My Story – How I Moved To US

Oct 19, 2011 by Tatianna

 

I did a video on YouTube as a request from my Russian subscribers ( in Russian ), so I didn’t want to leave my English speaking readers out and decided to tell my story as well. Until now I haven’t shared my story with a lot of people but It will probably be a good way of telling more about my self.

Back home in Russia everyone was always dreaming of life in the USA, it was a very big deal if someone got to move here. Life in Russia is hard, and if you don’t have a lot of money it’s even harder. So most Russian girls want to come to America. My grandma and my mom wanted a better life for me, at the time I was still young and didn’t really understand a lot of things, I do now, and I am glad for what my mom did for me and the sacrifices it took.

We first came here when I was 15 years old, my mom found an American guy whom she has been exchanging letters with and who came to visit her in Moscow once. I didn’t want to come in the beginning even though my mom told me all these incredible stories of things that I will have in my new life in America, but I just didn’t have a good feeling about it. Then all of a sudden out of the blue my mom said we were moving, I didn’t want to go but I didn’t have much choice. To make the long story shorter, we came to Reno, NV with a bride’s visa. My mom was going to get married to this guy.

When we got there right away I realized it wasn’t going to be easy at all, the only thing that I loved about America was the school bus, because in Russia we didn’t have those privileges and I walked for to school all the time. The guy that we live with was a not a very nice person, he didn’t want to feed us normal food because he was afraid we would get fat. So he would feed me with things such as onion sandwiches with leaves of lettuce, only fat free milk and vitamins. Me and my mom would sneak out when he would go to work, to buy Mcdonalds or potatoes from the supermarket ( we would walk several miles ), eat it before he got home and hide the evidence. One time he found my potato back and he took it with him to work, telling me he is going to be watching us closely from now on. And this is just the good part of the story, I don’t really want to get into the really disturbing things that he did to me and my mom. But we didn’t have a choice, we sold our apartment in Russia and had nothing to comeback to, so it wasn’t an option. My mom told me we have to suck it up, I was very use to sucking it up so it was something I understood very well.

Five month’s go by and all of a sudden he tells my mom that he doesn’t want to get married because he doesn’t think it’s for him, he said he will be sending us back to Russia – except for us there was no back, there was nothing left! My mom got really upset, she begged him saying ” How can you do this me and my child after what we have been putting up with, what are we going to do now, we don’t have a place to go back to “, he did’t care, he just said sorry you have to go.

My mom went out to smoke a cigarette and cry her self crazy, I was very sad but I didn’t know what to do and how to calm her down. When she was smoking and crying outside, a guy came up to her that lived in the same apartment complex as we did. He asked her why she was crying and she told him what happened. He offered to help us, he said ” I will help you no strings attached ” – he was our Angel ( I always say that ). They got married in a week.

But this is still not the end of my story. When we went to the immigration office they told us they have to deport us back to Russia because my mom broke the bride’s contract rules. She married the wrong guy! As much as we were trying to fight it, we still got deported back to Russia, and I lost my luggage on my flight back ( with all of my new American clothes that I got in thrift store, that I was so exited about ). We were both pretty upset. The only thing that was good is that we knew eventually we would go back, we just didn’t know when. We had to sit and wait for all the new documents to start a whole new process.

The process went on for 6 month’s, but we were able to comeback on a daughter and wife visa. George was really good to us, he was truly an amazing person. When we came back he decorated my own room for me and bough me a stereo. I was in heaven because for a little Russian girl, to have my own American room and a stereo was a big deal. He cooked really good food for us and introduced me to peanut butter, which I still have a huge passion for.

Looking back at all of the things that we had to go through and where I am now, I am so happy and appreciative of my life. When I first moved here I realized how many people took their life for granted, such as freedom, food, friends, family, there are so many people in the world that don’t have any of those things. So I’ve learned to not take anything for granted and I count my blessings every day.

I am posting my video in Russian. In this video I am saying pretty much everything that I wrote here, you are welcome to watch it if you understand Russian language.

I hope my story wasn’t too long, and it made you think about some things that you might be taking for granted.

 

 

Please subscribe to my Youtube channel :).

 

PS – Sorry I haven’t done a workout video in a few day, but I am filming one tonight 🙂