Whether or not is the question of the century

I am Mike Mirier, Doctor of Medicine in the USA. And this is not an instruction to move, but only a reminder of what should be prepared for

Some thirty years have passed, and again the question is to go-not to go more relevant than ever. It is clear that not for everyone, but for those who have a brain and understanding that life will not be a repetition for them or their children.

Having swept on the carousel of stories under the crackers and salute, we again arrived at the same stop. Everyone again offers to get off and transfer from a boat to a wedge ... Meanwhile, there are always those who have decided for themselves: everything, they rolled up - and quietly go straight to the exit ...

This topic may be even more interesting in the light of a recent stuffing from the “Duma wise men” the idea of ​​a ban for Russians to participate in the traditional lottery of Green Cart. I would not want to croak, but perhaps this bench will be covered.

There is no equal immigration, it is approximately how it is impossible to enter the same river twice, but the general properties of the root transplants are similar. This, of course, is not an instruction on the move, but only a reminder of what should be prepared for in the case of a decision on departure.

At the end of the eighties, it became clear that this colossus on clay legs could not stand for a long time, and, not wanting to be crushed by the remnants, the people reached out into the OVIR (visa and permits). Wherever you come, only conversations: who is in the “presentation”, and who is already on suitcases. The Belarusian station turned into a meeting place, where he always came across acquaintances who came to hold a train set off to Vienna.

The mechanism was simple: a fake visa from the "uncle" from Israel - they say, I am leaving for a historical homeland, OVIR, Station, Vienna, Rome. Already in Rome, 90% of these “Zionists” suddenly changed the testimony and, having come running to the American, Canadian or Australian embassy, ​​stated that it was good, but hotly in their homeland, we better, if possible.

Then, from six to nine months of waiting in the same place, in Italy, the sale of souvenirs brought in advance for exchange, such as cameras, hohloma, linen sheets and other garbage, in the Italian bazaar, and as a result, as Willy Tokarev sang, " the 747th is quietly flying up to New York ."

In 1989, Israel began to issue paper in Moscow, and it became not necessary to leave for Rome. The Americans, of course, from malicious motives also began to accept documents right in Moscow. I still do not understand how the information spread, because the Internet was not there. The queue for the feed grew instantly, and it was necessary to go to mark, as for Finnish cuisine.

My dad stood in line. Those who came from other cities gathered in hundreds, and the one who lived in Moscow became a centurion. He followed the burst and reported when to come to Moscow to be celebrated. My dad was a centurion, a sort of Jewish Cossack, who jumped there instead of a horse on the subway, in an old beret instead of a father and with a logarithmic ruler instead of a checker.

We submitted documents at the end of September and received a number in the computer. After about two weeks, they stopped accepting documents if there were no direct relatives in America, but simply put a white box where it was necessary to throw profiles. On this, frivolous immigration to the States ended. We naturally jumped into the last car.

Every evening there was a military council at home, we were surprisingly unprepared and naive, and there was almost no information. I did not know whether it was possible to become a doctor again, just in case, my brother and I planned to start the release of Klyukovka vodka, which was made by our mother. Idiots, this “clatter” here turned out to be pouring!

We flew away on August 14, 1991, rushed to the thread, humiliated, having passed the corridors of Ovir, actually throwing everything. It was not a pity that only the selected passport was, and I proudly recorded in a white card at customs at Kennedy Airport - Stateless - Citizenship.

The plane was packed as we, the poor fellow.

Almost everyone was dismantled by relatives, we were alone in the hall. A man with a briefcase approached us.

- Are you the world?

- Yes.

- I am from Hias (Jewish organization of assistance to immigrants), I will take you to the city with me.

We went outside. In the face, like from a stove, the New York August Farm, a huge, the size of a boat, a rectangular “Chevrolet Caprice Classic” bibsed so that I jumped. New York met me stuck to the trouser trousers of the only pink whore of chewing gum.

We were taken to a cheap hotel in Manhattan, kindly shot for us Hias. We had seven people 42 dollars collected by friends.

We rode through the city, precisely described as stone jungle. Heat, traffic, Vanvik-Express Wei-the road from the airport resembles the channel of a dried river flowing in the canyon, concrete on the right, concrete on the left, the sky is not visible from the car.

Our agent talked on the road with the driver. He told how yesterday he went to New Jersey to collect raspberries on the farm. I heard a conversation, but did not understand what raspberries? Around concrete! One of us is definitely crazy!

In this hotel, a family from Minsk already lived for the poor. Low, curly, nimble and noisy. They ran along the corridor with a preoccupied look, constantly busy. They immediately told us that in a neighboring synagogue they pay five dollars, if we come to the morning prayer. I did not know then that it was a big Mitsva (good deed) - to collect Minian (10 people) for prayer, ten people and more - in theory, already a mass event, and not a golmy single picket.

I generally noticed that people from the periphery adapted best to new conditions. They were not burdened by pseudo -intelligent things: it is decent, it is indecent. They were not afraid to take risks, instantly surrounded horizontal connections, had a grip and willingly helped each other.

They found an office where they arrange Food Stamps (food coupons), knew where to get hold of free chicken and stuffed fish for the holiday, they easily forgave themselves and others. Among the others, people who have already passed something like that, having survived internal immigration, having moved, for example, from Bobruisk to Moscow or Leningrad, and then to America.

We began to go to the synagogue, one and a half kilometers there, and a half ago in the heat, of course, only men: I, dad and brother. Fifteen dollars for three were our first American earnings.

At night I did not sleep, realizing that I came with my wife and two young children for certain death. No language, no money, nothing. Now the pants hung on me, like on a mop, I lost a lot of weight from stress, although Hias still threw a little money to us, and there was always food.

But my wife Irochka kept heroically. Leaving her parents in Moscow, perhaps forever, she cried at night, swallowing tears, quietly, silently so that I did not notice.

In the synagogue, the service began at six in the morning. The old gray-haired grandfather Rabbi began to say something about the revolution that it was, they say, bad and something else. I did not know English and did not understand the hell that he was carrying there, what a revolution, but shook his head. On the way home on a newspaper collapse, I saw New York Times with a photo for the whole first page with a Russian tankman in a helmet on the tank tank.

I felt that I was struck by lightning! It was a pitch! At this moment, I suddenly completely cured, like St. Jorgen, throwing off the crutches. Stress and depression evaporated as it had not, there was an appetite and a normal dream.

We rented a tiny two -room apartment in Brooklyn: on the fourth floor, without an elevator, with an almost vertical staircase.

I decided that I would go to work in a taxi, but Irochka said: smear your ass with glue, sit down, open books and prove that you are a doctor, but I don’t need anything, and I went to clean the apartments and wash the toilets.

I spent a year and a half almost seven days a week, practicing 16 hours a day, passed all the exams and entered the residency.

I went to Kaplanov courses, which, in fact, were a library with class rooms. There at that time there were a man of 50 doctors from the USSR and prepared for exams. A colorful vinaigrette from doctors of different ages, specialties and cities. Almost everyone was confirmed, the residences passed and practice. True, it was difficult to find residency in the previous specialty, therefore it was not uncommon when a former gynecologist turned into a therapist, and an anesthetist into a neuropathologist, and only psychiatrists remained psychiatrists, since there are no random people in this specialty.

Immigration is always a test for strength - yourself, friends, relatives and family.

And I am infinitely grateful to my wife for love and support. Many families did not go through the immigration test and crumbled - maybe for the better - but I was lucky. My wife turned out to be strong as steel and was always my exoskeleton.

Already in the residency, I have repeatedly remembered the common opinion brought with me from Russia that, they say, the equipment in America is excellent, and the doctors are shit. Today it seems like the equipment was bought - nowhere to put, what is now better to treat?

The most interesting thing is that it seems that both the world is open, and people traveled back and forth, and the myth of American doctors has not changed. True, in fairness, people who still think so, themselves did not go anywhere, or went more and more to Turkey and Egypt.

The question of "go or not to go" is relevant in Russia for the past 120 years. This is always a personal issue, the reasons to leave for everyone are different, and the circumstances are different.

In Russia, they almost always talked about the tragedy of Russian emigration in Paris after the revolution, unfortunate Jews who left for Israel, or comical “Russians” on Brighton Beach, and almost never about the successes of emigration, which are actually the absolute majority.

So it was before the Internet, now the open space, people leave with money, know where they will live, what to eat, where to work - I don’t want to go. The only thing necessary is motivation, and Russia knows how to motivate.

My family is from Vilna. At the beginning of the twentieth century, they were divided into smart and others. The smart ones settled from America to Australia, the latter moved to Moscow. Someone stayed in place and disappeared during pogroms and wars. It took almost a hundred years the second half of the family to learn a lesson. Nobody is safe from the mistake, but if you repeat one and that mistake again, then you are not lucky with your head either.

Two years after our arrival, Papin's sister and his family went nowhere, like us, but to direct relatives. We provided them with a soft landing. On their border, grandfather’s orders and medals were selected from them, although they were documents for them. He went to the front on June 23 of the 41st and, fortunately, returned, albeit heavily shell-shocked, but alive-only in forty six.

We owed nothing, he paid for everyone.