Tatiana(Russia) first draft
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Tatiana Petrova came to the United States from Russia in the fall of 1993. It was a
difficult time for her country. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, and an old, quiet, and
predictable way of life had vanished. Millions of people were losing their jobs. Many of
those who still worked were not much luckier; they were not paid. This practice was so
common that it became a distinctive feature of that time. Employees often were owed
wages for several months. Sometimes, people finally received their money;
sometimes, a company went bankrupt, and workers found themselves in the street.
There were no unemployment benefits then, and people had to survive on their own.
The life was tough. Supermarkets' shelves were empty. Bank savings were eaten up
by inflation overnight. The streets were dark, dirty and dangerous. That was Russia of
the 1990s.
The yesterday's Soviet people, who had taken a permanent job and old age pension
for granted, had to find absolutely new means of living. Many of them did it surprisingly
fast, and some even managed to reach a certain degree of prosperity. There were two
most common ways to get out of poverty: to become a chelnok, and to find a job
abroad.
Chelnoks (a Russian word for shuttles) were a new and unique part of a Russian
society, some sort of middle class of that turmoil time. It was a mixed group formed by
people of all ages, life experiences, and genders. Among them were students and
university professors, factory workers and scientists, retirees and teenagers, men and
women. A business of those people closely resembled the one of medieval merchants.
Chelnoks went abroad, bought goods needed in Russia, brought them home in huge
bags called bauls, and then, sold them for profit.
Chelnoks traveled by planes, trains, and buses, usually, by groups of fifteen to twenty
people. Their most popular destinations were Turkey, China, and the United Arab
Emirates. From Turkey chelnoks brought leather jackets and sheepskin coats; from
China – variouse cloths and footwear (in 1990s, quality of Chinese goods was far
inferior comparing to Turkish ones), and from the UAE - Japanese electronics, which,
for some reason, were extremely inexpensive over there.
A trip to China was the cheapest one. In many cases, five hundred dollars would be
enough for it. Probably that's why many chelnoks started their careers with that country.
Some chelnoks went to China by Moscow-Peking train. On a way back to Russia,
passengers' compartments of its sleeping cars were packed with bauls so tight that
only a narrow space was left between bags and a ceiling. People slept there.
Russian train conductors did not pay any attention to it. After a few trips, they knew all
chelnoks in their cars by names. Conductors bought in China some goods too, and
chelnoks often helped to sell them. Besides, after crossing the Russian border,
chelnoks started selling their stuff right from the train. Normally, after a couple of days
of traveling their bauls became significantly thinner (it took six days to get from Peking
to Moscow). As a rule, chelnoks arrived in Moscow with empty bags and full wallets.
Immediately after that, they hurried to the nearest banks to exchange Russian roubles
for American dollars before an inflation destroyed their profit. A rouble's value was
falling every day with a catastrophic speed.
When a train came to a station, it was immediately surrounded by a crowd of buyers.
Shouting and elbowing each other, they ran from carriage to carriage - first, trying to
find the best item for the best price, then, buying almost blindly everything they could
grab during a short train stop. Trains stayed at Trans Siberian Railway's stations for
two to fifteen minutes. When a train departed, buyers could finally sit down on their
overfilled bauls and relax. Almost all of them bought things for future reselling. The
people were a sort of domestic chelnoks. Soon, those Chinese goods would be seen
on local markets all over Siberia.
Chelnoks were trading right from the windows. To be allowed to do it, they had to pay a
train conductor. A window “cost” ten dollars for a whole trip from a Chinese border to
Moscow. The best place for selling was a vestibule, which cost a hundred bucks.
Chelnoks usually placed several bauls on a floor, hanged samples of their goods on an
open door, and in a minute, a vestibule looked like a mini store. It was very convenient.
Also, it was safe. There, always, were a lot of thieves in a crowd. Especially they often
tried to jerk something from seller's hands when the train started moving. For this
reason many chelnoks stopped selling for about a minute before this moment. The
greediest ones often were punished. At the very instant when a train jerked and started
going, somebody would jump up from the crowd and grab whatever he could manage
to reach.
Also, at that time, some buyers would try to palm off false money. Usually, those notes
were faked very unskillfully, and were printed on a very thin paper. Under normal
circumstances none would take them, but in a hurry it happened rather often.
Chelnoks were cheating their buyers, too. They tried to sell defective items, which were
always present among Chinese goods. On one occasion, a middle-aged chelnok sold
a defective t-short (it looked like if its back was hit by a hundred pieces of shrapnel)
just to find out that he was paid for it by a fake bank note.
The elite of chenoks went to the United Arab Emirates. To go there, one should have at
least ten thousand dollars, nearly unimaginable amount in the post-Perestroika Russia.
Only in this case, a trip would be profitable. Over there, chelnoks bought electronic
goods – TV-sets, tape recorders, video players, and cameras, which were under a
great demand in the former USSR - by big loads and sent them to Moscow by cargo
planes. In Moscow, many of those items were sold at the Luzhniki Stadium, whose
former Central Olympic Arena had become a huge market place.
Most of chelnoks lost everything during a devastating financial crisis of 1998.
Another popular way to make the ends meet was to find a job abroad. Many tried to
leave Russia, and it did not much matter where they went. Any place where one could
earn some money for a family would do. Very few, however, wanted to stay overseas
permanently, and most people planned to return home after two or three years of
working. Everybody's dream was to bring home ten thousand dollars. This sum would
allow to build a good house, or start a small business.
There was a major obstacle, however; while it was very easy to get a visa to China,
Turkey, or, say, the UAE, to be admitted to one of Western countries was virtually
impossible. Embassies' officers were certain that all applicants had only one desire: to
sneak into the country by any means and start illegally working there. In nine cases out
of ten they were right...
Desperate people tried to go to various states, – Spain, Germany, England, Canada,
Australia, and even South Korea – but the most desirable destination had always been
the United States of America, the very “shining city on a hill”.
There were not many people in the former USSR who had ever been to the USA. The
knowledge about the country came from advertisements that flooded Russian TV,
pages of glossy magazines, and most of all, from American movies. All those Lethal
Weapons and Police Academies gave a crystal clear picture of the United States: a
mighty country of joyful, open-hearted people. For Tatiana the USA became a
promised land, a modern Eden. Like many others, she decided to go there.
But as any promised land America was not easy to reach. In the 1990s, to get an
American visa you were required to prove that you had already been abroad, and
desirably in one of the rich countries. To do so, you had to present border crossing
stamps in your passport, and photographs showing you in a foreign state. An
applicant, also, had to have a good source of income. An unemployed person had no
chance to get a visa. The most common documents proving applicant's well-being
were letters from a job showing a salary, and certificates of ownership for automobiles
and real property. Also, you should be able to demonstrate that you had “strong bonds”
with a home country. It meant that a person should have a family left in Russia,
preferably with a little child. It guaranteed that a tourist would return home. Documents
were not enough to confirm it, and people had to bring their family pictures to an
interview. In addition, it was almost impossible to get an American visa for an
unmarried woman, and Tatiana was a widow.
Sending people abroad, particularly to the USA, became a very profitable business in
Russia. Its profitability was probably outran only by drag dealing and prostitution.
Companies promising help in obtaining visas mushroomed in Moscow. Work Abroad
or Jobs International were their typical names. A personnel of those businesses
consisted of five or six young, energetic and loudly speaking men and women with
quick, elusive eyes. Tatiana visited several of such companies, and it seemed to her
that they were staffed with identical twins, so little differences were in people's physical
features and manners. Those clerks were always smiling. It was when Tatiana saw a
famous American smile for the first time.
Often, those perpetually smiling boys and girls disappeared with money taken from
their clients in advance. One morning, people came to the company just to find out that
its doors were closed, and a fancy signboard had vanished. In most cases they did not
do anything. It was useless. On some occasions, the police did manage to catch
swindlers, but there never was a chance to get the money back. So, cursing, people
continued coming to doors of a vanished company with feeble and silly hope for a
week or so, and then, went to another Job International.
Sometimes, they got lucky. Not all of those people were nothing more than fraudsters.
Some of them indeed helped their clients to solve problems which otherwise would be
insoluble. After visiting a number of companies, Tatiana finally chose one. Why?
Perhaps just because she liked a girl who was supposed to work with her. She did not
look like one of those job international types. The girl's name was Irina.
To pass a visa interview, Irina and Tatiana created a legend. According to it, Tatiana
was a wife of a rich businessman. The man bought a tour to Las Vegas as a present
for her birthday. Originally, the couple planned to go abroad together, but some
unforeseen circumstances forced Tatiana's husband to stay. So, Tatiana were going
alone, and needed an American visa. Irina believed the story should sound rather
convincing.
Also, Irina provided Tatiana with a few business cards showing that Victor Andreevich
Petrov (a name of Tatiana's late husband) was a co-owner and CEO of Peresvet Inc.,
a development company. As a business phone number, the women gave a home
telephone number of Tatiana's best friend, Semenova. At a time of an interview,
Semenova's daughter, a high school girl, was supposed to stay home. If there was a
call from an embassy, a girl would answer it in the following manner, “Hello, Mr.
Petrov's office. Victor Andreevich is at a conference right now. Would you like to leave
a message?” Such checking calls were made time after time.
Most important, Irina supplied Tatiana with all necessary documents. Each paper cost
Tatiana a hundred and fifty dollars. First, Tatiana got certificates of ownership for two
cars and a country house. Interestingly, at that time, Tatiana did not even know how to
drive a car, and had never had a driver's license. An automobile was a luxury in the
USSR. Second, Irina gave Tatiana a marriage certificate. God knows where the girl
got those papers from, but they looked just like real ones. In addition, Tatiana was
going to present documents for her own apartment in the center of Moscow: the only
not faked attribute of her “richness”.
Several years earlier, a government had given an unexpected present to Russian
citizens. All state owned apartments (and nearly all apartments were state owned in the
former USSR), could become a private property of their inhabitants for a ridiculous
price of three hundred roubles. It was an equivalent of ten dollars at that time. A lot of
the Russians did not miss the opportunity.
To prove “strong tights with the country”, Tatiana prepared a number of photographs.
Most of them were taken at Semenova's country house. The pictures were supposed
to show a big and happy family. Semenova's parents were posing as Tatiana's mother
and father in law, and her brother – as Tatiana's husband. The pictures turned to be
cheerful and lovely. Nobody would suspect that those people were not close relatives.
Among other people in those photographs was Tatiana's son Petr, a shy and rather
fragile-looking boy of seventeen. He graduated from a high school, and had just been
accepted at the Moscow State University, one of the best schools in Russia. Tatiana
was proud of him.
The boy was strongly against his mother's desire to leave. “What are you doing, Mom?
Yes, perhaps, we are nearly beggars here, but believe me it is much better to be a
beggar in your own country than abroad. Dollars are not falling down from the sky in the
States. What are you expecting, mom? To win a lottery, or something? Nobody needs
us over there.” But nothing could change Tatiana's mind.
To get border crossing stamps in her passport, Tatiana bought the cheapest bus tour
to Europe. It was an excursion to the Netherlands. She got the Shengen visa that
allowed to travel between several European countries. An application for this visa was
very often denied, too. If Tatiana had not got it, she could have forgotten about going to
America. But the woman was lucky.
There were about thirty people in Tatiana's group. Most of them were peregonschiks
(the verb peregonyat could be translated as to take across). Peregonschiks were a
variation of chelnoks. They bought used vehicles abroad, - as a rule in Germany and
less often in Belgium - and sold them in Russia and other former Soviet republics.
Peregonschiks on Tatiana's bus were going to Belgium where an enormous market
existed of used automobiles brought from all neighboring countries. Those cars were
very cheap. Peregonschiks were going leave the bus there, and return home by their
new-bought vehicles.
It was a profitable business. As a rule, a peregonschik had already had a customer in
Russia, and was paid immediately after delivering a car. Peregonschiks went abroad
at least once a month. If everything was okay, they had several thousand dollars from a
vehicle.
The money was good, but the business was risky. The more expensive the car, the
more dangerous was the journey. Time after time, automobiles and their drivers
disappeared after crossing the Polish - Belorussian border. Sometimes, dead bodies
were found in roadside forests; sometimes, people vanished without a trace.
Border cross points looked like scenes from surrealistic movies. Hundreds of vehicles
were waiting in a several mile long line on a Polish side of the border. Racketeering
had become almost an official business there. Gang members took a hundred German
marks from a car for “security”. After that, they gave a driver some sort of a ticket which
was kept on a dashboard. A hundred marks was little money, and at least, a car owner
could sleep tight after paying it. Almost everybody paid. Ones who refused were
brutally beaten up, and had their cars damaged. The police never interfered. People
said that cops had their share in the businesses.
In 1990s, Russia turned into a heaven for criminals. The gangs controlled everything,
from business to politics. Bandits were the only real masters of the country. Their
leaders became almost inviolable for the authorities. Criminals were wherever was the
slightest smell of money.
They were even on Tatiana's bus: two athletic, short-haired young men in Adidas
tracksuits (for some reasons Russian criminals liked that brand). Peregonschiks going
to buy a car always had a lot cash on them. So, the goal of the bandits was simple: to
get one of the passengers drunk - it was done either in a hotel, or right on a bus -
empty his pockets, and disappear. This type of a robbery happened so often that
became a usual practice. An interesting thing, everybody knew who those two sporty
young men really were, yet they managed to find a victim.
Somewhere in Germany, closer to the Belgium border, the bandits got one person
ready. They probably added some clofelin (a liquid medicine that was sold over a
counter in Russia) into a man's drink because he became unconscious very fast. After
such a “cocktail”, a person would be in a nearly comatose stage for at least two and a
half hours. The passenger looked as insensible as a piece of wood. His head was
thrown back, and saliva was streaming from a right corner of his mouth. One of the
young men was leisurely going through an unconscious man pockets. Nobody
interfered.
“Stop it”, a soft and calm woman's voice came from a bus' loudspeaker system. The
young man took his hands out of victim's pockets, wiped them over his pants, and
slowly turned around. He looked at passengers not understanding where the voice was
coming from; his eyes were widening in surprise. A man's bull neck started getting red.
Meanwhile, another bandit had left his seat, and was slowly moving along an aisle
towards the front of a bus.
A young girl with a mike at her mouth was standing by a driver's seat facing the
passengers. She was a group leader, a representative of a tourist company. “You
bitch...” a young man started. He bent his arm in an elbow, and clawed a hand as if he
wanted to grab the girl's face. There still were about ten steps between them. The girl
got a cell phone, a luxury in Russia at that time, out of her pocket and opened it. “Get
out of the bus, or I am calling the cops”, the girl said calmly. “You are not in Russia,you
morons”.
The bus stopped. Both criminals were standing in an aisle. They looked like two
spoiled children having a box of cookies taken away. It seemed that an invisible wave
went through the bus. The passengers started moving. Nobody would lift a finger to
prevent a robbery of a drunk man, but this situation was different. An assault upon a
young girl would be too much. Four or five young men at the end of the bus slowly left
their seats. Some more men started getting up.
The bandits were silent for a while. Then, one of them, who looked almost square
because of his enormous shoulders, took a sport bag from a luggage shelf and without
saying a word started towards exit. He was followed by his partner. The first bandit,
apparently a leader, moved silently, looking under his feet. He passed the group leader
quietly, not even turning a head towards her, and started downstairs pushing a bag in
front of him. At the last step, he placed one foot on the ground and turned to the girl.
The man examined her face very carefully, still silent. He smiled first; then – grinned.
This grin made the girl step backward and pale.
The second bandit went out. The bus moved, and two criminals were left behind,
somewhere in the middle of a perfect German autobahn.
The girl took her seat by a front door. This place was normally used by tour-guides. Her
right hand clutched a handrail so tight that knuckles got white. The girl was smiling, but
her body suddenly started shivering as if she was in a cold wind.
The boys at the rear , big and strong, looked at each other rather apologetically, and
silently began taking their seats. In a minute or two, one of them got up again and
moved towards the girl. The boy was very tall. There was a paper cup with some liquid
in his right hand. He came to the girl, handed it to her, and blushed. Without asking
anything the girl took a cup with a shaking hand, and drank its content in two big, and
nervous gulps. Her face got red. She tried to catch some air with her mouth wide
open, but was not able to; it seemed that all of a sudden her wind pipes became too
narrow for it. Finally, she managed to inhale, and immediately began coughing. The
boy stood by her for a little while, shifting from one foot to another, turned around, and
cautiously moved towards his place. He walked very slowly as if being afraid to disturb
a sick friend.
Till Brussels the bus was silent. Nobody was really afraid of those two bandits, but they
were members of a big gang which was expecting to get some profit from this trip. The
girl left them without money. She would be in a great danger back in Moscow.
In Brussels, the peregonschiks left. The rest of the group, seven people, were to spend
a day in Brussels and two days in Amsterdam. Unlike peregonschiks, Tatiana did not
have to worry about a profit or anything else. She just enjoyed herself. Old European
towns were charming. In Brussels, Tatiana saw a train going to Paris. She did not take
it, and later, could not forgive herself . The woman had dreamed about the city since
she was a child. It was just an hour and a half trip, but Tatiana decided to save money.
She would need it in the USA.
Tatiana loved wandering around Brussels' and Amsterdam's streets. Often, during her
tours, she was accompanied by Tamara and Nikolay, a couple going to an American
embassy with her. Tamara was an attractive and very energetic miniature brunet in her
early forties with a gold tooth in a right corner of her mouth. Nikolay looked at least ten
years younger. He was born in the Russian North, and had high forehead, blue eyes,
and long blond hair of a Viking. Time after time, a young man took a horn comb out of
a breast-pocket, and carefully brushed his wavy forelock up. He was talking and
listening to other people very attentively, looking straight in a face with his warm and
deep eyes. Occasionally, Nikolay nodded his head showing a deep concern. But very
soon, it became obvious that everything a young man was really interested in was his
hair set.
When Nikolay was talking to women, he squinted his eyes looking through long girlish
eyelashes. His voice got a strange, almost magic timbre, and started sounding like a
forest stream running over smooth rocks: tenderly and charming. If Tatiana had been a
young girl, she would certainly have fallen a victim of a Nikolay's spell. But,
unfortunately, during her life time she had seen too many young men of this kind. So,
looking in Nikolay's captivating eyes, Tatiana had only one desire: poke him in a
stomach and say “boo”.
His vigorous woman, Tamara, used to have a business in a city of Kazan. Things did
not go well, but a lady found a most effective way to solve her personal financial
problems. She borrowed money and disappeared with cash. A part of the sum came
from a local criminal group. Borrowing from gangsters was a common practice among
small business owners all over the country. Bandits always had cash ready to lend, and
to get money from them was much easier and faster than from a bank. Sometimes, it
was a mutually profitable business.
There could be only one problem, perhaps. If a businessman was not able to return
money on time, he would have to pay enormous fines for every day of a delay. Often,
people sold all their possessions to repay the debt. Whole families of once well-to-do
businessmen became homeless trumps in a matter of days. This practice was known
as “to turn a taximeter on”. If one day a person found a piece of paper pinned up to his
door or stocked under a wiper of his car with a simple handwritten notice saying “a
taximeter is on”, it meant trouble.
Criminals often took members of a debtor's family as hostages, so people usually did
not ran away not to endanger lives of their loved ones. But Tamara, apparently, was an
exception. She left her son, a co-owner of the company, behind. A part of the credit
was officially taken from a bank, which initiated a lawsuit. Tamara's son was unjustly
convicted as an accomplice to a fraud an sent to prison. His mother, meanwhile, was
having a good time with Nikolay. A few years later, in Brooklyn, when asked how she
had been able to leave her own son in a jail, the woman put on a most suffering face
and answered, “it is much easier for me to help him from here”.
Once, on an Amsterdam street, Tatiana and her companions stumbled across a man
playing guitar and singing old Russian folk songs and romances. He sang not too bad,
should be admitted, and was surrounded by a crowd of ten to fifteen people. Many of
spectaculars were clapping their hands. A round-faced girl even tried to join the man.
She sang very loud in an incomprehensible language that was supposed to be
Russian. A considerable amount of small change and some banknotes were in a guitar
case in front of a singer.
Sasha was his name. In about a half an hour, chewing a sandwich in the nearest cafe,
Sasha was telling about a life in Holland, which, according to his words, was nearly
perfect. Sasha, an illegal immigrant, did not have any papers at all. Even his Russian
passport had expired more than a year ago.
After leaving Russia, Sasha stayed in Germany for about a year making his living by
dish-washing. The man did not like the country, - “too boring”, as he explained. - and
moved to France. He walked there, to be exact. To get into the country, Sasha had to
make a short detour through a forest around a border checkpoint. Apparently, Sasha
did not like it in France either because he stayed there for less than three weeks
before leaving for Amsterdam. And Amsterdam was the place.
“Nobody even bothers if you are illegal or not. On the contrary”, Sasha continued
wiping mayonnaise from his mouth, “Everybody is trying to help you, even policemen.
There is a cop who always buys newspapers from me and not from a Dutch guy
because he understands how difficult it is to be an immigrant”. Sasha lifted his chin,
and his face became very proud.
Tamara and Nikolay were listening to Sasha with their mouths open, and it should be
noted that Nikolay's mouth was opened much wider than his girlfriend's. Tatiana had
an urge to offer them a pen and a notebook to write a Sasha's speech down.
“But I've made a mistake, and it is too late now”, a beer foam made a thin elegant
mustache over Sasha's upper lip. It made the man look like a lover from 1930s movies.
“A small straw hat would complete the picture”, Tatiana thought involuntarily.
Sasha got sad. He sighed gravely, and wiped his mouth with a napkin removing a left
mustache and making the right one much thicker and shorter. In a matter of seconds a
Hollywood playboy disappeared and was replaced by a one-mustached leader of the
Third Reich. “I should have applied for a political asylum like smart people do. I would
be a citizen by now”.
Sasha froze, frowning and looking in a distance, did not notice his listeners. A poor
man must have felt really tragic because he even forgot about his second sandwich; it
was lying untouched by his right hand. The silence lasted for several minutes.
When Sasha finally was able to speak again, he told his little audience about a refugee
camp on a NATO base near Brussels. People from all over the world were gathered
there. Most of them had left their despotic governments in a sacred quest for liberty,
democracy, and lifelong welfare benefits. Many were from the former Soviet republics,
especially from Moldova and Georgia.
Kids up to sixteen years of age were given a refugee status almost automatically (at
least according to Sasha's words), so the NATO base was overcrowded with over-
aged teenagers. The following scene was not uncommon:
(officer) - So, you are claiming that you are sixteen, Monsieur Bakuridze?
(Mr. Bakuridze, a balding man with a considerable beer belly, closed his eyes with
both hands and started sobbing) - I'm sixteen! I am sixteen! ( it was probably the only
phrase which the monsieur could say in French without an accent)
(officer) - Monsieur Bakuridze, do you realize that these are x-rays of your hands and
teeth?
(Mr. Bakuridze nodding his head agreeably) - Yes!
(officer tiredly, and pointing at something in a picture of Mr. Bakuridze's teeth) -
Monsieur Bakuridze, take a look at it (an officer put an x-ray of teeth on a table in front
of Mr. Bakuridze). Do you realize that roots of both of your wisdom teeth are fully
developed.
(Mr. Bakuridze even more agreeably) - Yes!
- Do you realize that a development of roots of the human wisdom teeth is not finished
before the age of eighteen?
- Yes!
- So, how old are you, Monsieur Bakuridze?
(Mr. Bakuridze his eyes are covered with his hands again) - I am sixteen! I am sixteen!
“And if you did not do something really idiotic, you would get your status”, Sasha
concluded with a confidence of an expert, “they would rather let a spy in the country
than violate his human rights”.
Sasha gulped beer, groaned thinking about something, and continued his tale. That
time, he told a story about Edik. Pronouncing this name Sasha lowed his voice, and
made a short pause showing a deep respect for a man.
Edik was a young refugee from Moldova who got everything Sasha failed to reach.
Very early in his life, Edik realized that a country with an average income of thirty
American dollars a month was not a quiet appropriate place for such a brilliant mind as
his own. So, right after graduating from a medical department of the Kishinev
University, for a hundred American dollars and a barrel of not the best of his father's
wine (Moldova had always been famous for its winemaking) a young man bought a
document stating that Edvard Lungu (Edik's full name) was held as a prisoner of war
and brutally tortured by the Russians for three months during an armed conflict in
Transnistria. Medical documents were enclosed, and there was no separate charge for
them. Another paper showed that an Edik's house in Bendery was leveled by the
Russians. So, a young Moldavian patriot was forced away from the land of his
ancestors.
Armed with those papers, Edik flew to Belgium where he said to the first police officer
he met two magic words, “Political asylum”. Sasha did not remember how long Edik
had to stay at that NATO base; it was something about six months. But when Edik left
the camp, he had a status of a refugee and all those goods that the status provided,
namely free food, housing, and fat monthly allowances from the government.
Tatiana's interview was scheduled on August 28 of 1993. An American embassy was
located in a massive multi-storied yellow building in Novinskiy Boulevard in the center
of Moscow. Constructions of this type were erected during the Stalin's rule, and were
popularly known as Stalin's houses. As always, there were a lot of people waiting to
get in. An enormously long line of visa applicants went for several hundred meters
along Novinskiy Boulevard, turned left, and disappeared somewhere in a backstreet. It
was hot and unusually humid. Normally, such weather came right before a strong
thunderstorm, but there were no clouds in the sky that day.
Irina's group met together at an entrance. Tatiana briefly greeted Tamara, Nikolay, and
few others whom she knew from an Amsterdam trip. Irina's clients did not have to wait
in a line. Everything was arranged in advance. Irina said that she knew one of the
counselors, but Tatiana did not believe her. When the last person arrived, Irina led her
group inside.
It turned out that people were waiting for their interviews in a large hall, which was
divided into two parts by a wall with little windows. Behind the windows confident faces
of embassy officers were seen. About a hundred visa applicants in sweaty shirts
occupied a waiting room. There were no air-conditioners in a visitors' part of the hall,
and it was even hotter than outside. For some reason, there were not enough chairs
either, and a few people were sitting on windowsills.
One by one, people left their chairs, and came to the windows with their documents.
Soon, Tatiana heard her name called. She came to a clerk and pushed a folder
through a window to him. Behind the glass, was a very thin dark-skinned young man
with large, and attentive eyes. Those eyes stopped at Tatiana's face, and examined it
for an instant. Then, started a usual embassy conversation.
- A purpose of your visit, Mrs. Petrova?
- I bought a tour to Las Vegas. Well, my husband actually did it. It is his present ,- a
dark-skinned man briefly looked at Tatiana's airtickets and put them aside.
- Your husband is an owner of Peresvet Inc., right ?
- Yes.
- How much does he make, Mrs. Petrova?
- I wish I knew, - Tatiana replied with a slight irritation, and pursed her lips - It's always
been a top secret information in our family.
The officer could not know that Tatiana expected this question, and practiced an
answer to it in front of a mirror for several hours the night before. It took her a lot of
efforts to say this phrase with a face expression she wanted to have, and almost
without an accent.
A young man at the other side of the window smiled, and the conversation went easily.
He asked two or three more questions, and, to the greatest Tatiana's surprise, wished
her a luck in the USA. Tatiana stepped aside not believing that it was over. In two days,
she was supposed to return to the embassy to pick up her passport with an American
visa.
All from Irina's group but one girl successfully passed their interviews. Perhaps, Irina
indeed knew somebody from the staff. The girl's failure was only her fault. She gave a
fake work phone number, and did not leave anybody to wait for a call from an
embassy. She was unlucky enough to be checked.