Moscow 1977-1981

Moving to Moscow was not as easy as it sounds, but then nothing in that place ever was. Even though you did not own your apartment, you could not just give it up and rent another in the place of your choice. You had to find somebody from the place you wanted to move to who had an apartment which was ok for you and who wanted to move into your apartment. This insanity was called an  “apartment exchange”. In pre-computer time all the resources you had was a little book where everybody who needed to move registered. I tried this in Moscow but failed.

But again, according to my mother’s words, “Well, I just got lucky” A man searching for an apartment in Kiev for his family found my mom’s notice and took charge of the whole operation. For him it was already his third attempt – so he knew exactly who to talk to, who to bribe and how much to give.

Everything went exceptionally smoothly and on May 30, 1977 my mom was installed in her new apartment and she immediately proceeded to make cheese-cloth diapers for my future baby. I was due any moment. My son, Gregory, her first adored grandchild was born on June 4, 1977, only 4 days after her move. For the next 40 years we moved around together and always lived very close to each other.

Mom with a relative, Lyuba Glusgall

We are getting ready to usher in 1977

Mom with my son Greg circa 1978

And now the question of emigration came to the forefront. While my father was alive I knew that he would never ‘engage’ the authorities, after his 10 years of Gulag. But now I was married and my husband did not want to leave. My intent was to stay. But every day looking at my gorgeous baby I thought, “Now is my moment to save him from all this. Am I going to fail him?” Mom did not weigh in on my decision but I knew that she was with me no matter what I decide. I was a very hard choice for me because I needed to chose between taking a child away from his loving father and keeping him in that evil place. 

Eventually the decision came. We would leave, the 3 of us, my mom, my son and I. Unfortunately it came a little too late. We applied for exit visas in August 1979 and were hoping to get them around March of 1980 but in December of 1989 all emigration stopped because of the Soviet war with Afganistan. It seemed that I have missed my chance and was doomed to repeat the stories of my grand-parents’ abortive emigrations. 

But, in my mother’s words, she got lucky again. Because of a clerical error that we could dispute, our files were on top of the pile of applications and were granted exit visas on February 7, 1981. That was the happiest day of our lives.

On February 23 1981 we boarded a plane which took us to freedom.