Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995 TAG: 9506120011
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
When Grigory Ioffe left the Soviet Union in 1989, he left behind unfinished research along with his Soviet citizenship.
But on Friday, the Radford University geography professor became a naturalized American citizen at a ceremony in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. With that citizenship comes a right to an American passport, entitling Ioffe, 44, to return to his native country for the first time in five years. There, he will pick up where he left off with some of his former colleagues.
The National Council for Soviet and East European Research awarded the population geographer a grant to study rural restructuring in central Russia.
This is a familiar topic for Ioffe, who once examined problems associated with rural depopulation and its effect on agriculture.
Ioffe spent nine years as a researcher for the Institute of Geography, a part of the Soviet Union's Academy of Sciences.
The field studies he once did for the institute were much more hands-on than the research he'll do in Moscow for one month this summer.
"I can basically only interpret someone else's observations," Ioffe said. "I can't observe the central Russian countryside from Southwest Virginia."
He considers the grant an achievement, because he hasn't had much time for research since he started teaching.
Since arriving at Radford University in August 1990, he has worked on improving his English and putting together lectures for the 12 hours he spends in the classroom each week.
The federal grant does not cover hotel expenses, so Ioffe will stay at his parents' Moscow apartment.
The trip also will give Ioffe an opportunity to interact with the Russian people, whose contact he misses.
"I lost this community of like-minded people who understood each other so promptly," he said.
Though he's excited about visiting his homeland, Ioffe says he'll miss his wife and his two children, who are the reasons he emigrated from the Soviet Union.
Ioffe and his wife, Yelena Kulagina, wanted to give their children a chance for a better life.
So Ioffe decided to take advantage of a 15-year-old government program that allowed Jews to leave the country. In the 1970s, Western nations pressured the Soviet Union to release Jews who asked to leave; eventually, the Soviets complied.
He never practiced his religion, but Ioffe's ancestors were Jewish; the Soviet government, though it discouraged religion, continued to identify Jews by their ethnic heritage, Ioffe said.
Though his wife's family had practiced the Russian Orthodox faith, Ioffe's status as a Jew allowed the entire family to leave.
When given the choice of Israel or America, Ioffe chose the United States. He had taken English classes since age 8 and believed the adjustment to American culture would be easier.
The Ioffe family left Moscow in September 1989 but did not reach New York until April 1990.
From Moscow, they were sent to Austria, where they stayed for several months before being transferred to Rome, he said. The American Embassy in Rome screened Russians who wanted to immigrate to the United States.
During the screening process, the family waited anxiously to find out if they had a new home.
"We were held in suspense, because we had already lost our Soviet citizenship," Ioffe said.
After the family found American sponsors, including some of Ioffe's former colleagues who had emigrated to the United States, embassy officials accepted the family's application.
They first settled in Boston near their sponsors, and Ioffe started looking for a job. Through friends, he ended up interviewing for the position at Radford.
The Ioffes got their first taste of Southern hospitality when Steve Pontius, then chairman of the geography department, and his family greeted the immigrants at the airport.
The Ioffes had no car, so they depended on Pontius and others.
Pontius, now dean of Radford's College of Arts and Sciences, helped the family find an apartment within walking distance of the campus and a grocery store.
Ioffe says he especially appreciated Pontius' assistance, because "he was doing it of his own accord."
Since settling in Radford, Ioffe has watched his family adjust to life in America.
His 6-year-old daughter, Natasha, can't remember life in the Soviet Union, so the transition has been easiest for her.
In fact, Natasha's first baby sitter was a woman with a heavy Appalachian accent, Ioffe said, and his daughter picked it up as her own.
His son, Mikhail, still remembers living in Russia, so he's had a more difficult time adjusting, Ioffe said.
The children become American citizens automatically with their parents, he said.
Ioffe's wife, Yelena, expects to become a naturalized citizen later this month. She spoke no English before they left Moscow, where she taught high-school Russian, but she has become fairly fluent, Ioffe said.
She teaches Russian part time at Radford.
When Ioffe reflected on how his family has changed over the past five years, he smiled.
"We seem to have succeeded more than most others who emigrated at the same time," he said. "In terms of harmony and interaction with the social environment, it seems that my family and I have done better."
Ioffe says moving to a new country is like learning to swim.
Some immigrants locate near big cities with large Russian-speaking communities, which is like inching their way into the water.
For the Ioffe family, moving to Southwest Virginia with virtually no other Russian immigrants was like diving in headfirst.
Ioffe says he's glad his family ended up in Radford because if forced them to become a part of American society rather than wrapping themselves in the cocoon of an immigrant community.
by CNB