NOT JUST A PASSPORT

It was just a regular Monday when my wife and I entered a casual looking office, waited 10 minutes, paid some money and got a receipt. Then… then my wife burst into tears and I… you know, real men never cry, but sometimes they get something in their eye.

We hugged each other and kept silence for a while.

That day, only a few weeks ago, we were approved for CANADIAN PASSPORTS !!!

We waited … not just waited; we fought for this day for more than seven years, sometimes taking a huge risk. But our relatives, friends who are left in our old country, millions people in the whole world would give up not just 7, but 17 years of their lives for this big privilege and honor to be a Canadian Citizen, to get that freedom which symbolizes the Canadian Passport.

Maybe it’s hard to comprehend for somebody who was born and raised in this country, what freedom means for us, recent emigrants (or you can say refugees) from communist, criminal, religious and any other kind of the dictatorship. Can you imagine we had to wait years for permission to leave the Soviet Union for a few days for a tourist trip to a neighbor country like Poland? Of course, not on your own, but in a group of at least 30 other people with “guide” from a very “famous” agency. 

We weren’t even allowed to move freely from one city to another, buy an apartment, built a house or choose a medical doctor. It was illegal to have own business or even… truck or minivan, because you could make some money with it. What about a car? You could get it after waiting for a while. For instance, my grandfather was granted permission to buy one (first in his life!) at the age of 88, just one week before he died. It was just 10 years ago! Is it any better now? Oh yes, now my mom, a medical doctor with her pension about $20… per month (!) could by a car without any problem in just 100 years!

What’s really changed is that now you can criticize the government, nobody listens to you anyway, but before everybody could be easily put into jail (or mental hospital for a very “special” treatment) for a little political joke, not to mention an article like this.

Anytime they could send you on a collective farm to work for free without any reason at all. By the way, I met my future wife for the first time during that “volunteer” farming.

Believe it or not, but we had to ask special permission … to learn any foreign language, especially English. (Of course, it’s still not an excuse for my broken English.) Why? Don’t you understand? Everybody who knew this language was, of course, a potential spy!

If you have a son, imagine the horror of our mothers when their boys were taken for mandatory military service. They knew that their children would be at the very least beaten brutally or even killed by criminalized siblings in those military camps.

This list can go on endlessly, that’s why I’m just amazed by the question, I’m asked all the time. “So, how do you like it here, in Canada?”  Like it’s about another brand of ice cream.

“Like”? We, all our family, don’t like, but LOVE our new country, its people, all our life here with deer around, eagles above and salmons beneath. We love BC in general and Vancouver Island especially, whole Nanaimo and our wonderful neighborhood, big malls and small stores, new highway and old lighthouse.

Call us crazy, but we are happy with the city hall, traffic, ferry, taxes and even gasoline prices (we used to pay 20 times more compared to our income). Please, don’t remind me today, that nobody else, but me criticized the BC government, NDP and “one big dealership” some time ago. Yes, I did it yesterday and most likely will do it tomorrow, using my new freedom.

But today… today I’m just happy to hold proudly MY (!) Canadian Passport and realize I can go freely almost anywhere in the whole world. And the best part of it is, I actually don’t want to go anywhere, because for the first time in my whole life I’m happy where I am.

Thank you, Canada!