THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604240040
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 176 lines
DESPITE BITTER memories of Communist oppression in his native Czechoslovakia, veterinarian Ezven Burian can still hear the sweet voices of women vineyard workers, singing as they came down from the hills after tending the grapes.
``They were beautiful high-toned songs,'' Burian recalled. ``When I came here, I always had them in my ear.''
Burian, who defected 14 years ago, still keeps the memory alive by playing a small organ as his American wife, Chrys, who has learned the Moravian folk music of his native land, sings along.
Ezel Burian has other memories etched into his soul as well.
Like the Prague spring in 1968 when an attempt to liberate the Communist regime was brutally suppressed by Russian troops. As a student he demonstrated in the streets that spring.
``My father was worried,'' Burian said. `` `One morning you will wake up and there will be a man with a machine gun on every street corner,' he said, and one morning there was.''
From that day on, America was always on Burian's mind, and the day he finally came to the United States, May 18, will stay on his mind forever.
Now Burian celebrates his arrival here and his marriage to Chrys, also on May 18 two years later, on the 18th of each and every month of each and every year.
His practice at Providence Square Veterinary Hospital in Virginia Beach is thriving, and one way he gives back to his adopted country is to voluntarily treat sick and injured birds of prey. Burian works with endangered species like eagles and more common hawks, such as red-taileds, using skills he acquired in Czechoslovakia where falconry is a popular sport.
He's kept busy with the birds because thousands of them migrate along the Virginia Beach coast in fall and spring. Along the way, the birds are threatened by irresponsible hunters, high-flying power lines and other dangers.
An avid interest in falconry and abiding respect for nature and wildlife led Burian to become a veterinarian with a special interest in birds of prey. Despite the fact that he was never a member of the Communist party and was a student dissident, he achieved a reputation as an outstanding young surgeon in the main veterinary hospital in Prague.
An internship in a human hospital where he learned how to use a special bone implant, rather than a cast or a pin, to set broken bones was one of the reasons for his skill. He learned to apply the surgical technique to larger animals and also to tiny-boned birds of prey.
Falconers, both in Czechoslovakia and abroad, brought their prized birds to Burian's clinic. He operated on their fragile wings, using his new surgical skills, and he taught them to fly again using falconry techniques. His papers on the surgery and rehabilitation were read around the world.
The word reached the Peregrine Falcon Research Fund, a program at Cornell University in New York. In 1980, Cornell invited Burian to the United States to share experiences and demonstrate his surgical skills.
Although Burian had no plan, he came prepared to defect. He had a check written on a Danish bank and a knife, taped to his ankle.
``I was informed,'' he explained, ``that in America you get killed!''
Burian could read English but could not speak it. When he left Cornell six weeks later to visit Fort Collins, Colo., where Cornell had established a branch of its falcon research program, Burian's troubles began.
He could not get his Danish check cashed and he was virtually penniless. Colleagues at the university had given him a bus ticket to Colorado, but the ticket was lost or stolen. Because hitch-hiking is a routine mode of travel in Europe, Burian simply decided to thumb across the United States.
``I didn't realize how hard it was to hitch-hike here,'' he said ``Here you show your finger and they show you finger!''
Burian underestimated himself and the country. He walked a good part of the way, sleeping by the side of the road. By the time he reached Nebraska, he had run out of food and water.
``You don't want to hear how I ate,'' he said.
Burian finally reached Fort Collins, where he volunteered in the research program for a while. He eventually was asked to deliver a peregrine falcon to Austin, Texas, and there he found part-time work in a veterinary clinic. Burian also worked as a butler to get a roof over his head and meals on the table. Gaining a small measure of stability convinced him to stay in the United States.
``I sensed the freedom,'' Burian said. ``They could make a joke about Reagan and the first lady and no one knocks on your door at 2:30 a.m.''
Burian hadn't yet acquired the language skills to pass the veterinary boards. He was making minimum wage assisting in the clinic and keeping his hand in surgery with the clinic's wildlife cases.
His life changed when Chrys came into the clinic with an injured squirrel she brought for treatment.
``He profoundly affected me,'' Chrys said. ``The story I heard, the tragedy. I had never heard anything like it.''
A bond between the couple evolved from their love of wildlife to their love for each other. Chrys even married Burian early in their relationship with hope that he would be granted asylum in the United States faster as a result. As it turned out, the asylum came through a couple of weeks after they were married. They could have chosen to have their marriage annulled and go their separate ways.
``But we decided to try,'' Chrys said, ``and 11 years later, we're still trying!''
The other day, the 53-year-old Burian and his wife were seated in their modern living room in Stratford Chase. Their home is just minutes from the clinic where Chrys manages the office.
Zrzka (meaning ``rusty'' in Czech), a Hungarian pointer, had taken over one of the chairs and nuzzled Burian's beard.
It was a long way from the day when Burian borrowed a ring for Chrys' wedding ring and was married in one of the two pairs of dungarees he owned.
``The beginning was a bad change of social status,'' Burian said. ``You are zero. As long as you're a visitor, you are OK. You say you want to stay and you are a redneck.''
``Wetback,'' Chrys said, laughing.
But Chrys coached her new husband in the language and in the ways of this foreign country, and soon Burian spoke English masterfully. He passed the veterinary boards and ended up doing all the surgery at the clinic where he was working.
He became confident enough to begin looking for a clinic of his own.
Virginia appealed because of its good economy, but an experience that Burian had after taking the state veterinary boards in Richmond clinched the decision. The couple was driving outside of town and crossed the Rivanna River.
``The Rivanna had fine pebbles. It was clear,'' Burian said. ``I said, `Let's stop here.' I pulled the fly rod out of the car and cast a few times under the tree limbs and in a minute, I had a nice smallmouth bass. `Chrys, let's stay in the state,' I said. `There's a nice river here.' ''
The river was a reminder of the home where Burian learned to fly fish with his father in Czechoslovakia's sparkling rivers.
``He used to tell me stories when I was little,'' Burian recalled with mirth, ``about the time he rode a huge pike down the river to tackle it down!''
Today Burian satisfies his urge to cast his rod by fly fishing for striped bass off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel islands.
When he's not fly fishing, Burian ties flies, having come up with his own special striped bass lure that looks like a menhaden fish. He also gardens and cooks at home.
``He cooks like a madman,'' Chrys said. ``It's Sunday and he's supposed to relax and he gets up and bakes three kinds of breads and goes off to buy chickens and roasts and then says, `Ask some company over.' ''
``It keeps me out of trouble,'' Burian said. ``I'm a restless person.''
He's restless, he thinks, because he hasn't yet been able to accomplish all that he would like in his new land. ``At home now I would be a professor of surgery,'' he said, just a little wistful.
Though he's not a professor, Burian has gained the respect of wildlife lovers, like raptor expert Reese Lukei, for what he has taught them about caring for big birds of prey.
``He's pretty exceptional,'' Lukei said. ``We're more than fortunate to have him in the Tidewater area to take care of the critters we have here. Nobody else around here has the expertise and knowledge.''
When Burian was in Czechoslovakia, he was a founder of the Animal Rescue Station at Bartosovice.
Burian's dream is to have a raptor center in Virginia Beach where large birds can be cared for. Although he has a hawk house in his back yard where birds with small injuries can be rehabilitated, birds with major problems have to be taken all the way to a wildlife center in Staunton where there are huge fly cages.
Chrys is attending Old Dominion University studying for a degree in ornithology. Together, the couple wants to operate a center here not only to treat injured and ill birds but also to serve as an educational facility to teach people about the value of conserving habitat for the big birds and other wildlife.
``To move mountains, you have to save habitat,'' Chrys said.
The Burians don't need a castle in the hills of Czechoslovakia, however. They'd be happy to build the cages and train volunteers on a little plot right in the flat lands of Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT, The Virginian-Pilot
Dr. Evzen Burian works with a red-tailed hawk behind his veterinary
practice in Virginia Beach. The bird had been shot in Suffolk.
Photos by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT, The Virginian-Pilot
Dr. Evzen Burian ties a fly for fishing. His other hobbies include
gardening and cooking.
Burian plays the organ while his American wife, Chrys, sings the
Moravian folk songs of his homeland.
KEYWORDS: RAPTORS by CNB