How an emigrant from the USSR became an employee of the US State Department - ForumDaily
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As an immigrant from the USSR became an employee of the US State Department

Photo from the personal archive of Afghanistan, Gardez province. September 2012 year

Ilya Levin - St. Petersburg naive intellectual (naive to such an extent that he did not even squint from the Soviet army, but served in it). After missing two years in refusal, he left for the States. They made a good career in the State Department. He served in Russia, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Lithuania, Tanzania - and even in Iraq and Afghanistan. He defended his thesis at the American University on Obariuts - he studied how they reflected the famous Soviet nonsense. A couple of years ago, he resigned and lives in the capital city of Washington.

- Ilya! Why do you say that you are retired and not retired? Is this not really a civil service?

— The diplomatic service actually has something in common with the military. Career diplomats, like military personnel, are required to retire upon reaching a certain age. For diplomats, the age limit is 65 years. Diplomats also undergo periodic recertification. If, after a certain period of time, you have not reached the next rank, then you need to leave the diplomatic service. It's the same as in the army: up or out. There is also a maximum tenure for diplomatic work. A similar rule is in the military.

- About your service. America and Russia accuse each other of diplomats being spies.

- You never know what they say.

“I’m talking about materials from the open press, but I don’t demand that you give me US state secrets.” And the media also tell us that the State Department is organizing coups in different countries. Color revolutions. Maidan.

- Maybe we should order something else?

“You should say that you can neither confirm nor deny this information.”

- What's the point of commenting on this nonsense?

- Well, yes, after Kharms you had a direct path to diplomacy...

“I can tell you for sure that I did not organize any color revolutions.” I was involved in exchange programs in Russia and other countries.

- “They traded the bully for Luis Corvalan” - isn’t that you?

— The younger generation probably doesn’t even know this poem... My exchange programs were for students, scientists, journalists, and specialists in various fields. Participants in these programs, who, as a rule, had never been to America before, established professional contacts with American colleagues, made new acquaintances, but most importantly, formed an idea of ​​America based on their own experience.

“They didn’t take me there, although I applied.” They didn’t take it, that’s all! I then noticed that only Jews went. It was painful for me to realize this.

- Are they really only Jews? I’ve never heard this before... I hope you don’t expect me to comment on this.

“I don’t expect anything, especially since the train to America has left.” I'm just sharing my pain with you.

— Everyone has their own idea about America: both those who have been there and those who have not. It’s just that for those who have never been to America, their idea of ​​it usually consists of a certain set of stereotypes taken from books, films, the media, and so on. These stereotypes can be positive or negative, but in any case they are just stereotypes, clichés, information from the wrong hands. Our programs gave people the opportunity to form an opinion about America based on their own observations, meetings, conversations...

For a program participant, America was no longer a set of stereotypes, but a personal experience, a small part of her own life. Those I know returned with a good idea about America. This does not mean that as a result of participation in the exchange program, they are one and all becoming supporters of the policy of the United States. That would be wonderful, of course, but, by the way, the Americans themselves also often disagree with what in their country, as evidenced by the current election campaign ... But the main goal of our exchange programs is to help people find out about America and, as a result, it’s better understand. For example, in Iraq, as elsewhere, there were many who wanted to participate in our programs. And not all of them were so pro-American. I remember one Imam of Baghdad, he gave me his opinion about America quite definitely ...

“He probably reproached you for hanging blacks there.”

(Ilya tried not to answer provocative questions. And he said what he wanted to say. State Department, what can you do!)

“I told him that he was acting like an honest person: I decided to go to America and see for myself what it is like.”

- OK. Whose and what kind are you from?

— Born and raised in St. Petersburg. Father is a physicist, candidate of sciences. At the front he was an artilleryman, then taught officer courses, after the war he worked for a time at the Optical Institute, then for many years, until his retirement, he headed a laboratory at the Ceramic Institute. Mom was in Leningrad throughout the blockade. She was a prospector, worked at the Lenhydroproekt, and participated in the construction of hydroelectric power stations. She wandered all over the country, when I was little I traveled with her, wherever we were - from Karelia to the Urals! When they told me that I had to go to school, I was upset - I thought that I would continue to travel like this with her.

- Oh, you formed this matrix at the very beginning - driving from place to place!

- That was great. Much better than going to school.

“Did your father get in trouble because of you?”

He was in the party, headed by the institute party bureau. When I emigrated, they asked him from the bureau. He took it easy. He constantly asked me about how my affairs were going in the graduate school of the University of Texas. After graduating from graduate school, I worked for the Voice of America, and my father listened to programs with my participation in the evenings. He hoped that I, as expected, will receive PhD and I will teach. I was immensely happy that I defended myself while my father was still alive, and he found out about it. I did not become a university professor, but what I defended was his merit, since he was expecting this from me. It is good that at least in this I met his expectations.

- And here you are from such a good family, and suddenly - into emigration... How did it all happen?

I first began to think about leaving when I served in the army. I got there after graduating from the Institute of Foreign Languages ​​at the Herzen Institute - English and German. At first I was in the rocket brigade in Kremenchug.

- “Do you want to go to America? Join the missile forces! There was such a joke.

And after that - in the tank division, in a separate guards demining battalion near Kharkov. Not that I was eager to join the army, but if it is legally necessary, it means. I believed that the law must be respected.

“That’s what ruined you.”

— In the rocket brigade, I was a gyrocompass operator. This is what it is: in order to hit a target, you need to know both the coordinates of the target and your own coordinates, that is, the coordinates of the launch point. The coordinates of the target can be determined only approximately - based, for example, on intelligence data, aerial photography, and so on. But your own coordinates are established absolutely accurately using a gyrocompass. Determining these coordinates was my responsibility. But we were engaged in military affairs as such - exercises, shooting, and so on - a maximum of ten percent of the time, and the rest of the time we peeled potatoes, washed floors, and so on.

The soldiers said: “Well, it’s only with us! And in the American army, probably, special people clean potatoes, and the military is only engaged in military affairs! ” And what do you think? So it turned out.

When I, many years later, came to Afghanistan as a representative of the State Department, I lived on the military base of the Coalition Forces. I can confirm: there are not soldiers cleaning the potatoes there, but special people.

— Is it because of these potatoes that you emigrated? Why did you decide to leave anyway? Didn't you like Soviet power? So no one liked her...

- No, not just because of the potatoes. I was demobilized in November 1973. I had to look for a job. I heard that Jews have all sorts of difficulties getting a job. But for some reason I was sure that I wouldn’t have any problems: I knew my two languages, English and German, well - how could they refuse me, such a specialist?

— Did you go to foreign language in preparation for emigration?

I then did not think about it. I was just interested in languages. Yes, and they were given to me easily: you read, for example, a detective story - and the language learns itself ... So, I began to turn to different places where translators were needed.

— To the General Staff, for example.

- No, not to the General Staff. To all sorts of institutes where technical translators were needed. They gave me something like an exam - they asked me, for example, to translate a short text, and they said that everything was fine. And then people from the HR department called me and said that, unfortunately, there was no vacancy. And so three or four times. But then suddenly they took me to the Dostoevsky Museum. I came to the director, showed my diploma from the Herzen Institute, said that I would like to work in the museum, and she hired me. Just like that I took it. I immediately liked the museum: interesting work, well-chosen library, wonderful colleagues. Writers Fyodor Chirskov, Bella Ulanovskaya, literary critic Konstantin Barsht and other wonderful people worked there at that time.

Photos from the personal archive Celebrating the birthday of Peter Weil in the club "Petrovich". From left to right: Peter Weil, Marina Timasheva, Boris Grebenshchikov, Ilya Levin. October 1999 year

— Did you translate for foreigners there?

— No, I worked as a tour guide. I worked only a short time, when suddenly the director came to me and said that she had made a mistake: she hired me, in her words, for a non-existent rate. She apologized and offered to write a statement “of her own free will” - if you remember, that was the wording then. I thought: maybe there really was an error? I went to the Leningrad Department of Culture and said that so and so, a graduate of the Herzen Institute, recently demobilized from the army, would like to work in some literary museum. They answer me: go to the Dostoevsky Museum - there are just two vacancies there. I stop understanding anything and return to my museum. The director told me: “You shouldn’t have gone to the department, you put me in the wrong position!”

And then it finally became clear to me: that's all, it's time to leave. I did not interrupt contacts with the museum, however, I often went there because I managed to make friends with my colleagues. I was also on good terms with the director. When she found out that I had applied for departure, she was upset. She then even suggested that I return to the museum, said she would find a way to take me to work. I thanked her and replied that this time, perhaps, not only I would be dismissed, but her too ... Later, years later, she said that she then had to dismiss me after the call of the museum curator from the KGB. He reminded her that she already had one Jewish employee who emigrated, and now she also took me to work - she said, the curator said that a Jewish airfield was arranging from the museum?

- Kagal!

- No other way... So, I applied to leave and for some reason was sure that I would be released immediately. I was going to study further, and therefore I decided, without wasting time, to enroll in graduate school at some American university. I didn’t know exactly how this was done, but I didn’t see anything special in it.

- From Russia?

- Well, yes. Was there such a law that citizens of the USSR could not apply for admission to an American university? Did not have. And since there is no law that it is impossible, then it is possible, isn’t it? In 1974, at the Pushkin House, I met a professor at the University of Texas, Sidney Monas. This is a famous American Slavist, translator of Dostoevsky and Mandelstam, he came to the USSR on an exchange - within the framework, by the way, of one of those academic programs that twenty-four years later I had to do at the United States Embassy, ​​which I never expected at the time... I asked Professor Monas: how to enter university? He replied: “Very simple. We need to fill out the necessary papers." The University of Texas sent application forms for admission to graduate school, I filled them out, sent them to Texas, and a few months later the university wrote to me that I had been accepted into graduate school and that they expected me to register in August. And after some time, the OVIR notified me that my exit was denied. I had to inform the university that I couldn’t come to register in August for a good reason: they wouldn’t let me leave the country. I began to write letters to Moscow, to the Prosecutor General's Office and other authorities, protesting against the fact that I was denied leave, and without explaining the reasons. They explained to me: it was refused because I served in the army, where there are many military secrets... I answered that I did not join the army voluntarily, but was called up for active military service by law. I have fulfilled my legal duty to the fatherland, and now I want to exercise my legal right to leave the fatherland.

When it was decided to release me, they gave us two weeks to pack. Without delay, they gave me all the necessary certificates - from the place of work, from the housing office, from any other offices, now I don’t remember. Then, on departure, it was possible to change a certain amount of rubles for dollars in the bank - it seemed that 90 dollars came out with a trifle.

At customs at the airport, these dollars were taken away from me. Where, ask, a receipt from the bank? I looked, a strange thing: the receipt really disappeared somewhere, but it was just that. Well, they say, since there is no receipt, we take the currency, but we can leave a trifle - it will come in handy on the tram ... That's how I left 22 June 1977 of the year.

A few hours later I was in Vienna. I was sure I left forever.

Photos from the personal archive Ilya Levin with his mother and wife, Vladimir Borisov, at the windows of the Mental hospital. Skvortsova-Stepanova, where Borisov was kept. January 1977 year

— You were traveling on an Israeli visa.

“Yes, of course, that’s the only way they released people back then, that was the order.”

- But when you were released, you had to go to Israel - like an honest man who promised to get married. If I were a Jew, I would certainly go to Israel and fight for the country there. I would tear my vest across my chest. Glory to Israel, glory to the heroes!

— Let me remind you that they were waiting for me in Austin, at the university. From there they immediately wrote to me in Vienna, reminding me to arrive by the beginning of the semester. While I was applying for an American visa in Vienna, I met two girls from Russia. They were going to Germany, invited me with them - in Germany, they said there was a good social life... These girls said that it was impossible to wear my Soviet clothes abroad. But there is no money, only change for the tram! Then they took me to some office for helping emigrants, there they gave me a certain amount of money, the girls went with me to the store and chose a shirt, boots and a razor for me. I then wore this shirt for a long time... From Vienna I went to London, spent a week visiting Stoppard, from there to New York and finally reached the capital of Texas. I pick up the university directory, where all the students are listed, and there I find myself and my Leningrad address. That's great! It turns out that all these two years that I was refused, I was on their university lists.

— How did you feel at first in the new place?

— During the first years, I often had the same dream with different variations: I’m in the Soviet Union, but I can’t get out of there—either my passport disappeared somewhere, or I don’t have a visa, or for some reason the plane took off without me. As I learned later, many who left had such dreams. Lev Losev has poems about this:

At the airport the roads are swamped,
Lost your passport and ticket,
From the basement doors are boarded up
There is no passage in the entrance yard.

— Tell me about the university. How did you study there?

— I was in graduate school at the department of comparative literature. The dissertation that I defended in 1986 was called “The Clash of Meanings: The Language of the Poetry of Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky.” The title is a reference to the 1928 OBERIU Manifesto, which said: “We need to be more curious and take the time to consider the clash of verbal meanings.” My dissertation examined various semantic devices that give rise to the effect of so-called “nonsense” in Vvedensky and Kharms. At that time, only a few people in Russia and abroad were truly engaged in Oberiut studies, so Oberiut studies was still, one might say, an unplowed field. I became interested in Kharms and Vvedensky back in Leningrad, when the main body of their works had not yet been published. I was lucky enough to meet the last living Oberiut, Igor Vladimirovich Bakhterev. He was one of those listed in the OBERIU Manifesto. I still remember conversations with Igor Vladimirovich in his apartment on Pestel Street. For him, Kharms and Vvedensky were not great shadows, literary history, but remained friends, remained Danya and Shura. When he talked about them, it seemed absolutely clear that Danya and Shura were still alive, and if they were not here next to us in the room now, then it was just an accident, they could very well have been... An amazing and unforgettable feeling.

-What did you live on? Did you pay a stipend?

— There was no scholarship as such. The university provided me with financial assistance in the form of work - I was an assistant at the department, teaching Russian. I worked half the time, 20 hours a week, and was paid like 40. At the University of Texas, this was the most common financial aid option for graduate students. But this could only be done for a certain number of semesters, so when my work contract at the university ended, I found a job in Washington at Voice of America. At the same time, I continued to be enrolled in graduate school in Texas. Once in Washington, I experienced nostalgia for the first time in my life. It’s strange: when I left Russia forever, leaving my parents and friends there, there was no nostalgia, it was so cut off. But I missed Austin, it seemed to me like a lost paradise... I remember my feelings when, four years later, I came there again to defend my dissertation. It’s worth leaving good places, if only to feel a rush of happiness when you return. There is, perhaps, nothing more acute than this feeling.

After the defense, I continued to work on Golos, then became a news producer in the WorldNet television department. The work was interesting, but after a while it became familiar, I wanted to do something else. Academic career did not attract me. And then I thought about diplomatic work. The fact is that Voice of America and the WorldNet department were part of the USIA, the United States Information Agency. It then, in the 1999 year, became part of the State Department, but then it was still an independent agency. From there came members of the press and culture departments at American embassies in different countries. There I received my first diplomatic appointment.

“After all, it’s a rare career for an emigrant to become a diplomat.” Do you know any other cases?

- Not that rare - in the United States, at least. There is American citizenship, there are the necessary professional data, there is compliance with certain job requirements - this is enough, no one is interested in the country of origin. I don’t know if there are any statistics on this matter, but at that time I met among my colleagues natives of Germany, France, Lebanon, and East Africa. As for immigrants from Russia, before, I heard, there were diplomats of Russian origin who left after the revolution. When I myself entered the diplomatic service, I did not see other representatives of our wave of emigration there, although who knows, maybe there was someone else somewhere, I can’t guarantee. Now, however, there are already those who left the former Soviet Union later, in the nineties.

My first appointment was Moscow. It was November 1998 of the year. The feeling with which I landed at Sheremetyevo is not easy to describe.

Photos from the personal archive Ilya Levin makes a report on the work of Daniil Kharms in the Leningrad House of Artists. April 1976 year

- Triumph?

- No, not at all, that word would never have occurred to me. There was something else: a feeling of some kind of absolute unreality of what was happening. When I, a conscientious objector, left twenty-odd years ago, I was sure that I was leaving forever. And now I’m not only back in Russia, but I’m back in an official capacity, representing the country that accepted me as an emigrant. I didn’t expect this at all, this was not in any way part of my life plans, because it simply could not happen, but nevertheless, here I am. This feeling of unreality did not leave me throughout the three years of my Moscow assignment. At the embassy, ​​I was one of the employees of the press and culture department. My responsibilities included managing academic relations, exchange programs for scientists and students, and strengthening contacts between Russian and American universities. I traveled across Russia from Arkhangelsk to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, worked for some time at our Consulate General in Vladivostok and, of course, often visited St. Petersburg. I had to do a lot of things, meet a lot of people, it was a very interesting time. At a university seminar in Irkutsk, one of the Russian participants asked me, by the way, the same thing you asked earlier. He once worked in the Ministry of Education, and by that time he had left for some private organization. This gentleman had a completely Western look - gray flannel trousers, a blue blazer, decent gray hair - he behaved respectably, spoke little and weightily. But in the evening, after the banquet, he relaxed a little and asked: how did it happen that an emigrant from Russia ended up in the American diplomatic service?

I began to tell him that there is a certain process for entering US Foreign Service, you need to have the necessary professional data, there are rules, there are criteria, and who was born where — it doesn’t matter to formalist personnel ...

And then he looked at me, as Rozanov wrote, with a "sharp eye" and said: "After all, you have the surname Levin, right? And if you were Ivanov or Petrov, would you also take on diplomatic work in this case? ” Apparently, he was sure that the Jews in Washington were under control.

... There is an old Jewish legend - by the way, there are allusions in the works of Kharms - that there are thirty-six righteous people in each generation, who by their presence justify the existence of this world. They do not know each other, and do not even know that they are righteous, but the world continues to exist only because of them. Perhaps, and now somewhere they are?

- I don’t know... But it was said: “to the ground, and then”? Reboot and then do it all over again? This was a Soviet concept, was it canceled? By the way, you have such a bright, interesting life, but why? Say thank you to the Soviet authorities, they released you! Or I could have rotted in Sovka.

— Yes, there could, of course, be other scenarios. It turned out like this.

This interview was prepared jointly with the project. «Snob».

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