complain that things aren't just what they wanted, I have little or no sympathy for them when they consciously chose their course of action without listening to the odds or realities of their situations. If someone wants to live in another country without learning the language, I say great, more power to them. However, when expats would complain that they were still being ripped off by taxi drivers and were unable to order their own food in a restaurant after a couple of years, I tuned them out.

These two gals had a comfort zone and the mother particularly seemed overjoyed that she could live in the US, enjoy the changed environment and living standard, without having to learn the language. I hope they enjoy it, it's part of what makes America a great place to live.

[kievstar]

To get back on topic we will have to agree to disagree on KGB being efficient and that people did not fake being Jewish to leave the country.  We got on the KGB because someone mentioned they would stop this.  Not sure really how they get involved in this. 

My point about FSU being a mess in 1980's is it was one blunder after another.  Have never seen any evidence FSU was well run or that the KGB was well run in 1980's.  But maybe another thread is better for anymore discussion on this.

[ECOCKS]

Well, as much as I love to stay OT, I tend to go with the belief that there was a percentage of FSU citizens who faked being Jewish either through bribes for the altered paperwork or through convenient marriages.

The efficiencies of the KGB, NKVD, Okrana and old Iron Felix's boys are worthy of another thread and a few posted links from the History Channel. Should be good fodder for our FSU/Western pro and con folks to hash out.

Likewise, the military seems to deserve its own thread for discussion as well.

[Faux Pas]

To get back on topic we will have to agree to disagree on KGB being efficient and that people did not fake being Jewish to leave the country.  We got on the KGB because someone mentioned they would stop this.  Not sure really how they get involved in this. 

My point about FSU being a mess in 1980's is it was one blunder after another.  Have never seen any evidence FSU was well run or that the KGB was well run in 1980's.  But maybe another thread is better for anymore discussion on this.

I don't think it any secret the the USSR was one of the poorest examples of an empire throughout history. It in and of itself was plagued with inefficiency. The "workers paradise" was really nothing more than the Czar's kingdom sliced, diced and julianned into fiefdoms deemed by the communist party. The KGB was but one of those and also one of, if not, the most powerful fiefdom. The KGB may very well have been inefficient by western organizational standards but they were highly effective in reaching objectives, feared and revered by their western counterparts.

[mendeleyev]

ChicagoGuy has a point: Purportedly an approximate 1 in 10 Soviet citizens had some connection to the various security organs, most as informants (whether voluntary or involuntary). The state securities were free to work not only against their главный противник ("main opponent") as the KGB termed the West, but against the Soviet people.

While the KGB and МVD (Министерство внутренних дел--Interior Ministry) also had the advantage of playing on their home soil against their own citizens, such was denied the CIA and MI-5/MI-6. The CIA was begun in the aftermath of WWII but the Soviet МВД dated back to the time of the Tsars (and still exists today) so they had more "practice time" before the big game too.

Faux Pas is very astute in pointing out both the inefficiencies of the Soviet security organs, yet their terrifying ability to reach objectives by sheer force of will when it came to controlling the population within Soviet borders.

[mendeleyev]

Andrei Gromyko's speech to the UN on 14 May 1947 outlined the Soviet belief that the number of Jews desiring to exit the Soviet Union would be so large as to create an unsustainable burden on the formation of a new Jewish state.

In 1950 Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinskiy told Moshe Sharett, Israel's Foreign Minister, that even with overwhelming justifications for allowing Jews to immigrate, the Soviet government feared the precedent, thinking that if Jews were allowed to freely leave then other ethnic groups would take up the call to exit also, thereby undermining stability both in Russia and in the Satellite republics.

[Boethius]

To get back on topic we will have to agree to disagree on KGB being efficient and that people did not fake being Jewish to leave the country.  We got on the KGB because someone mentioned they would stop this.  Not sure really how they get involved in this. 

My point about FSU being a mess in 1980's is it was one blunder after another.  Have never seen any evidence FSU was well run or that the KGB was well run in 1980's.  But maybe another thread is better for anymore discussion on this.

In the 1980's, nobody could fake their ethnic origins or bribe anyone to get out of the country.

Internal passports which, technically, had to be carried at all times (if a citizen did not produce one on demand, he/she could be held for 3 days in jail.  This was later changed, in the 1980's, to 30 days) were issued at age 16.  To get an internal passport, the 16 year old takes on of his/her parent's passport, passport photos (a ridiculously large amount), and a birth certificate.  The nationality of the parent is listed as the nationality in the passport.

The passport was sent to the passport department in the district in which the teen lived.  For boys, the passport information was sent to the military.  Boys took medicals for the army before age 16. 

From the district office, the passport went to the city passport department.  They check the information, because they have access to the national archives.  After a month or so, the internal passport is issued.

The internal passport system was connected to Moscow.  A copy was sent to Moscow by the city passport department.

Foreign passports were a much longer story, and were issued only by OVIR, and were issued locally, but only after it was approved by Moscow.

There were too many hands, and too much party control, for any person to change anything.  For clarity, I am referring soley to Soviet times.

[mendeleyev]

Boethius, I agree with your premise regarding the difficulty in changing ethnic identity on a passport.

Internal passports however were the responsibility of the Interior Ministry of which the local arm was OVIR...kind of like having an FBI-KGB office in most local police departments. As you know in Russia even local police are not governed "locally" as they all fall under control of the Interior Ministry from Moscow.

Foreign passports fell under the Foreign Affairs Ministry with applications vetted by the KGB. Other than a local ZAGS (for record keeping) there was no city passport department. 

Internal passports were upon approval handed over generally to either the citizen's union boss or the chair of the local party soviet (committee) for issuance. As you've correctly noted earlier, in cases out in rural areas and/or collective farms, the internal passport was held by an authority at least partially to prevent unapproved migration from one area of the country to another without government authorization. This was also the case for those who lived in "closed" cities.

[mendeleyev]

I feel compelled to correct something which was written quite a bit up-thread regarding unemployment and the safety net of the Soviet state.

Sometimes Westerns think that during Soviet times there was no unemployment and the "social safety net" covered everyone. Not true at all. It was very possible to be unemployed, which was a punishable crime, but if the person was unemployed because of being blacklisted by the party for some ideological fault or behaviour, it was also a crime for a firm or union to hire you at the same time it was a crime to be unemployed.

Often those who ran afoul of the party could lose job, apartment, medical and all benefits. There was no "social safety net" for those who found themselves on the wrong side of party ideology and out of a job/severe sickness. Either family and friends helped you survive (albeit it was a crime for them to do so) or one starved, had their children put in a state home and then sentenced to hard labour, or committed suicide, etc.

The supposed ideal was to be found as an Ударник (oo-DAR-nik), someone who "drank the kool-aid" and was honoured as a productive worker, building the future of Socialism.

Finally, perhap it was misstated, but the idea that during Mr Gorbachev's governance various shortages were the result of deliberate "planning" is incorrect. Can you imagine the government planning for certain areas to have no shoes and at the same time for other areas to be withheld milk? Good God, they had enough of a hard time trying to run an economy correctly, much less trying to manipulate one badly!

The command/control economy was a failure. It simply didn't work. In fact during the brief (failed) coup when Mr Gorbachev and his family were under house arrest in their Sochi dacha, the committee responsible for the coup wanted to take goods from other areas and move them back to Moscow to make citizens think that a return to hard line rule had miraculously resulted in meat being back on the shelves.

I give them an A+ for understanding that all they needed to do was wrest control of Moscow and the rest of the Soviet kingdom would fall back into line. However they completely underestimated the intelligence of the Soviet, and in this case, specifically the Russian people. Who in their right minds would fall for the idea that a return to rigidity and totalitarianism could somehow just magically one morning cure all the ills that had been brought on by that type of a system in the first place?!

[kievstar]

FSU was a big empire and impossible for one person to say no passports would change illegally. Not hard to get 20 people involved in corrpution if the payment is the right amount.  In order for fraud to work you need others to be in the loop. 

[Boethius]

Internal passports however were the responsibility of the Interior Ministry of which the local arm was OVIR...kind of like having an FBI-KGB office in most local police departments. As you know in Russia even local police are not governed "locally" as they all fall under control of the Interior Ministry from Moscow.

I respectfully disagree.  OVIR was under the supervision of the local party responsible for the KGB.  So, in a city, OVIR reported to the second deputy of the first secretary of the city.  OVIR never issued internal passports, though I agree, this was the responsiblilty of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).

Foreign passports fell under the Foreign Affairs Ministry with applications vetted by the KGB. Other than a local ZAGS (for record keeping) there was no city passport department. 

Yes, I agree they fell under the Foriegn Affairs Ministry, vetted by the KGB.  But, you gave your papers to your district OVIR, and the passport was obtained at the city OVIR.  Incidentally, all papers for a foreign passport were only valid for 2 months.

Internal passports were upon approval handed over generally to either the citizen's union boss or the chair of the local party soviet (committee) for issuance.

No, you would come and get it at the passport table.  Internal passports were issued at age 16, when most Soviets were still in school. 

As you've correctly noted earlier, in cases out in rural areas and/or collective farms, the internal passport was held by an authority at least partially to prevent unapproved migration from one area of the country to another without government authorization. This was also the case for those who lived in "closed" cities.

No, that is incorrect.  Internal passports were not held by anyone in closed cities.  Other than those living on collectives, the passport holder always kept his/her internal passport.

Sometimes Westerns think that during Soviet times there was no unemployment and the "social safety net" covered everyone. Not true at all. It was very possible to be unemployed, which was a punishable crime, but if the person was unemployed because of being blacklisted by the party for some ideological fault or behaviour, it was also a crime for a firm or union to hire you at the same time it was a crime to be unemployed.

Absolutely.  My husband was unemployed for a very long time when he first returned from military service.  He came from an "undesirable element".  It was used as a way to break people.

ETA - Typically, these people would be offered jobs where bribes could be taken.  This was always arranged, so that the person could be arrested legally.  I can't begin to tell you how many provocations my husband, and his father, were subjected to.

[Boethius]

FSU was a big empire and impossible for one person to say no passports would change illegally. Not hard to get 20 people involved in corrpution if the payment is the right amount.  In order for fraud to work you need others to be in the loop.  

You think like a Westerner.  Impossible.  You would not just go to jail if caught.

People working in these areas were devoted commie dogs.   These people were hand picked.   They had good jobs, good apartments, good salary, access to better stores, their children would have access to better schools, higher education, etc.  To do this, with the risk of being caught, would mean losing absolutely all of this.  Further, in an informant system, you can't trust that all 20 people would keep their mouths shut (statistically improbable anyway, as at least 2 of those people would have been informants).  In fact, most people would have assumed that the person they are dealing with was an informant and could not be trusted, and that this was a "test" by the authorities.  

Also, money didn't mean anything in the USSR.  Power was everything. 

Honestly, this is a laughable notion.

[kievstar]

Boethius where do you live currently and where were you born?  So your an expert on Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and the other now countries of the FSU in the 1980's.  That is laughable. 

You say power was everything.  So you speak for all of the FSU in the 1980's?

Did you go to Harvard to get a degree.  You sound very book smart but have no clue about reality.

[Boethius]

Evidently, I hit a nerve.

You know nothing about me, kiev, or what I, or my husband, or his family, went through.  You also know nothing about how the USSR was run.  I suspect you never lived in a totalitarian state.  And, the USSR was comprised of more than Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

In my extended family, several members were deported to Siberia, allowed only to retun after Stalin's death.  One of my mother's cousins was a 17 year old who was sent to a gulag, where she was raped daily by guards. 

The system of passport control was the same across the USSR.  The system of appointing officials to the KGB, including OVIR, was the same throughout the USSR.  The system of getting into elite universities, or getting into the party, was the same across the USSR.  The manner of getting a propiska was the same across the USSR.  All of this was centrally organized.  One step left or right, and you were dead. 

OVIR officers received lots of offers for bribes.  These all had to be reported.  In fact, the officer would not know if the briber was a plant.  If he was not a plant, officials may say "Take the bribe, we'll track where this is coming from."

Yes, I am book smart.  But I also lived in acid.  I had experiences most Soviets would not have had.  It is not something I would wish on anyone.  I was routinely offered money, trips, rare goods.  I was young, naive, and didn't take it not becasue I assumed someone was trying to entrap me (which was the case), but because it was morally wrong.  After a while, my husband used to joke that he couldn't leave me alone for ten minutes without some guy appearing out of the woodwork.

I remember the first time, when we tried to register to marry, how my husband was called to report for questioning by the KGB.  I remember the palatable fear in his eyes.  This was extremely unusual for him, and I will remember that look to my dying day. 

By the time of that questioning, my husband had already been an "undesirable element" for most of his life, he'd been harassed by police, been arrested numerous times (for offences such as attending a foreign art exhibition), and had money and goods stolen insolently by the police, so this wasn't something he was unused to.  I had been encouraged to go to the embassy in Moscow, so that I would be conveniently out of the city, 1,000 km away.  (When I got there, a friendly KGB officer was there to give me a ride in a special car to the door of the embassy.   There were certain cars only officials drove, and streets on which embassies were located were closed to traffic).

My husband told me the night before his questioning "If I don't come back, go home and write a book.  Tell everyone our story.  Tell people what we lived through." 

It was after that questioning he knew that his apartment was bugged, and we had nowhere to talk, other than an hour from the city, along the banks of the Dnipro, way out past the villages.  That was the only place he would talk freely.

Living in a totalitarian state changes your mindset.  I remember flying home one Christmas.  I was sitting next to another Westerner, who was asking me all sorts of questions about a variety of things.  He was obviously someone who was just trying to kill time on a long flight.  I say that in retrospect.  But at the time, instead of answering freely, I thought "Why is he asking me these things?", and answered guardedly.  Even growing up free, when you live there, your thoughts turn in a very negative way, because your survival, and, in my case, others' survival, depends on it.

So, if you are an undesirable, how did you survive?  By knowing your environment.  In September 1990, my husband told me the system would not last long.  At the time of the coup, tanks surrounded Kyiv.  My husband was called to an office at work, where a guy he'd never seen before told him he could go to work and home.  Nowhere else.  He was followed by this guy until the coup failed.  The guy told him "We will finally finish you off, as part of the unfinished elements of the Revolution."  There are artists in other parts of the USSR (not Russia, where the republic's KGB were loyal to Yeltsin) who have, since the collapse of the USSR, reported similar incidents of being followed and threatened with similar words (though, unlike my husband, they weren't "unfinished", but merely "undesirable").  But, I'm sure it is all just a big coincidence rather than any coordinated effort.

[Markus]

ECOCKS,

I think I called you erocks in my thread. Sorry for that.

I think that if the husband of an FSUW cannot handle the attention that an FSU wife needs,
he should get her involved with other people who speak her language. In saying that, it's the
obligation of the man who brought a woman from her homeland to make sure she adapts appropriately.

According to other people, I had everything against me. I proposed during the 1st meeting with my wife, she didn't speak English when I began talking to her, and I was doomed for gloom. I took a special focus on my
wife in knowing that she needed help in adapting to the American way of life. I still do that today. My wife
doesn't need Russian people locally to make her happy. So, if an FSUW needs the support of Russian
speaking people, in my opinion, the man isn't doing what he set out to do. He isn't giving up the things
he wants to do and give his attention to his wife. Oh yes, I deter from that occasionally, but I earn the
right to deter. Any married man will admit that he needs to earn the kitchen pass.

So, your post doesn't surprise me on the thinking of those people. It's not necessary that a FSUW stay in touch with other FSU people in close proximity. My wife calls her friends for a very small amount of money. She keeps
in touch with her family and we visit at least 1 time a year.

But, locally, my wife wants nothing to do with Russian ways. I took her to a Russian store and she disliked it. I liked it. But, as a smart husband says, my wife is the boss. The American way of life, along with a good husband is enough to make an FSUW happy.

Mark

[Markus]

Boethius,

Why try get out of your country? And to where? And will go by the name of your new country and combine them togethe? It sounds like a control thing going on. Does any one else see this same thing beginning in the U.S.?

Mark

[ECOCKS]

Hi Markus:

No problem, you're neither the first nor the last to get my name wrong.

I see it much as you do with regard to the wife's interaction with Russian culture, especially if it borders on dependency (or crosses the line). Oddly, I find myself more than a bit disappointed that my wife doesn't wish to be around the Russian community even to the point of avoiding the cafe and church. Not that I wish to convert to Orthodox but I would have hopped their would be some good sources of vareniks, pelmeni and a Russian language tutor in the community. Her English is progressing rapidly but she is continuing to be self-conscious about it.

Ah well, what is a husband to do?

Grin and bear it I guess!

[mendeleyev]

You say power was everything.

Most certainly.

Power meant access which was something money couldn't buy. Access to special stores, restaurants, nice vacations, a private apartment versus a communal building, a permit to purchase a car, access to jobs which were closed to most, and one could go on and on and on and on.


Boethius, not all passports were delivered directly and I suspect we could both point to varying examples. I'm very interested in your comment about artists. My wife is an artist based in Moscow. Is your husband an artist?

[JR]

Bothieus,

You really did live there and thru it. My ex-wife, her uncle and others told me many stories very simular to yours. It would be interesting to relate some of them. I could never relate to some of her fears. But then I am an American and have never endured anything close to what many Russians lived through.

[Boethius]

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[Boethius]

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[Boethius]

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