My Family Treak to the Holy Land

For decades, the USSR was separated from the western world. No one knew what was happening inside, and no one could know about the life outside of the USSR. However, everything changed in 1989. The year 1989 was the fall of the iron curtain. Each of the fifteen Soviet Republics became independent states. Mikhail Gorbachov left his position of the chairman of the communism party and the president of the Soviet Union. On the other side, each of the head of Soviet Union Republics became over night a head of an independent state. This collapse had a major effect on my family and me.

The fall of the iron curtain allowed my parents to renew correspondence with our family in Israel. Before that year we did not get all their letters, and they didn’t get ours. As a result it was very hard to communicate. After the fall of the iron curtain, people from abroad started to come to the Soviet Union. My aunt also came for a visit from Israel for the first time since her family had left the Soviet Union in the 1970’s. My family was happy to hear about the life abroad from her. People were excited by her stories about the life in Israel and especially about the availability of products in the Israeli stores. It this time in the Soviet Union, there was not only no variety of products in the local groceries, but there were almost no products at all. In fact, this was a first piece of information about the better life abroad.

The former Soviet Union republics had fallen into massive disarray after the collapse of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even the products that were available in the Soviet era had become a scarcity. As a result, it became a big challenge for my family to purchase even basic products. Even the small amount of products that had been in the shops in the Soviet Union era disappeared, and these products were only available on the black market. For example, body soap, the only option to buy it was from speculators who had sold the products that were not available in stores. The price of the products had doubled; in addition, the speculators didn’t want to sell it to everybody since they were afraid that the government would find out about them and prosecute them. At the same time, the lines in the stores were so long that there was no TV channel inside the Soviet Union or in the West that didn’t show people waiting in lines to buy some basic products.

With the challenging living conditions people started to leave the country. Many relatives and friends of the family that had high level positions and were in better economic situation than my parents left the country. They felt that their social life became empty. People around them were fighting more and more for their economic survival. Since the economic situation of people became worse, the crime raised. One of our neighbors got robbed in the middle of the day by several juveniles. Parents were afraid to let children play outside. In addition monuments and tombs were vandalized by people who were stealing and selling heavy metals, all this affected my family’s decision to immigrate to Israel on July 15, 1990.

The collapse of the Soviet Union forced my family to leave the country and to immigrate to Israel. After the collapse, the information barriers had fallen and we got to learn more about life abroad. The decision to leave was hard, but it was accelerated by the deteriorating conditions of the everyday life after the regime change. When we arrived to Israel, this was the first time that my family felt that we are free people. I could play outdoors again, and adults were not afraid to be robbed outside. In addition, I remember my first visit to the supermarket in Israel. The supermarket was full with food, and everything was available for purchase contrast to the situation that was in a country that we just left. Even though my family faced many immigration problems, I am very glad that we made this decision.