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Outside of the box called Soviet Union. |
Viktorina Savelieva. June 1995. It has remarks of my English language course teacher. I has revised it on January 2023. |
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| I have been in a closed box for 55 years. The name of it was Soviet Union. It was huge, and we have a freedom of travelling inside of it. In 1991 the box was broken, and we got passports stated: "You are allowed to go to any country of the world." It was such an excitement! Freedom!!! Freedom to go where? In fact, it was just a one hole: Western European border with possibilities of going to Eastern European countries which also made holes in their boxes. Other countries closed their boxes in horror of such barbarian invasion. At that time inside of our box was total chaos: no jobs, no salaries, no money, no food, no laws. Even crime was not organized: they were dividing the territory, shooting themselves and people around.In this situation hundreds of cars headed to the border. We were among them. I think it was the most exciting time of our lives. We were drunk with our freedom! Pretty dangerous adventure: 36 hours check in without a possibility to go out of the car, otherwise being kicked out of the line. Negotiations with custom brokers. Sharing experiences. Gas and currency exchange - only on the black market. Of course, would describe such Klondike better than I. We had different goods in the car in order to sell them in Europe, buy items we did not have and sell them in our box. Then we were doing the same again and over again. We were gypsies, we lived in the car, prepared food on fire places. We were the same, as people around. Those countries had the same chaos inside their boxes. It were dangerous trips to such excited countries as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary. Seas, lakes; mountains; ancient cities; historical places mixed with bazaars; car chasing; gas balloons for self protection; thieves and crime everywhere. We survived after a few of these trips, got some money, and our trips become more civilized: small hotels or "bed and breakfast" places. Having 35 years of professional experience, we became merchants as my grandfather was. The situation in our box became worse and worse. We let family of our son to immigrate to Canada. A lot of events had happened , some of them were tragical, before we also appeared in Montreal. We lost everything we had, and now we are here, outside of our previous box. I still do not know, if we are inside some box again or out of any boxes? Is it possible? Do I want to return inside the box I just left? No. Do I miss it? Yes! |