Irina Magid

How the Soviet Destroyed the Life of a Family

When I enrolled in the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute, I studied together with a student from Romania, Georgy. The Romanian Government sent him to study to the Soviet Union. He was a Hungarian and lived in Romania in the region of Transylvania, which became part of Romania. (It is necessary to know that Romania was included into Socialist Camp, which was led by the former Soviet Union).

At the beginning of his studies, he didn't know Russian. But he was very persistent and achieved at a very high level. He took part in many students' scientific activities and even had his own inventions. He was a very clever and handsome young man.

After graduation from the Institute in 1956 he married a young girl who worked as a cashier in the food shop. He was going to take his wife to Romania together with him. But it was impossible; he didn't have money to pay for his wife. (He had permission to return to Romania free because he was a right directed student.) Georgy was forced to ask the Romanian government to allow him to return to Romanian in one year in order to earn money for his wife.

After one year, he and his wife left Leningrad for Transilvania, Romania. We didn't hear anything about Georgy for 17 years. In 1973, our former students' talked to each other secretly that Georgy came to Leningrad again. Because all our former students worked in the secret Institute, we were afraid to meet Georgy in our apartments. Therefore, we decided to organize a meeting on neutral territory. When we met Georgy, he told us that he and his wife felt discrimination in Romania as Hungarian and Russian. So, they decided to leave Romania for the USSR where they thought all people were equal and didn't feel any discrimination. They dreamed that their son would receive a Soviet passport and would successfully study in a soviet school.

Indeed this story had a very bad ending because Georgy couldn't find a job. Many of our successful former students tried to help him to find a job, but it was useless. For the Soviet government, he was a foreigner. It didn't matter that he was an excellent specialist, inventor and had a good personality.

Georgy didn't work for a long time. His wife got a job in a shop, his son got the Soviet Passport and enrolled in a soviet school. Only Georgy couldn't work and live in the Soviet Union. He was forced to divorce his wife and leave the Soviet Union for Transylvania, Romania where he could work. Then Georgy understood what Soviet equal rights meant.

7\31\2000

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